Television
The first spin-off attempt that actually reached the production stage appeared in 1981, when a 50-minute pilot episode for a series to be called K-9 and Company was aired. It focused on the adventures of former Doctor Who companions Sarah Jane Smith and K-9, a robot dog. The pilot, subtitled "A Girl's Best Friend", despite receiving high ratings of 8.4 million, was not commissioned for a development into a series, though Sarah Jane and K-9 would later reappear together on the main Doctor Who series and her adventures would be continued in audio form by Big Finish Productions in the 2000s.
Since the return of Doctor Who in 2005, the show was accompanied by a documentary series, Doctor Who Confidential. In 2011, BBC Three cut several shows, including "Confidential" to free up space for new programming.
On 17 October 2005, The Independent reported that the BBC had commissioned Davies to produce a 13-part spin-off series titled Torchwood. The first episode aired 22 October 2006 and received a record BBC Three (and all British cable television record for a locally produced non-Sporting event) high rating of 2.4 million viewers. It is set in modern-day Cardiff and revolves around a team investigating alien activities and crime. The series features John Barrowman playing former Ninth Doctor companion Jack Harkness, police officer Gwen Cooper, computer expert Toshiko Sato, medic Owen Harper and "support man", Ianto Jones. This is the first Doctor Who spin-off to be commissioned as a full television series. The first series (Oct '06-Jan '07) was then followed by a second 13 part series (Jan '08-Apr '08), and a third 5 part mini-series titled "Children of Earth" which aired on 5 consecutive nights from 6–10 July 2009. A fourth season was confirmed in mid 2010 for a mid-late 2011 release. The fourth series premiered on July 8, 2011 on Starz in the U.S. and on July 14, 2011 on BBC One in the U.K.
The 2006 and 2007 series were companioned with a CBBC show entitled Totally Doctor Who. Series 1 was presented by CBBC and Smile presenter Barney Harwood and Blue Peter presenter Liz Barker. For the shows second series Barker was replaced by SMart presenter Kirsten O'Brien. During the second series, an animated serial, The Infinite Quest, was featured. David Tennant and Freema Agyeman reprised their roles from the live-action television series while Anthony Head, a guest star during the 2006 season, returned as the enemy.
On April 24, 2006 The Independent, the Daily Star and The Times confirmed, following previous rumours, that K-9 would be featured in a 26-part computer-animated children's series, K-9, to be written by Bob Baker. The article in The Times also featured a picture of the redesigned K-9 for the animated series. Each episode will be 30 minutes long, made by Jetix Europe and London-based distribution outfit Park Entertainment. According to a report in Broadcast magazine, the BBC opted out of involvement in order to focus on Torchwood, meaning that BBC-owned characters are unlikely to appear in the series. K-9 Premiered October 31, 2009. The 26th and final episode aired September 25, 2010.
A 60-minute pilot episode of a spin-off starring Elisabeth Sladen as the Doctor's former companion Sarah Jane Smith, The Sarah Jane Adventures co-written by Davies and Gareth Roberts debuted on BBC One and the CBBC Channel on New Year's Day 2007; a full series started on 24 September 2007. Sarah Jane's Alien Files a spin off of The Sarah Jane Adventures, aired with the fourth season of that show in 2010.
A second animated serial, Dreamland, aired on CBBC in Autumn 2009. Tennant voiced the Tenth Doctor, and the serial also starred Georgia Moffett (who appeared in Doctor Whos 2008 series as the Doctor's daughter, Jenny).
Read more about this topic: Doctor Who Spin-offs
Famous quotes containing the word television:
“What is a television apparatus to man, who has only to shut his eyes to see the most inaccessible regions of the seen and the never seen, who has only to imagine in order to pierce through walls and cause all the planetary Baghdads of his dreams to rise from the dust.”
—Salvador Dali (1904–1989)
“... there is no reason to confuse television news with journalism.”
—Nora Ephron (b. 1941)
“Television ... helps blur the distinction between framed and unframed reality. Whereas going to the movies necessarily entails leaving one’s ordinary surroundings, soap operas are in fact spatially inseparable from the rest of one’s life. In homes where television is on most of the time, they are also temporally integrated into one’s “real” life and, unlike the experience of going out in the evening to see a show, may not even interrupt its regular flow.”
—Eviatar Zerubavel, U.S. sociologist, educator. The Fine Line: Making Distinctions in Everyday Life, ch. 5, University of Chicago Press (1991)