Hub 116 by Various

Author:Various
Format: epub
Tags: science fiction, horror, doctor who, fantasy
Publisher: Right Hand Publishing

LIFE ON EARTH CAN BE AN

ADVENTURE TOO

by joseph lidster

Over the years, Doctor Who has spawned a number of spin-offs – ranging from 1960s Dalek annuals to The Sarah Jane Adventures. The Doctor himself has had further adventures in stage plays, prose, comics, movies and on audio. He even had an adventure on Jim’ll Fix It. But what makes Doctor Who so special that many of the Doctor’s friends and enemies have gone on to have adventures of their own?

When Doctor Who started out, it was about two schoolteachers following one of their pupils home and discovering that she was an alien who travelled throughout Time and Space with her grandfather. The four of them travelled together for a while then the granddaughter left and was replaced by an orphan from the future. The teachers left and were replaced by a space pilot. And so it continued. Over the years, the Doctor has travelled with an office secretary, a cockney sailor, a Seventeenth Century Highlander, a feminist journalist, an Australian air stewardess, a robot dog, a medical student and so many more. His companions have been from the past, the present and the future. Humans and aliens. Goodies and baddies. And the Doctor himself has changed – he’s been tall, short, old, young, sinister, mad, funny, loud, quiet. The interior of the TARDIS has been futuristic, old-fashioned and homely, green and alien. And the Doctor, his companions and the TARDIS have travelled everywhere and everywhen, having adventures that have been funny, scary, dark, uplifting, tragic… with the best ones being all those things at once. Basically, the three constants in Doctor Who – the Doctor, his TARDIS and his companions have been anything but constant.

And this is why those characters can then go off and have their own adventures. Because they, in themselves, are interesting. They’re not usually members of an organisation. They don’t necessarily have the same beliefs. They’re often not even from the same time period. This isn’t Star Trek where people are pretty much defined by whether they’re a member of Starfleet or not. In fact, look at Star Trek’s spin-offs which are effectively the same show, then look at Doctor Who’s spin-offs – they range from Big Finish’s Jago and Litefoot series (two Victorian gentlemen investigating mysteries) to Torchwood (a modern day team dealing with alien encounters in Cardiff). There’s The Sarah Jane Adventures (in which a middle-aged journalist and some kids save the Earth) and then there’s Bernice Summerfield (a Twenty-Sixth Century archaeologist who travelled with the Doctor before going off to have her own adventures in books and audios). And the main reason these spin-offs are so successful is because, despite all being set in the same fictional universe, they’re as varied as the Doctor’s own adventures – meaning there’s pretty much something for everyone. They’re series that don’t need the Doctor (although it’s always nice when he turns up to say hello) because they didn’t need to be spin-offs from Doctor Who in the first place.

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