Heartwarming / Big Finish Doctor Who

The Monthly Range

Fifth Doctor

• The Doctor's treatment of the Cyber-Horse in "Spare Parts" speaks to just how compassionate he is, as he tries to calm the animal, lamenting how it's never even felt real grass beneath its feet.
• "The Church and the Crown" has a sweet and charming moment where new companion Erimem (originally from Ancient Egypt) steps into 17th century Paris and is utterly enthralled by something as simple as a glass window.
• The end of The Gathering. Five reunites with Tegan, years after their TV adventures. Initially she's prickly and bitter, but by the end, she's glomping the Doctor with a huge goodbye hug and kiss.
• Adric's parting words to Thomas Brewster in "The Boy That Time Forgot," not just because he's finally forgiven the Doctor for all the hell he's been put through, but because it's one of the only times that an old companion has gotten to give a new companion a Passing the Torch speech.
  Adric: Goodbye, Thomas Brewster. Stay with the Doctor, won't you? If you don't belong anywhere, in any time, if you're an orphan, then the best thing to do is to stay with the Doctor!
• The last segment of "Circular Time" has Nyssa giving Five the mental push he needed to escape his Dying Dream and regenerate into Six. It's lovely and sad in equal measure.

Sixth Doctor

• In "The Wormery", Iris Wildthyme makes a good show of stating she's not attracted to the Sixth Doctor (much as she fancies his other regenerations). As soon as it seems like he's falling for Bianca, though, she gives him an Anguished Declaration of Love that actually manages to be on the sweet side of Yandere. As much as they usually bicker and complain at each other, the audio shows many aspects of their Odd Friendship over the years, and how much they're willing to help each other out when push comes to shove.
• An incredibly sad one in "Jubilee". When Evelyn meets the 1903 Doctor, who's had his legs amputated and gone insane with loneliness, he thinks Evelyn's a hallucination and tells her all he's ever wanted is her forgiveness for getting them into this. Not only does 2003 Evelyn forgive him, she tells him it would have been worth it, for the things she's seen since they became friends. The 1903 Doctor takes great comfort in this, even if he thinks he's just dreaming.
• "Thicker Than Water": Evelyn's big damn platonic "I love you" to the Doctor. And just before that, the Seventh Doctor visiting Evelyn in the hospital, unannounced and uncredited, just to tell her that his companion Hex is Tommy, Cassie's son.
• The Wrong Doctors provides a simple and very sweet explanation why the Sixth Doctor, who over time (in Big Finish) had swapped his technicolour nightmare coat to one of calm blues, decided to change back. A Mel Bush from his own future is being unwritten from time, and in her last moments quietly admits ...she actually quite likes his patchwork rainbow coat.
  Sixth Doctor: Then I shall wear it again, for you.
• From the audios: "Changing history, Doctor Smythe?" Said with such great affection and after we thought he was poofed and AWWWWWWW.
  • Pretty much any time the Sixth Doctor and Evelyn are traveling together, at least one awww moment is guaranteed. It's one of the many, many reasons why Big Finish audio plays are Made Of Win.
    • Also, any scene with both Evelyn and Rossiter in "Arrangements for War". A Cool Old Guy and a Cool Old Lady falling in love, and it's just perfect.
    • Its companion/sequel, Thicker Than Water, continues the story and features Evelyn's final goodbye to Six.
  • Another Six and Evelyn that some people found especially heart-warming comes from '100 Days Of The Doctor', the final installment of the '100' anthology, where Six tells Evelyn that "if I had met you out of all the pretty girls I would have remembered...". It just goes to show far that he has come since they first met, and how close they have become ever since.
• In The Spectre of Lanyon Moor, Six meets the Brigadier who works out who the Doctor is, something which the Brigadier puts down to nobody in their right mind dressing like the Doctor, and assumes there's a "police box somewhere in the vicinity." Six seems genuinely impressed at his old friend working it out. Then he introduces Evelyn with a very proud tone of voice.

