History Franchise / DoctorWhoExpandedUniverse

* Two novels featuring the Eighth, Ninth and Tenth Doctors, ''The Knight, the Fool and the Dead'' (October 2020) and ''All Flesh is Grass'' (December 2020)

* Two special-length Titan comics featuring the Tenth Doctor, simply entitled ''Time Lord Victorious'' (September 2020)

* ''Time Fracture'', a live "immersive experience" event by Immersive Anywhere (currently scheduled for February 2021, pandemic permitting)

** ''Return to Earth'': An action game for UsefulNotes/{{Wii}}.

* Four Creator/BigFinish audio dramas starring Paul [=McGann=] as the Eighth Doctor: ''He Kills Me, He Kills Me Not'' (October 2020), ''The Enemy of My Enemy'' (November 2020), ''Echoes of Extinction'' (November 2020; also featuring a B-side story starring David Tennant as the Tenth Doctor) and ''Mutually Assured Destruction'' (December 2020)

The Expanded Universe has branched in diverse ways into separate fully licensed and semi-official sub-continuities, divided (in some cases) by copyright restrictions. This is further complicated by the fact that no one person or company, including Creator/TheBBC, owns all the rights to the monsters and characters which have appeared in the Whoniverse - the Doctor and the TARDIS are pretty much the only elements undeniably locked up by the BBC. Sometimes the varying strands acknowledge each other, sometimes they ignore each other, DependingOnTheWriter. Just how strongly linked any given series is to the TV series is debatable and can be very, very complicated. Unlike, for example, Creator/ViacomCBS and ''Franchise/StarTrek'' or Creator/{{Lucasfilm}}[=/=]Creator/{{Disney}} and ''Franchise/StarWars'' the BBC has never come out and made a direct edict as to what is canonical and what isn't - as Creator/PaulCornell wrote about [[https://www.paulcornell.com/2007/02/canonicity-in-doctor-who/ here]], they have no interest in doing so (and BBC executives have no interest in fannish conceptions like "canon" anyway[[note]]And as Paul noted, as famous sticklers for grammar they'd object to people using "canon" as an adjective when it should be "canonical", too![[/note]]). The main limitation is that the BBC charter, as a public UsefulNotes/StateBroadcaster, means that you must not be required to spend money to "complete the story", which the modern ''Doctor Who'' showrunners have interpreted as meaning no viewer [[ContinuityLockout should be required to know a story outside the TV series or more than a few years old]] to understand this week's episode. Revived series showrunners Creator/RussellTDavies and Creator/StevenMoffat have both ridiculed the idea that the novels, audios and comics are not "real ''Doctor Who''". This is helped along by the fact that (unlike, say, ''Star Trek'') ''Doctor Who'' writers are rarely limited to one particular medium. TV writers have gone on to write novels or comics or for Creator/BigFinish and vice versa. Many writers have taken the characters they created and own into their own spinoffs with little or no mention of their common TARDIS-shaped ancestor.

* ''Literature/PastDoctorAdventures'': A range of novels by the BBC analogous to the Virgin Missing Adventures, featuring the first seven Doctors (and in one instance, the Eighth). Dropped in 2005, around the time of Creator/DavidTennant's debut, and has been revived beginning with ''The Wheel of Ice'' in 2012 (a 7-year release gap), with a new book every year, notable among them 2014's ''Engines of War'', the War Doctor's first Expanded Universe story.

* ''Franchise/IrisWildthyme'': Rogue (alleged) Time Lady, voiced by Katy Manning in the audios (who also played the Third Doctor's companion Jo Grant in the classic series), whose (alleged) TARDIS looks like a red double-decker London bus, smaller on the inside. She actually originated outside the Franchise/{{Whoniverse}} in a few [[MagicalRealism Magical Realist]] novels by Paul Magrs and got {{transplant}}ed into it. If you're looking for a Whovian equivalent of ComicBook/SquirrelGirl, here she is.

* ''Literature/DoctorWhoMeetsScratchman'': The novelisation of Tom Baker's screenplay for a proposed movie that never happened; adapted by Tom himself with help from James Goss.

