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.
Both during the main run of the series from 1963 to 1989 and after its cancellation, numerous novels, comic strips, comic books and other material were generated based on the characters and situations introduced in the show. These spin-offs continued to be produced even without a television series to support them and helped keep the show alive in the minds of its fans and the public until the programme was revived in 2005.
This entry mainly concentrates on "official" spin-offs, that is to say, material sanctioned by the British Broadcasting Corporation, which produces the series, as well as material sanctioned by the copyright holders of characters from the series.
One aspect of Doctor Who spin-offs which makes them different from many spin-offs from other science fiction franchises is that many of the television writers and stars have been directly involved in the production of spin-offs. For example, it has become common for a former television actor to reprise their character for an audio play.
The BBC holds no position on Doctor Who canon. Although the spin-offs generally do not intentionally contradict the television series, the various spin-off series do occasionally contradict each other.
Television[edit]
Official spin-off productions[edit]
The first spin-off attempt that actually reached the production stage appeared in 1981, when a 50-minute pilot episode for a series to be called K-9 and Company was aired. It focused on the adventures of former Doctor Who companions Sarah Jane Smith and K-9, a robot dog. The pilot, subtitled "A Girl's Best Friend", despite receiving high ratings of 8.4 million,[1] was not commissioned for a development into a series, though Sarah Jane and K-9 would later reappear together on the main Doctor Who series and her adventures would be continued in audio form by Big Finish Productions in the 2000s.
Since the return of Doctor Who in 2005, the show was accompanied by a documentary series, Doctor Who Confidential, broadcast on BBC Three. Episodes were also edited to a 15-minute run time and rebroadcast with the title Doctor Who Confidential: Cut Down; these edited versions were included on the Doctor Who DVD releases. In 2011, Confidential was among several shows cancelled by BBC Three to free up space for new programming.
Following the success of the first series of the revived Doctor Who, a new spin-off titled Torchwood became the first to be commissioned as a full television series. In contrast to its parent show, Torchwood was initially conceived by creator Russell T Davies as an "adult" programme to be broadcast post-watershed.[2] It is set in modern-day Cardiff and revolves around a team investigating alien activities and crime. The series features John Barrowman, playing former Ninth Doctor companion Jack Harkness, police officer Gwen Cooper, computer expert Toshiko Sato, medic Owen Harper and "support man", Ianto Jones. The first episode aired 22 October 2006 and received a record BBC Three (and all British cable television record for a locally produced non-sporting event) high rating of 2.4 million viewers.[3] The first series (Oct '06 – Jan '07) comprised 13 episodes broadcast on BBC Three, and was followed by a second 13-part series (Jan '08 – Apr '08) broadcast on BBC Two. A third series was written as a five-part mini-series titled Torchwood: Children of Earth, airing on five consecutive nights from to 10 July 2009 on BBC One. A fourth series was similarly structured as a single story told as a ten-part mini-series, titled Torchwood: Miracle Day; unlike previous series, Miracle Day was a co-production between the BBC and the US cable television network Starz. The fourth series premiered on 8 July 2011 on Starz in the US and on July 14, 2011 on BBC One in the United Kingdom.
The 2006 and 2007 series were companioned with a CBBC show entitled Totally Doctor Who. Series 1 was presented by CBBC and Smile presenter Barney Harwood and Blue Peter presenter Liz Barker. For the show's second series Barker was replaced by SMart presenter Kirsten O'Brien. During the second series, an animated serial, The Infinite Quest, was featured.[4][5] David Tennant and Freema Agyeman reprised their roles from the live-action television series while Anthony Head, a guest star during the 2006 season, returned in a different role.
A second major spin-off of Doctor Who was The Sarah Jane Adventures, created for a younger audience on CBBC, starring Elisabeth Sladen as the Doctor's former companion Sarah Jane Smith. It began with a 60-minute pilot episode co-written by Davies and Gareth Roberts, premiering on BBC One and the CBBC channel on New Year's Day 2007; the full series started on 24 September 2007,[6] consisting of two-part serials with half-hour individual episodes. Five series were produced altogether, the first four series consisting of twelve episodes each; the fifth series was truncated with only six episodes having been produced before Sladen's death in 2011, as a result of which the programme was cancelled. Sarah Jane's Alien Files, a spin-off of The Sarah Jane Adventures, aired along with the fourth series in 2010.
A second animated serial, Dreamland, aired on CBBC in Autumn 2009. David Tennant voiced the Tenth Doctor, and the serial also starred Georgia Tennant (who appeared in Doctor Who's 2008 series as the Doctor's daughter, Jenny).
On 24 April 2006 The Independent, the Daily Star and The Times confirmed, following past rumours, that K-9 would be featured in a 26-part animated children's series, K-9, to be written by Bob Baker.[7] The article in The Times also featured a picture of the redesigned K-9 for the animated series.[8] Each episode will be 30 minutes long, made by Jetix Europe and London-based distribution unit Park Entertainment. According to a report in Broadcast magazine, the BBC opted out of involvement in order to focus on Torchwood, meaning that BBC-owned characters are unlikely to appear in the series. K-9 was first premiered on 31 October 2009. The 26th and final episode was aired on 25 September 2010.
