7 Doctor Who Spin Off Characters That Need To Be In The TV Series

5. Iris Wildthyme

Forget River Song - imagine an out-for-wild-fun Time Lady with her own double decker bus-shaped TARDIS (that's inconveniently smaller on the inside). Add to that countless spurious claims that she's the one actually responsible for many of the things the Doctor says he did and the chances are, she and the Doctor would get on about as well as a cat and dog. The lady in question is Iris Wildthyme, star of some of the better BBC Eighth Doctor books, Obverse's various anthologies and a whole bunch of audio stories to boot. Like Brax, her inclusion is only practical once Gallifrey returns but once the embargo on new Time Lord characters is removed, Iris would bring a whole bunch of crazy to televised Doctor Who, invigorating even the weakest story merely with her presence. Once Iris turns up, an adventure can go in any direction or possibly several directions at once, organically delivering that vital element of a classic Doctor Who tale - unpredictability. Again, Iris is a character that's easy to bring to life on TV. She can regenerate so the production team could cast whomsoever they liked and a double decker bus is hardly difficult to find. The bus also has the advantage of being an instantly recognisable British cultural icon and it's exactly the sort of thing included in televised Who. Her talking stuffed toy Panda sidekick might be a tad more difficult to include, though.