In 2022, Christopher Eccleston called 2005's Father's Day a "Doctor-lite" episode, dating the concept back to the beginning of the reboot in 2005. It allowed fans to view the episodes as "companion-different" rather than companion-lite. 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. 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. 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. The next was 2008's Turn Left, starring Donna Noble as main character of the episode. This basis had already led to the creation of the episode Father's Day in series 1 and Love & Monsters in series 2. 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. So to the production team, it's not just a story that doesn't feature the Doctor much. 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. DWM subsequently reprinted Moffat in DWMSE #17's exploration of the making of Blink. 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". 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.
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