10 Ways That Doctor Who Was Better In The 1990s

6. The Virgin New Adventures Novels

With the future of Doctor Who still uncertain, Virgin Publishing inherited the licence for the show when they acquired W.H Allen, the publishers responsible for the legenedary Target range of novelisations. Peter Darvill-Evans recognised the dwindling number of Doctor Who stories left to be novelised, and eventually convinced the BBC to licence a new range of continuing adventures for the Seventh Doctor and Ace.

The novels were more adult in tone, which could occasionally lead to jarring tonal clashes akin to Torchwood's awkward first season. When the books were good, however, they were very good indeed. Paul Cornell's Human Nature was eventually adapted into a David Tennant story while other new series writers like Mark Gatiss, Gareth Roberts, Steven Moffat, and Russell T Davies got their first licensed Doctor Who work published via Virgin.

As well as Human Nature, a lot of elements from the New Adventures, and latterly the Missing Adventures would feature in the revived series, proving that the novels were truly laying the groundwork for a modern version of Doctor Who. When Paul McGann's TV Movie was announced, the BBC took back the licence to publish their own range of Eighth Doctor and Past Doctor novels, but there was another, much more exciting Eighth Doctor series taking place elsewhere...