Trivia / Doctor Who New Adventures

• Contractual Immortality:
  • The NA creators had (perhaps only semi-seriously?) discussed regenerating the Seventh Doctor into a Doctor "played" by David Troughton, the son of Patrick Troughton. The BBC did not allow them to do it, partly because of their conflicting plans to introduce Paul McGann as the new Doctor in the then-upcoming TV movie.
  • Also played with in the final Doctor Who New Adventure, The Dying Days, at the time of which a rumor went around to the effect that Virgin were going to spite the BBC by killing the Doctor off. It features quite a bit of foreshadowing to that effect, starting, obviously, with the title. The Doctor is apparently killed halfway through, but it's a Never Found the Body situation and he shows up alive and well in the climax, just in time to save the day.
• Creator Backlash:
  • Paul Cornell hated No Future, calling it the worst book he'd ever read.
  • Doctor Who Magazine writer Scot Gray hated having to share a continuity, since he thought they were appealing to a smaller audience than their own.
  • Gareth Roberts described his three books as "one good, one okay, one terrible".
• Creator's Favourite Episode:
  • Gareth Roberts named The Highest Science as his favourite of the three books he wrote for the series.
  • Paul Cornell referred to Human Nature as "my Sgt. Pepper"
• Creator's Pest: Gary Russell hated Chris and Roz, going so far as to call them the worst characters ever.
• Dawson Casting: Played with as at least one writer in the early novels described Ace (around 18 when the TV series concluded and played by Sophie Aldred, an actress in her late twenties) as in her twenties. This might indicate that a couple of years have passed since the first NA (though apparently haven't) or could explain why Aldred did not exactly look like a teenager.
• Development Gag: Lungbarrow reveals that the Doctor and Susan aren't actually related. In the early stages of the television show, they weren't related until someone pointed out that an old man travelling around with a teenager girl raised all kinds of questions.
• Exiled from Continuity: The Daleks are mentioned but never actually make an appearance, as the rights were separately owned by Terry Nation, with whom Virgin was unable to agree upon terms for their use.
• Milestone Celebration:
  • The 50th New Adventure, Happy Endings, marked the occasion with Benny's wedding, with characters from most of the previous books turning up, plus a chapter featuring contributions from almost every author in the range up to that point, apart from Jim Mortimore.
  • The New Adventures also celebrated the 30th anniversary of the TV series with a five-part story arc, published in late 1993 and early 1994, in which the Doctor faced a series of old enemies.
• Promoted Fanboy: The editors of the series made a point of being accessible to first-time authors—going so far as to recruit them from fanzines and the like—which led to quite a few of the novels being written by fans. Some names you might recognise: Paul Cornell, Mark Gatiss, Russell T Davies...
• Shrug of God: Just War mentions that UNIT, the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce, had a predecessor organisation under the League of Nations called LONGBOW. The novel never explains what LONGBOW is short for, and the author has admitted that he just picked a suitably resonant word beginning with "LON" and never bothered to fill out the acronym.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Virgin at one stage, until The BBC rejected the idea, considered having the Seventh Doctor regenerate into an Eighth incarnation, who on cover illustrations would have been visually based on David Troughton, son of Patrick Troughton. According to Paul Cornell, the idea was reasonably far in development before the BBC put a stop to it due to their own conflicting plans to introduce their own Eighth Doctor, Paul McGann, in the then-upcoming TV movie. Midway through a story, the Seventh Doctor was to die a shockingly gory, ignoble death after stepping on a landmine and slowly regenerate From a Single Cell in a cocoon from the TARDIS (ironically, not too dissimilar from Seven getting randomly gunned down by gangsters in the movie), only for his next incarnation to be a tall, muscular, square-jawed Gentle Giant, constantly holding back his true strength to avoid accidentally breaking things — or people. His personality and physicality would've completely contrasted the unfettered, scheming chessmaster that was the Seventh Doctor.
  • Several of the novels were based on story ideas that had originally been pitched for the TV series, but had failed to make the cut for various reasons. Possibly the one that made it closest to getting on the air was Ben Aaronovitch's Transit, which was actively being considered until he put it aside after being offered the chance to write the big 25th anniversary Dalek story. Marc Platt's pitch that became Cat's Cradle: Time's Crucible was turned down because it went way beyond what could be achieved on the show's budget. Several different accounts have been given for why Platt's Lungbarrow didn't make the cut, although several aspects of it received a positive reception and were retained into Platt's successful next pitch, "Ghost Light".
  • The original plan for So Vile A Sin was to have an incredibly powerful and evil being living in the core of the Earth. This would tie back to stories like Inferno and The Dalek Invasion of Earth and show that the Doctor had unknowingly been fighting against it for a long time. This was abandoned when Kate Orman took over the book, though the scene with the Empress of the Earth Empire may been a retooled version of it.
  • Lance Parkin wrote four possible epilogues for The Dying Days which were rejected. Two featured the 42nd Doctor, a far-future incarnation from his own fanfic, and editor Rebecca Levine said there was "no way on God's Earth" he was getting away with that. One was the same idea, but with a much older Eighth Doctor. And one was completely different and featured Chris Cwej and the Timewyrm, and even he hated that one.

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