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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 Franchise s 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. PROSE FICTION Novelisations , published in 1964 and based upon ''The Daleks'', was the very first ''Doctor Who'' novelisation.]] Novelisation s based upon individual ''Doctor Who'' Serial s 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'' novelisations 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 them 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 novelisations faithfully followed the scripts. '' 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. '''' (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:
Adams' 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 civilisation 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. In June 2007 it was announced that a new series of books would be launched in the fall of 2007 based upon the spin-off series, '' The Sarah Jane Adventures ''. The first of these books (scheduled for UK publication in November 2007) will be a novelization of the spin-off's debut episode '' Invasion Of The Bane ''. This marks the first time an episode of the post-2005 ''Doctor Who'' Universe revival has been novelised. The ''Sarah Jane'' novels are to be published by Penguin Character Books . {Link without Title} {Link without Title} Original fiction The earliest ''Doctor Who'' spin-off fiction appeared in children's annuals from 1964, and continued to appear as such 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. 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 '' 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 '''' 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 Lance Parkin's novel '' Father Time ''. Mad Norwegian Press published a series of '' Faction Paradox '' books, based on the characters created by Lawrence Miles for the novel '' Alien Bodies '', and 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. Novellas Years later, Telos Publishing produced a Series Of Original ''Doctor Who'' Novella s, 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''. 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 '' into the Ninth Doctor . 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 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. IDW Series |
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