There's some weird Beyond the Doctor thing going on...I don't know why Book 1 is being released almost a year after Book 2 or whose bright idea it was for Bessie to have her own spin-off story, but ours not to reason why...

Could my Timelost stories be considered like this?

They're set in the Whoniverse, my two leads are characters that interacted with the Doctor at one point, and they have met and interacted with other characters from Who.

What do you think, Emily?

Hmm. On the one hand, most sane humans would regard Sally Sparrow as a better subject than a car for a spin-off story. On the other hand, she (and Vince) only briefly interacted with one Doctor apiece whereas Bessie chalked up One*, Two, Three, Four AND Seven, plus Pertwee almost certainly spent more time lovingly tending to her innards than he did with any OTHER Companion's (even if he DID end up two-timing her with the Whomobile)...

*Or possibly briefly-appearing-on-screen-not-too-far-away-from-Bessie doesn't count?

But, it's a car!

I mean as cool as the Batmobile is, no one has ever suggested giving it a comic of its own.

But, it's a car!

I KNOW.

But some people are...weird. I've got a friend whose cars LITERALLY mean as much to him as his cats. (In the case of his Marcos, quite possibly more.)

But he isn't making Audios about those cars.

He probably IS, I mean, he's a musician who writes his own songs and he's never mentioned writing any songs about his precious Marcos but that probably just means he wants to avoid being pointed and laughed at...

The Kairos Ring:

NO ONE wants to hear about some dull soldier-boy (photocopy of a soldier-boy. Whatever.) being chased around by zombies. Zombies are always dull on audio/books, and didn't the LAST bunch of audios the BBC inflicted on us involve battlefield zombies...?

Oh, not yet more dwarf-star alloy that isn't as heavy as it damned well should be...

Did Joshua not notice that the garden is in black-and-white?

Joshua would really rather die than give the Zombie-King the stupid ring?

Look, if THE DOCTOR had jumped into an E-Space void and, in a zillions-to-one chance, landed on the bed of a soft-furnishing department of a twenty-first-century London store I wouldn't bat an eyelid, but when Joshua does it it's just...embarrassing.

'Their purpose being what' - which bit of 'We don't know what their plan is' does Joshua somehow not understand?

Joshua says he's seen proof that he'll return home - which bit of THESE ARE HISTORIES OF ALTERNATE TIMELINES is he somehow not grasping?

Laszlo would hold back the horde while Romana tasered its leader? Laszlo couldn't even hold on to ONE of these creatures for long!

The Kairos Ring. Better watch out for those giant spiders*, you must might die laughing.

*Obligatory Emily Explanation: This is in reference to the Blake's 7 episode, Harvest Of Kairos. The BBC, in 1980, with their budget, thought they could pull off giant spiders. The BBC was wrong.

The BBC did Giant Spiders JUST FINE in 1974! They were so scary the Third Doctor literally topped himself!

Bessie Come Home:

'Sometimes I could weep with joy' - because a young man cares about her? *Wince* Doesn't sound like she's missing the Doctor much...

Bessie calls Foreman 'my trusted protector' in the same breath as worrying that he'd flog her off?

'He was my greatest and most adoring owner' - well, DUH, though you WERE just his second choice (he wanted that Spearhead hussy) and he DID cheat on you with the Whomobile...

Bessie can travel at 250mph?

It's fifty years since the Lizard-People? (Not a nit, just a reminder to the next sucker trying their hand at UNIT Dating.)

'The Master. There's a name that made the Doctor tremble and bridle. Not just with fury and frustration but with something else. Long-lost affection, perhaps' - I never noticed any Doctor trembling at the sight of ANY Master, frankly.

'I'm chugging out noxious fumes' - the Doctor never bothered to fix that?! To think, he had the cheek to criticise Rattigan for inventing a really good catalytic converter...

You know, Magrs actually made it FUN to regurgitate half the Doctor's adventures in From Wildthyme With Love. Here, not so much. But then Iris IS more fun than A CAR, no doubt about it.

'I nearly forgot about him' - REALLY not building up the only threat in the story as an ACTUAL THREAT, are you.

'I've a dreadful feeling of doom' - too little, too late.

