Canon

Canon is the the body of works which any given Doctor Who fan considers to have "really happened" within Doctor Who Universe, and differs from fan to fan.

The BBC and the various production teams have never attempted to define an official canon, unlike with some other television shows, which has left fan's free to hold their own opinions over what constitutes the canon of Doctor Who.

Television

 * Fans almost universally regard both the original and new television series and the 1996 TV Movie in their entirety, as canonical, despite many continuity contradictions both between and within different eras of the programme. Most would accept K-9 & Company, Torchwood, The Sarah Jane Adventures and The Infinite Quest as occurring in the same universe.


 * The majority of fans regard Shada as canonical, even though it never reached completion, let alone aired on television. Exactly which version of the story is canonical is not well settled. (Shada (TV story) or Shada (webcast)/Shada (audio release) which are basically the same)


 * The Pilot Episode is not usually considered to be part of the canon because it is an alternative version of An Unearthly Child which contradicts the broadcast version.


 * Extended and remade versions of episodes released on video and DVD, such as the The Five Doctors (Special Edition), the movie-format version of The Curse of Fenric, and various 71 edits, are considered canonical by some fans, while other fans accept only the original broadcast version. The exception is the four-part version of Ressurrection of the Daleks, which is widely accepted as the "canonical version", even though a slightly cut-down two-part version was the broadcast original. Most of the extensions are tiny and do not make significant changes in continuity, but there are some controversial changes in the The Five Doctors (Special Edition).


 * The mini-episodes, A Fix with Sontarans and Dimensions in Time, produced by one of the series' original producers, John Nathan-Turner, are nevertheless generally not considered a part of the original series or as canon by most fans, even though it featured all the (at that time) surviving Doctors and a number of returning companions. John Nathan-Turner apparently considered Dimensions in Time a "real" episode and believed it should have its own official production code. Likewise, The Curse of Fatal Death is also not generally considered to be canon, as it was a parody of the series.

Movies
Fans almost universally do not consider the two films starring Peter Cushing, Dr. Who and the Daleks or Daleks - Invasion Earth 2150 AD as taking place in the mainstream Doctor Who Universe. These have their own canon and their own continuity. These portray established characters in different ways, envisioning for example, the First Doctor as a human scientist and re-tell the television stories The Daleks and The Dalek Invasion of Earth, respectively, in a different way.

Books
There is endless debate among fans over the canonicity of the various series of original novels. Some accept the Virgin New Adventures and Virgin Missing Adventures, some accept the BBC Books (Eighth Doctor Adventures, Past Doctor Adventures etc), some accept both, and some accept neither.

Russell T. Davies has written in DWM, clarifying that the destruction of Gallifrey in the TV series was not related to the BBC Books (EDA: The Ancestor Cell), that he cannot put in the TV series any reference to a licensed product which might be taken as requiring BBC viewers to purchase something in order to know the whole story. But in the same article went out of his way to say that there could have been multiple destructions of Gallifrey. He has been consistently careful to make it clear that he wants to make it possible for fans to consider the books canonical, or not, as they prefer; the same attitude has been taken by most of the current series writers.

Comics
Most fans consider the early comics stories printed by TV Comic, Countdown TV Action, created for a juvenile audience and featuring many differences from the TV series including radically different characterization of the Doctor, as not taking place in "real continuity".

The comics printed in Doctor Who Magazine have varied wildly in their approach to continuity, depending on editorial policy. During one period, it was policy to tie them into Marvel Universe continuity, which is very difficult to reconcile with Doctor Who television continuity (example: 'The Crossroads of Time'). During another period, it was policy to closely tie them to Virgin New Adventures continuity, and some of the Virgin New Adventures refer to these. During another period they deliberately contradicted the Virgin New Adventures (in Ground Zero). Because of this, almost no fan accepts all of them as canon, but many fans accept some of them as canon, depending on their tastes.