The first Doctor Who spinoff of the shiny, new era for the sci-fi institution is here, but it’s not exactly what we expected and it’s going to be impossible to watch for a large slice of the Whoniverse’s worldwide fandom.
As part of Doctor Who‘s widespread 60th anniversary celebrations, the BBC has launched Tales of the TARDIS. To mark the show’s big birthday, over 800 episodes of classic Who are available to stream for free on BBC iPlayer for those in the U.K. In addition, Tales of the TARDIS is a six-part series that edits half a dozen of the most legendary classic Who stories into 90 minute packages, with the addition of all-new material starring the original Doctors and companions.
In The Curse of Fenric episode, the Seventh Doctor (Sylvester McCoy) and Ace (Sophie Aldred) reunite to remember the time they faced vampires in World War 2. In The Time Meddler installment, Steven (Peter Purves) and Vicki (Maureen O’Brien) recall meeting the Time Lord villain the Monk and The Three Doctors entry is extra special as it sees Jo Jones (Katy Manning) reunite with The Sarah Jane Adventures character Clyde Langer (David Anthony).
The Vengeance on Varos recut sees the Sixth Doctor (Colin Baker) and Peri (Nicola Bryant) reminisce about visiting the planet Varos with its sadistic TV programming, while The Mind Robber has Jamie (Frazer Hines) and Zoe (Wendy Padbury) retell one of Doctor Who‘s weirdest adventures, when the TARDIS landed in the Land of Fiction. Last but not least, the Fifth Doctor (Peter Davison) and Tegan (Janet Fielding) reunite to relive one of the darkest ever Doctor Who stories in the Earthshock edition.
In addition to being a brilliant new way to enjoy these old episodes, showrunner and Doctor Who big brain Russell T. Davies has told us Tales of the TARDIS is “absolutely” canon. Unfortunately, it’s just a part of canon that’s tricky to watch for most people.
Tales of the TARDIS won’t stream on Disney Plus, and here’s why
What’s exciting about the new era of Doctor Who is that it’s being made as part of a landmark partnership between the BBC and Disney, with all future episodes of the series and — it’s been suggested — other Whoniverse content streaming on Disney Plus internationally. Unfortunately, Tales of the TARDIS is not considered part of the Disney co-production deal and so will not stream on the Mouse House’s platform.
Davies has confirmed that Tales of the TARDIS is an iPlayer exclusive because all of its production costs came from BBC Studios and not Disney Branded Television. As it’s fully funded by license fee payers — all U.K. TV owners pay a license fee to the BBC — it is only available on the BBC iPlayer website.
While that makes logical sense, Tales of the TARDIS not being made available internationally is obviously a huge blow to Whovians across the globe. The good news is that there’s no shortage of Doctor Who content coming up, with three specials starring David Tennant’s Fourteenth Doctor and the imminent arrival of Ncuti Gatwa’s Fifteenth incarnation.