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Posted in: BBC, Comics, Doctor Who, Titan, TV | Tagged: dalek, gail simone, k9
Gail Simone Asked To Write Doctor Who, Couldn't Turn K9 Into A Dalek
Gail Simone was asked to write Doctor Who but she wasn't allowed to turn K9 into a Dalek like she wanted to.
Article Summary
- Gail Simone was invited to write Doctor Who but couldn't merge K9 and Dalek due to rights issues.
- Daleks and K9 are owned by different entities, complicating crossover stories within the Doctor Who universe.
- Rights to many classic Doctor Who characters remain with their original creators, not just the BBC.
- Such legal hurdles often shape which characters appear together in Doctor Who comics and series.
Comic book writer, novelist and screenwriter Gail Simone posted to social media, saying, "I was asked to write for Doctor Who. I wanted to tell a story where there's a Dalek version of K-9, which I thought would be a lot of fun. It turns out that it can't really be done, as the rights to Daleks and the rights to K-9 are owned by different people. No idea how that's possible, but it put the kibosh on my Doctor Who story, sadly."
This is likely to be the Titan Comics line of Doctor Who comics, which has seen Dan Slott recently write a series, with Dan Watters currently on the run. As to the rights issue, yes, that is a thing. Freelance writers who wrote Doctor Who episodes in the 20th century often owned the characters and concepts they introduced in their various stories, which led to some rather tricky negotiations when the series returned in the 21st century. The deal with Terry Nation over the Daleks was so last-minute that an alternative race, the Toklafane, was invented to take their place in the episode Dalek from 2005. There was also negotiation with Bob Baker over K9 for both Doctor Who and The Sarah Jane Adventures, which allowed Baker to create his own K9 series in Australia, albeit with a different look for the metal dog, as the BBC owned the rights to the original prop design. This also allowed a number of non-BBC-licensed comics and films with the Daleks, The Brigadier, Sontarans, Cybermen and Zygons over the years.
But sadly, that meant no K9-as-Dalek for Gail Simone's Doctor Who, and the only copy of that you'll find will be in Lucien's library. Of course, no one is going to stop me from having a go at drawing it…
Something like that, Gail? Not too shabby, is it? Um, oh yes, Doctor Who is owned by the BBC, the Daleks by the Terry Nation Estate and K9 by Bob Baker's estate.
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