Doctor Who has been running for almost 60 years, and like many other long-running science fiction programming, the show has found its way into other mediums. Films, TV spin-offs, books, audio plays, and comic books based on the adventures of the Doctor have all been made, with varying degrees of success, but there was one dimension the Doctor has had trouble breaking into, and that is the world of animation.
Star Trek had a cartoon series, set during the fourth year of the original 5 year mission from Filmation. There have been several series set at various times and places in the Star Wars universe, some of the more successful ones included Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Star Wars Rebels, and now, the Bad Batch. But Doctor Who’s excursions into cartoons have been extremely limited.
Animation has been helpful to recreate several of the lost episodes from the 1960s. Several serials where all the episodes are missing, like the Power of the Daleks (1966) or Fury From the Deep (1968), have been completed with animation. But when it comes to completely original content, until now, it has been very limited
The Daleks
The Daleks, mutated monsters inside their mechanical armor screeching “EX-TERM-I-NATE,” have been part of the series since practically day one, and now almost 57 years after they were introduced, they have their own animated series as part of 2020’s Time Lord Victorious multiplatform event.
Daleks! consist of five 10 minute episodes and will feature a star-studded voiceover cast with Nicholas Briggs (voice of the Daleks in the Doctor Who series) Joe Sugg (YouTube, Strictly Come Dancing), Anjli Mohindra (Bodyguard, The Sarah Jane Adventures), and Ayesha Antoine (Holby City). Daleks! will be available for fans to watch for free, weekly, on the Doctor Who YouTube channel
What might have been…
But oddly, there has never been a long-form animated series of Doctor Who. But for some reason, the BBC has decided not to continue to produce Doctor Who: The Animated Series. They have looked into it — at least twice. The first time was in 1990, right after the series went off the air, with Canadian animation studio Nelvana, who had made both Star Wars Droids and Star Wars Ewoks among many other 80s Saturday morning fare.
The proposed show would feature a new Doctor but borrowed a lot from the live-action series. Preproduction sketches based on actors like Peter O’Toole, Jeff Goldblum, and Christopher Lloyd were made, putting them in very Doctor-looking outfits with long coats, scarves, and funny hats. The TARDIS, Daleks, Time Lords, and even K-9 would all be there. The redesigns were made to increase the play value of toys that might be base on them. “We were instructed to make them as toyetic as possible,” said Ted Bastien, the supervising director at Nelvana who talked with the Toronto Blog about the animated series last year. “We went through a lot of development on it, then we were scripting and storyboarding it and about 4 scripts had been written. It happened really fast,” he explained.
Even the artwork we see here barely survived. Nelvana didn’t save any of it and we only got to see it because Bastien happened to save some copies.
Nelvana spent a considerable amount of time on developing, scripting, and storyboarding the show. But just as fast as they began work, it all ended. “It was pulled out from under us,” according to Bastien. A BBC executive showed up with a representative from a UK animation studio who claimed they could do it for much less, which, apparently, they couldn’t since no series ever materialized.
Looking forward by going back
In 2012, Thundercats reboot Art Director Dan Norton released a set of pre-production sketches for a pitched Doctor Who animated series. Norton described the series as “starting with the first Doctor, the series would have touched on all the versions and filled in some gaps.” Reportedly, this happened during the lead-up to the 50th anniversary. Ultimately, the BBC passed on the project again.
Norton shared some of his sketches on his Deviant Art page. As seen by the very preliminary sketches, they planned on working within the existing history of the show while adding to it, including a couple of new companions for the First Doctor, a young boy from the 1920s, and a 21st Century girl.
Norton completed these sketches which included only a handful of character and face studies. He created the pitch poster (above) featuring the 1st Doctor with his companions surrounded by Cybermen in seven hours before he met with the BBC. Unfortunately, this idea didn’t even get past the pitch:
We were so close… Had a few revisions creatively that were requested and so we retooled… End of the day, the BBC didn’t want anything to distract from the production of the TV show.
The rest of Norton’s sketches can be seen on his page.
Animated on the Web
Between 1999 and 2004, the BBC produced three “limited animation” Doctor Who stories for the web. First, there was Death Comes to Time starring Sylvester McCoy as the Seventh Doctor, Sophie Aldred as Ace, Stephen Fry as the Minister of Chance, and Anthony Stewart Head as St. Valentine. Then, partnering with Doctor Who Audio producers Big Finish, they made Real Time featuring Colin Baker as the Sixth Doctor and his audio adventures companion Evelyn Smythe, played by Maggie Stables. This was then followed by a revised version of the lost Douglas Adams story Shada re-written for Eighth Doctor Paul McGann, alongside Fourth Doctor companions Romana (Lalla Ward) and K-9 (John Leeson) All three were basically audio plays accompanied by animatic style drawings by Lee Sullivan.
The success of those, however, led BBC Interactive to commission Screams of the Shalka, an all-new series, with an all-new Doctor continuing the original series. Richard E. Grant (who briefly played the Doctor as part of the 1999 Red Nose day spoof “The Curse of Fatal Death,” and then played Dr. Simeon, host to the Great Intelligence, in the Doctor Who 2013 episode “The Snowman” opposite Matt Smith) voiced the Ninth Doctor, Sir Derek Jacobi played a robot version of the Master (long before he was cast as Professor Yana in “Utopia”) and Sophie Okonedo (better known to Doctor Who fans as Liz 10) as Alison. It featured original animation from Cosgrove Hall studios, famous for the Danger Mouse series. Only one story was produced. Shortly after, the BBC announced a new live-action series with Christopher Eccleston. With that, the Shalka Doctor disappeared into the timestream.
Other recent attempts
That isn’t to say there hasn’t been any animated Doctor Who. David Tennant’s Tenth Doctor was featured in two different animated serials. One was Dreamland, a six-part serial that aired as part of the BBC’s Red Button service in 2009. Along with Tennant, Dreamland stars included Georgia Moffett, Lisa Bowerman, and David Warner. The story has the Doctor involved in UFO sightings and Men in Black (no, not those MIB) in 1950s Nevada.
Before that, there was The Infinite Quest, which starred Tennant and companion Martha Jones, played by Freema Agyeman, going up against Anthony Stewart Head‘s Bathalzar in a search for the ancient starship, The Infinite.
Like Dreamland, it aired as a serial but this one ran for 13 weeks. Each 2+ minute episode aired as part of Totally Doctor Who, a behind-the-scenes program aimed at younger fans of the long-running show.
Of course, even though there has yet to be a real Doctor Who animated series, that hasn’t stopped fans from making their own Doctor Who animation. Paul “Otaking” Johnson created this amazing anime-style story using audio from various classic-era series episodes.
And then for something completely different, check out this one from Steve Loves the Internet creator Steven Byrne.
And of course, you can’t forget… DOCTOR PUPPET!
Would you watch a Doctor Who cartoon? Let us know! And make sure you come back here for more Doctor Who features during our Doctor Who in June event!
