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| Version | User | Scope of changes |
|---|---|---|
| Mar 27 2007, 9:24 AM EDT (current) | Metabaron | 2 words added, 1 word deleted |
| Mar 27 2007, 9:23 AM EDT | Metabaron | 453 words added |
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Imagine a world where, on a foggy London Night in November, 1963, two teachers track down the guardian of an enigmatic pupil at their school, and stumble upon a mysterious time traveller and his fantastic shape-changing time machine, the TARDIS, trapped in the shape of a battered old police box, whisking them off to the farthest corners of time and space.
This is the Doctor Who universe, into which Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright became the first of many companions to travel with the timeless adventurer known only as the Doctor. Quickly moving beyond Earth and its past, the Doctor and his many companions discover such creatures as the daleks - ruthless alien killers, their twisted bodies trapped in metal shells swearing vengeance upon the universe; the Cybermen – emotionless cyborgs devoted to only one goal… survival, at any cost; and a whole host of human and alien cultures to which, eventually, we learn that even the Doctor himself belongs.
Forced to reveal his true nature as a Time Lord of Gallifrey, the Doctor is soon charged with protecting the Earth against an onslaught of alien invasions working, against his better judgement, with the paramilitary UNIT, defending a crucial nexus point in history until his own people allow him to roam time and space once more.
With more than 600 years' worth of adventures in ten uniquely different bodies, each an irascible eccentric defying his own stagnant culture to interfere wherever injustice calls, the Doctor has become a force of nature in the universe he inhabits.
Although there is no defined canon, it is accepted that all of the stories broadcast on television in the BBC TV series are set within the same core universe. These stories include the classic series broadcast between 1963 and 1989, the Fox TV movie broadcast in 1996, and the new series broadcast between 2005 and the present day.
Spin-off series such as K9 & Company, Torchwood and the Sarah Jane Adventures are similarly regarded as forming part of the core universe, while beyond the traditional broadcast medium, taster tardisodes created for mobile phones, interactive digital TV extras and broadcast animations produuced to compliment the new series are similarly accepted.
Beyond television broadcasts, the Doctor Who universe has been extended by a number of official and unofficial publications produced in different media including educational broadcasts, short stories, comic-strips, novellas, novelisations, novels, radio broadcasts, records, webcasts, CDs and DVD extras.
Unofficial spin-offs that have clear origins based upon characters and situations presented in official publications are similarly regarded as forming part of the expanded universe. These include various dalek products based on Terry Nation's creations, cyberman and cyberon audios based on Kit Pedlar and Gerry Davis' cybermen, the Kaldor City audios based on Chris Boucher's Robots of Death, New Adventures and Bernice Summerfield books and audios inspired by Virgin's licensed Doctor Who fiction, Faction Paradox books and audios based on characters and situations created for BBC Books' eighth Doctor range, and the Time Hunter novellas spun out of Telos's licenced Doctor Who fiction.
One other source linked to the Doctor Who universe through references made in both Virgin and BBC Books' fiction, is the Cthulhu Mythos,Mythos, whose gods and monsters have occasionally been adopted wholesale by various authors.
Less tenuous, and widely regarded as not forming part of the Doctor's universe, are those other fictional worlds with which connections have been made, but with whom the Doctor Who universe is regarded as wholly incompatible. These include:
Finally, the Doctor has been adopted into Philip Jose Farmer's Wold Newton universe, in which fictional characters exist and are related by blood to the survivors of a meteorite strike during the late 18th century.
This is the Doctor Who universe, into which Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright became the first of many companions to travel with the timeless adventurer known only as the Doctor. Quickly moving beyond Earth and its past, the Doctor and his many companions discover such creatures as the daleks - ruthless alien killers, their twisted bodies trapped in metal shells swearing vengeance upon the universe; the Cybermen – emotionless cyborgs devoted to only one goal… survival, at any cost; and a whole host of human and alien cultures to which, eventually, we learn that even the Doctor himself belongs.
Forced to reveal his true nature as a Time Lord of Gallifrey, the Doctor is soon charged with protecting the Earth against an onslaught of alien invasions working, against his better judgement, with the paramilitary UNIT, defending a crucial nexus point in history until his own people allow him to roam time and space once more.
With more than 600 years' worth of adventures in ten uniquely different bodies, each an irascible eccentric defying his own stagnant culture to interfere wherever injustice calls, the Doctor has become a force of nature in the universe he inhabits.
The Core Universe
Although there is no defined canon, it is accepted that all of the stories broadcast on television in the BBC TV series are set within the same core universe. These stories include the classic series broadcast between 1963 and 1989, the Fox TV movie broadcast in 1996, and the new series broadcast between 2005 and the present day.
Spin-off series such as K9 & Company, Torchwood and the Sarah Jane Adventures are similarly regarded as forming part of the core universe, while beyond the traditional broadcast medium, taster tardisodes created for mobile phones, interactive digital TV extras and broadcast animations produuced to compliment the new series are similarly accepted.
The Expanded Universe
Beyond television broadcasts, the Doctor Who universe has been extended by a number of official and unofficial publications produced in different media including educational broadcasts, short stories, comic-strips, novellas, novelisations, novels, radio broadcasts, records, webcasts, CDs and DVD extras.
Unofficial spin-offs that have clear origins based upon characters and situations presented in official publications are similarly regarded as forming part of the expanded universe. These include various dalek products based on Terry Nation's creations, cyberman and cyberon audios based on Kit Pedlar and Gerry Davis' cybermen, the Kaldor City audios based on Chris Boucher's Robots of Death, New Adventures and Bernice Summerfield books and audios inspired by Virgin's licensed Doctor Who fiction, Faction Paradox books and audios based on characters and situations created for BBC Books' eighth Doctor range, and the Time Hunter novellas spun out of Telos's licenced Doctor Who fiction.
One other source linked to the Doctor Who universe through references made in both Virgin and BBC Books' fiction, is the Cthulhu Mythos,Mythos, whose gods and monsters have occasionally been adopted wholesale by various authors.
The Extended Universe
Less tenuous, and widely regarded as not forming part of the Doctor's universe, are those other fictional worlds with which connections have been made, but with whom the Doctor Who universe is regarded as wholly incompatible. These include:
- The Blakes 7 Universe (referenced in the Kaldor City audios)
- The Hitchhiker Universe (whose own origins lay in Douglas Adams' time on Doctor Who)
- The Marvel Universe (which shares ownership of some characters as a result of Marvel UK's ownership of the Doctor Who comic licence between 1977 and 1995)
- The Star Trek Universe (through sneaky novel references in both Trek and Who literature)
- The Transformers Universe (through similar connections to Marvel UK and its Deaths Head character, and also through some sneaky novel references).
Finally, the Doctor has been adopted into Philip Jose Farmer's Wold Newton universe, in which fictional characters exist and are related by blood to the survivors of a meteorite strike during the late 18th century.
