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Bernice Summerfield ("Benny") was introduced as a companion of the Seventh Doctor in the Virgin New Adventures Doctor Who novels in 1992. Which I totally missed, falling away from Who fandom completely between 1989 and 2003. I even missed the 1996 Paul McGann TV movie, not even knowing that it was happening!
Big Finish started making audio adventures starring Benny in 1998, with her played by Lisa Bowerman. These audios primarily explored her life as the archaeologist working for the Braxiatel Collection. Which also built up an ensemble group around her. 11 series of audios were made between 1998 and 2010, though things were complicated by character and plot developments being split between the audios and books that were being published by Big Finish at the same time. I have read some of these books, and have listened to some of the audios. But still have to go through it all properly, or at least as much of it as I can. I do have quite a lot of the Big Finish books in hand still waiting to read.
After this Big Finish issued a number of audios relocating Benny to another setting, with a totally different ensemble set of characters. I didn't enjoy these, so gave up on them quickly. But I did like what followed, a series of "The New Adventures of Bernice Summerfield" audio boxsets pairing Benny with the Seventh Doctor again, and then with an alternative universe version of the Doctor, the "Unbound Doctor", played by David Warner. I really like the Benny and David Warner audios, though have only listened to some of them so far. These continued until David Warner's sad passing in 2022. And there are also some different audios featuring this pairing out this summer.
The more complete approach to listening to the Benny audios would be to go back to the first one in 1998, "Oh No It Isn't!". But for preference reasons I'm going to the start of season 3, which I started listening from a while back, enjoyed a lot, and am keen to resume from. At this point Benny is working for the Braxiatel Collection, and has a baby son Peter.
First up is "The Greatest Shop in the Galaxy", which is a laugh out loud mix of timey wimey stuff, encountering other species, and blatant consumerism. Oh and a small spherical robot assistant, called Joseph, who constantly goes "Boing!". I like this one a lot.
Big Finish started making audio adventures starring Benny in 1998, with her played by Lisa Bowerman. These audios primarily explored her life as the archaeologist working for the Braxiatel Collection. Which also built up an ensemble group around her. 11 series of audios were made between 1998 and 2010, though things were complicated by character and plot developments being split between the audios and books that were being published by Big Finish at the same time. I have read some of these books, and have listened to some of the audios. But still have to go through it all properly, or at least as much of it as I can. I do have quite a lot of the Big Finish books in hand still waiting to read.
After this Big Finish issued a number of audios relocating Benny to another setting, with a totally different ensemble set of characters. I didn't enjoy these, so gave up on them quickly. But I did like what followed, a series of "The New Adventures of Bernice Summerfield" audio boxsets pairing Benny with the Seventh Doctor again, and then with an alternative universe version of the Doctor, the "Unbound Doctor", played by David Warner. I really like the Benny and David Warner audios, though have only listened to some of them so far. These continued until David Warner's sad passing in 2022. And there are also some different audios featuring this pairing out this summer.
The more complete approach to listening to the Benny audios would be to go back to the first one in 1998, "Oh No It Isn't!". But for preference reasons I'm going to the start of season 3, which I started listening from a while back, enjoyed a lot, and am keen to resume from. At this point Benny is working for the Braxiatel Collection, and has a baby son Peter.
First up is "The Greatest Shop in the Galaxy", which is a laugh out loud mix of timey wimey stuff, encountering other species, and blatant consumerism. Oh and a small spherical robot assistant, called Joseph, who constantly goes "Boing!". I like this one a lot.
