Canon

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The word "canon" is often used to describe which stories count as part of the Doctor Who Mythos. Although we do not accept that there is any official canon, and the correct word for the scope of Doctor Who stories is most probably "continuity", the word "canon" is widely used to mean "the stories I consider to count". This page, therefore, describes the extent of the "canon" of stories which this wiki is aiming to cover. The list below is almost certainly not complete, but serves as a guide for editors.

Contents

Criteria for Inclusion

There are three issues which define a story's canonical status.

Official Licensing

If a story is officially licensed by the BBC as a Doctor Who story, then it counts as canonical. If the story does not have a BBC license, but does feature characters who were created for a Doctor Who story, then it is canonical if it is officially licensed by whoever owns the relevant rights. Hence the Bernice Summerfield spin-offs, which do not need to be licensed by the BBC, can also be counted.

If a story falls into a grey area, then we should probably give it the benefit of the doubt. For example, Jim Mortimore's novel Campaign was dropped by the BBC after they had signed the contract for it. Although the novel was published independently, it still has a good claim to be officially approved. Craig Hinton's novel Time's Champion was verbally commissioned by the editor of BBC Books, but forgotten about. The novel was plotted by Craig and completed by his friend Chris McKeon (though much of the writing happened after Craig's death). We give it the benefit of the doubt.

A story can also be made official by association. Jon Blum's fan video Time Rift was not officially licensed. However, the eighth Doctor novel Vampire Science is very clearly a sequel to that story, hence we can assume that Time Rift is canon.

Release Status

If a story (or scenes from a story) has not been released, then it is not canon. Thus leaks and spoilers about forthcoming stories cannot be included here, nor can material that was written, recorded, or filmed, but which has never been made available to the public.

In Continuity or Unbound

Some officially licensed stories were never intended to be part of the ongoing story of the Doctor. Such stories are not considered strictly canonical. We will cover such stories in this wiki. However, all entries regarding such stories must be clearly marked and categorised as "Unbound", so that readers do not assume that these events happened in the mainstream Doctor Who continuity. The most prominent examples of such stories are the Peter Cushing Dalek movies and Big Finish's Unbound series of audios.

Canonical Stories

The following sets of stories are considered fully canonical

Televised Stories

Novels

  • The Target novelisations of televised stories. However, as retellings of the TV stories, they are considered alternative versions which may not be true. If the information in a novelisation contradicts that in the TV story, the televised version takes precedence.
  • The Companions of Doctor Who novels (though K9 and Company counts as a novelisation)
  • The three missing season novelisations
  • The four K9 picture books
  • The 1980s Find Your Fate books (although it's anyone's guess which version is the canonical one...)
  • The Virgin New Adventures, published from 1991-1997
  • The Virgin Missing Adventures, published from 1993-1997
  • Who Killed Kennedy, a one-off novel by Virgin
  • The 15 Doctor Who novellas published by Telos
  • The BBC Eighth Doctor Adventures published from 1997-2005
  • The BBC Past Doctor Adventures published from 1997-2005
  • The BBC New Series Adventures published from 2005 onwards, including the Quick Reads volumes
  • The new Decide Your Destiny novels (although, again, it's unclear which version of the story is canonical)

Webcasts

Audios

  • Doctor Who and the Pescatons, LP from 1976
  • Slipback, broadcast in 1985
  • The Paradise of Death, broadcast in 1993
  • The Ghosts of N-Space, broadcast in 1996
  • Big Finish's monthly series of Doctor Who audios
  • Big Finish's Eighth Doctor and Lucie stories, broadcast on BBC7
  • All of Big Finish's Doctor Who miniseries except for the Doctor Who Unbound audios
  • All stories on the free CDs given away with Doctor Who Magazine

Short Stories

Note that any short stories within a collection which tie into an Unbound story are considered Unbound regardless of the status of the rest of the collection.

  • Virgin Books' first three Decalog collections
  • BBC Books' three Short Trips collections, including the stories only available on the audiobook versions, and on the Earth and Beyond and Out of the Darkness audiobooks
  • Big Finish's Short Trips collections
  • All short stories from the Doctor Who Annuals and the Doctor Who Storybooks which have been published since 2005

Comic Strips

  • All comic strips written for Doctor Who Magazine and associated specials, yearbooks, or storybooks
  • All comic strips written for Doctor Who Adventures and the associated annuals
  • All comic strips written for Battles in Time
  • Some or all of the TV Comic and TV Century 21 comics (those featuring John and Gillian are clearly stated to have happened within the Land of Fiction. It's unclear what the status of the other stories is).

