With the recent news announcing an upcoming animated web series starring the hilariously terrifying Daleks from Doctor Who, the imaginations of fans everywhere have predictably gone into overdrive. Sure, the Daleks are a prime candidate for such treatment, but this announcement also begs another question: who else in the massive lore of Doctor Who would benefit from their own series? Well, it would be nearly impossible to cover every possibility within the life span of the average human, so a few choice selections will have to do. Here are 5 ideas for some potentially excellent Doctor Who spinoffs.
Note: These picks are all from the recent seasons of the show, post 2005. This is purely to make it easier to choose and is in no way a comment on classic Doctor Who.
Ok, to be perfectly honest, everyone has had this idea. Ever since their introduction in The Eleventh Doctor (Matt Smith) episode “A Good Man Goes to War,” this loving interspecies couple with a penchant for crime fighting captured the hearts of viewers and turned each of their subsequent appearances into a highly anticipated event. Usually joined by Vastra’s Sontaran butler, Strax (Dan Starkey), Vastra (Neve McIntosh) and Jenny (Catrin Stewart) already go on plenty of adventures even when The Doctor isn’t around, so a series of their own is an easy choice.
In fact, they’ve already gotten a spinoff of sorts in the form of a series of short stories published in the “Doctor Who Adventures” magazine, so they’ve already got a jumping off point. An episodic series where the duo (or trio) solve a different mystery every week would make for some wonderfully campy material, and in a world where gritty reboots seem to be making a return, that might be just the palate cleanser audiences need.
Making his one-hit-wonder appearance in the episode “The Next Doctor” with David Tennant’s Tenth Doctor, Jackson Lake (David Morrissey) is a fascinating case. Accidentally convinced that he himself is The Doctor, the real Doctor encounters him on one of his jaunts into Victorian London. Thinking Lake is actually one of his future incarnations, The Doctor joins the unintentional imposter in his fight against the Cybermen. It comes out later that when Lake came into contact with a device containing large amounts of information on The Doctor, his mind was overwhelmed to the point where he began to internalize that information and take on the identity himself. After learning the truth and regaining his true self, Lake elected to remain in his own time following the defeat of the Cybermen, eventually writing a book about his experiences.
A spinoff starring Jackson Lake could be a much different beast. It might work as a complete departure from the Doctor Who formula, instead electing to operate as a regular period piece that just so happened to be attacked by robots this one time. Really, Lake is such a likable character that he could carry a show on his own, even if it has nothing of the wibbly wobbly or timey wimey sort. Besides, who says The Doctor never visited him again to have another nice family dinner?
If there’s one character who deserved better, it’s Dr. Martha Jones (Freema Agyeman). Introduced in The Tenth Doctor (David Tennant) novel “Made of Steel” before debuting on screen in the episode “Smith and Jones,” her tenure on the show was marred with a relative lack of attention from The Doctor due to his recent losses. She proved herself more than capable time and time again, but while the fans loved her character, the showrunners didn’t seem to agree. Martha’s generally low level of agency compared to The Doctor’s other companions around the same era has been criticized by fans ever since her time on the show. Sure, she was retroactively given a bit more to do later on, but it was mostly off-screen, which makes her a prime candidate for a spinoff.
Martha made several appearances on Doctor Who after her formal departure as a regular companion, and even appeared in other stories such as the Torchwood TV show. This makes for a wealth of material to choose from if she were to receive a spinoff. Maybe a self-contained series about her time with UNIT? No matter how it might be handled, Dr. Martha Jones still deserves better, and a spinoff would be a good start.
First seen in the same episode that introduced Martha, the Judoon are a rhinoceros-like race of aliens known for their work as mercenaries. They’ve appeared throughout the series since then pretty much any time the show needed a low-effort force of villains. That alone might not make them seem like the most exciting subject to weave into new stories, but consider this: A relatively empty slate like this could provide a fantastic jumping off point for any number of spinoff ideas.
Imagine a workplace comedy with a Harley Quinn-esque style of writing and production featuring the Judoon going out on various contracts and focusing on the various hijinks that ensue. Hey, not every spinoff has to be some serious drama. Plus, it could serve to flesh out the aliens as individuals rather than the mostly hivemind-like portrayal they’ve been given thus far. If Star Wars: The Clone Wars can give a bunch of literal clones personalities, Doctor Who can pull this off.
Being the most recent character on this list, some might question why he deserves a spot over any other given choices. Well, those people can make their own list, because Nardole (Matt Lucas) is a treasure. Joining The Twelfth Doctor (Peter Capaldi) some time after working for Professor River Song, Nardole’s strengths as a character are unique in that many of his best moments are as a wise cracking sidekick. However, the right writing and production team could make him a star in his own right.
According to his own words, Nardole lived “happily ever after” on the Mondasian colony ship where he was last seen after he left The Doctor to save a group of villagers. There’s the spinoff right there. Throughout the rest of his life in the colony, Cybermen still periodically made trouble for him, but overall, it could be a more light-hearted show about a strange man in a strange world.
So there are a few (perhaps unconventional) picks for a hypothetical Doctor Who spinoff. Naturally, there are nearly countless others who could also enjoy a little run in the spotlight, so take this as more of a jumping off point. Who knows? Maybe an executive will see this list and think “ok now we have to do a spinoff just so people stop making these stupid lists.”
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