Despite the fact that Doctor Who has existed for 60 years, there has been surprisingly little in the way of official, canonized spin-off material. Don’t misunderstand: one could fill an entire galaxy with the number of spin-off novels, comics, audio dramas, and short stories that exist, but when it comes to mainline Doctor Who that casual fans can actually experience without needing to seek it out, there isn’t as much as you might expect. There was the failed ‘80s spin-off K9 and Company, which never made it passed a single episode. When the show returned, two spin-offs went into production fairly quickly. One was the very adult-oriented series Torchwood. The other was for younger audiences called The Sarah Jane Adventures, starring former companion Sarah Jane Smith. In 2016, the teen drama Class only lasted one season. Given the longevity of the franchise and the size of the fictional universe, Doctor Who is begging for more stories about other characters besides the Doctor.
Well, fans (even casual ones) are finally going to explore more corners of the Whoniverse, as incoming showrunner Russell T. Davies (who also happened to be the man responsible for bringing the show back in 2005 after a 16-year hiatus) has confirmed that spin-offs are on the way (via GQ). While no titles have been confirmed, the suggestion that some of these spin-offs might focus on classic villains, and lots of rumors, have been flying around. Below, we will be discussing the shows we think would be great to see and why. None of these have been confirmed; this is nothing more than pure, unadulterated speculation.
6 UNIT
The United Nations Intelligence Taskforce (sometimes referred to as just the United Intelligence Taskforce) exists in the Doctor Who universe to take on threats to planet Earth and the human race from extra-terrestrial beings. As powerful and intelligent as the Doctor is, sometimes you need the might of the military behind you in order to stop Zygons from replacing the entire population.
Despite the Doctor’s general hatred of guns and the military in general, they have a long history of working alongside many of the Doctor’s various incarnations. During the early part of the 1970s, when actor John Pertwee was playing the show’s title character, the Doctor was stranded on Earth for several years. To keep himself busy, he became UNIT’S official Scientific Advisor, and often lead the charge against alien incursions, alongside trusted friend Brigadier Sir Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart.
That legacy continues to this day as the Brigadier’s daughter Kate has taken over his role, and she also works with the Doctor on various occasions. UNIT is an integral part of the show’s mythology and is partially responsible for keeping it on the air, thanks to how much money the show saved by centering so many stories on Earth. If this show were to be made, it could be the Doctor Who equivalent to Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
5 Cybermen
The Doctor has done battle with a lot of terrifying monsters over the course of the show’s history, and few of them are as iconic and chilling as the Cybermen. What makes them so scary is the fact that they used to be sentient humanoid individuals who were then stripped of their emotions and converted into nigh unstoppable cyborgs, not unlike the Borg in Star Trek (but the Cybermen were created much earlier).
Completely void of personalities, they scour the universe looking for new beings to convert, promising their victims a fate worse than death. There have been a lot of fun variations on the Cybermen over the decades (Ashad, the lone Cyberman being a particularly fascinating take), but given the fact that they have traveled so far and conquered so many, there are limitless stories to tell.
Were there to be a series focused primarily on the Cybermen, chances are it wouldn’t solely dedicate its time to watching these steel behemoths walking around their ships making plans. If anything, time would likely be split between the Cybermen themselves, and characters we can relate to. It wouldn’t be a terrible idea to show a species the Cybermen intend to convert rising up and fighting their would-be conquerors.
4 Former Companion Adventures
An element of the series that has remained consistent since its inception is that the Doctor doesn’t often travel through space and time alone. There is usually a traveling companion of some sort through which the audience can experience everything. One of the most popular companions was Sarah Jane Smith, played by Elisabeth Sladen.
She left Fourth Doctor Tom Baker in 1976, but returned for the anniversary special “The Five Doctors,” the failed K9 and Company, and became a recurring character starting with the Doctor Who episode “School Reunion.” Following that first appearance, she got her own spin-off The Sarah Jane Adventures, which ran for five seasons, until Sladen’s untimely demise in 2011.
