The Doctor Who Companion officially launched on 26th March 2016, co-founded by Andrew Reynolds and me – though we’re forever indebted to the amazing folk who travelled with us from Kasterborous to the DWC. We set out to bring you the latest news, reviews, opinions, and features, and those have all continued in that vein. We’ve further taken on board fiction and freebies, notably annuals, which we give away to all our readers at Christmastime.
We’d been planning to launch for a little while, and the announcement came on 20th February 2016. Here’s what the first post said:
“It all started out as a mild curiosity in the junkyard, and now it’s turned out to be quite a great spirit of adventure.”
Welcome to the Doctor Who Companion!
You can call us DWC, and we’ll be here with you throughout all time and space.
We’re just a group of people who really love Doctor Who, and know it inside and out. In fact, we’ve been writing about it for years already over at Kasterborous, covering daily news, producing thought-provoking features and opinion pieces, and reviewing comics, books, Big Finish, and all manner of other merchandise. We aim to continue this ethos, giving you a new place to indulge in your passion.
Why set up now? It’s a fair question. The show feels somewhat turbulent, even if its future is secure. Steven Moffat is leaving, to be replaced by Chris Chibnall. We don’t know if a regeneration will happen anytime soon either.
The reason, of course, is that the show feels turbulent right now, and that’s the perfect time to mull over its past, question its present, and look to the future. The TV show might not be on Saturday nights for a little while, but the Doctor Who universe is so expansive, there’s constantly something going on.
Big Finish continues to plough on with their Classic Who releases, but have also acquired the license to NuWho. There seems to be an extra push this year from BBC Books. And Titan Comics are going from strength to strength. We have the Doctor Who Magazine, Doctor Who Adventures, and Doctor Who: The Complete History. There are new lines from Lovarzi, Robert Harrop, and Character Options. The Lethbridge-Stewart novels remain enormous fun, we love the Doctor Who Experience, and international conventions boast impressive guest lists including Doctors, companions, monsters, and behind-the-scenes crew.
Simply put, it’s an exciting time to be a Whovian. But then, that’s always been the case.
We’ve a number of great reviews, features, and interviews lined up for you, as well as your day-to-day news… Not just yet, however.
Stick with us. We launch very soon.
Watch us run.
A lot has changed. But a lot of things are similar too.
Big Finish carries on, at a pace. Titan Comics is a bit shaky, but we’ve still got Doctor Who Magazine, even if Doctor Who Adventures and Doctor Who: The Complete History have fallen by the wayside. Lovarzi, Robert Harrop, and Character Options continue to release new products, albeit a little slower than back in the day, while the Lethbridge-Stewart novels have been superseded by Candy Jar Books’ UNIT. Sadly, the Doctor Who Experience is no more, but at least we do have lots of conventions – including the Bedford Who Charity Con, from the DWC’s own Simon Danes (helped by a bevvy of amazing people like Frank Danes and Anthony Forth).
We’re also experiencing another hiatus, effectively, as we wait for the Doctor Who Christmas special this December; just as we waited, in 2016, for that year’s sole contribution, The Return of Doctor Mysterio. Back then, the show’s future was assured, however, whereas now? Oh, who knows? Fortunately, you know the Doctor Who Companion will be here.
A big thank you to all of our readers. We’ve grown a lot since those early days, but it feels amazing to still have this wonderful community here.
Don’t forget to subscribe to our Substack to get content delivered straight to your email; we’ll be revisiting and reviving older content from the past ten years, and giving you fresh new articles too. In fact, if you want to read more about our beginnings, Substack is the place to go. Don’t worry: this website isn’t going anywhere and we’re still continuing to update it every day. Actually, we’ve got loads and loads and loads of exciting features and reviews coming up on the site, alongside news, of course. Think of Substack as a little extension in our own Whoniverse.
A decade later, and we’re still running…
