Doctor Who tie-in websites
Beginning with the launch of the first series of the 2005 revival of Doctor Who, the BBC began releasing tie-in websites to coincide with both Doctor Who and Torchwood,[1] distinct from the primary Doctor Who website. These sites were also referred to as spin-off sites[2] and fictional sites by official sources.[3][4] Some sites were also called Experiences.[5]
After series three of Doctor Who, the BBC didn't make any new tie-in websites until 2011, where two new ones were released for the interactive experience The Crash of the Elysium.[6]
Nature and background
The websites can be sorted into three categories: websites that are based upon counterparts within the television series; websites that have no counterpart from the television series but their respective company or group is; and those that are wholly out-of-universe websites.
In the 1990s, promotion for Doctor Who was either broadcast or in print, with web content for Doctor Who not being concieved of in the days of the early internet. Eventually, the BBC Cult website was made home to the online streaming of Death Comes to Time, Real Time, Shada, and Scream of the Shalka. By the time Rose came to be first broadcast, unlike in 1996,[7] Doctor Who was in a "whole new millennium" and, as proven by the popularity of the Doctor Who website, there was a thirst for "new media" web content.[4] And so, the BBC created a wealth of web content to supplement their revival of Doctor Who; going a step further, the BBC made "the web [... become] part of the programme", producing real life websites based upon organisations seen in the programme;[7] these websites also narratively linked to the ongoing storyline and story arc of series one, with Who is Doctor Who?, based upon Clive Finch's conspiracy website Doctor Who?, becoming Mickey Smith's personal blog in his determination to bring Rose Tyler safely back to Earth and away from the Doctor, whom Mickey thought would get Rose killed. While not part of the tie-in websites proper,[3] the Bad Wolf website provided an out-of-universe look on the Bad Wolf story arc, providing many false theories and explanations.
Julie Gardner, the executive producer of Doctor Who, felt that the Tardisodes, Attack of the Graske, and the tie-in websites were effective at letting the viewers immerse themselves in "additional Doctor Who" but executed in a way that was coherent with the television series.[4]
Not unlike alternate reality games, the tie-in websites employed "unfiction", a type of fiction that attempts to convince its readers that it is actually reality;[8] this was so effective the real world United Nations began taking legal action against the U.N.I.T. tie-in website and its creators, ultimately resulting in the UNIT acronym being changed,[9][10][11][12] and the Leamington Spa Lifeboat Museum caused much confusion to the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, who posted about it on Facebook.[13] The tie-in websites also featured certain production jokes that spurred much fan speculation.[2]
As discussed in an online bonus chapter to Dalek by Billy Seguire, the ephemerality of the Internet is a "trade-off" for such a unique medium, an "infinite canvas" for artists, and the sites formed an alternate reality game for players to explore.[14]
Archiving and status in the 2020s
As the websites were launched in the mid-2000s, they commonly utilised software such as Adobe Flash, Windows Media Player and RealPlayer, which are all now defunct and/or incompatible with older content, which has resulted in much of the non-prose material to become lost media, as far back as 2016.[15] Furthermore, the BBC failed to pursue retaining the website domains for the majority of the tie-in websites, allowing "domain snipers" to purchase the domain and either put them up for sale or to host potentially malicious content. This Wiki advises you only visit these websites through the Wayback Machine or the Ghost Archive.
The exact date many of these sites were launched is unclear. The dates for the series one websites can be worked out accurately by seeing when the website was first linked to on the home page of the Doctor Who website, which had been archived daily on the Wayback Machine; however this practise was abandoned during series two, thus leaving the only evidence of when the websites were launched by accessing the first archive on the Wayback Machine; however, the sites were evidently archived days after they launched, and in the case of Deffry Vale, around a whole year later.
The archives of the Vote Saxon website are also broke, with all of the visual content not been archived properly, resulting in anything visual becoming lost.
As of 23 January 2023[update], the BBC only has kept a few tie-in websites active: the BBC's ownership of the domain for Who is Doctor Who? is set to expire on 29 June 2023;[16] the domain of the U.N.I.T. website is set to expire on 23 November 2023.[17] Billy Seguire, in an online bonus chapter of the reference book Dalek, mentioned how geocomtex.net was the only website created during series one to go permanently go offline.[14]
The tie-in websites Daryl the Diver and North West Historical Society, as they are hosted by blogging platforms not reliant on the BBC's ownership of a domain, continue to be active.
