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  • Alas, Poor Villain: Zig-zagged with Quadrigger Stoyn. One on the hand, yes he is a massive Jerkass but on the other, he was just doing his job and was unwillingly dragged off Gallifrey by the Doctor.
  • Archive Panic: Pretty daunting when combined with that of the main series, especially now that it's beginning to eclipse the original in runtime.
  • Author's Saving Throw: The appeal of the series. For every plot and continuity hole that canon created, for every Noodle Incident mentioned, for every wasted character, Big Finish has a story.
  • Awesome Music: See Doctor Who/Awesome Music.
  • Base Breaker: Charley, companion of the Eighth Doctor, seems rather divisive among the fans. Some see her as a brave and adventurous foil to the Doctor, while others have the same problem with her that they do with Rose: that she and the Doctor were subject to a Romantic Plot Tumor.
  • Broken Base:
    • "Dark Eyes" is either the greatest audio ever made or utterly fails to make full use of its anthology format.
    • To some, "The Beginning" is a fun, if not particularly great or exceptional, Who story but to others it's too overwrought and epic in scope for the Doctor's first ever outing.
  • Continuity Lock Out: This should never be someone's first introduction to the world of Doctor Who. Every story is full of Call Backs with varying degrees of obscurity and there are a lot of Sequel Episodes that assumes the listener has is well-versed in the lore of Who.
  • Crosses the Line Twice: So much of the title character's actions in the Missy series and her other appearances.
  • Foe Yay: Susan and Veklin have some very close moments where they argue in a rather "Oh you" manner. Even Carole Ann Ford and Beth Chalmers seem to tease this in interviews.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight: The climax of the What If story "Sympathy for the Devil" hinges on the alternate Third Doctor bluffing to the alternate Master that the nearby pub instead of the police box is the Doctor's TARDIS. Later Big Finish works established that an early incarnation of the Master had known that the Doctor's TARDIS was locked in the shape of a police box. Though it may be Harsher in Hindsight as the Master falling for such an obvious ruse only hammers home just how desperate he is to escape Earth.
  • Harsher in Hindsight:
    • The Eighth Doctor's series opens with him rescuing a girl from a crashing starship. He'd die after failing to do just that in 2013. Lucie even once says that she once thought that the Eighth Doctor had died on Karn, the place where he ultimately regenerates.
    • "Sympathy for the Devil". Every time that the Third Doctor onwards stops a crisis set between 1968 and 1997, remember that there's a universe where the Third Doctor didn't make it to Earth in time to help and the sheer Crapsack World that resulted from it.
    • "Full Fathom Five" features the Doctor as a Villain Protagonist. The story ends with him killed by his companion and regenerating into a new body, which she then killed, something she swore to keep doing until he died. "The Christmas Invasion" reveals that Time Lords can still heal within fifteen hours of their regeneration. All they did was give the Doctor an energy boost to overpower them all and reach his TARDIS.
  • Heartwarming Moments: See Doctor Who/Heartwarming.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight:
    • "Brotherhood of the Daleks": "MERCY! MERCY!" Flash-forward to "The Big Bang" and "The Witch's Familiar".
    • A big Chekhov's Gun in The Natural History of Fear is a spinning top that Charley kept tapes of the Doctor's memories in. Fast to Inception, and what's Dom's totem?
  • Just Here for Godzilla:
    • Like on television, Dalek stories bring many listeners.
    • Susan Foreman is very popular to listeners, Susan's War in particular being a large sell. In particular, Vol. 3 of The First Doctor Adventures featured Carole Ann Ford guest starring as an older Susan (her 16 year old self now being voiced by Claudia Grant) and many tuned in.
      • The first story of Susan's War also featured the return of Ian Chesterton, another big draw.
    • The Tenth Doctor Adventures was pretty much built on this. Rose returning in Vol. 2 drew in even more fans.
    • River Song is still a Base Breaker but Vol. 5 of The Diary of River Song featured Missy. And the fans will always eat up any new scrap of Missy.
      • Missy Series 01 also brought back the Monk.
    • The War Doctor series. Aside from the War Doctor being an Ensemble Darkhorse that everyone wanted to see get A Day in the Limelight, the audios were one of John Hurt's last performances and served as a draw for many people.
  • Love to Hate:
    • Ollistra. She's a bastard but Jacqueline Pearce gave a fantastic last bow.
    • Her second, Veklin, is just as vile and has snark for days. Even her voice actress admits that she fell victim to this trope.
  • Magnificent Bastard: Michael Jayston's Sixth Doctor.
  • Nightmare Fuel: See Doctor Who/Nightmare Fuel.
  • Rescued From the Scrappy Heap:
    • The Sixth Doctor's tenure on TV is poorly regarded, to say nothing of companions like Mel and Peri. Big Finish has caused most of the fans who listen to do a complete 180 on their opinions. Many who labelled Colin Baker as their least favorite Doctor on television voted him the best audio Doctor.
    • Adric was also quite a big redemption story.
    • Eric Roberts' take on the Master had a much warmer reception in The Diary of River Song than he did in the movie.
    • Susan Foreman was never a scrappy per se, but she was generally regarded as a wasted character. Fans, and Carole Ann Ford herself, agree that Susan was allowed to develop much more and grow as a character in her audios.
  • They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: The War Doctor's line. Certainly epic in scale but it doesn't feature much of the atrocities that the Doctor alluded to doing. At his worst, the War Doctor's war crimes come off as Kick the Son of a Bitch.
  • The Woobie:
    • Bad things seem to always happen to Hex. Evelyn Smythe knew this the minute she met him. Ace emphatically points out "No one upsets our Hexie and gets away with it."
    • Scorpion King Adric just wants somebody (preferably Nyssa) to love him (and also revenge on the Doctor for leaving him to die. But also love).
    • And his spiritual successor Thomas Brewster just wants his mum back.
    • The Doctor himself, for that matter, no matter what his incarnation, the War Doctor in particular. The Big Finish writers seem to like tormenting him almost as much as the TV writers.

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