Doctor Who spin-offs
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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. There have been many fans and fan groups who have produced unofficial, amateur text, video and audio stories featuring the Doctor. A partial listing of fan video and audio stories can be found here.
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 degree to which the spin-offs are canon is a topic of much discussion by Doctor Who fans. Although the spin-offs generally do not intentionally contradict the television series, the various spin-off series do occasionally contradict each other, in chronology, in characters which are in one series and not the other, and in characterization, particularly of the Eighth Doctor. One area of speculation is the degree to which spin-off material is considered canon by the new show, which includes references to some spin-offs but sits uneasily with others.
Contents |
[edit] Prose fiction
[edit] Novelisations
Novelizations 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.
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.
By 1991, when the final Target book was published, all but six of the broadcast Doctor Who serials 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), the spinoff K-9 And Company, 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.)
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; the decision by the BBC to delete many episodes from the Hartnell, Troughton, and Pertwee eras resulted in many of these books becoming the only way for these "lost" adventures to be experienced prior to the release of soundtracks for those episodes. 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.
Not all Target novelizations faithfully followed the scripts. John Lucarotti's novelisation The Massacre (1987) completely changed 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) describe the plot of the novel rather than the original serial due to the fact the original serial is one of the many that were lost. Also, when Target launched the novelization line, there was no inkling that ultimately more than 150 of the show's storylines would be adapted; as a result, there are numerous continuity gaps between early Target books and the scripts and/or later published novelizations; one example is Doctor Who and the Doomsday Weapon (based upon Colony in Space) which as written depicts Jo Grant's first adventure with the Doctor, even though the television series introduced her several serials earlier in Terror of the Autons (which was novelized at a later date and ignored the discrepancy). Authors sometimes added epilogues to their novelizations which were at odds with other material; The Curse of Fenric by Ian Briggs suggested a fate for Ace that differed from later original novels, and Philip Martin's adaptation of the Mindwarp segment of The Trial of a Time Lord included an ending that completely contradicted the scripted ending of the televised serial.
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.
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.
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.
Several serials remain unnovelised for various reasons. Fan-written novelisations of these stories do exist, however. The unnovelised serials are:
- The Pirate Planet by Douglas Adams
- City of Death by Graham Williams, Douglas Adams and David Fisher
- Shada by Douglas Adams (not originally completed for broadcast after television production was postponed in 1979, but completed with narration for video, then 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 City of Death and 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.
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.
There are no plans to novelise episodes from the 2005 revival of Doctor Who. Instead, the BBC published original novels featuring the Ninth Doctor (and now the Tenth), and a hardback script book containing the shooting scripts for the series.
[edit] Original fiction
The earliest Doctor Who spinoff fiction appeared in children's annuals from 1964, and continued to appear in such annuals until at least 1985. A 60-page novella titled Doctor Who and the Invasion from Space, published in 1966, is the earliest known original long-form prose Doctor Who adventure.[1]
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 confectionery wrappers and trading cards. In 1979, Nation wrote "Daleks: The Secret Invasion", a novella included in Terry Nation's Dalek Special; this was the first original Doctor Who-related fiction to be published by Target Books.
The first full-length 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 on the Doctor's former assistants. The first two books were Turlough and the Earthlink Dilemma by Tony Attwood, published in July 1986 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, published in October 1986. These books sold well, but after a third attempt (a 1987 novelisation of the 1981 Doctor Who spin-off, K-9 and Company) the series ended due to rights disputes between the publishers and the BBC.[citation needed] 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.
In 1989, Target launched another short-lived series of "original" novels, this time titled The Missing Episodes and based upon serials 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 in May 1989, followed by The Ultimate Evil by Wally K. Daly in August 1989, and Mission to Magnus by Philip Martin in July 1990.
Virgin Publishing's line of original novels, the New Adventures, featuring the Seventh Doctor began in July 1991 with Timewyrm: Genesys by John Peel, 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 first four New Adventures were a single story arc called Timewyrm, and the first volume was controversial for including sexuality and violence of a level not encountered in the Target Books range. A second story arc, the three-volume Cat's Cradle followed, after which the NA range settled into a mixture of standalone and arc stories.
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.
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 Audio Visuals. The Briggs Doctor also appeared in the DWM comic strip.)
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.
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' Millennium 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.
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.
