Back in the 1960s it was not uncommon for one of Doctor Who‘s regular cast members to have a week off.

With the show on for most of the year, characters were occasionally written out of an episode as part of the story.

In the modern era, the hectic production schedule for Christopher Ecccleston’s season triggered Russell T Davies to establish a traditional “Doctor-lite” tale the following year with ‘Love and Monsters’. Usually this involves “double-banking”, where two episodes are filmed simultaneously with different crews and a different director.

When we consider the stories in this list of Doctor-lite tales, it is clear that necessity is the mother of invention – these are some of our favourites!

 

‘Turn Left’ (2008)

Fracturing the time lines, ‘Turn Left’ granted the show a chance to look at the path not travelled and see the state of the world without the Doctor to save it.

Altering time so that Donna never met the Doctor, and thus never became ‘The Runaway Bride’, we discover that the Time Lord did not survive the events of that Christmas Special.

As we follow her story on, the Titanic crashes into Central London and the world unravels, showing a dangerous future where nationalistic fervour bubbles to the surface. Magnificent performances from Bernard Cribbins (Wilf) and Jacqueline King (Sylvia Noble) support Catherine Tate, arguably in her finest moments on the show.

 

‘Blink’ (2007)

Steven Moffat’s enduringly popular ‘Blink’ rewrote a short story to make excellent use of the Doctor and Martha’s absence, focusing instead on the tale of Sally Sparrow (a pre-Hollywood Carey Mulligan) and her encounter with the Weeping Angels.

Cleverly casting the Doctor in the role of a DVD extra, it grants David Tennant plenty of easily filmed screen time and, frankly, the both the story and Mulligan are so good that you hardly miss him!

 

‘Love & Monsters’ (2006)

With the Doctor and Rose remaining firmly in the background, Elton Pope (Marc Warren) took the lead to provide a first person narrative of his brush with the Time Lord and the formation of LINDA (the London Investigative ‘N’ Detective Agency).

Loved and loathed in equal measure by fans, primarily for an over-the-top guest appearance by comic Peter Kay, it also offered a glimpse of Rose’s mum Jackie coping while her daughter was away in the TARDIS.

 

‘Flatline’ (2014)

Again driven by the need to scale down the lead actor’s filming time, ‘Flatline’ strands the Twelfth Doctor in the TARDIS by shrinking its outer dimensions to a size at which it can be carried around by his companion.

Taking on the role of a surrogate Doctor, Clara grappled with the threat of the Boneless, hostile invaders from another plane of existence.

 

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