Seventh Doctor

• In 'The Fearmonger', Ace's worst fear is that the Doctor would go evil. You can practically hear the smile in his voice as he says that he should be flattered.
  • It's implied that the Doctor's worst fear is Ace getting shot. Which just happened. And that's the reason that he isn't afraid of the Fearmonger.
  Doctor: Go away. I have more important people to worry about.
• The Shadow of the Scourge - Benny and the Doctor save the world (and the Doctor) through The Power of Friendship! And it is glorious
• The entirety of Signs and Wonders;
  • Though sick and dying, Elder God To'Koth asks for the Doctor's help to return to its old realm so as to not damage Earth (and the reality it was in) with the energies its death would unleash. It takes even the Doctor a while to wrap his head around the idea of an altruistic elder god and of one permanently dying, and it nearly destroys him and his TARDIS to honor the request. The reward? An end to the hostilities between himself and the other Elder Gods, putting to bed the Seventh Doctor's crusade against them.
  • Fifteen years after Hex has properly returned to life, he and Sally Morgan have settled down and had a daughter, with another child coming on the way, and Hex is devoted to not missing a moment of their lives after missing the deaths of his mother and grandmother. What is their daughter named? Cassandra.
  • In "Afterlife", part of "The Reason You Suck" Speech Ace gives the Doctor is that he never showed her how to pilot the TARDIS, yet had taught two much more recent recruits to do so, as it "wasn't part of the plan". Here, the Doctor genuinely invites Ace to pilot them to their next adventure on her own.
• "The Settling" has a wonderful moment where the Doctor recuses a pregnant widow and helps deliver her baby in the middle of a warzone.

Eighth Doctor

• The Eighth Doctor meeting the Brigadier in "Minuet in Hell".
  The Doctor: By the way, Alistair, thank you.
  The Brigadier: Er – what for?
  The Doctor: Looking after Charley, for a start. But also just for being here. I feel a lot safer now.
• Edith's speech to Charley in "The Chimes of Midnight".
  • The ending, when Edith realizes she is not nobody; she is somebody, and she matters. After four solid episodes of being alternately crapped on by rich assholes and being repeatedly murdered, it's incredibly good to hear.
  • Somewhat tangentially, in the one audio Fitz is in, "Fitz's Story", they do that audible-hugging thing twice in a twenty-five minute radio drama, once because they're splitting up to go face danger, and another time because they haven't seen each other in about eighteen hours. Either they care about each other very, very much, or they're just trying on purpose to break Two and Jamie's record for clinginess. Maybe it's both.

Other Eighth Doctor ranges

New Eighth Doctor Adventures

• In "Death In Blackpool", the Doctor and Lucie pick up a drunk guy dressed as Santa Claus. He turns out to be an average guy who lost his job, and Christmas turns out alright for him when he charms the hospital lobby personnel and gets a job offer as a porter. No heroics for him, no aliens, no big sweeping space story — just a nice Christmas with happy Christmas songs. He remains completely oblivious to the plot.
• Susan and Eight reunite in "An Earthly Child". You can literally hear them hugging and it can only be described as beautiful. Afterwards, Susan expresses delighted shock at the TARDIS' changed appearance (and the Doctor claiming that everyone goes through a Gothic phase) and then, when the Doctor and Susan have to part ways, they have another hug. It's very sweet.
  • The fact that Susan takes aliens invading and her grandfather turning up at the same time in her stride.
• Eight's reunion with Lucie in "Resurrection of Mars". Given that they last parted under very nasty circumstances, it's all the more heartwarming.

  Doctor: I never thought I'd see you again.
  Lucie: I never wanted to see you again.
  Doctor: I know.
  Lucie, rather fondly exasperated: Oh, give us a hug, you.
  *Cue perfectly timed interruption by an Ice Warrior*
  Lucie: Oi! Touching reunion going on here!

• In "Relative Dimensions", Susan assumes that the Doctor sent some friendly aliens to help Earth. She was right.
• In "To the Death", despite having lost Tamsin, Alex, and Lucie the Doctor and Susan are able to comfort each other, as the Dalek base collapses around them, and despite all the death and misery over the past two years, Susan has no blame for her grandfather.
  Doctor: You're lucky, Susan. Lucky I left you behind. I've seen so many people die. I've got used to it. I just move on.
  Susan: I don't believe that.
  Doctor: But today feels like a different day. One lost life too many. I just want to say "enough". I'm sorry you had to die too, Susan.
  Susan: Hold me, grandfather.
  Doctor: Here, I've got you. I remember when you were so young.
  Susan: And you were so old. I'm glad you came back.

