Together in Eclectic Dreams (Classic Doctors, New Monsters: The Stuff of Nightmares)

Audio  Disclosure:  when I listened to If I Should Die Before I Wake from the Classic Doctors, New Monsters: The Stuff of Nightmares boxset it was in isolation, what I mean is, I went straight to the story which had the Eighth Doctor's face on it and ignored the rest on the expectation that I'd come back to them after I'd caught up on everything else.  Then Summer came, then Autumn and with modern content consumption options which resemble the Temporal Loom exploding in Disney+'s Marvel's Loki (TM), completely forgot about it.  Until last night when I decided to do an audit of the Eighth Doctor material still to be covered and noticed he was listed as appearing in this Sixth Doctor story.  So, here we are.

Roy Gill's Together in Eclectic Dreams brings the return of the Dream Crabs from TV's Last Christmas.  The Sixth Doctor's companion Mari is experiencing nightmares, so he takes her to a monastery in the Archipelago of High Dream in the hopes they'll be able to offer some therapy.  During her first sleep observation session she finds herself inside another TARDIS and another Doctor who we know is the Eighth Doctor, sounding cantankerous and desperate because he's already well aware that he's lost in a dream and doesn't know which way to go, with Mari finally offering a lifeline.  As the story progresses, the characters find themselves slipping between various states of Inceptionesque slumber.

This is still the Sixth Doctor's story with the Eighth Doctor very much a supporting player.  But is he real or just part of the collective unconsciousness of the characters?  Sam the dream expert suggests that this "green man" changes faces and in his mental travels he's seen what sounds like the Twelfth and Thirteenth Doctors too, but I think it is supposed to be Eighth, perhaps from when he's also caught up in the crab's claws in the following story If I Should Die Before I Wake.  There's a wonderful moment when their two minds contact and we're treated to the poetry of their collective history including a "terrible" great-aunt who lived in a draughty house high in the Gallifreyan mountains who would nevertheless sing him lullabies.

Last Christmas offered up what the "boards" univerally acknowledged as one of the best companions we never got in the shape of Faye Marsay's Shona and her eclectic film collection.  Coincidentally, Big Finish have achieved the same with Mari, who between Gill's script and Susan Hingley's performance manages to create a figure as richly drawn as any of the official companions, funny and clever and who you simply enjoy spending time with and wanting to hear more from.  The point was obviously to create the perfect plus one so Sixth would feel the loss when she's not there.  In my head canon, the moment after the story ends is when he hear's Charley's distress call at the beginning of The Condemned, explaining why he's so open to having this stranger on board in the ensuring episodes.

Placement:  Assuming this is a real Eighth Doctor, I'll put it in front of the next story in the boxset.