The Expanded Universe has branched in diverse ways into separate fully licensed and semi-official sub-continuities, divided (in some cases) by copyright restrictions. This is further complicated by the fact that no one person or company, including Creator/TheBBC, owns all the rights to the monsters and characters which have appeared in the Whoniverse - the Doctor and the TARDIS are pretty much the only elements undeniably locked up by the BBC. Sometimes the varying strands acknowledge each other, sometimes they ignore each other, DependingOnTheWriter. Just how strongly linked any given series is to the TV series is debatable and can be very, very complicated. Unlike, for example, Creator/{{CBS}} and ''Franchise/StarTrek'' or Creator/{{Lucasfilm}}[=/=]Creator/{{Disney}} and ''Franchise/StarWars'' the BBC has never come out and made a direct edict as to what is canonical and what isn't - as Creator/PaulCornell wrote about [[https://www.paulcornell.com/2007/02/canonicity-in-doctor-who/ here]], they have no interest in doing so (and BBC executives have no interest in fannish conceptions like "canon" anyway[[note]]And as Paul noted, as famous sticklers for grammar they'd object to people using "canon" as an adjective when it should be "canonical", too![[/note]]). The main limitation is that the BBC charter, as a public UsefulNotes/StateBroadcaster, means that you must not be required to spend money to "complete the story", which the modern ''Doctor Who'' showrunners have interpreted as meaning no viewer [[ContinuityLockout should be required to know a story outside the TV series or more than a few years old]] to understand this week's episode. Revived series showrunners Creator/RussellTDavies and Creator/StevenMoffat have both ridiculed the idea that the novels, audios and comics are not "real ''Doctor Who''". This is helped along by the fact that (unlike, say, ''Star Trek'') ''Doctor Who'' writers are rarely limited to one particular medium. TV writers have gone on to write novels or comics or for Creator/BigFinish and vice versa. Many writers have taken the characters they created and own into their own spinoffs with little or no mention of their common TARDIS-shaped ancestor.

The Expanded Universe has branched in diverse ways into separate fully licensed and semi-official sub-continuities, divided (in some cases) by copyright restrictions. This is further complicated by the fact that no one person or company, including Creator/TheBBC, owns all the rights to the monsters and characters which have appeared in the Whoniverse - the Doctor and the TARDIS are pretty much the only elements undeniably locked up by the BBC. Sometimes the varying strands acknowledge each other, sometimes they ignore each other, DependingOnTheWriter. Just how strongly linked any given series is to the TV series is debatable and can be very, very complicated. Unlike, for example, Creator/{{CBS}} and ''Franchise/StarTrek'' or Creator/{{Lucasfilm}}[=/=]Creator/{{Disney}} and ''Franchise/StarWars'' the BBC has never come out and made a direct edict as to what is canonical and what isn't - as Creator/PaulCornell wrote about [[https://www.paulcornell.com/2007/02/canonicity-in-doctor-who/ here]], they have no interest in doing so (and BBC executives have no interest in fannish conceptions like "canon" anyway[[note]]And as Paul noted, as famous sticklers for grammar they'd object to people using "canon" as an adjective when it should be "canonical", too![[/note]]). The main limitation is that the BBC charter, as a public UsefulNotes/StateBroadcaster, means that you must not be required to spend money to "complete the story", which the modern DW showrunners have interpreted as meaning no viewer [[ContinuityLockout should be required to know a story outside the TV series or more than a few years old]] to understand this week's episode. Revived series showrunners Creator/RussellTDavies and Creator/StevenMoffat have both ridiculed the idea that the novels, audios and comics are not "real ''Doctor Who''". This is helped along by the fact that (unlike ''Franchise/StarTrek'', say) ''Doctor Who'' writers are rarely limited to one particular medium. TV writers have gone on to write novels or comics or for Creator/BigFinish and vice versa. Many writers have taken the characters they created and own into their own spinoffs with little or no mention of their common TARDIS-shaped ancestor.

