History YMMV / DoctorWhoNewAdventures

* EnsembleDarkhorse: Benny. In ''spades''. A companion for roughly two-thirds of the novels, she would later be the focus of [[Franchise/BerniceSummerfield more novels]] once Virgin lost the ''Series/DoctorWho'' rights, then of a Creator/BigFinish audio-drama series. Most recently, she met the ''Twelfth'' Doctor in the 2015 novel ''Big Bang Generation'' (her inclusion was a last-minute substitute for another AdventurerArchaeologist, River Song, when Gary Russell couldn't use that character because it would have contradicted "[[Recap/DoctorWho2015CSTheHusbandsOfRiverSong The Husbands of River Song]]").

** In ''Happy Endings'', written in 1996 but set in April 2010, the aging [[TheBrigadier Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart]] is dying of cancer and hoping to keep living for another year. Fortunately, in the course of the story, the Brig is rejuvenated and does not die. Sadly, in RealLife, the Brigadier's actor Creator/NicholasCourtney died in February 2011 after a long battle with cancer.
** ''The Left-Handed Hummingbird '' (1993) has the Doctor get put on a gurney and wheeled into a morgue with "John Doe" on his toe tag, exactly what would happen to him after his death in the 1996 movie. It also has the ArcWords, "[[Creator/PaulMcGann The Healer]] becomes [[Creator/JohnHurt the warrior]]".

** ''Human Nature'' features a cameo by Creator/StevenMoffat as the school bursar.
** The novel has one of the Aubertides tell Bernice he is the Tenth Doctor, but she realises he isn't the Doctor as he eats meat. Later the Tenth Doctor would be in the TV version of "Human Nature", by which time the Doctor was no longer a vegetarian.
** The mention of "Councillor Ph'Roch" in ''First Frontier'' would just have been a throwaway pun at the time. But since the publication of ''Literature/MonstrousRegiment'', it's got an additional aspect -- Ph'Roch is yet another military officer with an item of clothing named after him.
** ''The Dying Days'' establishes Queen Elizabeth II's re-coronation (she had been temporarily deposed by invading Ice Warriors) marked the start of the New New Elizabethan Age, a popular naming convention for [[Recap/DoctorWhoS28E1NewEarth five billion years]].

* RescuedFromTheScrappyHeap: ''No Future'', the novel that served as the series' 30th anniversary special, brought back a villain (the Meddling Monk) and an alien race (the Vardans) that were regarded by the fandom as ludicrous jokes, teamed them up, and showed how dangerous they could be in the right hands. (While simultaneously - because this is Creator/PaulCornell, the frockiest of the frocks - being giddily affectionate about how silly they were in the first place.)

* TearJerker: The denouement of ''Love and War''. Watching the relationship between Ace and the Doctor disintegrate is ''brutal''.

* WhatDoYouMeanItsNotForKids: Many bookshops shelved the first few novels with the Literature/DoctorWhoNovelisations in the children's section, until Virgin pointed out that the way the novels were developing meant that it wasn't a good idea. Reported to have been consciously averted by Creator/RussellTDavies when the BBC wanted to reissue ''Damaged Goods'' to take advantage of his fame as the ShowRunner of the revived series - he flatly told them that he didn't want child fans of the TV show reading it.
* WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds: The Monk. In [[spoiler:''No Future'']], just not so successfully at actually accomplishing this.

* RonTheDeathEater: Does this to the Sixth Doctor.

* AuthorsSavingThrow:
** The New Adventures offered two different explanations of the Sixth Doctor's [[DroppedABridgeOnHim perfunctory]] [[Recap/DoctorWhoS24E1TimeAndTheRani death and regeneration]]. The first was convoluted and {{wangst}}y[[note]]In short, that the Seventh Doctor, "waiting" in the Sixth's mind, allowed the Rani to attack the TARDIS and bring on the regeneration[[/note]] and firmly squished by the second, which dismissed it as an impossible story the Seventh Doctor had subconsciously persuaded himself of because he, TheChessmaster, couldn't face having died in such a pointless and random way.
** ''Lungbarrow'', written after [[Recap/DoctorWhoTVMTheTVMovie the TV Movie]] debuted as a transition to it from the novels, offers a solution to the 'Half-Human' plot element that caused a fan backlash. The end of the book reveals that Leela is pregnant with Andred's child. The Doctor, amused, tells them to name the child after himself. It is implied that this half-Human, half-Gallifreyan child grows up, steals a TARDIS somewhere in the 24 years other works have confirmed to have passed between "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS15E6TheInvasionOfTime The Invasion of Time]]" and ''AudioPlay/{{Gallifrey}}'' (this book is set a year after the TV episode), has his own adventures and then goes back into Gallifrey's past and becomes the Other. ''Then'', he throws himself into a Loom and is reborn as the Doctor ten million years later, meaning that the memories of parents the Doctor refers to in the TV Movie are actually the Other's.

* DorkAge: The second half of the series, when everything got so much DarkerAndEdgier it was difficult to recognize it as ''Doctor Who''; Ace was converted into a NinetiesAntiHero, the Doctor was increasingly flipping between being a DemotedToExtra PinballProtagonist or a batshit insane Machiavellian KnightTemplar that was difficult to root for, and many of the best writers of the Frocks crowd, like Creator/PaulCornell or Gareth Roberts, had stopped writing books for the line. Production problems led to ''So Vile a Sin'', the book that [[spoiler:killed off Roz]], coming out after the books in which she was dead.

* RescuedFromTheScrappyHeap: ''No Future'', the novel that served as the series' 30th anniversary special, brought back a villain (the Meddling Monk) and an alien race (the Vardans) that were regarded by the fandom as ludicrous jokes, teamed them up, and showed how dangerous they could be in the right hands.

** The mention of "Councillor Ph'Roch" in ''First Frontier'' would just have been a throwaway pun at the time. But since the publication of ''Discworld/MonstrousRegiment'', it's got an additional aspect -- Ph'Roch is yet another military officer with an item of clothing named after him.

* DorkAge: The second half of the series, when everything got so much DarkerAndEdgier it was difficult to recognize it as ''Doctor Who''; Ace was converted into a NinetiesAntiHero, the Doctor was increasingly flipping between being a DemotedToExtra PinballProtagonist or a batshit insane Machiavellian KnightTemplar that was difficult to root for, and many of the best writers of the Frocks crowd, like Creator/PaulCornell or Gareth Roberts, had stopped writing books for the line. TV companions from earlier eras like Liz Shaw and Dodo were getting StuffedInTheFridge in {{Narm}}fully mean-spirited ways while others were getting [[{{Revision}} revised]] as child rape survivors or catching space-[=STDs=], and production problems led to ''So Vile a Sin'', the book that [[spoiler:killed off Roz]], coming out after the books in which she was dead.
* EnsembleDarkhorse: Benny. In ''spades''. A companion for roughly two-thirds of the novels, she would later be the focus of [[Franchise/BerniceSummerfield more novels]] once Virgin lost the Series/DoctorWho rights, then of a Creator/BigFinish audio-drama series. Most recently, she met the ''Twelfth'' Doctor in the 2015 novel ''Big Bang Generation'' (her inclusion was a last-minute substitute for another AdventurerArchaeologist, River Song, when Gary Russell couldn't use that character because it would have contradicted that year's ChristmasEpisode).

'''WARNING! THERE MAY BE UNMARKED SPOILERS!'''