Doctor Who
Series 1
Production on the websites that coincided with series one seem to go as far back as 29 June 2004, with the registering of the domain "www.whoisdoctorwho.co.uk".[16] The domain "www.unit.org.uk" was registered on 23 November 2004,[17] incidentally the 41st anniversary of Doctor Who. Production wise, the website created to coincide with The Christmas Invasion was clearly created during the rest of the series one websites.
According to James Goss, the website editor,[11] there were four tie-in websites were created in 2005,[3] evidently not counting Bad Wolf, which contained no original fiction.
Collectively, the BBC webteam was attributed for the creation of the sites,[18][19] not identifying any specific person to have written, designed, coded, etc, parts of the sites; however, James Goss, apart from being the editor of the sites as later revealed on Twitter,[11] also wrote at least UNIT Publications.[20]
In an online bonus chapter to The Black Archive reference book Dalek by Billy Seguire, he discussed how the GEOCOMTEX tie-in website and The Last Dalek video game formed part of the "history" that went along with the broadcast of Dalek, something that in the years that passed had been not-so-metaphorically lost due to the ephemerality of the Internet. Seguire also wrote about the tie-in website's shortcomings, how it had limited interactivity given the site was mostly "static" text, and how the website had a lack of engagement with audience's given it was only narratively linked to Dalek, while the Who is Doctor Who? and U.N.I.T. tie-in websites continued to interact with the ongoing narrative.[14]
| Image | Wiki Link | External Link | Release Date | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Who is Doctor Who? | whoisdoctorwho.co.uk via the Wayback Machine | 24 March 2005[21] | The site was launched alongside TV: Rose. Over the course of the next few weeks, it was updated in tandem with series one of Doctor Who, often narratively tying into the other websites. | |
| U.N.I.T. | unit.org.uk via the Wayback Machine | 20 April 2005[22] | This site was launched alongside Aliens of London. | |
| GEOCOMTEX | geocomtex.net via the Wayback Machine | 30 April 2005[23] | This site was launched alongside Dalek. | |
| Bad Wolf | badwolf.org.uk via the Wayback Machine | 4 June 2005[24] | A wholly out-of-universe website based around discussion of the Bad Wolf arc. | |
| British Rocket Group | guinevere.org.uk via the Wayback Machine | 18 December 2005 | This website was launched alongside The Christmas Invasion. |
Series 2
On 6 July 2005, the BBC released results gathered from a survey they released about Doctor Who; they received many positive responses regarding the spin-off sites with many "comments and suggestions" for the future of the sites. This official response announced that new websites were being developed.[2] One of the most positive responses about the Doctor Who website were the "games and those fictional sites", so it was decided that for 2006, the BBC would be combining the two. James Goss,[3] the website editor,[11] announced in Doctor Who Magazine that each week, readers would have a mission, being sent to "a vast online world of secret organisations, [...] hidden footage, and ice cream parlours", to help Mickey Smith. Goss billed Joseph Lidster as the writer and Rob Francis as the producer, and Sequence,[3] a leading Welsh digital agency; Sequence had been outsourced by the BBC to work with the BBC Doctor Who team on the series two websites, after the large success of the previous year's web tie-ins. Additionally, the Tardisode mini-episodes were meant to accompany the web tie-ins.[25]
The shared goal of the BBC webteam and Sequence was simple: to extend the life of each adventure past the broadcast of each episode on television through games and websites to immerse the viewers themselves in the centre of the "alternate Doctor Who reality", more complex and sophisticated than the year prior, so they could "[help their] heroes, [defend] the earth, [locate] alien artefacts, or [save] history."[25] The games were released each Saturday alongside the broadcast of each respective television episode.[26] Defending the Earth! was so successful it was shortlisted for a Y Design Award in 2006, and Sequence themselves were finalists for best game design.[27]
Oddly, no website for Ursula Blake's My Invasion Blog was created, despite the obvious potential in doing so. This may have been done because Defending the Earth! essentially filled the same purpose.