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. When the new television series began in 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 New Series Adventures began with three Ninth Doctor novels in May 2005. Another three followed, with three featuring the Tenth Doctor released in April 2006 and three more provisionally scheduled for September 2006. It is not known whether the Ninth Doctor will appear in further books or what format those might take; range consultant Justin Richards told Doctor Who Magazine that there would be no novels featuring the Ninth Doctor in 2006, and no further decision had been taken.
The ninth Doctor 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.
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.
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 also republished one 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.
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 television series revival.
[edit] Novellas
The earliest known Doctor Who novella published was Doctor Who and the Invasion from Space, a 60-page hardcover published in January 1966 by World Distributors, creators of the Doctor Who Annual series.[2]
Years later, Telos Publishing produced a series of original Doctor Who novellas, published individually in hardcover; the first, Time and Relative by Kim Newman, was released on November 23, 2001. Although the series was reasonably successful (in spite of the odd publication format, which resulted from the BBC having reserved for its own use the rights to publish Doctor Who story collections and Doctor Who books in paperback), the BBC chose not to renew Telos's licence, and the series ended in March 2004, having completed 15 novellas featuring the Doctor. Prior to losing the license, a small number of Telos releases were re-issued in paperback form (albeit in a larger format than the BBC Books releases) following a separate agreement with the BBC.
Telos has subsequently launched a new series of novellas, Time Hunter, featuring characters created for the Doctor Who novella, The Cabinet of Light.
[edit] Comics
Comic strip adventures of the Doctor appeared almost from the beginning of the television series, first in the 1960s publication TV Comic, and during the 1970s in the mainly Gerry Anderson related comic Countdown, later renamed TV Action. After TV Action stopped publishing, the strip returned to TV Comic until 1978. Both the First and Second Doctors were, for a time, shown travelling with two youngsters named John and Gillian who are identified as the Doctor's grandchildren. Their place within established continuity has challenged fans ever since, although attempts have been made to reconcile their existence in various spin-off fiction venues.
The regular Doctor Who Annuals from World Distributors published comics most years from the first annual until they ceased publication in 1985.
A comic strip also regularly appeared in the pages of Doctor Who Magazine. This began as a Marvel comic under the name Doctor Who Weekly in 1979 (soon changing to Doctor Who Monthly), and the magazine continued to be published after the programme ceased production in 1989. The comic strip has usually featured the current Doctor in a series of adventures independent of the novels and the audios, and with another companion, though several crossovers with the worlds of the audio and literary Doctor Who and the comics have occurred. Creators who have worked on the DWM strip include such notables as writer Alan Moore and artists Dave Gibbons, Mike McMahon and John Ridgway. Selected stories were reprinted in North America by Marvel Comics, which was also the publisher of Doctor Who Magazine at the time. When DWM was published by Marvel, some characters occasionally crossed over between the Doctor Who comic and other titles published by Marvel UK; these include the froglike Venusian businessman Josiah Dogbolter and the robotic bounty hunter Death's Head.
The publishers of Doctor Who Magazine have also produced a number of special issues, annuals, and other publications containing comics.
Two short-lived spin-off series, Miranda from Comeuppance Comics and Faction Paradox from Mad Norwegian Press, have also appeared, both featuring characters who had debuted in Doctor Who novels, but which are not officially connected to Doctor Who.
Doctor Who Magazine, which is now owned by Panini Comics (a subsidiary of Marvel) since a Marvel reorganization in 1995, continues to produce new comic strip adventures. Panini has also begun to reprint the early DWM strips in trade paperback format.
At the height of "Dalekmania" in the 1960s, a comic strip featuring the Daleks written by David Whitaker but credited to Terry Nation appeared in the Gerry Anderson TV Century 21 comic magazine. The BBC also published a number of Dalek annuals, written by Whitaker and Nation that contained a mixture of comic strips and short stories. Although much of the material in these strips directly contradicted what was shown on television later, some concepts like the Daleks using humanoid duplicates and the design of the Dalek Emperor did show up later on in the programme. The strip also featured the Mechanoids, seen in The Chase, and one annual featured Sara Kingdom and the Space Security Service.
Although there is no official connection, multiple hints in the 2000AD strip Caballistics, Inc. by Gordon Rennie suggest that it is taking place within the Doctor Who universe.
In 2005 a webcomic called The Forge: project Longinus, written by Cavan Scott and Mark Wright and illustrated by Bryan Coyle was produced as a spin-off from Scott and Wright's Big Finish Productions Doctor Who audio dramas, and contained a number of unofficial references to the Doctor Who universe.