Since the return of the TV series, ideas from a diverse range of audio dramas, novels, and licensed DTV videos have all been [[CallBack referenced,]] [[MythologyGag alluded to]], [[CanonImmigrant directly imported]] (most notably [[Characters/DoctorWhoUNITStaff Kate Stewart]]) and in some rare cases [[RecursiveAdaptation directly adapted]][[note]]Amusingly, the only direct, unambiguous adaptation of an old story to TV is Paul Cornell's own [[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E8HumanNature "Human Nature"]][[/note]] in TV series episodes. And many ExpandedUniverse stories and characters are adapted into ''other'' ExpandedUniverse stories and characters, which are then adapted for TV, which then spin off into more ExpandedUniverse stories... you get the idea. The TimeyWimeyBall, BroadStrokes and especially the MST3KMantra apply where necessary.

In short: the ''Doctor Who'' Expanded Universe is a never-ending rabbit hole of stories. It's all tangled and full of BroadStrokes, and those who expect consistency, or even, in some cases, sanity, are in for a confusing ride. But the sheer importance and impact of the ExpandedUniverse to the TV series proper is tremendous: numerous post-2005 Franchise/{{Whoniverse}} writers (and quite a few actors) got their start in ''Doctor Who'' in its expanded universe, and everyone involved with the current TV show has been heavily influenced by the EU's stories. In the years since the 50th Anniversary, the production team at the BBC have even aided the slow erasure of the boundaries between the "old" and "new" series, so that, for instance, Series 5 of ''Series/{{Torchwood}}'' is produced by Creator/BigFinish, [[Franchise/BerniceSummerfield Benny Summerfield]] can meet the Characters/TwelfthDoctor, and [[Magazine/DoctorWhoMagazine Abslom Daak]] can get a quick cameo [[Recap/DoctorWhoS34E5TimeHeist on the TV.]]

The Expanded Universe has branched in diverse ways into separate fully licensed and semi-official sub-continuities, divided (in some cases) by copyright restrictions. This is further complicated by the fact that no one person or company, including Creator/TheBBC, owns all the rights to the monsters and characters which have appeared in the Whoniverse - the Doctor and the TARDIS are pretty much the only elements undeniably locked up by the BBC. Sometimes the varying strands acknowledge each other, sometimes they ignore each other, DependingOnTheWriter. Just how strongly linked any given series is to the TV series is debatable and can be very, very complicated. Unlike, for example, Creator/{{CBS}} and ''Franchise/StarTrek'' or Creator/{{Lucasfilm}}[=/=]Creator/{{Disney}} and ''Franchise/StarWars'' the BBC has never come out and made a direct edict as to what is canonical and what isn't - as Creator/PaulCornell wrote about [[https://www.paulcornell.com/2007/02/canonicity-in-doctor-who/ here]], they have no interest in doing so (and BBC executives have no interest in fannish conceptions like "canon" anyway[[note]]And as Paul noted, as famous sticklers for grammar they'd object to people using "canon" as an adjective when it should be "canonical", too![[/note]]). The main limitation is that the BBC charter, as a public broadcaster, means that you must not be required to spend money to "complete the story", which the modern DW showrunners have interpreted as meaning no viewer [[ContinuityLockout should be required to know a story outside the TV series or more than a few years old]] to understand this week's episode. Revived series showrunners Creator/RussellTDavies and Creator/StevenMoffat have both ridiculed the idea that the novels, audios and comics are not "real ''Doctor Who''". This is helped along by the fact that (unlike ''Franchise/StarTrek'', say) ''Doctor Who'' writers are rarely limited to one particular medium. TV writers have gone on to write novels or comics or for Creator/BigFinish and vice versa. Many writers have taken the characters they created and own into their own spinoffs with little or no mention of their common TARDIS-shaped ancestor.

