10 Nu-Who Storylines That Doctor Who Spin-Off Media Did First

When the series first came back in 2005, the destruction of Gallifrey was a bold statement of intent. It was Russell T Davies explicitly telling a fan audience that the convoluted Time Lord mythology was a thing of the past, and the series was going back to basics. When Steven Moffat revived Gallifrey, it was as a big celebration, before the Twelfth Doctor remembered why he left home in the first place.

Chris Chibnall's destruction of Gallifrey seemed to do the exact opposite. While it appeared to dispense with the Time Lords entirely, turning them into Cybermen, it was also fundamentally tied to convoluted mythology. The Doctor was the source material for the Gallifreyan's regeneration experiments and a whole rogue agency known as Division manipulated events. Rather than dispense with backstory, Chibnall's destruction doubled down on it, while also setting up a new mysterious birth origin for the Doctor.

However, Gallifrey has been destroyed and restored before. In 2000s The Ancestor Cell, the Eighth Doctor destroys Gallifrey to prevent a devastating future war, but not that one. The final novel in the range left the future of the Time Lords open-ended, the Eighth Doctor had everything he needed to restore Gallifreyan society, but the novel ends before he does. He needn't have bothered, he only has to destroy it again as the War Doctor.