[edit] Television
The first attempt to produce a spin-off television series for Doctor Who occurred in the mid-1960s when Terry Nation attempted to launch an American-produced serialized series focusing on the Daleks. A pilot episode script entitled The Destroyers was written but no pilot film was ever produced. Years later, an outline of the story (which would have featured at least one character, Sara Kingdom, later featured in the parent series) appeared in The Official Doctor Who & the Daleks Book.[3]
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[4] was not commisoned for a development into a series, though Sarah 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. There was some discussion about spinning off the characters of Henry Jago and Professor Litefoot from the 1977 serial The Talons of Weng-Chiang into their own series, but this was not taken forward.
Doctor Who also appeared on television in the form of special one-off productions to benefit charity. In 1993, Dimensions in Time was produced for the benefit of Children in Need, coinciding with the series' 30th Anniversary. It was a special in two parts, running about 12 minutes in total, which featured all surviving Doctors (including Tom Baker in his first appearance as the character since 1981), and more than a dozen former companions. Not meant to be taken seriously, the story had the Rani opening a hole in time, cycling the Doctor and his companions through his previous incarnations and menacing them with monsters from the show's past. It also featured a crossover with the soap opera EastEnders, the action taking place in the latter's Albert Square location.
In 1999, Doctor Who and the Curse of Fatal Death, a parody starring Rowan Atkinson as a future incarnation of the Doctor in his final battle with the Master (Jonathan Pryce), was created for the charity Comic Relief. During the parody's climax, when the Doctor regenerates several times, actors Richard E. Grant, Hugh Grant, Jim Broadbent and Joanna Lumley all had a chance to play the character. Richard E. Grant would go on to play another unofficial incarnation of the Doctor for the webcast of Scream of the Shalka. The Curse of Fatal Death is not considered canon, though BBC Video has released it to video using the same format as regular Doctor Who releases.
A second Children in Need special, but one that was part of the series' continuity, was produced for the charity's 2005 appeal. This 7-minute "mini-episode" starred David Tennant as the Tenth Doctor and Billie Piper as Rose Tyler, and filled in a gap between the episodes The Parting of the Ways and The Christmas Invasion.
On 17 October 2005, The Independent reported that the BBC had commissioned Davies to produce a 13-part spin-off series titled Torchwood.[5] The first episode aired 22 October 2006 and received a record BBC3 (and all British cable television record for a locally-produced non-Sporting event) high rating of 2.4 million viewers.[6] 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. This is the first Doctor Who spin-off to be commissioned as a full television series.
On April 24, 2006 The Independent, the Daily Star and The Times confirmed, following previous rumours, that K-9 would be featured in a 26-part computer-animated children's series, K-9 Adventures, 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 outfit 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. A broadcast date for the series has not been announced.
CBBC originally expressed an interested in a "Young Doctor Who" series, chronicling the childhood of the Doctor. Russell T. Davis vetoed this concept, saying "somehow, the idea of a fourteen-year-old Doctor, on Gallifrey inventing sonic screwdrivers, takes away from the mystery and intrigue of who he is and where he came from,".[9] He instead suggested The Sarah Jane Adventures, a Doctor Who spin-off starring Elisabeth Sladen as Sarah Jane Smith. A 60-minute pilot co-written by Davies and Gareth Roberts debuted on BBC One and the CBBC Channel on New Year's Day 2007; a full series will follow later in the year.[10]
A further spin-off of Doctor Who — Rose Tyler: Earth Defence, a 90-minute special that could possibly become an annual event — was cancelled by Russell T. Davies at a late stage of its development. He considered it to be "a spin-off too far",[11] despite the production having been commissioned and budgeted by the controller of BBC One.
An animated serial, The Infinite Quest, will air as part of the children's magazine show Totally Doctor Who in 2007.[12][13] David Tennant and Freema Agyeman will reprise their roles from the live-action television series.
[edit] Video
The hunger for more Doctor Who on television, especially between the show's cancellation in 1989 and its return in 2005, was partly answered by direct-to-video productions by various companies. The BBC has never authorised any Doctor Who video productions (presumably on the basis that one might as well make a new television series), but production companies have been able to license individual characters and alien races from the show directly from the writers who created them, and feature them in adventures of their own.
