Doctor Who - An Eighth Doctor Primer

The Wilderness Years

Eight Doctors There were Doctor Who novels. There are still, but back in the 1990s these were a fairly new thing. Initially just featuring the Seventh Doctor as the "current" Doctor, a whole bunch of novels were released written by people like Andrew Cartmel, Mark Gatiss. Paul Cornell and even future showrunner, Russell T. Davies. They were popular almost instantly, and gave us great characters like Bernice Summerfield. After the TV movie aired, one novel with the Eighth Doctor was released, and then the publisher, Virgin, lost their license. BBC books picked up the torch and started publishing novels with the 8th Doctor as the "current" one, doing a whole set of past Doctor adventures separately. Now to be honest, I haven't read most of these. I do have some knowledge of them, however, with things like a group of renegade Time Lords called the Faction Paradox, and the Doctor having companions like Sam, Fitz and Compassion. The Doctor also gets amnesia, because, after all, that happened in the movie, so why not? During this time there were also Doctor Who comics featuring the character, but, alas, I know even less about them. That's ok, though, because that gives us a clear deck for the next major part of the Eighth Doctor's life; audio.
Contributor

Chris Swanson is a freelance writer and blogger based in Phoenix, Arizona, where winter happens to other people. His blog is at wilybadger.wordpress.com