The Expanded Universe has branched in diverse ways into separate fully licensed and semi-official sub-continuities, divided (in some cases) by copyright restrictions. This is further complicated by the fact that no one person or company, including the BBC, owns all the rights to the monsters and characters which have appeared in the Whoniverse - the Doctor and the TARDIS are pretty much the only elements undeniably locked up by the BBC. Sometimes the varying strands acknowledge each other, sometimes they ignore each other, DependingOnTheWriter. Just how strongly linked any given series is to the TV series is debatable and can be very, very complicated. Unlike, for example, Creator/{{CBS}} and ''Franchise/StarTrek'' or Creator/{{Lucasfilm}}[=/=]Creator/{{Disney}} and ''Franchise/StarWars'' the BBC has never come out and made a direct edict as to what is canonical and what isn't - as Creator/PaulCornell wrote about [[https://www.paulcornell.com/2007/02/canonicity-in-doctor-who/ here]], they have no interest in doing so (and BBC executives have no interest in fannish conceptions like "canon" anyway[[note]]And as Paul noted, as famous sticklers for grammar they'd object to people using "canon" as an adjective when it should be "canonical", too![[/note]]). The main limitation is that the BBC charter, as a public broadcaster, means that you must not be required to spend money to "complete the story", which the modern DW showrunners have interpreted as meaning no viewer [[ContinuityLockout should be required to know a story outside the TV series or more than a few years old]] to understand this week's episode. Revived series showrunners Creator/RussellTDavies and Creator/StevenMoffat have both ridiculed the idea that the novels, audios and comics are not "real ''Doctor Who''". This is helped along by the fact that (unlike ''Franchise/StarTrek'', say) ''Doctor Who'' writers are rarely limited to one particular medium. TV writers have gone on to write novels or comics or for Creator/BigFinish and vice versa. Many writers have taken the characters they created and own into their own spinoffs with little or no mention of their common TARDIS-shaped ancestor.

The Expanded Universe has branched in diverse ways into separate fully licensed and semi-official sub-continuities, divided (in some cases) by copyright restrictions. This is further complicated by the fact that no one person or company, including the BBC, owns all the rights to the monsters and characters which have appeared in the Whoniverse - the Doctor and the TARDIS are pretty much the only elements undeniably locked up by the BBC. Sometimes the varying strands acknowledge each other, sometimes they ignore each other, DependingOnTheWriter. Just how strongly linked any given series is to the TV series is debatable and can be very, very complicated. Unlike, for example, Paramount and ''Franchise/StarTrek'' or Lucasfilm/Disney and ''Franchise/StarWars'' the BBC has never come out and made a direct edict as to what is canonical and what isn't - as Creator/PaulCornell wrote about [[https://www.paulcornell.com/2007/02/canonicity-in-doctor-who/ here]], they have no interest in doing so (and BBC executives have no interest in fannish conceptions like "canon" anyway[[note]]And as Paul noted, as famous sticklers for grammar they'd object to people using "canon" as an adjective when it should be "canonical", too![[/note]]). The main limitation is that the BBC charter, as a public broadcaster, means that you must not be required to spend money to "complete the story", which the modern DW showrunners have interpreted as meaning no viewer [[ContinuityLockout should be required to know a story outside the TV series or more than a few years old]] to understand this week's episode. Revived series showrunners Creator/RussellTDavies and Creator/StevenMoffat have both ridiculed the idea that the novels, audios and comics are not "real ''Doctor Who''". This is helped along by the fact that (unlike ''Franchise/StarTrek'', say) ''Doctor Who'' writers are rarely limited to one particular medium. TV writers have gone on to write novels or comics or for Creator/BigFinish and vice versa. Many writers have taken the characters they created and own into their own spinoffs with little or no mention of their common TARDIS-shaped ancestor.

** ''VideoGame/DestinyOfTheDoctors'': A PC adventure game in which you play a jellyish-esque creature who must rescue the first seven Doctors from the Master.

