Doctor Who spin-offs

Doctor Who spin-offs refers to material created outside of, but related to, the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who.

Novelisations

Novelisations based upon individual Doctor Who serials were first published in the mid-1960s, the first being Dr. Who in an Exciting Adventure with the Daleks by David Whitaker, a loose adaptation of the show's second serial, The Daleks. Doctor Who novelizations became something of a tradition beginning in the early 1970s when Target Books (initially published by Universal-Tandem, later to become part of W.H. Allen & Co and then Virgin Publishing) began publishing novelisations on a regular basis, initially based upon the then-current Third Doctor's episodes, but soon expanding to include all past Doctors as well.

Related Topics:
Novelisations - 1960s - David Whitaker - The Daleks - 1970s - Target Books - Virgin Publishing - Third Doctor's

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The initial three novelisations had been published in various editions both inside and outside the United Kingdom (editions appeared in the Netherlands, Canada and the United States). Further foreign editions of the novelisations appeared from the 1970s, with the books being translated for readers in the Netherlands, Brazil, Turkey, the US (where the texts were slightly tweaked to eliminate unfamiliar Anglicisms), Japan, West Germany, Portugal, France and Finland.

Related Topics:
United Kingdom - Netherlands - Canada - United States - 1970s - Brazil - Turkey - Japan - West Germany - Portugal - France - Finland

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By 1991, when the final Target book was published, virtually every Doctor Who serial had been novelised, as well as a radio serial (Slipback), stories slated for the "missing season" but never produced due to the 18-month hiatus in 1985-1986 (The Nightmare Fair, The Ultimate Evil and Mission to Magnus), and even a 1976 children's story record (The Pescatons), which has the distinction of being the final Doctor Who book published under the Target imprint. (The Target logo was retained for later reprints and intermittent new titles up to 1994 and was by this time used exclusively for Doctor Who.)

Related Topics:
1991 - 1985 - 1986 - 1976

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Most of these novelisations contained minimal amounts of original material and were (usually) adapted closely from the shooting scripts, with the intent of the books being souvenirs of previously aired shows in the pre-VCR era. Although novelisations became more elaborate in later years, the early books usually followed a set formula and were for a time restricted to a maximum page length as they were considered children's literature. An exception was John Lucarotti's novelisation The Massacre (1987), which completely rewrote the plot of the source serial, The Massacre of St Bartholomew's Eve. Some guide books (notably 1999's A Critical Guide to Doctor Who on Television by Kenneth Muir) erroneously describe the plot of the novel rather than the original serial.

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After Virgin began its New Adventures and Missing Adventures line of original novels in 1991, it also published several additional novelisations both on their own and under the Missing Adventures label. These were two Dalek stories from the Troughton era, The Power of the Daleks and The Evil of the Daleks, which - along with another radio novelisation The Paradise of Death - are considered to be the last of the Target run.

Related Topics:
New Adventures - Missing Adventures - Dalek - The Power of the Daleks - The Evil of the Daleks

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Later novelisations tended to be included as part of the original novel series from Virgin. The Ghosts of N Space, a second radio serial featuring Jon Pertwee produced in the mid-1990s was novelised, as were several non-official spinoff video productions such as Shakedown (as one section of a larger original novel) and Downtime, adding an air of official sanction to them.

Related Topics:
Jon Pertwee - 1990s

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In 1996, BBC Books published a novelisation of the Doctor Who television movie. A one-time return to serial novelisations occurred in 2004 when BBC Books novelised the made-for-Internet adventure, Scream of the Shalka.

Related Topics:
1996 - BBC Books - 2004 - Scream of the Shalka

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Several serials remain unnovelised for various reasons. Fan-written novelisations of these stories do exist, however. The unnovelised serials are:

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• The Pirate Planet by Douglas Adams
• City of Death by Graham Williams, Douglas Adams and David Fisher
• Shada by Douglas Adams (never actually completed or broadcast after television production was postponed in 1979, but remade as a webcast in 2003)
• Resurrection of the Daleks by Eric Saward
• Revelation of the Daleks by Eric Saward

Adams's stories were never novelised, reportedly because he wanted to do the job himself. However, soon after his tenure with Doctor Who ended, the author had gained considerable popularity because of his The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy franchise and became (depending upon the source of information) either too busy or too expensive (or both). Adams would later recycle elements of the unbroadcast Shada into his Dirk Gently novels. As for Saward's two Dalek serials, Target Books was unable to come to an agreement with Eric Saward for the novelisations. Virgin tried again at a later date and authors were assigned for both books, but again an agreement was not reached.

Related Topics:
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Dirk Gently

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From 1988, Titan Books released script books of Doctor Who serials. This included an unproduced serial, The Masters of Luxor (written 1963-1964, published 1992) by Anthony Coburn, which would have been the second serial of the programme if it had not been rejected. The story features the Doctor and his companions encountering an ancient civilization of deactivated robots.

Related Topics:
Titan Books - Anthony Coburn

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There are no plans to novelise episodes from the 2005 revival of Doctor Who. Instead, the BBC are pursuing their Ninth Doctor Adventures range of original novels.

Related Topics:
2005 - Ninth Doctor Adventures

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