Original Sin introduces us to Roz Forrester and Chris Cwej and is an adaptation of the novel of the same name from back in the 90s “New Adventures” range. Given their final stories haven’t been adapted into audios I wasn’t going to include them in this marathon, they’re really Book companions rather than Audio or Comics, but Big Finish have started releasing new, audio only stories with The Doctor, Chris and Roz so that made them… straddle the line. Given their intro story has been adapted into audio though, I thought it’d be fair game! So let’s take a look!

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Unlike the next story in the Audio / Comic Companion Debut marathon, this novel adaptation certainly makes sense in the audio category as Bernice Summerfield has made more audio appearances than she did during her initial novel run. Love and War is suitably dramatic and does a great job of introducing Benny, but the main thing was a rather nasty turn for Ace that sees her leave The Doctor is a huff… So let’s take a look!

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It’s the last of the trio of companion introduction stories that weren’t actually intended to be companion introduction stories, as much like Flip and Klein before her, Liv Chenka wasn’t conceived as anything other than a one off character for this story. This is an odd one though as Liv would go on to be a companion to the Eighth Doctor, rather than the Seventh, yet this is still her debut story! ANYWAY, as for Robophobia itself, it’s a sequel to Fourth Doctor TV classic “The Robots of Death”, but it manages to avoid the classic sequel pitfall by not just recycling the original but instead building a new story with the materials provided. Let’s take a closer look!

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The audio / comic companion intro marathon reaches Hex, one of the best original companions who, along with Evelyn for the Sixth Doctor and Charley for the Eighth, form a trio of great audio only companions during the 2000s / early 2010s for Big Finish. Hex’s arc is long and somewhat complicated, but it’s extremely fun (well, apart from the final trilogy of stories…) so I’m looking forward to one day running through them all again. Anyway! Hex’s debut story, The Harvest, is a great, tense story with the Cybermen being used in a really clever way. Let’s have a closer look!

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Elizabeth Klein is one of the odder “companions” of The Doctor. She starts off as an alternate reality Nazi, ends up in our reality, and then… well, lot’s of other stuff, but concentrating on her debut story you’d probably think I made some sort of mistake. Klein’s next three stories form one of the best “trilogies” in the main range, but since this all about debut stories, we have Colditz, one of the earlier stories from Big Finish, but a great little look into all sides of World War II through the eyes of soldiers and inmates of the infamous castle, plus David Tennant’s first Doctor Who role thrown in! Let’s take a look…

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Criss-Cross introduces us to the Sixth Doctor’s latest companion Constance Clark (though this was technically the second release featuring her…), a pretty tough, by-the-book WREN from WW2. The actual story has a pretty standard “foe”, but is also rich in Second World War spies and espionage plots, including the Doctor himself working and staying in Bletchley Park for some time. Let’s take a closer look…

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