Fiction

Doctor Who: Marco Polo by John Lucarotti
Chapters 1–8

My Doctor Who 60th celebrations proper begin here! To mark the occasion, I'm going to watch, read, or listen to one piece of media I've never experienced for each Doctor. I've aimed to diversify those too, to take in as much of what Doctor Who is as possible – i.e. considering all the various spin-off/ancillary media as equal to the TV series, because, in many ways, they kind of are (I mean, would the series really have survived the Wilderness Years without them?)

So, up first — and therefore representing the First Doctor — is the Target novelisation of the oldest missing TV story, Marco Polo. It was the fourth-ever Who story, and I've seen the three that precede it, so this is the oldest story I could've chosen while still retaining the "something I've never experienced" angle. (Arguably, for something even earlier in Who history I could've gone for the novelisation of An Unearthly Child — it depends how faithfully one takes "never experienced". There are one or two choices later on that really do push the boundaries of that definition. But hey, it's my celebration — I can do what I like.)