Dark Eyes

• In Fugitives, the Doctor is in deep despair and laments his endless fight with the Daleks and his inability to get to Gallifrey to help Molly with whatever is going on with her. Molly talks him out of this and decides they should do something fun since they can't do anything else, and the two have a very cheerful moment on another planet swimming a gravity-suspended waterfall, laughing and enjoying the moment. Its a very refreshing upbeat breather-that is swiftly spoiled, but warm and lovely all the same.

Special Releases

Sixth Doctor

• "The Last Adventure": The interactions between Genesta and the Doctor. Though Genesta initially starts out fairly frosty with Six, she shows an increasing amount of compassion for him even at the start, saves him several times from being erased from the Matrix and she has quite a bit in common with the Doctor. The Doctor, meanwhile, shows a great deal of patience and empathy with the snarky Genesta, a very healthy amount of gratitude for all the help she gives him, and promises to indulge her love of Earth once the adventure is over. It becomes heartbreaking when she is overwritten by the Valeyard, and furthermore when her interactions with the Doctor become undone.
  • Flip's attempts to help the Doctor when he is being drained by the Valeyard for his negative energy. Flip ends up mangling a number of different nursery rhymes, putting herself in an embarrassing position not at all helped by her stage fright, but it achieves what she wants: distracting the Doctor from the rage inducing Valeyard. Six even has the good form not to tease or mock her about it, simply giving gratitude where it is due.
  • The ending, though sad, ends on a warm note when the Sixth Doctor, transitioning into the Seventh, whispers with his future incarnation that he feels their future is in safe hands.

War Doctor

• "The Horror": How does the War Doctor get into the Barber-Surgeon's dimension? By passing a Secret Test of Character and surrendering valuable information and his own life to save a woman he barely knows.
  • "The Doctor was an idea you had of yourself, a story you made true. And I think it still is..."
  • The Barber-Surgeon's last request is for the War Doctor to erase him from existence, and make sure he never goes down the same path. This turns out to be another Secret Test of Character, because War still tries to find a way to save the Surgeon, proving he has been the Doctor all along.
  • A dying D-9 gets a Heroic Second Wind and saves War by blasting the Dalek Hunter Killer. The Doctor praises his shooting, while the dying Barber-Surgeon murmurs "Good boy, D-9."

The Companion Chronicles

Third Doctor

• "Find And Replace": 60-year-old Jo meets up with the Third Doctor (and Benton) back in the 1970's. It's the sweetest thing in the history of anything ever.

Fourth Doctor

• The end of the Companion Chronicles story "Luna Romana" is essentially a proper send-off for Mary Tamm.

Seventh Doctor

• "The Prisoner's Dilemma" has some truly terrible thing happening to poor Ace (not least her Mind Rape and subsequent amnesia at the hands of a bunch of robots), but there is a rather sweet scene where the Doctor, after being more-or-less completely absent throughout the story, shows up at last. Of course, Ace doesn't recognize him at all, but he does help hide her from the authorities, and even makes her green tea. She notes to herself that he feels oddly familiar.

The Early Adventures

• In "Daughter of the Gods" thanks to Timey-Wimey Ball we see Second Doctor reencountering with Katarina and telling he's always been proud on her.
  • Before they path ways again Katarina ask the Doctor whether he will remember her. Then we move back to the TARDIS with Jaime and Zoe not remembering the events of the story and then leaving Doctor alone with his thoughts:
    The Doctor: Katarina, of course I'll remember you. How could I ever forget.

The Tenth Doctor Adventures

• "Death and the Queen": The Doctor talks to Donna before her wedding, and after putting his foot in his mouth once or twice, tells her she looks beautiful and acknowledges that Rudolph is a good man, although "No man's good enough for my Donna." It crosses over into Tearjerker territory when he starts talking about how all his companions leave in the end, but still, he's genuinely happy for her.

Once And Future

• "The Martian Invasion of Planetoid 50": Missy has chained Vastra to her basement and is mind controlling Jenny to do what she says. Despite this, when Jenny sees Vastra, she can't help but observe that she is "strange...but beautiful."

---