On 1 October 2015 the BBC announced a new spin-off titled, Class, which is set in Coal Hill School. It premièred on BBC Three on 22 October 2016. The eight-episode series is written by Patrick Ness.[9] In March 2016, it was announced that Greg Austin would be cast as Charlie.[10] On 7 September 2017, BBC Three controller Damian Kavanagh confirmed that the series had been cancelled.[11]
A new animated series called Daleks!, which consists of five 10-minute long episodes, was released on the official Doctor Who YouTube channel in 2020.[12]
On 30 October 2023, it was announced that "The Whoniverse", a new section on BBC iPlayer dedicated to Doctor Who content, would release spin-offs, with the first being Tales of the TARDIS which first premiered on 1 November 2023.
Stage[edit]
The universe of Doctor Who has been adapted several times for the stage.
The earliest such production was The Curse of the Daleks, written by David Whitaker and Terry Nation and directed by Gillian Howell, which played at Wyndham's Theatre over the December 1965 to January 1966 Christmas theatre season. Whitaker's play was intended to link the televised serials The Daleks and Dalek Invasion of Earth and elements later appeared in the Daleks comic strip that later ran in TV21.[45]
The Daleks also play a major role in the first produced stageplay to feature the Doctor. Doctor Who and the Daleks in the Seven Keys to Doomsday was written by Terrance Dicks and directed by Mick Hughes and ran at London's Adelphi Theatre over the 1974–75 Christmas season and was expected to tour England until April 1975. However, the tour was cancelled at the eleventh hour. Trevor Martin played an alternate version of the Fourth Doctor in this play, which takes place immediately after the Third Doctor's regeneration in Planet of the Spiders (the play was staged before Tom Baker's official debut as the Fourth Doctor in early 1975 although Baker had appeared at the close of Planet of the Spiders). The play co-starred former Doctor Who companion Wendy Padbury (playing a different character named Jenny). Also in the cast was Simon Jones as the "Master of Karn", several years before he worked with Doctor Who writer Douglas Adams on The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. The play was not well attended by audiences as it debuted during an upswing of IRA violence in London.[46]
UNIT was the focus of Recall UNIT (or, The Great Tea Bag Mystery), a play mounted in August 1984 at the Moray House Theatre in Edinburgh. The play was directed and co-written by Richard Franklin, who had played Mike Yates in the series, and he reprised the role for the play, along with John Levene who returned as Sergeant Benton. The Daleks once again returned, as did Nicholas Courtney whose recorded voice allowed Brigadier Alistair Lethbridge-Stewart to also take part in the play, albeit off-stage.[47]
Doctor Who – The Ultimate Adventure was mounted at Wimbledon Theatre in London for several months starting in March 1989. This musical play paired the Doctor with a set of new companions in a battle against not only the Daleks but the Cybermen as well. Jon Pertwee initially starred in the play for the first half of its run, reprising the Third Doctor. For the second half of the run, Colin Baker starred as the Sixth Doctor. For two performances during Pertwee's tenure, Davis Banks (best known for playing various Cybermen in the TV series) played the Doctor when Pertwee fell ill.[48]
From October to November 2010, Doctor Who Live toured in arenas across Britain.
In July 2011, as part of the Manchester International Festival, a live production "The Crash of the Elysium"[49] ran in and around the new BBC developments in Media City. This was an interactive play, aimed at children, where the actors lead the audience through the set, with set-piece events occurring at various points. It featured filmed footage of the Eleventh Doctor, and weeping angels.
Webcasts[edit]
A series of audio plays have also been webcast on bbc.co.uk, beginning with Death Comes to Time in 2001. The first episode had been made for, and then turned down by, BBC Radio 4 and after an experimental webcasting of this pilot generated over a million page hits, the rest of the episodes were produced and webcast. The serial featured Sylvester McCoy reprising his role as the Seventh Doctor.
Despite Death Comes to Time's award-winning success, political wrangling behind the scenes meant the next two serials made specially for webcasts were by Big Finish Productions: Real Time (2002), with the Sixth Doctor versus the Cybermen and Shada (2003), with Paul McGann as the Eighth Doctor in a script originally written by Douglas Adams and intended for the Fourth Doctor Tom Baker in 1979, but abandoned halfway through filming back then due to a BBC staff strike.
Although all of these adventures were intended as purely audio and were later released on CD, as webcasts they were accompanied by a slideshow of partially animated illustrations drawn by artist Lee Sullivan. Death Comes to Time was also released as a special MP3 CD with interactive content, including an option to view the illustrations as well as other bonus material such as cast and crew interviews that were originally available online.
In the middle of 2003, BBCi initiated plans to bring webcast production back in-house, producing the all-new adventure Scream of the Shalka by Paul Cornell, starring Richard E. Grant as the Ninth Doctor and Derek Jacobi as the Master. This differed from the previous webcasts in that it was specifically an audio-visual experience and not an audio adventure: it was fully animated to broadcast standard (although the webcast version was slightly simplified for that medium) by Cosgrove Hall Films and webcast over five weeks in November and December 2003.
The adventures were originally intended to be an official continuation of the Doctor Who mythos, and Grant was, for a brief time, touted as the New Doctor. However, with the announcement of the new BBC television series, Shalka was relegated to non-official status, and Russell T Davies, producer of the 2005 revival series, has referred to Christopher Eccleston as the Ninth Doctor. Plans for further webcasts were shelved.