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Spin-off central

Updated: Jun 24, 2019


Kaldor City Taren Capel

Obviously, characters like K9 or Benny have gone on to star in their own TV series, book ranges and/or audio releases, and the Daleks and Cybermen have had their own comic strips, but I can't think of many worlds or environments, excluding Gallifrey, which have provided as much inspiration as the world of 'The Robots of Death', which, for lack of any better idea, I'm going to call Kaldor.


To my knowledge, the tally stands at:

  • Steve Moore and John Stokes, 'Crisis on Kaldor' (Marvel, 1981) - a one-off DWM back-up strip

  • Chris Boucher, Corpse Marker (BBC, 1999) - a Past Doctor novel

  • Various, Kaldor City (Magic Bullet, 2001-11) - eight audioplays and a 2006 short story

  • Nicholas Briggs, Robophobia (Big Finish, 2011) - an audioplay

making a grand total of 12 stories.


It's competition, again relying on what I can think of checking off the top of my head, comprises


PELADON

  • Brian Hayles, 'The Monster of Peladon' (BBC, 1974)

  • Gary Russell, Legacy (Virgin, 1994) - a New Adventure novel

  • Barnaby Edwards, The Bride of Peladon (Big Finish, 2008) - an audioplay

  • Cavan Scott and Mark Wright, The Prisoner of Peladon (Big Finish, 2009) - a Companion Chronicle

  • [plus Colin Brake, Darksmith: The Graves of Mordane (BBC, 2009) - but this one's tenuous, more a reference than a spin-off, so I'm not having it]

so four stories after the first, and


VORTIS

  • Neville Main, 'On the Web Planet' (Polystyle Publications, 1965) - a six-part TV Comic strip

  • David Whitaker, 'The Lair of the Zarbi Supremo' (World Distributors, 1965) - the first story in the first Doctor Who annual (1966)

  • Unknown, 'The Lost Ones' (World Distributors, 1965) - the third story in the first Doctor Who annual (1966)

  • Warwick Gray and Charlie Adlard, 'The Naked Flame' (Marvel, 1994) - a comic strip in the Doctor Who Yearbook 1995

  • Christopher Bulis, Twilight of the Gods (Virgin, 1996) - a Missing Adventure novel

  • Daniel O'Mahony, Return to the Web Planet (Big Finish, 2008) - an audioplay

  • Unknown, 'The Dream' (BBC, 2014) - a short story from The Shakespeare Notebooks

which is seven on top of the initial TV story. And in neither case does anything resembling a range ever start to threaten.


I'd actual venture that the true winner of the spin-off competition was


FACTION PARADOX

but then I might actually have to count all the Benny stuff, anything involving UNIT and, frankly, all of Torchwood, so I might just let it lie there.


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