Stage Plays

  • The Ultimate Adventure (probably all three versions are somehow canonical)

Miscellaneous Stories

  • The stories collected on Sky Ray Ice Lolly wrappers

Unbound Stories

The following sets of stories are considered to be Unbound

The Cushing Movies

Dr Who and the Daleks and Daleks - Invasion Earth 2150 AD are both retellings of televised stories with a clearly different lead character to the one on TV. Hence they are Unbound stories.

Big Finish Unbounds

Big Finish's Doctor Who Unbound audios are clearly intended to be outside the canon.

Alternate Ninth Doctors

Although The Gallifrey Chronicles establishes that there are three ninth Doctors running about the Whoniverse, the stories which feature them are considered Unbound for the purposes of the Wiki. These stories are The Scream of the Shalka and The Curse of the Fatal Death.

Stage Plays

Doctor Who and the Daleks in the Seven Keys to Doomsday featured an alternative Doctor, and hence is Unbound.

Canonical Spin-Offs

There are a number of Doctor Who spinoffs which we count as canonical. There are probably a few more which need adding to this list.

K9 and Company

This one-off TV pilot from 1981 is unquestionably canon

Torchwood

The "adult" TV spinoff starring Captain Jack Harkness is canonical, as are the Torchwood novels.

The Sarah Jane Adventures

The spinoff series starring Sarah Jane Smith is canonical

Bernice Summerfield

There are a number of spinoff series starring Bernice Summerfield

  • The New Adventures published by Virgin books from 1997 to 1999
  • Decalog 4 (an anthology actually featuring the ancestors of Roz Forrester, included here for convenience)
  • The Judgement of Solomon from the Decalog 5 short story anthology
  • Big Finish's Bernice Summerfield novels, short stories, and novellas
  • Big Finish's Bernice Summerfield audios (with the possible exception of Season 1, which are rewrites of previous stories)

Time Hunter

Telos's Time Hunter novellas follow on from their Doctor Who novella The Cabinet of Light, although as it features an unknown future Doctor, they might technically be Unbound.

Kaldor City

The Kaldor City audios follow on from The Robots of Death and Corpse Marker

Faction Paradox

The Faction Paradox books, audios, and comic strips pick up the story of the War in Heaven which was dropped (and possibly unhappened) from the Eighth Doctor novels.

Other Fictional Universes

There have been a number of crossover stories between the Whoniverse and other fictional universes over the years. Obviously the crossover stories themselves are chronicled in this wiki. In certain cases the whole of that other fictional universe can be considered to be canonical, and hence eligible for inclusion. All entries related to such stories must, however, be clearly marked as being part of that other universe.

Canonical Universes

The following fictional universes are considered fully canonical

Blake's Seven

Corpse Marker and the Kaldor City audios clearly follow on from Blake's Seven and there is no evidence to deny that this is the same universe.

The Quatermass Continuum

There have been a number of sly references to the Quatermass stories. The most blatant was the appearance of Bernard Quatermass in The Dying Days. There have been no indications that these are not the same continuity.

Non-Canonical Universes

The following fictional universes are considered non-canonical. References must be strictly restricted to crossover stories, although it is acceptable to note that crossover elements originate in the other fictional universe. It is also acceptable to note aspects of these universes that are referred to as fictional within a canonical story.

Star Trek

There have been a few novels which make sly references to Star Trek as if it were part of the Whoniverse. However the evidence overwhelmingly shows that it is a TV Show within the Whoniverse. These include Benny talking about one of the films in The Dying Days, both Izzy and Destrii watching the show in Oblivion and Rose Tyler commenting about Mr Spock in The Empty Child.

The Marvel Universe

When Marvel Comics owned Doctor Who Magazine there were occasional stories where the Doctor would meet characters from the Marvel Universe, most famously Merlin and Death's Head. There have also been a few sly references to Marvel characters within some of the books. References to various Marvel comics as comics aren't conclusive, as these exist within the Marvel Universe as well. However, it is quite obvious that contemporary Earth is not crawling with Marvel-style superheroes (or DC ones for that matter). The local galactic/intergalactic empires that are a huge part of the Marvel Universe are similarly absent from the Whoniverse. Finally, putting the UNIT dating issue aside, there is no evidence that the Earth of the Whoniverse is suffering from the "sliding timescale" that slows down ageing within Marvel's comics. Furthermore, even if it could be conclusively shown that the Marvel Universe was part of the Whoniverse, it's so big that including it in this wiki would drown out the Doctor Who material.

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