* ''Film/DrWhoAndTheDaleks'' (based on "The Daleks") and ''[[Film/DaleksInvasionEarth2150AD Daleks' Invasion Earth 2150 A.D.]]'' (based on "The Dalek Invasion of Earth"): Two colour, relatively high budgeted ''Doctor Who'' [[TheFilmOfTheSeries film adaptations]] from the 1960s. The films, starring Creator/PeterCushing, [[CompressedAdaptation shortened]] and dumbed down the stories, meaning that they cut out much {{Padding}}, but simplified the themes, softened the characters and overall made things LighterAndSofter. The Doctor underwent {{Flanderization}} into a human AbsentMindedProfessor ''[[IAmNotShazam literally]]'' [[IAmNotShazam called Dr. Who]] who had invented a time machine called ''TARDIS'' (no "the"). His grand-daughter Susan was de-aged to prepubescence and Barbara and Ian were changed from teachers to Doctor Who's grown-up elder grand-daughter and her incompetent PluckyComicRelief boyfriend. The second film replaced Barbara and Ian with Doctor Who's niece Louise and Tom Campbell, a bumbling policeman who anticipated a couple of TV companions by stumbling into ''TARDIS'' thinking it was a real police box. At least one comic and one prose spin-off short story have been officially published featuring the movieverse characters. Creator/BernardCribbins, who played Campbell, played Donna's grandfather Wilfred Mott in several Davies-era TV stories, decades later. Creator/StevenMoffat, showrunner of the main series, has cited the movie Daleks as inspiration for the Dalek design of series 5. Needless to say, they occur in a AlternateContinuity from the series, although more than one mainstream story has [[ATrueStoryInMyUniverse claimed they were actually in-universe films]] based on Ian and Barbara pitching their experiences as "fiction". The idea [[CanonImmigrant nearly became official]] in "Day Of The Doctor" but they couldn't get clearance to use the posters in time. Then the novelization of that episode restored it, and even added that the actual Doctor lent Creator/PeterCushing one of his coats because he was a big fan!

* Three Creator/BigFinish audio dramas starring Paul [=McGann=] as the Eighth Doctor: ''He Kills Me, He Kills Me Not'' (October 2020), ''The Enemy of My Enemy'' (November 2020) and ''Mutually Assured Destruction'' (December 2020)

* One other Big Finish release to be announced

** ''Campaign'': A novel by Jim Mortimore (he of [[Recap/BigFinishDoctorWho054TheNaturalHistoryOfFear "The Natural History Of Fear"]]), originally commissioned by the BBC but rejected due to being ''completely insane''. The book was instead released by Mortimore as a [[http://doctorwho.org.nz/archive/campaign/ fanzine]], violating the BBC's copyright, and ended up being well-loved by fans and writers alike and influencing a number of later stories.

* ''Lethbridge-Stewart'': A series of novels from Candy Jar Books about the adventures of Colonel Lethbridge-Stewart before his promotion to Brigadier. Notable for tackling the "UNIT Dating Problem" head-on, with the kind of explanation that could only happen in ''Doctor Who'' - namely, the 1970s [[TimeyWimeyBall happened twice.]]

* ''[[Twelve Doctors of Christmas]]'': A 2015 anthology telling Christmas-related short stories for each of the twelve main Doctors, each story written by a different author.

* ''[[Series/Class2016 Class]]'' novels.

* RefugeeFromTVLand: The ''DWM'' comic "TV Action!" (the title referencing a comics magazine in which early ''Doctor Who'' strips had appeared) has the Eighth Doctor and companion Izzy following a villain "into our world", ending up in the BBC studios. Where Creator/TomBaker himself distracts the villain allowing the heroes to save the day.

!! The Perennially Thorny Question of Doctor Who Canon

* ''Pinball/DoctorWho Pinball'': Creator/WilliamsElectronics published a physical pinball game where the Master and Davros team up to [[HurlItIntoTheSun hurl the first seven Doctors into the sun]] and only your pinball wizardry can rescue them and defeat the villains. [=FarSight=] Studios subsequently released a digital pinball game where the Master forms a LegionOfDoom of the Doctor's greatest enemies, and the Twelfth Doctor calls on his previous incarnations, and you the player, for help.

** ''Doctor Who: The Runaway'': A short, cartoony, VR adventure. You must help The Thirteenth Doctor rescue a small, lost, EnergyBeing from a squad of KnightTemplar SpacePolice.
** ''Doctor Who: The Edge of Time'': A VR Adventure Game. A strange new enemy is infecting all of Time & Space at once and The Thirteen Doctor is separated from the TARDIS. You, armed with the Sonic Screwdriver and the TARDIS, must race to find The Doctor and set this whole mess right, facing against a large section of the RoguesGallery in the process.

