Review: Doctor Who: The Novel of the Film by Gary Russell

Mass market paperback, 223 pages
Published 1996

Acquired September 2019
Read October 2019

Doctor Who by Gary Russell

I've finished reading the seventh Doctor New Adventures I own, but I have several eighth Doctor books I've never read, and those were the spiritual and literal successors to the NAs, so I'm going to do those next. Before I begin, though, I picked up a book I've always been curious about but have never read: the novelization of the 1996 tv movie starring Paul McGann. It's often called "Doctor Who: The Novel of the Film" (including on the spine), but the title page clearly gives the title as just "Doctor Who," a move that I'm sure has led to absolutely no confusion.

It's by Gary Russell, so it's as workmanlike as you'd expect. Russell fleshes out a lot of background bits. Some work (the prologue with the seventh Doctor is nice, and he almost makes the ending work), but some fall flat (there are bits of the film that are just there to look cool, but fall apart if you think about them, and I would argue that explaining them just makes it worse). I think its biggest problem is that the film succeeds in two areas: visual style and Paul McGann's performance. But those are largely uncaptured on the page; the cool moments don't come across, and the Doctor fades into the background without McGann's charisma.

But hey, if you want a 200-page diversion about the best Doctor, it will do nicely, and I suspect it works well as a transition between the NAs and the EDAs. I guess I'll find out when I read Vampire Science! (Of course, as soon as I track this down used, it's announced that they're re-releasing it as a Target novel with added material. Bah.)

Next Week: The tenth Doctor returns in Revolutions of Terror, as I begin to explore Titan's Doctor Who comics!