In the early days of Doctor Who action figures, many took to posting their own videos starring these action figures. However, these were mostly incredibly bizarre shorts with fairly iffy voice acting and no real attempts to fit into canon.
Then, on the 21st of September 2007, a self-proclaimed "handsome Italian" by the name of Matthew Toffolo (username Batmanmarch) released an action figure adventure which was actually well-received. He proceeded to make more videos, especially once the toyline expanded to classic action figures.
In 2015, Matt retired from making Figure Adventures to focus more on his life, ending his productions with "Dawn of the Doctor". However, a few months later, he produced a brief, two-minute video as an entry to the BBC's Mission Dalek
competition. He ended up being one of the winners.
Doctor Who: Action Figure Adventures can be found on Toffolo's channel here.
Doctor Who: Action Figure Adventures contains examples of:
- Aborted Arc: Two stories featuring the Seventh Doctor post Season 26, Golgotha and Curse of the Fendahl, were cancelled when Matt decided to make The Eighth Doctor Season 3 his last production.
- Similarly, a second season of his Batman Figure Adventures was also put on hold. Especially egregious, given that this one had some setup in the first season as an adaptation of Batman: Hush.
- All for Nothing: Matt thinks this of Romana’s final fate ( An ambiguous scene where she fades away, setting up a possibility for her to return.) ended up being this in light of the below mentioned Alternate Continuity retcon, so he might as well have Dropped A Bridge On Her.
- Alternate Continuity: The Eighth Doctor Adventures were declared as this following the reveal of the War Doctor in the show. This in turn, makes them one to the Big Finish Doctor Who stories.
- One also exists internally, with there being two alternate endings to “The Last Day”: One as shown ( With the Doctor timelocking Gallifrey regenerating into Eccleston and one via retcon in “Dawn of the Doctor” ( Where the Doctor chickens out of it and creates the timeline of the War Doctor.
- Bad Habits: The eponymous creature in “The Beast of Stockbridge” disguises itself as a reverend.
- “Masquerade” from the Batman series has a phoney faith healer as the crux of the plot. He turns out to be Clayface in disguise.
- Batman Cold Open: Fittingly enough, two of the Batman Figure Adventures feature this.
- “Cold Vengeance” has a flashback with Batman and Robin thwarting the Riddler’s attempt to steal a rare stamp (with everyone being depicted in their Golden Age looks).
- “The Days Beyond” has a scene where the new Batman thwarts a mugging in progress, scaring the living daylights out of the crooks in the process.
- Call-Back: “Friends Reunited” features the village of Stockbridge, last seen in “The Beast of Stockbridge”. Upon learning where they are, the Doctor thinks of enquiring after Brian Harris, the companion from that story.
- Cassandra Truth: Whenever Davros is involved, the Doctor has to convince people that the man is a murderer, with little success. He succeeds without any loss of life in “Salvage Mission”, not so much in “The Oncoming Storm”.
- Clark Kenting: Bruce Wayne does this in “Masquerade”. For bonus points, the figure used for the disguise is a Clark Kent figure with a moustache added.
- Comic-Book Time: In “The Manxome Foe” from the Batman Figure Adventures, Jarvis Tetch was locked away in 1986. However, he has past history with Batman, who appears to be in his 30s judging by the Bruce Wayne figure’s appearance.
- The Corpse Stops Here: After being seen at the scene of two deaths by the Beast in “The Beast of Stockbridge”, the Doctor is Easily Condemned as the killer by local crackpot George. It doesn’t help that K-9’s lasers are believed to be “fire breath” by the rest of the villagers.
- Disc-One Final Boss: The Collective is the primary threat in its eponymous story. But it gets destroyed in the 4th part of 5 and the Master takes over for the rest of the story.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: The first couple of videos are made in Windows Movie Maker, have the sound effects made by the actors, represent any effects required by
blurring the screen and all of the voices are men, even the women. Around 2009, Matt switched to Sony Vegas, brought on more voice actors and installed an FX program on his computer, resulting in some improved quality. - Final Season Casting: The last season of The Eighth Doctor Adventures adds Thomas Chapman and Jonathon Carley (DoctorTripod) as semi-regulars.
- Foreshadowing: The Eighth Doctor Adventures has a lot of stories where the TARDIS ends up at the wrong location, eventually acting up. It turns out that the Master has been subtly influencing it since he was sucked into the Eye of Harmony.
- In “The Cult of Kaldor”, the Doctor sarcastically asks newcomer Emily when she became an expert on TARDISes. As it turns out, she’s a Time Lord, the ultimate expert on such things.
- Hate Sink: The Castellan from the Eighth Doctor Adventures isn’t meant to be likeable, given he constantly sells out to enemies, blatantly undermines Romana and replaces her with Rassilon.
- Historical Villain Upgrade: The Castellan insists that Rassilon’s reputation as a cruel tyrant is “lies put about by Sheboogans.” The Doctor and Emily however, come to decide that reputation isn’t too far off.
- Large Ham: A lot of the villains
- Man of a Thousand Voices: Matt himself is this, voicing every version of the Doctor, most of the male companions (Ian and Adric being the major exceptions), a lot of the villains and
Peri.- Guest stars Peter Ravenscroft, Sam Merrell and Porle Miller are also this.
- As is Matt’s girlfriend Kat.
- Only Six Faces: Justified, as Matt only has so many action figures.
- Overly Long Name: Emilianamorios, better known as Emily Moore.Doctor: What is it with Time Lord names?
- Reality Warper: The Master becomes this after returning following the end of the TV Movie.
- Sequel Episode: “Resurrection of the Cybermen turns out to be one for “The Metal of Power”, focusing on the Cybermen returning to Corridium to revive their army. And then the end sets up one for the TV Movie, with the Master’s return.
- Shout-Out: “The Treasure of Mars” has the Doctor derisively refer to a deceased Martian king as “Radaghast”.
- Take That!: “The Sirens of Axos” features the Doctor discovering a copy of Twilight in his library and disgustedly throwing it away, insisting that the Master put it there with his Reality Warper powers.The Doctor: His evil truly knows no bounds.
- Wham Episode: “The Oncoming Storm”: Davros has reconciled with the Renegade Daleks and they are planning a retaliatory strike against the Time Lords for the destruction of Skaro.
- “Resurrection of the Cybermen”: The Master has returned to life and absorbed the power of the Eye of Harmony. And Emily turns out to be a Time Lord.
- “War Drums”: The Daleks formally declare war on Gallifrey and are revealed to be collecting the Key to Time, having wiped out five planets in their quest to do so.
- “The Gates of Elysium”: Davros gets (seemingly) killed, the Supreme Dalek goes Dragon Ascendent and becomes Emperor and the Castellan finally reaches his wits end with Romana’s leadership, ordering that the Master’s remains be retrieved.
- Whole-Plot Reference: “Hell on Earth” was inspired by “The Woman in Black”, with the Master in the role of Arthur and the Mara as the creature haunting the house.