Of all the spin-offs, The Sarah Jane Adventures had all the excitement, humor, and drama of the main show, suggesting it would be a good idea to give another former companion their own show. There are a few who would make excellent leads: Ace, for one. She is a fan-favorite companion who traveled with the Seventh Doctor and made her triumphant return alongside the Fifth Doctor’s friend Tegan in “The Power of the Doctor.”
Then again, an argument could be made that giving an underserved companion a chance to shine would be the right direction. Singer and actor Bonnie Langford (via The Mirror) has confirmed that she will be making an appearance in 2024 (she also had a cameo in “The Power of the Doctor”). Unlike Ace who replaced her in the story “Dragonfire”), Mel never got an interesting backstory or anything particularly exciting to do. If Langford is game, giving Mel her own show would be an opportunity to give the character her due.
3 The Daleks
Not only are the Daleks the most iconic enemy in the show’s history, they, like UNIT, helped save the show. When Doctor Who began airing, it wasn’t a smash hit. There were talks early on that the show should be canceled after its first serial. Then, the Doctor met the Daleks and everything changed. These fascistic globs of flesh encased in armored tanks were such a hit with the public, that Dalekmania spread throughout the UK, and the fate of Doctor Who was sealed.
The creatures were so popular that writer Terry Nation (who created them) even tried to get a spin-off going in the ‘60s. In 2020, the animated web series Daleks! was released, but that was directed more at fans and didn’t see much success outside that specific audience. Devoting an entire series to the evil pepper pots (as Whovians like to call them) is something of a no-brainer at this point.
Like the Cyberman series we speculated on earlier, it is unlikely that the show would focus explicitly on Daleks yelling at each other, as that would get tiresome rather quickly. However, there is a rich enough mythology regarding their hierarchy that it isn’t inconceivable to imagine a series dealing with their politics and evolution as a society. Throw in all those stories about how they managed to escape extinction, and you’ve got a huge tapestry to pull from. Again, the story potential is endless.
2 The Paternoster Gang
If any characters from the current era of Doctor Who were begging for a spin-off, it’s The Paternoster Gang. Introduced in the episode “A Good Man Goes to War,” this trio leaped off the screen, standing out above the rest almost immediately. When they returned as crime-solving detectives in “The Snowmen,” the writing was on the wall: give these characters a show!
They are led by Vastra, a Silurian (humanoid dinosaur) from prehistory who now resides in the 19th-Century London where she works as a detective. Her right-hand woman, and wife, Jenny Flint, is every bit as observant and capable as Vastra, but she also knows martial arts. Then, there’s Strax, a Sontaran (warrior potato people, basically) who was exiled by his people and works as a healer instead of a warrior. However, he is perfectly capable of holding his own in a brawl. If they were the Guardians of the Galaxy, he would be Drax.
Big Finish, the company responsible for the vast majority of Doctor Who-related audio dramas launched its own range of audio adventures dedicated to the Gang, so it has already been proven that they can support their own series. The groundwork has been done, it is time to let Vastra, Jenny, and Strax take center stage.
1 The Eighth Doctor
After Doctor Who was quietly canceled in 1989, there was a made-for-TV movie released in 1996 that was supposed to serve as a pilot for a new series. Picking up with Sylvester McCoy’s Seventh Doctor, the film depicts this incarnation being gunned down in San Francisco and regenerating into Doctor number Eight played by Paul McGann.
Although this incarnation only appeared in this one movie, McGann’s likeness was used for comics, novels, and audio dramas for years. In some ways, he is one of the longest-serving Doctors, despite his time on screen being so limited.
In 2013, a short film that tied into the 50th anniversary special “Day of the Doctor” was released online. It starred McGann as the Eighth Doctor reaching the end of his life and regenerating into the War Doctor played by the late John Hurt. Then, in “The Power of the Doctor,” McGann returned for a small part alongside Peter Davison (the Fifth Doctor), Colin Baker (the Sixth Doctor), and Sylvester McCoy (the Seventh Doctor) as part of the Doctor’s consciousness. McGann hasn’t aged very much and has been playing the character so long in audio dramas that he could easily step into his own limited streaming series and the fans would go crazy for it.
