Where Nobody Knows Your Name (comic story)

Where Nobody Knows Your Name
Doctor:	Eighth Doctor
Featuring:	Frobisher
Main setting:	Bish's
Key crew
Publisher:	Panini Comics
Writer:	Scott Gray
Artist:	Roger Langridge; David A. Roach (Inking)
Release details
Printed in:	Doctor Who Magazine 329
Release date:	3 April 2003
Cover date:	30 April 2003
Reprinted in:	[[reprint::The Flood|'The Flood (graphic nove''
Format:	Comic - 1 part
DWM comic stories
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Where Nobody Knows Your Name was an important story in the overall narrative of Doctor Who Magazine's Eighth Doctor comic adventures. It showed the Doctor dealing with Izzy Sinclair's abrupt decision to stop travelling with him in the previous story. It also tied the Eighth Doctor into earlier DWM eras by having him interacting with Frobisher, a companion who hadn't been seen since 1987.

The story's attention to the emotional cost of the loss of a companion was unusual for the traditions of Doctor Who up to that time, but could well be said to have been an influence on the then-upcoming BBC Wales revival. The influence of this comic on later televised Doctor Who — given Russell T Davies avowed fandom of the Eighth Doctor's era in DWM comics — went even further. It launched the Eighth Doctor into a series of adventures where he was travelling alone, in much the same way that the loss of Donna Noble would later make the Tenth Doctor go on a series of adventures without a steady companion (the same incarnation attempted to this after the loss of Rose Tyler, but Martha Jones eventually convinced him to make her into a regular travelling companion).

Summary

Following the devastating loss of Izzy Sinclair, the Eighth Doctor goes to a bar to drown his sorrows. The apparently human bartender, who introduces himself as "Bish", is in reality Frobisher, the Sixth and Seventh Doctors' shapeshifting travelling companion. Neither person is aware of the other's physical transformation, so they chat with the freedom of two strangers. In the process of the conversation, both work out some personal issues. The Doctor leaves, newly energised and ready to return to his life of adventuring and helping others. The two former companions part company, neither aware of whom the other truly was.

Plot

to be added

Characters

• Eighth Doctor
• Frobisher
• Caralla
• Renaldo
• Zalda
• Creeby
• Jokk

References

Species

• The Doctor says that the last time he properly laughed was when he was threatened by an Ice Warrior who had a lisp.

Notes

• The title is a reference to "Where Everybody Knows Your Name," the theme song to the American sitcom Cheers, which takes place in a bar, as well as the mystery of the Doctor’s real name. The reference goes a bit deeper: Caralla's name, clothing, and appearance resemble those of Carla, a Cheers waitress.

Continuity

• Frobisher is an ex-companion of the Doctor. He left to live on the planet A-Lux in COMIC: A Cold Day in Hell. He uses the alias Bish whilst in a more humanoid form.