When you get that Disney money, you get to make whatever the hell you want. That’s the lesson we’re learning from returning Doctor Who showrunner Russel T. Davies, who has said that he’s looking to spin the series into an entire slate of shows. And we now have word on what one of them might be. The prolific showrunner has said that he’s working on a Doctor Who spinoff series focusing on the military research organization UNIT (UNified Intelligence Taskforce, formerly United Nations Intelligence Taskforce), which the Doctor has been involved with for years, even being in their employ when his third incarnation was trapped on Earth.
UNIT has played a pretty big role in NuWho, with Jemma Redgrave playing the unit’s leader, Kate Stewart, daughter of Classic Who‘s Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart. She is slated to return in this new spinoff Doctor Who series, which will focus on the ongoing adventures of UNIT as it works to repel alien invasions, study strange phenomena, and be just a bit more militaristic than the Doctor ever would be. Redgrave has been popping up in Doctor Who since she first appeared in 2012’s episode “The Power of Three.” Interestingly, she is not a character from Davies’ initial run with the show but a Steven Moffat creation, showing that Davies is open to working with characters that he didn’t come up with.
There’s not much else known about the spinoff — or any other spinoff plans for that matter. But UNIT and Redgrave have already had a successful series of audio adventures, so making the leap to TV isn’t such a crazy idea. There may, however, be plenty of other crazy ideas as Disney has come on board to distribute the series outside of the UK via Disney+ and help fund its production. That extra cash influx and the larger market share should give Doctor Who the kind of money it hasn’t had in quite some time and hopefully rescue it from the doldrums that Chris Chibnall left it in.