Series 3
When series three began broadcasting, the BBC took a different approach to web tie-ins; instead of creating a range of interconnected websites, they instead created "dozens" of social media platforms for both "Harold Saxon" and Martha Jones that ran for a span of three months. Both Saxon and Martha had MySpace pages; Saxon also had a Bebo account and videos about Saxon garnering thousands of views by the BBC on YouTube. There were also SMS promotions.[29] However, the vast majority of this marketing campaign is entirely lost, and the exact scope isn't even known by this Wiki; the two websites about Harold Saxon were lost as early as September 2010.[30]
| Image | Wiki Link | External Link | Release Date | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Martha Jones | myspace.com/marthajonesuk via the Wayback Machine | 23 March - 3 July 2007 | This tie-in website, unconventionally but not without precedent, utilised the real world blogging platform MySpace to host the prose story that depicted Martha Jones's perspective of series three. | |
| Unknown | Vote Saxon | votesaxon.co.uk via the Wayback Machine | June 2007 | These websites were launched alongside Utopia. |
| Harold Saxon | haroldsaxon.co.uk via the Wayback Machine | c. 25 June 2007 |
Torchwood
Series 2
to be added
The Crash of the Elysium
- Main article: The Crash of the Elysium (stage play)/Promotion
For the immersive experience The Crash of the Elysium, two tie-in websites launched to promote it on 27 April 2011, both giving further background detail to the titular ship Elysium, linked from the show's website.[6][31] The BBC also released clues across the "Fourth Dimension" sections of the episode guides for the series six episodes of Doctor Who, akin to the Bad Wolf arc being hinted at on Who is Doctor Who?, which would eventually lead the user to the mini-episode Analysis Lessons.[32] The two tie-in websites were also promoted on The Crash of the Elysium's page on the Manchester International Festival's website.[33]
| Image | Wiki Link | External Link | Release Date | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| North West Historical Society | northwesthistoricalsociety.wordpress.com via the Wayback Machine | 27 April 2011[31] | These websites were launched alongside The Crash of the Elysium. | |
| Daryl the Diver | darylthediver.blogspot.com via the Wayback Machine |
Others
Cancelled or unproduced websites
The existence of many of these websites can only be determined from the domains that were registered.
| Image | Wiki Link | External Link | Release Date | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| N/A | N/A | cybusproperty.co.uk via the Wayback Machine | N/A | It appears that the BBC registered a domain for Cybus Property, however this seemed to have been abandoned. |
| N/A | N/A | cybusfinance.co.uk via the Wayback Machine | N/A | It appears that the BBC registered a domain for Cybus Finance, however this seemed to have been abandoned. |
| N/A | N/A | adiposeindustries.com via the Wayback Machine | N/A | It appears that the BBC registered a domain for Adipose Industries, however this seemed to have been abandoned. It appears if something was developed with this website, as there two other webpages created under this domain, but they too are empty. According to the now-deleted Wikipedia page, it was possible to email Miss Foster and there was an animated .gif of the Tenth Doctor. |
Fan-made websites
The following websites are fan made and thus cannot be covered on this Wiki. They are listed here so no errors in their coverage can be made.
- Flydale North Constituency was a website released in 2005 styled to look like the Flydale North Constituency Party for Harriet Jones.
- Powell Estate Tenants and Residents Association (T&RA) Site was a website styled to look like the official website for the Powell Estate.
- Cybus Industries was a website launched in 2022 as part of pastiche on Doctor Who and English/American politics. "Cybus Industries" was run by CEO Elon Magpie.[34] This parody was initally believed to be an official BBC marketing campaign,[35][additional sources needed] but this was proven false, especially as the Twitter account associated with the parody marked itself as such.[36]
Other notes
Doctor Who and Torchwood aren't unique about the many tie-in websites created to coincide with it, with a lot of non-DWU television series and movies getting their own tie-in websites. For example, AMC's Breaking Bad received the tie-in website Save Walter White, based upon Walter White Jr.'s website in the episode Phoenix to raise money for his father's cancer treatments and medical expenses, and HBO's True Blood received Babyvamp Jessica, an online video blog of vampire Jessica Hamby, very similar in format to Torchwood's Dark Talk. More recently, the 2023 film The Super Mario Bros. Movie received the tie-in website Super Mario Bros. Plumbing, acting a website for the Mario Brothers' plumbing business in Brooklyn, New York City.