* Prime Computer: This American business computer manufacturer screened adverts [[{{Japandering}} in Australia and New Zealand]] at the turn of the 1980s, featuring Creator/TomBaker and Lalla Ward in character in brief skits as the Fourth Doctor and Romana. They are chiefly notorious among fans for the fourth and final advert, which overtly suggested a fully romantic relationship between the two characters. (This may have been a fourth-wall-breaking joke about the real-world marriage of the actors.) They are included on the DVD of "Destiny of the Daleks", although they can easily be found on Youtube. These were the only time that a TV advert has actually featured the Doctor in character, although Creator/JonPertwee once did a LawyerFriendlyCameo in a British ad for Vodafone.

In short: the ''Doctor Who'' Expanded Universe is a never-ending rabbit hole of stories. It's all tangled and full of BroadStrokes, and those who expect consistency, or even, in some cases, sanity, are in for a confusing ride. But the sheer importance and impact of the ExpandedUniverse to the TV series proper is tremendous: numerous post-2005 Franchise/{{Whoniverse}} writers (and quite a few actors) got their start in ''Doctor Who'' in its expanded universe, and everyone involved with the current TV show has been heavily influenced by the EU's stories. In the years since the 50th Anniversary, the production team at the BBC have even aided the slow erasure of the boundaries between the "old" and "new" series, so that, for instance, Series 5 of ''Series/{{Torchwood}}'' is produced by Creator/BigFinish, and [[Franchise/BerniceSummerfield Benny Summerfield]] can meet the Characters/TwelfthDoctor.

The Expanded Universe has branched in diverse ways into separate fully licensed and semi-official sub-continuities, divided (in some cases) by copyright restrictions. This is further complicated by the fact that no one person or company, including the BBC, owns all the rights to the monsters and characters which have appeared in the Whoniverse - the Doctor and the TARDIS are pretty much the only elements undeniably locked up by the BBC. Sometimes the varying strands acknowledge each other, sometimes they ignore each other, DependingOnTheWriter. Just how strongly linked any given series is to the TV series is debatable and can be very, very complicated. Unlike, for example, Paramount and ''Franchise/StarTrek'' or Lucasfilm/Disney and ''Franchise/StarWars'' the BBC has never come out and made a direct edict as to what is canonical and what isn't - as Creator/PaulCornell wrote about [[https://www.paulcornell.com/2007/02/canonicity-in-doctor-who/ here]], they have no interest in doing so (and BBC executives have no interest in fannish conceptions like "canon" anyway[[note]]And as Paul noted, as famous sticklers for grammar they'd object to people using "canon" as an adjective when it should be "canonical", too![[/note]]). The main limitation is that the BBC charter, as a public broadcaster, means that you must not be required to spend money to "complete the story", which the modern DW showrunners have interpreted as meaning no viewer [[ContinuityLockout should be required to know a story outside the TV series or more than a few years old]] to understand this week's episode. Revived series showrunners Creator/RussellTDavies and Creator/StevenMoffat have both ridiculed the idea of the novels, audios and comics not being "real ''Doctor Who''"[[note]]This is especially strange, given that Davies wrote a book for the New Adventures, and Moffat effectively canonized the audios by having the Eighth Doctor list his companions from those stories in his last televised story[[/note]]. This is helped along by the fact that (unlike ''Franchise/StarTrek'', say) ''Doctor Who'' writers are rarely limited to one particular medium. TV writers have gone on to write novels or comics or for Creator/BigFinish and vice versa. Many writers have taken the characters they created and own into their own spinoffs with little or no mention of their common TARDIS-shaped ancestor.

* NotSoHarmlessVillain: Every so often, a writer will decide to take on one of the TV series' more notorious joke villains and show them as genuinely dangerous. Some particularly glaring examples include [[spoiler:the Voord]] in ''ComicBook/DoctorWhoFourDoctors'', the ineffectual Donald Sumpter incarnation of Rassilon in ''ComicBook/DoctorWhoSupremacyOfTheCybermen'', the Monk '''twice''' in different canons in long-term story arcs in the Literature/DoctorWhoNewAdventures and AudioPlay/BigFinishDoctorWho, the Krotons in the Literature/EighthDoctorAdventures novel ''Alien Bodies'', and the Nimon in the Big Finish story ''Seasons of Fear''. ''ComicBook/DoctorWhoTheLostDimension'' outright parodied this in the Fourth Doctor's issue, in which the breakdown of the multiverse leads to the Fourth Doctor encountering alternate-universe versions of the Quarks, the Krotons, and the Ogrons, all of whom have become the dominent culture in their universes.

