The audio adventures have introduced several original companions who have become absolutely adored; the likes of Evelyn, Flip & Connie spring immediately to mind.
But there are a few that aren’t quite successfull.
People seemed to have an allergic reaction to Brewster from his first appearance onward, which I found really shocking.
Jonathan Morris essentially took all that deviousness typical of Adric and Turlough, and gave it to someone with more character and a fully fleshed out backstory.
I relistened to his debut story this morning, alongside his second debut with Colin, in preparation of me eventually reviewing the Flip stories - because she made her first, albeit miniscule, appearaince in ‘Crimes’.
Both of these are just gorgeously written!
‘The Haunting of Thomas Brewster’ gives you all the background needed on the titular Victorian mudlark, and sees alien smog wraiths using the image of his dead mother to cause a bootstrap paradox. It’s incredibly interesting, and I really like the out of place synth music throughout (shame Andy Hardwick never uploaded it separately).
‘The Crimes of Thomas Brewster’ is a completely different beast though: an action packed romp that never slows down. The opening scenes literally have the Doctor and Evelyn stealing a police speedboat and being chased up the Thames by robotic mosquitos armed with disitegration beams!
I’m baffled as to why people don’t like Brewster, to be quite honest.
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He’s not that interesting 
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He is so deeply annoying (to me). I’m not a great fan of Victoriana to begin with tbh, and that first story was utterly like pulling teeth to me, including the music and sound design which jarred me to the point of discomfort. Some of the later stories are much better, but I never quite warmed up to him and his ‘charm’ left me utterly cold, alas.
It’s good to see someone like him though!
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He was irritating to me also, and I didn’t think he and the Doctor had a good enough rapport for him to be more of a one-off character. The criminal/devious aspect is the overarching reason why I don’t care for him; that’s not the kind of character I want to be the Doctor’s companion.
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I don’t dislike him as much as some in fandom but I definitely think they overdid the Artful Dodger stuff and as a consequence his character grates a bit.
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With the comparisons to Adric and Turlough ready made, I’d suggest the reason he doesn’t appeal is that they both do the things that he does, but better! They’re also all associated with the same Doctor (at first), it doesn’t really present a new dynamic there the way it does with 6.
Also, - I absolutely can’t substantiate this so take it with a pinch of salt - I recall hearing Matt Smith’s name was one of those put forward for Brewster! What a weird alternate world that’d have been, apparently this was mentioned by people from Big Finish at some sort of convention.
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God you’re so right about the music in that audio, at first it made me laugh at how discordant it felt to the story and then just got on my nerves after a while.
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It literally made me almost want to stop listening, it was getting almost painful by the end 
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Also yeah, definitely overdid the artful dodger stuff. Except it never felt clever, more like he just stumbled into stealing stuff like the TARDIS through sheer dumb luck rather than any criminal masterminding on his behalf. Not to mention it was hard to suspend my disbelief that not only did he manage to steal said TARDIS but manage to pilot it to multiple places and be able to scrap and sell it for parts. Totally unrealistic for a character from the Victorian era, let alone the hapless fool that Brewster is.
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Also the Dawson casting didn’t help, like even if they hadn’t used Thirty-Something John Pickard’s face on the covers (could they not have used a pic from when he was a teen at least?), I just Could Not imagine that voice coming from a supposed teenager
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I disagree completely with your assessment on the score for ‘Haunting’.
I absolutely love how out of place it is, because I could totally imagine someone like Roger Limb or Paddy Kingsland doing something similar had this story been made in the 1980s.
I found it so charming.
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I cannot wait for my review, because I am going to rub so many people the wrong way! 
I just found the music one of the many high-points of the episode.
And…
this is going to be sacrilege
Speaking as someone who has listened to all the Monthly audios at least twice over the eight years I’ve been a BigFinish fan…
I would rather listen to ‘Hauting of Thomas Brewster’ than ‘Chimes of Midnight’. I genuinely prefer it.
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I hate him! I hate him! I hate him!
He’s obnoxious, annoying, and just gets handed companion status because the story said he has to. He barely interacts with 5 and Nyssa and spends the majority of his time with 6 and Evelyn betraying them to the villain of the week. If we never see him again it’ll be too soon. My least favorite BF recurring OC. It should have been DI Menzies and I say this as someone who wants to see more male-identifying companions in the show and spin-offs.
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Leave pookie alone. At least he’s gay
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I mean Adric traveled quite extensively with the doctor so was definitely a companion, unlike Brewster. Also in the behind the scenes talk comparing the two, they said that Adric was “too nice/nerdy and also loyal to the Doctor” to really be an artful dodger type character so they deliberately wrote Brewster Even Worse on both those aspects lol. Say what you will about Adric, but he was earnest, no matter how misguided he could be
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I don’t have any strong feelings about Brewster, but he’s kinda barely a companion; his original “tenure” really only properly covers one release (even though it is two stories). I’ve only listened to Crimes of the audios with him and 6, and it was very mediocre.
However, I really like The Haunting of Thomas Brewster, I think it’s a great, atmospheric audio. I’m a sucker for the audios with a song motif, like this one and The Silver Turk.
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