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The Company of Friends is one of those Big Finish releases that feels like someone rummaged through Paul McGann’s coat pockets, found four different companions, and went “yes, all of these, now, no context, go.” It is a quartet of short stories, each pairing the Eighth Doctor with a different blast from the extended-universe past, and the result is messy, affectionate, uneven, and occasionally brilliant. Which, honestly, is exactly how friendship works.
Benny’s Story is the warm mug of something alcoholic you start the evening with. Bernice Summerfield crashes back into the Monthly Range like she never left, armed with archaeology, sarcasm, and a complete refusal to take pompous villains seriously. Her dig is interrupted by timey nonsense, murder-bots, and an evil aristocrat who absolutely believes he is the most interesting man in the room. He is not. Benny’s dialogue here is razor sharp, the Doctor slips easily into their old rhythm, and while the plot is fairly boilerplate Doctor Who, it is executed with such confidence and charm that you barely care. This is comfort food sci-fi with teeth.
Rating: 4 out of 5 shattered relics Benny absolutely should not have pocketed.
Fritz’s Story… exists. The premise is actually quite fun on paper: a private military contractor has created a deepfake of the Doctor to sell their services, which is a very now idea shoved into an older range. Unfortunately, Fritz himself is about as compelling as a damp chip wrapper. He is meant to be rough, streetwise, laddish, but instead he just sort of… stands there. There are a few decent scenes, McGann does what he can, and the idea never quite catches fire. It is not bad. It is just aggressively fine.
Rating: 3 out of 5 dodgy corporate holo-adverts you would skip on YouTube.
Izzy’s Story is the one that hurts me emotionally, because I wanted to love it. Izzy is a nerdy delight, and the setup is gold: tracking down a missing final issue of a violent British comic that feels like it was printed on pure 2000AD fumes. The opening is funny, sharp, and full of affectionate piss-taking of fandom culture. Then it keeps escalating the silliness. And escalating. And escalating. By the midpoint, it is just voices and bits and noise, with no real narrative spine holding it together. Izzy’s personality nearly saves it, but it needed a firmer editorial hand. Less chaos. More story.
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 lost comics that were better in your memory.
Mary’s Story is the crown jewel and then stabs you with it. The Doctor crashes into the Villa Diodati, dying, delirious, muttering “Doctor Frankenstein” before apparently expiring. Mary Shelley’s friends resurrect him and, whoops, now he is a mindless monster. Eventually a later incarnation of the Doctor turns up to sort out the mess, leading to a genuinely wonderful scene of McGann arguing with himself. It is eerie, tragic, and smart, though it does slightly sideline Mary herself, which costs it a fraction. Still, it is powerful stuff, even if later television continuity punts it into a narrative ditch and sets it on fire.
Rating: 4.5 out of 5 reanimated Time Lords who should really stay dead.
Final Thoughts
The Company of Friends is uneven, affectionate, and very Eighth Doctor. When it works, it sings. When it doesn’t, it is still interesting. McGann is magnetic throughout, and the collection feels like a love letter to the Doctor’s long, strange friendships. Not perfect. But very, very him.