The Expanded Universe has branched in diverse ways into separate fully licensed and semi-official sub-continuities, divided (in some cases) by copyright restrictions. This is further complicated by the fact that no one person or company, including the BBC, owns all the rights to the monsters and characters which have appeared in the Whoniverse - the Doctor and the TARDIS are pretty much the only elements undeniably locked up by the BBC. Sometimes the varying strands acknowledge each other, sometimes they ignore each other, DependingOnTheWriter. Just how strongly linked any given series is to the TV series is debatable and can be very, very complicated. Unlike, for example, Paramount and ''Franchise/StarTrek'' or Lucasfilm/Disney and ''Franchise/StarWars'' the BBC has never come out and made a direct edict as to what is canonical and what isn't - as Creator/PaulCornell wrote about [[https://www.paulcornell.com/2007/02/canonicity-in-doctor-who/ here]], they have no interest in doing so (and BBC executives have no interest in fannish conceptions like "canon" anyway[[note]]And as Paul noted, as famous sticklers for grammar they'd object to people using "canon" as an adjective when it should be "canonical", too![[/note]]). The main limitation is that the BBC charter, as a public broadcaster, means that you must not be required to spend money to "complete the story", which the modern DW showrunners have interpreted as meaning no viewer [[ContinuityLockout should be required to know a story outside the TV series or more than a few years old]] to understand this week's episode. Revived series showrunners Creator/RussellTDavies and Creator/StevenMoffat have both ridiculed the idea of the novels, audios and comics not being "real ''Doctor Who''". This is helped along by the fact that (unlike ''Franchise/StarTrek'', say) ''Doctor Who'' writers are rarely limited to one particular medium. TV writers have gone on to write novels or comics or for Creator/BigFinish and vice versa. Many writers have taken the characters they created and own into their own spinoffs with little or no mention of their common TARDIS-shaped ancestor.

* ShoutOut: In one of the ''Adventures In Time and Space'' supplemental adventures, "Knight of the Comet", the only man with a sophisticated enough lab to analyze the wounds left by the Cyberknights is named [[Series/Merlin2008 Gaius, who is a cantankerous old man and has a well stocked medicine cabinet.]]

* ''Literature/DoctorWhoTheTargetStorybook'': A series of short stories for various Doctors written by various authors.

* NotSoHarmlessVillain: Every so often, a writer will decide to take on one of the TV series' more notorious joke villains and show them as genuinely dangerous. Some particularly glaring examples include [[spoiler:the Voord]] in ''ComicBook/DoctorWhoFourDoctors'', the ineffectual Donald Sumter incarnation of Rassilon in ''ComicBook/DoctorWhoSupremacyOfTheCybermen'', the Monk '''twice''' in different canons in long-term story arcs in the Literature/DoctorWhoNewAdventures and AudioPlay/BigFinishDoctorWho, the Krotons in the Literature/EighthDoctorAdventures novel ''Alien Bodies'', and the Nimon in the Big Finish story ''Seasons of Fear''. ''ComicBook/DoctorWhoTheLostDimension'' outright parodied this in the Fourth Doctor's issue, in which the breakdown of the multiverse leads to the Fourth Doctor encountering alternate-universe versions of the Quarks, the Krotons, and the Ogrons, all of whom have become the dominent culture in their universes.

* NotSoHarmlessVillain: Every so often, a writer will decide to take on one of the TV series' more notorious joke villains and show them as genuinely dangerous. Some particularly glaring examples include [[spoiler:the Voord]] in ''ComicBook/DoctorWhoFourDoctors'', the Monk '''twice''' in different canons in long-term story arcs in the Literature/DoctorWhoNewAdventures and AudioPlay/BigFinishDoctorWho, the Krotons in the Literature/EighthDoctorAdventures novel ''Alien Bodies'', and the Nimon in the Big Finish story ''Seasons of Fear''.