Fitz Kreiner

Fitzgerald Michael Kreiner, or simply Fitz, is a fictional character in the Eighth Doctor Adventures novels based upon the British science fiction television series, Doctor Who. The Eighth Doctor first met him in the novel The Taint by Michael Collier — the character was co-created by Stephen Cole — and he went on to become one of his companions. The canonicity of the novels with respect to the television series, like other Doctor Who spin-offs, is open to interpretation.

Character biography

Fitz was born in 1936 to Otto Kreiner and Muriel Tarr Kreiner at the Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead. His father died when Fitz was young, and his mother fell ill, forcing Fitz into foster care. During World War II, he was often subjected to beatings by other boys, due to his German heritage.

Fitz was 27 years old when he first met the Eighth Doctor and Sam Jones in 1963. He smoked, drank and liked to think of himself a ladies' man (which he is not). He often found himself out of his depth in futuristic and alien settings, but was always loyal to the Doctor and was the longest serving companion in the novels (55 novels to date).

In The Taint, Fitz was working at a florists' when he became entangled with an alien plot. He discovered that his mother, a patient in a mental institution, and all the other patients had alien leeches in their heads. Mrs. Kreiner was killed when the Doctor reprogrammed a humanoid robot to kill all those infected by the leeches, lest they destroy humanity. After these events, Fitz decided to travel with the Doctor and Sam, technically on the run from the police.

After an adventure on the Vega space station some time in the future, the TARDIS crew returned to 1967 to investigate the activities of the "Revolution Man". During this time, Fitz left the TARDIS for two years, and became a brainwashed agent of Communist China, only returning when the Doctor broke his conditioning.

In the two-book Interference story by Lawrence Miles, Fitz was put into stasis and was awakened in the 26th century by the Faction Paradox cult. Thereafter he became a Faction agent for at least four years. A copy of his biodata was given to a race known as the Remote. The Remote were formerly human, but were now sterile, replacing its dead by creating a new body out of raw biomass and using the memories of the deceased's friends to reconstruct its personality. Using this technology, the Remote created a copy of Fitz which went by the name Kode.

The original Fitz, in the meantime, went on to become Father Kreiner, a Faction agent who hunted down many Time Lords before he was drawn into a bottle universe by the mysterious Gallifreyan I.M. Foreman. This version of Fitz makes an unnamed cameo appearance in Miles's Virgin New Adventure Dead Romance as part of a creature known as The Horror, made up of various individuals who have fallen into the space-time vortex. The Doctor used Remote technology to "remember" Fitz from Kode, and this Fitz, after coming to terms with his own identity although he was a copy, continued to travel with the Doctor (Interference). The original Kreiner returned, apparently for revenge, in The Ancestor Cell, but wanted the Doctor to change the past so he would never become Father Kreiner. Ultimately, Kreiner was killed by the Faction's leader, Grandfather Paradox, for his betrayal.

When the Doctor destroyed Gallifrey and was rendered amnesiac in the aftermath, his living TARDIS companion Compassion transported the Doctor to the end of the 19th century to begin the long process of recovery. At the same time, she dropped Fitz off in 2001 to await the Doctor. After meeting the Doctor as arranged, the two continued to have adventures and were joined by Anji and later, Trix, Fitz occasionally working to prevent the Doctor from learning the truth about his past too early. Fitz's own memories about the destruction of Gallifrey also began to disappear, due to the Doctor subconsciously trying to wipe them. He briefly left the Doctor in Time Zero to serve as chronicler for an expedition to the Antarctic in 1899, having grown tired of being a sidekick, but returned to the Doctor when reality faced peril from the Doctor's foe Sabbath.

By the time of the last regular Eighth Doctor Adventures novel, The Gallifrey Chronicles by Lance Parkin, Trix and Fitz had fallen in love and had started a relationship. They prepare to leave the TARDIS, but insect-like alien creatures the Vore attack Earth and Fitz is apparently killed. However, the Doctor reveals that all the Vore victims are actually still alive, but the chemicals secreted by the Vore render them invisible to humans. Fitz and Trix along with the Doctor, were last seen about to jump down a huge ventilation shaft to confront the Vore inside. The resolution to that confrontation, and any further adventures, have yet to be chronicled.

Appearances in Other Media

Fitz appears as a companion to the Eighth Doctor in the Big Finish Productions audio drama The Company of Friends, where he is portrayed by Matt Di Angelo. The story takes place sometime during the pair's travels with Anji, who doesn't appear due to sleeping off an alien cocktail given to her by Fitz.

External links

• Fitz Kreiner on TARDIS Index File, an external wiki