Doctor Who spin-offs

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Since its beginning in 1963, Doctor Who has spawned a number of spin-offs that do not feature the Doctor as the main character. These can be separated into two distinct categories: productions officially licensed by the BBC, and other productions that contain a monster or element of Doctor Who licensed from the original holder without BBC involvement.

Officially licensed by the BBC

Television

K9 and Company

Main article: K9 and Company

Torchwood

Main article: Torchwood (TV series)

The Sarah Jane Adventures

Main article: The Sarah Jane Adventures

Class

Main article: Class (TV series)

Prose

Souvenir Press Ltd

World Distributors Ltd

Target Books

BBC Books

Panini Comics

Audio

Big Finish

Main article: Big Finish Doctor Who audio spin-offs

Comics

Marvel UK

Main article: DWM backup comic stories

Officially licensed from individual copyright holders

Beginning in 1987 with the release of Wartime by Reeltime Pictures, a number of professionally produced spin-off films and audio dramas have been produced. As noted above, these differ from BBC and Big Finish productions in that they usually only feature characters or monsters not owned by the BBC, but rather licensed from their creators. Some spin-offs are original works using original character strongly suggested by characters in Doctor Who (such as The Stranger). In many cases, original cast members from Doctor Who reprised their TV roles for these films and several involved behind-the-scenes veterans of the series (for example, Christopher Barry, who co-directed the very first Daleks story in 1963-64, directed Downtime).

A number of writers and actors involved in these productions later went on to work with BBC licensed Doctor Who spinoffs such as the Big Finish Productions audio dramas, and even on the revived Doctor Who series itself when it returned to TV in 2005 (most notably Nicholas Briggs and Mark Gatiss). By way of comparison, these spin-off productions, often classified as fan films, are in spirit similar to the professionally made fan films based upon the Star Trek franchise that began to emerge in the early 2000s when the rights holders for Star Trek relaxed their restrictions. However, unlike the Star Trek fan films, all of the productions listed below were fully licensed.

Television

Metal Mutt Productions

Video

Reeltime Pictures

BBV Productions

Audio

BBV Productions

Magic Bullet Productions

BBC Radio 4

Bafflegab Productions

Prose

Sparrow Books

Virgin Books

Mad Norwegian Press

Random Static

Telos Publishing

Big Finish Productions

Obverse Books

Thebes Publishing

Candy Jar Books

Arcbeatle Press

Snowbooks Ltd

Comics

TV Century 21

Marvel UK

Image Comics

Graveyard Shift Comics

Comeuppance Comics

Lucky Comics

Telos Publishing

Non-fiction spin-offs

BBC

Since the revival of the Doctor Who franchise in 2005, several ongoing non-fiction series have been commissioned to supplement the main programmes. All primarily featured behind-the-scenes documentary coverage of production, but some also served as the venue for the release of some new licensed Doctor Who fiction: Totally Doctor Who included a serialised form of the animated serial The Infinite Quest, and The Fan Show frequently included more-or-less developed humorous skits.

Reeltime Pictures

Mad Norwegian Press

Obverse Books

Other

Devious

Devious is an incomplete privately made fan film notable for featuring Jon Pertwee as the Third Doctor in his final known performance in the role. Audio of Pertwee was reused by Big Finish Productions for the audio drama Zagreus. In 2009, a 12-minute excerpt from the production, featuring the extant footage of Pertwee, was released by BBC Video with the DVD release of The War Games. Notwithstanding a few Reeltime-produced comedy skits included in previous DVD sets, this makes Devious to date the only fan/unofficial spin-off to actually be released by the BBC. It is not, however, by far, the only unlicensed spin-off project to have featured a DWU actor returning to their original part in an unauthorised context.

Non-DWU spin-offs

Some series feature characters and/or elements that originated in a Doctor Who universe story but do not pass this wiki's four little rules and as such are not considered valid; in some cases, their connection to Doctor Who is even so tenuous that they are not even covered on the Wiki at all.

Epic Comics

BBC

BBV

Obverse Books

  • The Periodic Adventures of Señor 105 (prose; featuring Señor 105)

Radio Static

Big Finish