User:SOTO/Forum Archive/The Panopticon/@comment-1432718-20130507223708/@comment-188432-20130510134114

That's a really good point, and it's especially tricky when you move away from television. The term really is original to BBC Wales, and may even be something Moffat came up with on the fly. It's so much easier to apply to television, because there's an easy litmus test. Of course, we typically have to wait a while for production details to emerge, but eventually it's easy to spot a Doctor-lite TV story from a non-Doctor-lite one.

The thing that's confusing people is language in the article that attempts to make the term applicable to other media. Certainly, it's wrong to use the term with spin-off shows. It only applies to Doctor Who stories, and attempts to use the term with respect to SJA and Torchwood have been excised. But clarity may be better served by focussing squarely on television, unless we can get something to prop up the sections on other media.

The secondary meaning of a "narratively de-emphasised Doctor or companion" needs some sourcing to establish that it's not just a term that fans are applying retrospectively. Or to establish firmly that this is what's happening. The article would really be helped if we could get an author on record using the term, or if maybe the Big Finish boys (for they are all boys) had ever used the term to describe some of their output.