Companies who have released videos of this kind include Reeltime Pictures (also known for the long-running Myth Makers series of documentaries) and BBV (who have also released a number of Doctor Who-related audio adventures on the same basis). The first spinoff of this nature was Wartime, a half-hour film produced by Reeltime in the late 1980s and starring John Levene as Benton, a UNIT soldier who appeared on Doctor Who in the early to mid-1970s. In the 1990s, Reeltime distributed PROBE, a series of five made-for-video movies featuring Caroline John as her Pertwee-era character, Dr. Elizabeth Shaw. BBV, on their part, produced and released a trilogy of movies, Auton, Auton 2: Sentinel and Auton 3 that featured UNIT battling the Nestene Consciousness. Author Terrance Dicks also wrote and produced Shakedown: Return of the Sontarans in 1994, which not only featured the reappearance of one of the series' most famous monsters, but also starred series alums Carole Ann Ford, Sophie Aldred, and Michael Wisher. Jan Chappell played Lisa Deranne, captain of the solar racing yacht Tiger Moth, whose shakedown cruise is interrupted by a Sontaran attack squad furiously searching for a Rutan infiltrator. Another spinoff, Downtime, featured the return of Nicholas Courtney as Brigadier (Ret.) Lethbridge-Stewart and Elisabeth Sladen as Sarah Jane Smith, along with Deborah Watling as Troughton-era companion Victoria Waterfield. More of a nostalgia trip for fans than anything, Downtime provided a more detailed look at Lethbridge-Stewart's family and legacy than had ever been seen before. BBV also produced two other Doctor Who-universe releated videos, Mindgame and Mindgame Trilogy.
BBV is also known for a number of productions that, while not using any elements from the show itself, tell a similar style of story and feature ex-Doctor Who stars in roles similar to those they played in the series; these include a direct-to-video series starring Colin Baker as "The Stranger", and a series of audio dramas starring Sylvester McCoy as "The Dominie". In later episodes of The Stranger, it was made clear that not only was the Stranger not the Doctor, but that their backgrounds were not even remotely analogous. Some of this clarification appears to have been the result of BBC pressure.
Many of these independent productions have been acclaimed for their writing and high production values, some of which even exceeded those of the original series. Some people who worked on these independent productions in the 1990s later contributed to the television series after its return. This includes writer Mark Gatiss and modelmaker Mike Tucker.
[edit] Audio
A number of audio productions based upon Doctor Who have been produced over the years. The first, in 1976, was a children's audio adventure entitled Doctor Who and the Pescatons by Victor Pemberton.
In 1985, during a period when the series was on a sabbatical at the BBC, BBC Radio hired Colin Baker and his TV companion Nicola Bryant to reprise their TV roles for a new production called Slipback.
In the 1990s, the BBC began issuing the soundtracks of 1960s-era serials on cassette and compact disc. There were also two further radio dramas: The Paradise of Death (1993) and The Ghosts of N-Space (1996), both featuring Jon Pertwee, which like Slipback were first broadcast on BBC Radio.
Beginning in 1999, Big Finish Productions, under licence from the BBC, began a range of audio plays on compact disc, with one released every month. Big Finish have also produced a limited-run series of audio plays based around one of the Doctor's former television companions, Sarah Jane Smith, as well as a limited Doctor Who Unbound series that explores possibilities contrary to the established mythos (for instance, "What if the Doctor had never left Gallifrey?"). From 6 August 2005, several of the Eighth Doctor audio dramas are being broadcast on the digital radio station BBC 7 — these are Storm Warning, Sword of Orion, The Stones of Venice, Invaders from Mars, Shada and The Chimes of Midnight. A new series of original audio dramas featuring the Eighth Doctor and new companion Lucie Miller began airing on BBC7 on 31 December 2006. These are Blood of the Daleks, Horror of Glam Rock, Immortal Beloved, Phobos, No More Lies and Human Resources.
There are also several other Doctor Who-related mini-series including Dalek Empire, Dalek Empire II: Dalek War, and Dalek Empire III, Gallifrey, UNIT, Kaldor City and Faction Paradox Protocols.
The canonicity of these audio productions is uncertain, even though several were commissioned by and broadcast by the BBC, albeit on radio (in particular Slipback, the Pertwee serials, and the more recent BBC7 McGann series).
[edit] Stage
The universe of Doctor Who has been adapted several times for the stage.
The earliest such production was 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-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.[14]
The Daleks also play a major role in the first produced stageplay to feature the Doctor. Doctor Who and the Daleks in 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 then toured England until April 1975. 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.[15]
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.[16]
The Ultimate Adventure was mounted at Wimbeldon 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, David Banks (best known for playing various Cybermen in the TV series) played the Doctor when Pertwee fell ill.[17]
[edit] Webcasts
A series of audio plays have also been webcast on the BBCi (now bbc.co.uk) web site, 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.