Generally speaking, if you see a website in a prominent television series or movie, it has likely been created by the production company in the real world as part of the marketing for the television series or movie.
DWU websites
In some sources, fictional business and organisations are established to exist in-universe, often including a website url. Below are a list of these urls, none of which have received tie-in websites.
- LINDA: Who Is The Doctor?
- Archer & Lewis: www.archer&lewis.co.uk
- The Pharm: trialsportaluk.co.uk
- N/A: peapod-soulmates.com
- Coal Hill School: coalhillschool.sch.uk
- Princes' Housing: princeshousing.com
more to be added
Footnotes
- ↑ Sequence develops online content for Torchwood (9 November 2006). Archived from the original on 5 December 2006. Retrieved on 10 April 2024.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Website survey results. BBC website (6 July 2005). Archived from the original on 20 July 2005. Retrieved on 10 April 2024.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 DWM 367 - Production Notes
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 Doctor Who: The Inside Story
- ↑ Deffry Vale High School Disclaimer on deffryvaleschool.org.uk/disclaim via the Wayback Machine
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 The Crash of the Elysium on doctorwhonews.net
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 A Brief History Of Time (Travel) on BBC Internet Blog
- ↑ The Mysterious World of Unfiction and Immersive Storytelling on The Emerald
- ↑ Privacy Policy, Disclaimer and Terms of Use (original) on unit.org.uk via the Wayback Machine
- ↑ A History of the Universe in 100 Objects
- ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 11.3 James Goss on Twitter via the Wayback Machine
- ↑ DWM 360 - Production Notes
- ↑ RNLI on Facebook via the Ghost Archive
- ↑ 14.0 14.1 14.2 Dalek: A Lost Experience on obversobooks.co.uk
- ↑ The Who is Doctor Who? conspiracy website still exists and features updates from Mickey Smith on radiotimes.com
- ↑ 16.0 16.1 whoisdoctorwho.co.uk on whois.com via the Wayback Machine
- ↑ 17.0 17.1 unit.org.uk on whois.com via the Wayback Machine
- ↑ Privacy Policy and Terms of Use on whoisdoctorwho.co.uk via the Wayback Machine
- ↑ GEOCOMTEX - Disclaimer on geocomtex.net via the Wayback Machine
- ↑ @gossjam on Twitter via the Wayback Machine
- ↑ Doctor Who website (24/03/2005) on BBC via the Wayback Machine
- ↑ Doctor Who website (20/04/2005) on BBC via the Wayback Machine
- ↑ Geocomtex on the web on currybet.net via the Wayback Machine
- ↑ Doctor Who website (04/06/2005) on BBC via the Wayback Machine
- ↑ 25.0 25.1 Extending the life of Doctor Who on sequence.co.uk via the Wayback Machine
- ↑ Doctor Who on sequence.co.uk via the Wayback Machine
- ↑ Doctor Who Game impresses the judges at the Y Design Awards on sequence.co.uk
- ↑ Evidenced by the earliest archive of PROSE: Local Wins Lottery; there are no archives of the home page from when the website was first launched.
- ↑ Online world sneaks villain into No 10 for new Dr Who on entertainment.timesonline.co.uk via the Wayback Machine
- ↑ Official Harold Saxon websites GONE on fanfiction.net via the Wayback Machine
- ↑ 31.0 31.1 DWMSE 31 The Crash of the Elysium
- ↑ Analysis Lessons on unlimitedricepudding.co.uk
- ↑ The Crash of The Elysium on mif.co.uk via the Wayback Machine
- ↑ Doctor Who Fans Have Brought Cybus Industries To Life In Mock Campaign on The Gamer
- ↑ ‘Doctor Who’ Might Bring Back Cybus Industries, Here’s How on Fangirlish
- ↑ Cybus Industries (parody) on Twitter
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