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.

Original fiction

The earliest Doctor Who spinoff fiction appeared in children's annuals from 1964 and short stories also appeared in other venues such as two anniversary specials produced by the editors of the Radio Times. The first of these (1973) was Terry Nation's We Are the Daleks! while the second (1983) had Eric Saward's Birth of a Renegade. The former explains the origins of the Daleks and the latter reveals the background of Susan, but both contradict the series and many other stories on the subject. There were also stories in newspapers and comics, story books and even serials published on confectionary wrappers and trading cards.

Related Topics:
Radio Times - Susan

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The first original Doctor Who-related novels appeared in 1986 when Target launched a series of books titled The Companions of Doctor Who which were original works focusing upon former assistants of The Doctor. The first two books were Turlough and the Earthlink Dilemma by Tony Attwood, based upon the character played by Mark Strickson in the early 1980s and Harry Sullivan's War written by Ian Marter who had actually played Harry Sullivan on the series a decade earlier. These books were unsuccessful, and after a third attempt (a 1987 novelisation of the 1981 Doctor Who spin-off, K-9 and Company) the series ended. Other novels would have featured Tegan, the Brigadier, Victoria and Mike Yates. Victoria eventually was the focus of the novel (and subsequent video) Downtime by Marc Platt. Yates would have appeared in The Killing Stone by actor Richard Franklin, but the novel was never published, although an abridged recording by Franklin based on the book appeared in 2002.

Related Topics:
1986 - Turlough - Tony Attwood - Mark Strickson - 1980s - Ian Marter - Harry Sullivan - 1987 - 1981 - K-9 and Company - Tegan - The Brigadier - Victoria - Mike Yates - Marc Platt - Richard Franklin

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In the late 1980s, Target launched another short-lived series of "original" novels, this time titled The Missing Episodes and based upon episodes commissioned for but never produced for the cancelled 1985-1986 season. Again, only three books were published, the first being The Nightmare Fair by Graham Williams.

Related Topics:
1980s - 1985 - 1986 - Graham Williams

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Virgin Publishing's line of original novels featuring the Seventh Doctor began in 1991, and were billed as telling "stories too broad and deep for the small screen". Virgin's predecessors, Target Books and WH Allen, had by this point been publishing novelisations for twenty years, and even before the series had come to a conclusion, successive editors of the range such as Nigel Robinson and Peter Darvill-Evans had identified the need for original material to complement the few stories there were left to be novelised. The New Adventures were joined in 1994 by a companion series (the Missing Adventures) telling "untold" stories with earlier Doctors, set between episodes of the television series. During the New/Missing Adventures era, Virgin also launched a series of Doctor Who-based short story anthologies titled Decalog. Decalog 4 and Decalog 5 were published after Virgin had lost the Doctor Who franchise and did not feature the Doctor. Decalog 4 concentrated on the family of Roz Forrester ? a companion introduced in the NAs ? over a 1000 year time span.

Related Topics:
Original novels - Seventh Doctor - 1991 - WH Allen - Peter Darvill-Evans - 1994 - Missing Adventures - Roz Forrester

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Also during this period, Marvel Comics commissioned the writers of the various NA/MA novels to write short pieces entitled "Preludes" which were run in Doctor Who Magazine. These short stories (never more than one magazine page in length) usually focused on an event just prior to a particular novel, or on a character prior to his or her encounter with the Doctor. Some non-novel related short stories titled "Brief Encounters" were also written, including one in which the Seventh Doctor met a future incarnation of himself. (The illustration accompanying this story based the future Doctor on actor Nicholas Briggs, who had played the Doctor in unauthorized audio dramas produced by the fan group AudioVisuals. The Briggs Doctor also appeared in the DWM comic strip.)

Related Topics:
Marvel Comics - Doctor Who Magazine - Nicholas Briggs

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In the climate of renewed interest in the series that followed the 1996 telemovie, the BBC decided to reclaim Virgin's licence when it next came up for renewal and publish its own series of Doctor Who novels. The last two Virgin Doctor Who novels were released in April 1997, bringing to an end almost 25 years of Doctor Who publishing outside of the BBC, with the first two BBC-published novels released in June that same year. Virgin, meanwhile, continued the New Adventures line for several years afterward, focusing upon the Doctor's former assistant, Professor Bernice Summerfield who had been the first companion created specifically for literature, rather than for television. These books (sometimes referred to informally as The Adventures of Benny Summerfield) gained their own fan following and featured appearances by other characters created specifically for the literary world of Doctor Who.

Related Topics:
1996 - April - 1997 - June - Bernice Summerfield

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The BBC began releasing two new novels every two months, one featuring the ongoing adventures of the Eighth Doctor and the other an "untold" story of an earlier Doctor, referred to as the Eighth Doctor Adventures (EDAs) and Past Doctor Adventures (PDAs) respectively. Although many authors who wrote for the Virgin line returned to write for the BBC series, direct continuity between the two sets of books was discouraged, at least initially. Later, the editors loosened their policy on links between the Virgin and BBC novels, even publishing direct sequels to novels by the other publisher; for example, Justin Richards' Millenium Shock was a sequel to his earlier Virgin Missing Adventure System Shock. For the most part, however, links between the fictional ranges were kept deliberately oblique so as not to alienate new readers.

Related Topics:
Eighth Doctor - Eighth Doctor Adventures - Past Doctor Adventures

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BBC Books also published several Decalog-style anthologies under variations of the title Short Trips. Big Finish Productions later obtained a license to produce hardback short story anthologies and appropriated the Short Trips title.

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In 2004, the BBC almost halved the frequency of publication from 22 books a year (one EDA and one PDA per month) to 12, each release now coming out once every other month. With the new series of 2005, the EDAs came to an end, with future novels featuring the Eighth Doctor to be part of the PDA range. A new line of Ninth Doctor Adventures began with three releases in May 2005. Another three followed, with three featuring the Tenth Doctor due in 2006. It is not known whether the Ninth Doctor will appear in further books or what format those might take. The novel The Monsters Inside by Stephen Cole is the first spin-off novel to be referred to in the television series — in the episode Boom Town, the Doctor and Rose's trip to the Justicia system is mentioned.

Related Topics:
2004 - 2005 - Ninth Doctor Adventures - Stephen Cole - Boom Town

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By far, the most prolific writer of Doctor Who fiction is Terrance Dicks, who has written well over 70 titles including the majority of Target Books novelizations, as well as original works for both the Virgin and BBC Books series.

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A number of characters created for original Doctor Who fiction have been spun-off into series of their own, such as the comic book Miranda based upon a character created for one of the novels, and a series of books entitled Faction Paradox published by Mad Norwegian Press, which is also in the process of republishing some of the Bernice Summerfield novels originally published by Virgin. Twenty-First Century Publishers are due to publish a novel featuring the character Guy de Carnac, who was introduced in the 1995 Doctor Who novel, Sanctuary.

Related Topics:
Miranda - Faction Paradox - Mad Norwegian Press - Twenty-First Century Publishers - Guy de Carnac - 1995

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In 2005, original Doctor Who fiction came full circle with the release of The Doctor Who Annual 2006, aimed at younger readers. This was published by Panini Books, the current publishers of Doctor Who Magazine, and contained features by Russell T. Davies and short stories by several of the other writers of the 2005 TV series revival.

Related Topics:
Panini Books - Russell T. Davies

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