Guidelines for making a WIDWWA-Inspired Series

These are only guidelines and cannot be enforced but we’d appreciate it if you didn’t repackage our work and pass it off as your own. Some things can just boil down to coincidence, but if you’re reading this, then you’re obviously a fan of What if Doctor Who Wasn’t Axed? and naturally very aware of our characters and stories. Therefore, we just ask, politely, then if you plan to make your own series, inspired by What if Doctor Who Wasn’t Axed?, that you keep these guidelines in mind.

Please don’t include the name “What if Doctor Who Wasn’t Axed?” within the title of your WIDWWA-inspired series. This goes for anything similar such as “What if Doctor Who Wasn’t Cancelled?” or including the abbreviation “WIDWWA”. Be original, come up with something yourself. There are plenty of other options that don’t use the same format that we used. “What if Doctor Who Wasn’t Axed?” is specifically the name of *this* series.
Unless they’ve worked in our universe’s Doctor Who Universe, please don’t use any actors/actresses who have appeared in my series in any major roles. This covers Doctors/Companions/Important Recurring characters. It’s pretty obvious, for example, if Montserrat Lombard showed up as a companion, someone who has never appeared in our universe’s DWU, I’d be raising my eyebrows.
Please don’t use any original companions, which I’ve created, in your own WIDWWA-inspired series. Again, this one shouldn’t be too hard to understand, if I’ve created an original companion, please don’t use them.
Please don’t use any original companions, which I’ve created, and then just sneakily changing their name to something different. This has happened in the past, as ridiculous as it might seem. If you take Angela Jensen and then change her name to Jennifer Anderson or something like that, but everything else is so obviously the same, it’s plagiarism. Just don’t do it, come up with your own companions. Being original is fun!
Likewise, please don’t use any original characters, which I’ve created, in your own WIDWWA-inspired series. This one is pretty much the same as the last one, just stay away from using Will Adams, Phaedra, Kyle Harrison, the Rogue, etc… be original!
Please do not use original images, titles and theme music in your own WIDWWA-inspired series. Again this is very obvious: if I’ve made an image of the Eighth Doctor or the Sandra Armstrong, or my colour-changed image of the Series 7-10 console room, just don’t use it, make something yourself. The same goes for titles and theme music, while I didn’t make everything from every title sequence, as a lot of it is stock footage, I did compile it, turn it into a storyboard, turn it into a sequence, and make it an actual title sequence, in essence: I designed it, so don’t use it. A slightly different guideline goes for theme music, you can use some of the same themes I’ve used, that I found on the internet, as long as they are not the ones I’ve had especially made, but please don’t use them for the same seasons/eras.
Please don’t use original stories and spin-offs from my WIDWWA timeline. I don’t want to be seeing a spinoff called Panopticon with the exact same concept, or a story called At the Tip of Your Fingers about a Smartphone being invented in 1977. The one exception is that if you’ve created a story yourself, which has been included in this WIDWWA series, through a competition, such as Moment Mission Studios’ The Man at the End of the Street, you are more than welcome to use them in your own series, if you made that story yourself. You can of course obtain the permission of any competition winners too.
Any stories based upon existing Doctor Who stories in our universe, which have NEW titles in my WIDWWA series, should either have your own NEW titles or just have the original story titles, in your universe. This again should be pretty obvious, if you’re including A School for Glory, do not call it Glory School, if you are including Tooth and Claw, do not call it Metamorphosis, if you are including Oxygen do not call it Those Who Lead, etc… etc… the list goes on.
Please don’t use any existing Doctor Who stories in our universe, in the same season I’ve used them in, unless it’s the year in which they came out in our universe. This is a looser guideline, but things might look a tad suspicious if you had The End of the World in Season 35, just like I did… because that’s something I have chosen to do, creatively, Season 35 was in 1998, not 2005, if Season 35 was in 2005, then you’d be welcome to also use it in Season 35, but it isn’t it’s in 1998. You could for example though, use The Eternity Trap in Season 46, as Season 46 was in 2009, and Series 3 of The Sarah Jane Adventures was also in 2009. As the guideline suggests, feel welcome to use stories from our universe, but put The Waters of Mars in Season 44 or Season 46 or wherever instead of Season 49.
Please don’t use any movie titles from my timeline in our own. This again is self-explanatory, I don’t want to hear about your own series having a movie called “Doctor Who: Revelation” or anything like that. Keep it original. Also, while I won’t make it a rule, I will suggest you stay away from the title format of “Doctor Who + Adjective” because that too is original to my series, and I would suggest you perhaps even stay away from the idea of a Doctor Who movie franchise too.
Don’t use any original plot overviews that I have written for your series, even if you are adapting the same story as me. For example, Blood and Iron is an adapted story, but the plot overview on the wiki is entirely written by me, based upon the adapted adventure. If you’re also adapting Blood and Iron, please don’t use my plot overview for it. Look for another source for the overview or go back to the source material and write it yourself. The same goes if you’re using mine to base yours on. There are often specific story details in these that I created myself, and weren’t in the adapted material. I will be able to tell if something has been stolen.

Previously, there was a guideline discouraging the inclusion of an “out-of-universe” plot-device such as the Paramount Deal. Due to the real-life, Disney Deal, this guideline has been revoked, as any use of this kind of co-production story, is far more likely to be based on reality than What if Doctor Who Wasn’t Axed? beyond November 2022.