Video
The hunger for more
Doctor Who on television, especially between the show's cancellation in 1989 and its return in 2005, was partly answered by
direct-to-video productions by various companies. The BBC has never authorised any
Doctor Who video productions but production companies have been able to license individual characters and alien races from the show directly from the writers who created them, and feature them in adventures of their own.
Companies who have released videos of this kind include
Reeltime Pictures (also known for the long-running
Myth Makers series of documentaries) and
BBV (who have also released a number of
Doctor Who-related audio adventures on the same basis). The first spinoff of this nature was
Wartime, a half-hour film produced by Reeltime in the late 1980s and starring
John Levene as Benton, a
UNIT soldier who appeared on
Doctor Who in the early to mid-1970s. In the 1990s, Reeltime distributed
P.R.O.B.E., a series of four made-for-video movies featuring
Caroline John as her Pertwee-era character,
Dr. Elizabeth Shaw. BBV, on their part, produced and released a trilogy of movies,
Auton,
Auton 2: Sentinel and
Auton 3 that featured UNIT battling the
Nestene Consciousness. Author
Terrance Dicks also wrote and produced
Shakedown: Return of the Sontarans in 1994, which not only featured the reappearance of one of the series' most famous monsters, but also starred series alums
Carole Ann Ford,
Sophie Aldred, and
Michael Wisher.
Jan Chappell played Lisa Deranne, captain of the solar racing yacht
Tiger Moth, whose shakedown cruise is interrupted by a
Sontaran attack squad furiously searching for a
Rutan infiltrator. Another spinoff,
Downtime, featured the return of
Nicholas Courtney as Brigadier (Ret.) Lethbridge-Stewart and
Elisabeth Sladen as Sarah Jane Smith, along with
Deborah Watling as Troughton-era companion Victoria Waterfield. More of a nostalgia trip for fans than anything,
Downtime provided a more detailed look at Lethbridge-Stewart's family and legacy than had ever been seen before.
Reeltime Pictures also produced two other
Doctor Who-universe related videos,
Mindgame and
Mindgame Trilogy.
In 1998 a video was released called
Lust in Space in which the "Time Assizes" (Time Lords) put
Doctor Who on trial for sexism. If it is found to be sexist, then it will be removed from history. None of the actors who had played the part of the Doctor took part. The "evidence" for the trial consists of short clips of interviews of some of the Doctor's female companions. Katy Manning (Jo Grant) and Sophie Aldred (Ace) are brought through time and space to testify in court. Former writers and producers such as Terrance Dicks and John Nathan-Turner are cross examined through video interviews on their part in making the show "sexist". There are no clips from
Doctor Who in the video.
BBV is also known for a number of productions that, while not using any elements from the show itself, tell a similar style of story and feature ex-
Doctor Who stars in roles similar to those they played in the series; these include a direct-to-video series starring
Colin Baker as "The Stranger", and a separate series of audio dramas starring
Sylvester McCoy as "The Dominie". In later episodes of
The Stranger, it was made clear that not only was the Stranger not the Doctor but that their backgrounds were not even remotely analogous. Some of this clarification appears to have been the result of BBC pressure.
Some contributors to these independent productions in the 1990s later contributed to the television series after its return. They include writer/performers
Mark Gatiss and
Nicholas Briggs and novelist/modelmaker
Mike Tucker.