'The years of neglect and decline when the UNIT Family broke up and went its separate ways' - you looked fine in Battlefield.

Bessie worries about bringing danger to UNIT HQ's door? Isn't this sort of thing what UNIT's FOR?

Bessie goes back to the junkyard because she thinks it's SAFE?

London, 1965:

'We'll never be able to settle down, will we. We'll always be haunted by where we've been and what we saw. It's too cruel, Ian. Hopeless and cruel' - get a GRIP woman, if THIS is the way you feel YOU SHOULD HAVE THOUGHT ABOUT IT BEFORE. Instead of spending TWO YEARS whining to get home.

'Barbara looked more frantic with worry than Ian had ever seen her' - oh stop over-egging the pudding.

'You've had amazing past lives.' Why isn't Barbara worried about spilling stuff about THE DOCTOR under hypnosis.

'Why am I giving this woman access to my innermost thoughts' - er, QUITE.

'You have no claim over me, we made no promises...our lives are going in different directions' - Barbara bloody PROPOSED to Ian in The Eleventh Tiger! And before Tim says that the books and audios are in different universes (or whatever)...this audio specifically referenced the Missing Adventure Venusian Lullaby AND the Past Doctor Adventure Byzantium!.

Sleeper Agents:

'Ben and I had realised' that some strange twist of fate got them back at right time? Well, actually BEN noticed, Polly was positively half-witted about it...:

BEN: Did you say 1966?
POLLY: Yes.
BEN: What month is it?
DOCTOR: It's July. July the 20th, to be precise.
POLLY: What are you getting at?
BEN: Don't you see, Duchess? July the 20th, 1966 is when it all began!

The Doctor's expression was 'as dark as stewed tea' at the thought of losing Ben n'Polly? Of course it's hard to tell THANKS FOR BURNING IT BBC but...I doubt it.

The First Doctor had a 'much flintier soul' than the Second? Firstly, no he didn't (considering smashing a caveman's skull in and leaving some Thals to die is as nothing compared to what Troughton did to Vulcan, Atlantis, the Macra...) and secondly, how would Polly know? She had a day or three with One (alright, ignoring the novels n'audios which probably add a few years) by which time he'd REALLY mellowed. Just look how shocked he was by TWELVE (and not even the 'top layer if you want to say a few words) Capaldi of Season Eight, the mellow Professor of Season Ten)...

'He's probably furious you left him for so long' - when exactly did Ben have his lobotomy?

Polly can't guess whether she's spent one year or two with the Doctor?!

'It's only four days since the lumbering killing machines...' - well, at least you've FINALLY remembered the dear old War Machines, even if London seems exceedingly unaffected.

'The world was very nearly taken over' - jeez, one second you're underplaying the whole thing, the next you're grossly exaggerating the effects a few London lumbering killing machines had on THE ENTIRE PLANET.

Ben's got to report to his ship? Which bit of 'It's gone off to the West Indies and I've got a shore posting. In barracks for six months' has he somehow forgotten? (Admittedly this is a nit shared by most of his TV stories.)

Ben 'seemed so polite and proper' to his landlady when she started renting to him? Well he was rude as hell in The War Machines, telling the victim of sexual harassment 'You want to be careful who you encourage' (said 'encouragement' consisting of 'Please take your arm away')...

'How does she even know about Ben' says Polly, somehow forgetting that she's being followed all the time by men-with-white-cats, plus the fact Leamann mentioned Polly's lunch 'with your friend'...

Strange shady geezers are infiltrating our places of work, says Ben. Whitehall is hardly your place of work.

Polly warns Ben they're probably being bugged before spilling her guts to him about all the future-places they've been.

'What grounds do we really have for thinking it's anything suspicious or sinister at all' - ooh, I dunno...maybe the fact YOU WERE GASSED AND KIDNAPPED? Just a thought.

'We know that eventually you'd be back from your travels' - that was...optimistic of you. (Mind you, I s'pose the 60s Companions DID make it back...albeit with sanity problems in Dodo's case, according to Who Killed Kennedy...)

