Companion Piece (audio story)

Companion Piece
Main character(s):	Liv, Helen, River, Charley, Bliss
Featuring:	Jamie, Jo, Leela, Margaret, Romana II, Adric, Katarina, Eighth Doctor
Main enemy:	The Nine
Main setting:	The Nine's prison
Key crew
Publisher:	Big Finish Productions
Writer:	John Dorney
Director:	Ken Bentley
Producer:	David Richardson
Music:	Jamie Robertson
Sound:	Benji Clifford
Cover by:	Tom Webster
Release details
Number of parts:	1
Release number:	3.2
Part of:	Ravenous 3
Release date:	9 April 2019
Format:	1 CD Download 2nd of 4 stories
Production code:	BFPDWCDMG045
ISBN:	ISBN 978-1-78703-554-6 (physical) ISBN 978-1-78703-555-3 (digital)
Ravenous
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Next →	L.E.G.E.N.D.

You may be looking for the Seventh Doctor novel.

Companion Piece was the second story in the audio anthology Ravenous 3, produced by Big Finish Productions. It was written by John Dorney and featured Paul McGann as the Eighth Doctor, Nicola Walker as Liv Chenka, Hattie Morahan as Helen Sinclair.

Publisher's summary

When the evil Time Lord known as the Nine comes across a rare and valuable item floating in the space-time vortex, his acquisitive nature means he can't resist the urge to complete the set.

Soon a wicked scheme is underway. Only the Doctor's friends – past, present and future – will be able to stop him.

But without the Doctor around will even the combined skills of Liv, Helen, River Song, Bliss and Charley be enough to save the day?

Plot

to be added

Cast

• The Doctor - Paul McGann
• Liv Chenka - Nicola Walker
• Helen Sinclair - Hattie Morahan
• River Song - Alex Kingston
• Charlotte Pollard - India Fisher
• Bliss - Rakhee Thakrar
• The Nine - John Heffernan
• Jamie McCrimmon - Frazer Hines
• Jo Grant - Katy Manning
• Leela - Louise Jameson
• Margaret - Nerys Hughes
• Romana - Lalla Ward
• Adric - Matthew Waterhouse
• Katarina - Ajjaz Awad

Crew

• Cover Art - Tom Webster
• Script Editor & Director - Ken Bentley
• Executive Producer - Jason Haigh-Ellery and Nicholas Briggs
• Music - Jamie Robertson
• Producer - David Richardson
• Sound Design - Benji Clifford
• Writer - John Dorney

Worldbuilding

• The Doctor told River Song about the Nine, "as in the One and the Two, etc".
• The Nine steals Romana from a time when she is President of Gallifrey, Jamie from a point some time after he travelled with the Doctor, and Adric from a point mid-way through his travels with the Doctor.
• When the Nine says he's bringing Charley some company, she asks if it is C'rizz, but the Nine states that he intends to leave that maniac alone for a while.
• The Nine expresses distaste for River identifying a penguin as a companion, with River arguing that the penguin was perfectly valid from a certain perspective.
• The Nine steals River Song's vortex manipulator.
• Before the Time War disrupted history, Bliss studied robotics and computer science rather than temporal mechanics.
• When the Nine tells Charley he wants the complete set of the Doctor's companions, he says "Gotta Catch 'Em All", a reference to the slogan for the Pokémon series.

Notes

• The Nine constantly moving Charley between corridors eight and six is a reference to her having traveled with the Sixth and Eighth Doctors.
• River's remark that the penguin companion was perfectly valid was a metafictional nod to the fact that Frobisher was a comic companion who has made appearances in a novel and a couple of audios that are not directly related to other companions' experiences.
• Leela, Jo and Charley last appeared together retrospectively in The Light at the End, although in Light only Leela and Charley met and this time around none of them were aware of each other.
• Despite not interacting in this story, Leela and River Song shared an adventure in The Eighth of March, a box set which celebrated International Women's Day.
• This episode marks the first appearance of Bliss outside of the Time War.
• Ajjaz Awad makes her debut as Katarina in this story, when she "talks" to the Nine after he tries to read her mind due to the artron energy she absorbed in the TARDIS left her mind partially active even after death.
• This is a Doctor-lite story.
• Margaret had not appeared in any other stories prior to this and the story never states which Doctor she traveled with. It was later confirmed in The Fourth Doctor Adventures that she was a companion of the Fourth Doctor.

Continuity

• The Nine asks Romana how she escaped from E-Space. (TV: Warriors' Gate)
• River recalls that the Doctor met Bliss during a "complex temporal event" (AUDIO: The Starship of Theseus)
• River retrieves Katarina's dead body, as the Doctor didn't get a chance to do so. (TV: The Daleks' Master Plan) Katarina mentions visiting the Elysian Fields in the Afterlife. (PROSE: Katarina in the Underworld)
• The Nine mockingly comments on 'the ghost of Lucie Miller' (AUDIO: To the Death ^[+]Loading...["To the Death (audio story)"])
• Jamie claims having only met the Doctor once and that he barely knew him. (TV: The Highlanders) The Nine then asserts that this isn't 100% accurate. (TV: The War Games)
• Bliss comes from a timeline before the Last Great Time War, where she is a computer science student. (AUDIO: State of Bliss)
• Adam Mitchell also kidnapped and imprisoned several of the Doctor's companions, also while manipulated by a Time Lord antagonist of the Doctor’s. (COMIC: Prisoners of Time)
• River says she's covered all of the basis for a escape team by choosing a "lockpicker, a time traveller expert, a mathematician, some warriors...".

External links

• Official Companion Piece page at bigfinish.com