The Seventh Doctor and Ace

Ace has a reputation as one of the best of the Classic Series companions, and it’s pretty well-deserved. She’s a much more active character, with her own goals. She sees herself more as a partner to the Doctor than an assistant, and she resents when he treats her as lesser...which unfortunately happens rather a lot, starting here. This stint with Ace includes the remainder of the TV stories, in which the Doctor’s personality became darker and more manipulative. It also, for the first time in this project, includes some novels. The novels started out almost immediately after the TV show ended, and took the characters to a more mature place than television would have allowed. However, that meant that the Doctor’s “chessmaster” personality manifested even more strongly, causing more friction between him and Ace. The novels are included in this timeline because Big Finish tried to work the novels into one seamless continuity in this era, which they don’t often do with the other Doctors.