History YMMV / DoctorWhoNewAdventures

* 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}}ed 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.

* OlderThanTheyThink: [[Recap/DoctorWhoS33E4ThePowerOfThree The Brigadier's female descendant also joins up with UNIT?]] Sorry, Kate, Kadiatu beat you to it.

* HarsherInHindsight: 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]]".

** The novel has one of the Aubertides tell Bernice he is the 10th Doctor, but she realises he isn't the Doctor as he eats meat. Later the 10th Doctor would be in the TV version of Human Nature, by which time the Doctor was no longer a vegetarian.

* OlderThanTheyThink: [[Recap/DoctorWhoS33E4ThePowerOfThree The Brigadier's female descendent also joins up with UNIT?]] Sorry, Kate, Kadiatu beat you to it.
* RescuedFromTheScrappyHeap: ''No Future'', the novel that served as the series' 30th anniversary special, brought back a villain and an alien race that were regarded by the fandom as ludicrous jokes, teamed them up, and showed how dangerous they could be in the right hands.

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

*** It also has the ArcWord, "[[Creator/PaulMcGann The Healer]] becomes [[Creator/JohnHurt the warrior]]".

* InternetBackdraft: The Looms. Oh Lord, the Looms. ''Cat's Cradle: Time's Crucible'' established that the Gallifreyans had been made sterile, and now used the Looms to create new Gallifreyans by combining their biodata. This did not go down well with a good chunk of fandom. They only showed up in a few books - ''Time's Crucible'', ''Human Nature'', and ''Lungbarrow'' - but the ''reaction''... Gallifreyan reproduction is SeriousBusiness.
** The New Adventures were never strangers to fan controversy and arguments; they introduced new and more 'adult' elements to the series, made the Doctor even darker and more of an AntiHero than he had been previously, adopted new spins and perspectives on the mythos and presented new ways of telling ''Doctor Who'' stories, many of which didn't sit well with the fan base at the time and caused a lot of online arguments. Unlike the Looms however, which still can cause punching fights to this day, with many of these other controversies it's often hard to see what all the fuss was about when looking back, as many of these elements have either been successfully incorporated into the mythos of the show as a whole and no one questions them (in the case of the ones that worked), they've just been gradually forgotten and ignored (in the case of the ones that didn't) or they just look a bit dated and silly to contemporary readers.

* 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.

* 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 it 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}}ed 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.

** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS33E4ThePowerOfThree The Brigadier's female descendent also joins up with UNIT?]] Sorry, Kate, Kadiatu beat you to it.

* 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 it was difficult to root for, and many of the best writers of the Frocks crowd, like Creator/PaulCornell or Creator/GarethRoberts, 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}}ed 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.

** The New Adventures were never strangers to fan controversy and arguments; they introduced new and more 'adult' elements to the series, made the Doctor even darker and more of an AntiHero than he had been previously, adopted new spins and perspectives on the mythos and presented new ways of telling ''Doctor Who'' stories, many of which didn't sit well with the fan base at the time and caused a lot of online arguments. Unlike the Looms however, which still can cause punching fights to this day, with many of these other controversies it's often hard to see what all the fuss was about when looking back, as many of these elements have either been successfully incorporated into the mythos of the show as a whole and no one questions them (in the case of ones that worked), they've just been gradually forgotten and ignored (in the case of ones that didn't) or they just look a bit dated and silly to contemporary readers.

* WhatDoYouMeanItsNotForKids: Many bookshops shelved the first few novels with the Literature/DoctorWhoNovelisations in the childrens' 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.

* HilariousInHindsight: ''Human Nature'' features a cameo by Creator/StevenMoffat as the school bursar.

* 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 AdventurerArcheologist, River Song, when Gary Russell couldn't use that character because it would have contradicted that year's ChristmasEpisode).

* 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.

** The New Adventures were never strangers to fan controversy and arguments; they introduced new and more 'adult' elements to the series, made the Doctor even darker and more of an AntiHero than he had been previously, adopted new spins and perspectives on the mythos and presented new ways of telling ''Doctor Who'' stories, many of which didn't sit well with the fan base at the time and caused a lot of online arguments. Unlike the Looms however, which still can cause punching fights to this day, with many of these other controversies it's often hard to see what all the fuss was about when looking back, as many of these elements have either been successfully incorporated into the mythos of the show as a whole and no one questions them (in the case of ones that worked, they've just been gradually forgotten and ignored (in the case of ones that didn't) or they just look a bit dated and silly to contemporary readers.

** The New Adventures were never strangers to fan controversy and arguments; they introduced new and more 'adult' elements to the series, made the Doctor even darker and more of an AntiHero than he had been previously, adopted new spins and perspectives on the mythos and presented new ways of telling ''Doctor Who'' stories, many of which didn't sit well with the fan base at the time and caused a lot of online arguments. Unlike the Looms however, which still can cause punching fights to this day, with many of these other controversies it's often hard to see what all the fuss was about when looking back, as many of these elements have either been successfully incorporated into the mythos of the show as a whole and no one questions them, or they just look a bit dated and silly to contemporary readers.

* HarsherInHindsight: 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 NicholasCourtney died in February 2011 after a long battle with cancer.

* EnsembleDarkhorse: Benny. In ''spades''. A companion for roughly two-thirds of the novels, she would later be the focus of [[BerniceSummerfield more novels]] once Virgin lost the Series/DoctorWho rights, then of a Creator/BigFinish audio-drama series.

* EnsembleDarkhorse: Benny. In ''spades''. A companion for roughly two-thirds of the novels, she would later be the focus of [[BerniceSummerfield more novels]] once Virgin lost the Series/DoctorWho rights, then of a BigFinish audio-drama series.

* 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[[hottip:*: In short, that the Seventh Doctor, "waiting" in the Sixth's mind, allowed the Rani to attack the TARDIS and bring on the regeneration]] 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.

* 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 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.