Doctor Who spinoffs
Doctor Who spinoffs 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 spinoffs 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" spinoffs, 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 spinoffs which makes them different from many spinoffs from other science fiction franchises is that many of the television writers and stars have been directly involved in the production of spinoffs. 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 spinoffs generally do not intentionally contradict the television series, the various spinoff series do occasionally contradict each other.
Television
Official spinoff productions
The first spinoff 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, 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 spinoff 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. 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 high rating of 2.4 million viewers. The first series comprised 13 episodes broadcast on BBC Three, and was followed by a second 13-part series 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 14 July 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. 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 spinoff 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, 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 spinoff 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.
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. The article in The Times also featured a picture of the redesigned K-9 for the animated series. Each episode was 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. 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 spinoff titled, Class, which is set in Coal Hill School. It premiered on BBC Three on 22 October 2016. The eight-episode series is written by Patrick Ness. In March 2016, it was announced that Greg Austin would be cast as Charlie. On 7 September 2017, BBC Three controller Damian Kavanagh confirmed that the series had been cancelled.
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.
On 30 October 2023, it was announced that "The Whoniverse", a new section on BBC iPlayer dedicated to Doctor Who content, would release spinoffs, with the first being Tales of the TARDIS which first premiered on 1 November 2023.
On 27 January 2023, Davies confirmed that future Doctor Who spinoffs were in the works. A spinoff miniseries titled The War Between the Land and the Sea, written by Davies and Pete McTighe, centered around UNIT, and starring Russell Tovey and Gugu Mbatha-Raw, aired on BBC One in December 2025, and will air on Disney+ in 2026.
Future television spinoffs
On 12 June 2025, the BBC announced it was seeking a production company to work on an animated spin-off for pre-school audiences, set to air on CBeebies from 2027 to 2029.Charity
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, 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, 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. BBC Video released the special in 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".
A third Children in Need special, but one that was part of the series' continuity, was produced for the charity's 2007 appeal. "Time Crash" starred David Tennant as the Tenth Doctor and Peter Davison as the Fifth Doctor, and filled in a gap between the episodes "Last of the Time Lords" and "Voyage of the Damned". This takes part directly after Martha leaves the TARDIS, and ends when the Titanic crashes into the TARDIS.
For the 2011 Comic Relief Red Nose Day appeal a two-part story was shown. It starred Matt Smith, Karen Gillan and Arthur Darvill and did not have any guest stars.
Unmade
The first attempt to produce a spinoff television series for Doctor Who occurred in the mid-1960s when Terry Nation attempted to launch a US-produced serialised 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 appeared in The Official Doctor Who & the Daleks Book. The US Dalek pilot was released on audio by Big Finish Productions in 2010 as part of the Lost Stories series, with actress Jean Marsh reprising the role of Sara.There was some discussion about spinning off the characters of Henry Gordon Jago and Professor George Litefoot from the 1977 serial The Talons of Weng-Chiang into their own series, but this was not taken forward on television.
The concept art for an animated Doctor Who series was produced by the Canadian animation company Nelvana in the 1980s, but the series was not produced.
CBBC originally expressed an interest in a Young Doctor Who series, chronicling the childhood of the Doctor. Russell T Davies 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,". He instead suggested The Sarah Jane Adventures.
A further spinoff of Doctor Who—Rose Tyler: Earth Defence, a 90-minute special that could possibly become an annual event—was cancelled by Davies at a late stage of its development. He considered it to be "a spin-off too far", despite the production having been commissioned and budgeted by the controller of BBC One.