Doctor Who: The Wonderful Doctor of Oz by Jacqueline Rayner
Chapters 1–6
My Doctor Who 60th anniversary celebratory marathon reaches the final (numbered) Doctor now. For the Thirteenth Doctor, I've chosen something that's actually quite atypical for her era (not that "typical" has been my guiding motive for any other Doctor): a novel. Tie-in novels were published regularly since the TV series came back in 2005 until the end of the Twelfth Doctor era — presumably a legacy of the BBC taking over the Doctor Who fiction mini-empire Virgin had kickstarted with the New Adventures. Personally, I stopped buying them towards the end of the Tenth Doctor's time (because I wasn't actually reading them), and the number published seemed to thin out during Capaldi's era (I believe there was only one novel starring the full Series 10 TARDIS team of the Doctor, Bill and Nardole). Original fiction was published for the Thirteenth Doctor, but I think they abandoned the familiar cover style they'd been using for a decade, and seemed to get more experimental with target audience and visual identity — although, as I say, I wasn't following it closely anymore by that point, so maybe I missed something.
One range that did start during her era, and is still going (at least, they published a new one recently, but I don't think more have been announced yet), is a series that sees various Doctors encounter characters and scenarios from classics of children's literature. The Wonderful Doctor of Oz was one of the first books in the range (the other debut title featured the ever-popular Tenth Doctor, since when they've done ones starring the Fourth, Third, and Eleventh. Wouldn't it be lovely if they kept going and included all the Doctors?) Anyway, as my marathon pick for the Thirteenth Doctor presented the perennial nuWho problem of no unseen TV episodes, and as it's far too early for her to have joined Big Finish, this one novel I'd already bought was... well, virtually the only choice, to be honest (certainly without buying anything new, or digging up old DWMs for the comic strip. I have heard the Titan comics were quite good for the Thirteenth Doctor, but I haven't sorted out buying any yet).
So far, this reads just like a real Thirteenth Doctor episode. I can’t tell if it's being a (straight-faced) parody of Chibnall-era storytelling, or if it simply emulates their style so well that it feels like a parody because that style is inherently laughable. It's accuracy is a mixed blessing, then.
Friday 10 November 2023
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