6 Extended Media Characters Who Became Doctor Who Canon

Barry Rice is a writer at Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews - All the latest Doctor Who news and reviews with our weekly podKast, features and interviews, and a long-running forum.

When Big Finish announced this week that Jemma Redgrave would return as Kate Stewart in a new UNIT audio series, it represented a historic new precedent — the first time a character from new series Doctor Who (or NuWho, as we’re keen to call it) would be allowed to be used in extended media. What you may not have realized, though, is that Kate Stewart already represented a rare case in Who-dom: she’s one of the few characters to actually originate in extended media and then become canonized by the show itself.

So let’s take a look at those few characters who’ve made the leap from fandom to canon, starting with Ms. Stewart herself:

Kate Stewart

Jemma Redgrave first appeared on-screen as the Brigadier’s daughter (and now head of scientific research at UNIT) in 2012’s The Power of Three. The character herself, though, goes back much further than that. In 1995, Reeltime Pictures produced a direct-to-video feature titled Downtime, which starred Nicholas Courtney, Elisabeth Sladen, and Deborah Watling in their Doctor Who roles of the Brigadier, Sarah Jane Smith, and Victoria Waterfield, respectively. The production was not licensed by the BBC, so there were no direct references to the Doctor himself. One new character, however, was the Brig’s young daughter Kate, here played by Beverley Cressman. The following year, author Gary Russell borrowed the character for a brief appearance in his Virgin Missing Adventure novel, The Scales of Injustice. Cressman returned to the role in 2004 for another unlicensed direct-to-DVD production from Reeltime titled Dæmos Rising. Since inheriting the role, Redgrave’s Kate Stewart has since reappeared in the the 50th anniversary special The Day of the Doctor and in the Series 8 finale, Death in Heaven. Now that the character is appearing in her own extended media Big Finish audio series, she’s essentially come full circle.

Professor Arthur Candy

At the very end of the Series 6 episode Let’s Kill Hitler, we see River Song applying to study at Luna University in the year 5123. When the professor conducting her admissions interview asks why she has an interest in archaeology, River famously responds, “I’m looking for a good man.” Well, the man sitting in front of her is Professor Arthur Candy, and he was actually created 15 years earlier by showrunner Steven Moffat. His short story Continuity Errors appeared in 1996’s “Decalog 3″ collection and was Moffat’s first professionally published Doctor Who story. In it, Professor Candy attempts to give a lecture about the many harmful effects the Doctor has had on history but is interrupted when the Seventh Doctor himself whisks the professor away in an attempt to prove otherwise. Paul Cornell then used the character in 1997 when he wrote Oh No It Isn’t, the first of Virgin’s Bernice Summerfield New Adventure novels. The following year, an audio adaptation of Oh No It Isn’t became the first commercial product ever released by Big Finish Productions, with Professor Candy voiced by James Campbell.

Coloured Daleks

“Coloured Daleks” sounds weirdly racist to me, but I’m not sure what else to call them. In the mid-sixties, when Doctor Who was loosely adapted into the Peter Cushing films Dr. Who and the Daleks (1965) and Daleks’ Invasion Earth 2150 A.D. (1966), many visual changes were made to accomodate the larger budget and the wider technicolour screen. The most notable change was that the formally black-and-white Daleks were now brightly coloured in hues of red, black, and blue. Those props were later purchased by the BBC and used on the classic show itself. Now, fast-forward to 2010 and Series Five’s Victory of the Daleks. Steven Moffat and writer Mark Gatiss attempted to reinvent the Daleks for Matt Smith’s newly minted Eleventh Doctor by introducing “The New Dalek Paradigm.” In contrast to the dark bronzed Daleks of the Russell T. Davies era, the new Daleks were taller and, like their big-screen predecessors, featured brightly coloured armor, this time in hues of red, blue, yellow, orange, and white. Fortunately, the redesign was widely reviled by the fanbase, and Series Seven’s Asylum of the Daleks put the rainbow Daleks out to pasture.

Human Nature

The eighth & ninth episodes of Doctor Who‘s Third Series are unique in that they not only bring in characters from extended media, but the entire story itself is actually an extended media adaptation. “Human Nature” originated as a 1995 Seventh Doctor novel, part of Virgin’s New Adventures line. Russell T. Davies was a fan of the story, and asked author Paul Cornell to adapt it for television. A few changes later and it became the two-parter Human Nature/The Family of Blood. The most notable character to make the leap from page to screen was nurse Joan Redfern, the love interest of John Smith (AKA the Doctor). Joining her in translation were young student Timothy Latimer (known in the book as Timothy Dean) and headmaster Mr. Rocastle.

Charley, C’rizz, Lucie, Tasmin, Molly

Okay, technically that’s five separate characters, but bear with me. In 2013, just prior to the release of the 50th anniversary story, The Day of the Doctor, fans were given a special treat: the on-screen return of the Eighth Doctor, as portrayed by Paul McGann. The mini-episode The Night of the Doctor featured the never-before-told story of the Eighth Doctor’s regeneration. Before succumbing to his injuries, the Doctor accepts a chalice of Elixir from the Sisterhood of Karn and declares that the universe no longer needs a Doctor. But just before drinking the potion that will transform him into John Hurt’s “War Doctor,” the Eighth Doctor pays tribute to his former companions: Charley, C’rizz, Lucie, Tasmin, and Molly. Since the Eighth Doctor’s only other on-screen appearance was The TV Movie in 1996, all of those companions were actually created by Big Finish for their Eighth Doctor audio series. In one fell swoop, Steven Moffat single-handedly made them all (and, arguably, the adventures in which they appeared) canon.

Abslom Daak

The Series 8 episode Time Heist featured the Twelfth Doctor and Clara conned into a mission to rob the ultra-secure Bank of Karabraxos. In one scene, a photo montage of the worst criminals in history is flashed on a computer screen, including Torchwood‘s John Hart, A Town Called Mercy‘s Kahler-Tek, The Sarah Jane Adventures‘ Androvax, and a black-and-white drawing of a man named Abslom Daak. Daak first appeared in a four-part comic strip for Doctor Who Weekly called (appropriately enough) “Abslom Daak… Dalek Killer.” A human from the 26th century, Daak was convicted of “twenty-three charges of murder, pillage, piracy, massacre and other crimes too horrible to bring to the public attention.” As punishment, he was given the choice of being vaporised or being exiled as a Dalek killer. Not surprisingly, Daak chose Dalek Killer. Armed with his trusty chainsword, the ruthless Abslom Daak has had several encounters with the Doctor over the years. Time Heist made him the first Doctor Who comic character to become canon.

Did I miss anyone? Which extended media character would like to see made canon?

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