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| - One of the earliest known uses of the term was in 2007, when Steven Moffat called Blink "the cheap, no CGI, Doctor-lite episode" of series 3 in Doctor Who Magazine #393. DWM staff writer David Darlington, who was conducting an interview with Moffat in that issue, picked up on this "behind-the-scenes" meaning of the word, and called Blink the "double-banking episode", which Moffat confirmed meant "the one that doesn't have the Doctor in". DWM subsequently reprinted Moffat in DWMSE #17's exploration of the making of Blink. Later, while he was in production of series 5, Moffat gave an interview to Non-Sports Update in which he said that Doctor-lite episodes are "purely a scheduling issue", arising out of a need to film fourteen episodes in the time necessary to film thirteen, meaning that the
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| abstract
| - One of the earliest known uses of the term was in 2007, when Steven Moffat called Blink "the cheap, no CGI, Doctor-lite episode" of series 3 in Doctor Who Magazine #393. DWM staff writer David Darlington, who was conducting an interview with Moffat in that issue, picked up on this "behind-the-scenes" meaning of the word, and called Blink the "double-banking episode", which Moffat confirmed meant "the one that doesn't have the Doctor in". DWM subsequently reprinted Moffat in DWMSE #17's exploration of the making of Blink. Later, while he was in production of series 5, Moffat gave an interview to Non-Sports Update in which he said that Doctor-lite episodes are "purely a scheduling issue", arising out of a need to film fourteen episodes in the time necessary to film thirteen, meaning that there's "one without the Doctor" filmed simultaneously with another episode that does feature the Doctor. So to the production team, it's not just a story that doesn't feature the Doctor much. It's a story that doesn't feature the Doctor because there's no other way that principal photography could be concluded in the time allotted. This basis had already led to the creation of the episode Love & Monsters in series 2. The next was 2008's Turn Left, starring Donna Noble as main character of the episode. That was counter-balanced by the previous Midnight, which brought an innovation: it was only companion-lite, since David Tennant was fully engaged in that story. Series 4's introduction of the companion-lite story was followed in the next two series by the two Craig Owens adventures, The Lodger and Closing Time. Though these stories absolutely featured less of the regular companions for production reasons, the fact that they starred a recurring character offered a further refinement of the concept. It allowed fans to view the episodes as "companion-different" rather than companion-lite. Indeed fan use of the term is important to document, if only to contrast with the original BBC Wales meaning. To many fans, a Doctor- or companion-lite story is simply any adventure where the role of the Doctor and/or recurring companion is significantly reduced. Thus, fans will often make a retrospective judgement about an old serial, calling the likes of Mission to the Unknown "Doctor-lite" — even when there is no evidence at all of a behind-the-scenes need for a Doctor-lite story. This purely narrative assessment is also used with non-televised stories, and indeed there are several examples of this sort of "audience perception" Doctor-lite story going back as far as the old World Distributors annuals. In this sense, companion-lite stories have happened since at least the First Doctor comic stories in TV Comic, where John and Gillian sometimes disappeared for weeks.
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