'You take our memories and then we forget' - who did THAT happen to? Ian and Barbara escaped them due to her super-duper magic powers (London, 1965) while Dodo still has her memories or she wouldn't have bothered turning up for Sarah Jane's funeral (Farewell, Sarah Jane).

'Why am I telling Mr Harmer anything at all' - well, QUITE.

Cats can sniff out artron energy? Oh, OF COURSE they can, WORSHIP THEM!

The Penumbra Affair:

Mrs Wibbsey's heard the Doctor talk of Ian and Barbara and Ben and Polly before? S/he's not usually one to look back like that.

Wibbsey's been trying to track down ex-Companions to warn about Penumbra...before bothering to tell Mike Yates, y'know, the ex-Companion who's living in the same village.

Not that telling Mike seems to exactly put him on his guard - 'You think I can help?' rather than it occurring to him that HE'S in danger.

Wibbsey is worried about her letter being opened but mentions 'our friend the Doctor' and sends it to Penumbra's London offices.

'It seems I'm not the only one suspicious of Penumbra' - no •••• Sherlock, and how come you're only just coming to this revelation, given that Polly wrote to tell you to be suspicious of Penumbra?

Wibbsey doesn't ask why all Polly's postcards to the Doctor came from abroad if 'she' has been living and working in London for the past fifty years?

'I'm glad I braved the snowstorm, and my pursuers, and made it here' - why doesn't Wibbsey ask her about said pursuers, especially whether or not they pursued her to Nest Cottage?

'Captain growled' - sounds more like barking to me, not that I'm an expert on the smelly barky growling creatures...

'Your instincts are usually pretty good, Mrs Wibbsey' - since WHEN! This is the woman who donated bits of TARDIS to a jumble sale!

Ben n'Polly travelled the world to avoid seeing the Doctor again and bringing Penumbra-related harm on him? That's actually really sad. If not as sad as other Companions being 'treated rather badly' and ending up with messed-up minds. WHICH ONES?! (Hopefully it'll just be Dodo, after all, the novels have already done their worst with her...)

'The Doctor calls us the cognoscenti' says Mrs Wibbsey, vis-a-vis her n'Mike knowing about Nest Cottage. Vomit.

Why the hell does Wibbsey let Angela stay after her confession? Surely she realised Angela's sudden repentance could have been a fake?

In what way is the Doctor Angela's 'last chance to be young again.' The only indication he gave his Companions eternal youth was the immortal Professors Chesterton and Power of the Doctor put paid to THAT. (And even THEN s/he didn't stick 'em in a de-ageing machine or anything...they just stuck.)

'You just had to ask. He would gladly have given you a hand, providing your motives were sincere' - er, no, Wibbsey, there's no way the Doc would have given Angela her youth or her mysterious country its Golden Age however sincere their motives were.

So Angela is terrified and says Harmer's here to kill her, and then...chases him?

The Kairos Ring (inexplicable novelisation thereof):

'Under Laszlo's instruction, Romana was becoming more adept at navigating the Tharils' Gateway and taking advantage of the time winds. Even so, she was no Tharil herself. Such skills were not part of her nature, so they had to be acquired. It was no easy matter...Romana still couldn't slide out of phase unaided, and still couldn't reach a destination with sufficient accuracy' - *sigh* REALLY not helping explain why the hell the Tharils needed a Time Lord in the first place, are you.

The ring is 'the crystal form of dwarf star alloy'? Since when was DSA MAGIC instead of just...heavy?

'By the way. You might hear that the Tharils were kings once. Don't mention that around Laszlo. You'll never hear the end of it' - gods what a bore Romana's life must be. No wonder she's such a git in the Gallifrey audios.

'All futures were possible. None was inevitable' - never heard of Fixed Points?

'Without the return of democracy [in ancient Athens], Earth's history becomes an endless dark age and with the Gateway at his service, Critias can spread the poison through all the known worlds. This is not what my Gateway was made for' - a) I doubt it and b) actually wasn't your Gateway made to oppress people?

'Romana fought off one, and then another, and then four came at once and had her pinned' - I've never noticed her being good enough at combat to need FOUR people to subdue her?

'Romana would continue to follow the path of righteous science and daring that had been set by the Doctor' - oh vomit.