The next two serials were made specially for the webcasts 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 the Cosgrove Hall animation company, 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 as well as a DVD release of the serial. A novelisation was, however, released by BBC Books in February 2004, complete with a lengthy "making of" section.
The canonical status of the remaining webcasts is also uncertain, and is made murkier by the fact that the webcasts could be considered canonical since they were broadcast by a branch of the BBC. Most of the webcasts feature elements that contradict series continuity, most notably Death Comes to Time which some fans have used to support their view that the 1996 television movie and 2005 television series (and all related spinoffs) are not canon.
[edit] Merchandise
Doctor Who has generated many hundreds of products related to the show since its beginnings in the 1960s , from toys and games to picture cards and postage stamps.
[edit] References
- ^ Boies, Dominique. Annuals - First Doctor. Doctor Who Guide. Retrieved on 2007-02-08.
- ^ Boies, Dominique. Doctor Who Annuals. Doctor Who Reference Guide. Retrieved on 2006-08-19.
- ^ Peel, John and Terry Nation: (1988). The Official Doctor Who & the Daleks Book. New York: St. Martin's Press. ISBN 0-312-02264-6, pp. 195-196.
- ^ Lyon, Shaun. K-9 and Company. Outpost Gallifrey. Retrieved on 2006-08-19.
- ^ Burrell, Ian. "BBC to screen 'Dr Who for adults' as new spin-off show", The Independent, 2005-10-17. Retrieved on 2006-08-19.
- ^ Deans, Jason (2006-10-23). Torchwood scores digital first (Requires free registration). Guardian Unlimited. Retrieved on 2006-10-23.
- ^ Milmo, Cahal. "Doctor Who's K-9 sidekick is dragged into 21st century in computer-designed cartoon", The Independent, 2006-04-24. Retrieved on 2006-04-24.
- ^ Sherwin, Adam. "K9 is back and ready to fight in shining armour", The Times, 2006-04-24. Retrieved on 2006-04-25.
- ^ Russell, Gary (2006). Doctor Who:The Inside Story. London: BBC Books, 252. ISBN 0-563-48649-X.
- ^ BBC (2006-09-14). Russell T Davies creates new series for CBBC, starring Doctor Who's Sarah Jane Smith. Press release. Retrieved on 2006-09-14.
- ^ Doctor Who spin-off 'cancelled'. BBC News Online (2006-08-21). Retrieved on 2006-08-21.
- ^ "Who's a Toon?", 2007-01-26. Retrieved on 2007-01-26.
- ^ Methven, Nicola, Polly Hudson. "DOCTOR TOON!", Daily Mirror, 2007-01-26. Retrieved on 2007-01-26.
- ^ Peel, John and Terry Nation: (1988). The Official Doctor Who & the Daleks Book. New York: St. Martin's Press. ISBN 0-312-02264-6, pp. 101-102.
- ^ Peel, John and Terry Nation: (1988). The Official Doctor Who & the Daleks Book. New York: St. Martin's Press. ISBN 0-312-02264-6, pp. 102-105.
- ^ Lofficier, Jean-Marc: (1991). Doctor Who: The Terrestrial Index: Target Books. ISBN 0-426-20361-5, pp. 123-124.
- ^ Lofficier, Jean-Marc: (1991). Doctor Who: The Terrestrial Index: Target Books. ISBN 0-426-20361-5, pp. 124-125.
[edit] External links
- The Doctor Who Bewildering Reference Guide - a guide to continuity references in selected Doctor Who original novels.
- The Cloister Library - commentaries on selected Doctor Who original novels.
- The Discontinuity Guide - guide to literary Doctor Who
- The DiscContinuity Guide - guide to audio Doctor Who
- Listing of amateur video and audio Doctor Who productions
- The TARDIS Library - Comprehensive database of all Doctor Who-related books, videos, DVDs and CDs ever released
- The Doctor Who Reference Guide - extensive information on the novels, audios, comic strips, and short stories based on Doctor Who
- Doctor Who The Complete Adventures - comprehensive timeline fitting the TV series and all the spin-offs together.
- Doctor Who page on BBC 7 Drama site
- Official Doctor Who website Trailers for BBC 7 broadcasts are currently linked from this page.
