Doctor Who: City of Death: A 4th Doctor novelisation

An excellent version of the adventure Doctor Who fans of the era know so well. Thankfully fills in one or two gaps.

I have watched Dr. Who on TV but started with the 9th Doctor (played by Chris Eccleston) where this book seems to be set in the time where Tom Baker portrayed the Doctor (or at least I'm guessing so based on the scarf.) I don't remember watching any of his episodes though there were times while reading this that I thought I'd seen the episode. My favorite Doctor so far was David Tennant's 10th Doctor, though I will admit that I haven't watched many of the vintage Dr. Who (prior to the 9th Doctor) yet, so that may change in the future.

As far as I know I haven't read anything else by James Goss. I have read Douglas Adams's "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" series. I recognize David Fisher's name but couldn't name anything specific that I've read or seen that he did.

For some reason, I thought that the Doctor was on the run from the Time Lords after stealing the TARDIS. I also thought he was the last of the Time Lords (or so he believed anyway) Here, he has an apprentice Time Lord (Romana) with him. She doesn't seem to be trying to turn him in. So I suspect something happened between when he stole the TARDIS and now so that he's no longer on the run from the other Time Lords. He's also not the only Time Lord (though perhaps Romana hasn't yet earned the full title? but it does sound like there are other Time Lords besides these two.) Perhaps some of that happened before this incarnation and some happened after. I know there is a "War Doctor" between the 8th and 9th Doctors--perhaps that war was when the other Time Lords were assumed dead (though that changes again later in the series if I remember correctly).

I would say this is more of a miss for me than it was a hit. Romana didn't strike me as a great companion to the Doctor. I enjoyed Duggan more though he reminded me of another alien species from Dr. Who who liked to hit things (I can't remember the alien species name offhand.) The Mona Lisa(s) was an interesting concept. I'm guessing there was some prior communication between the Scarlonis to know that they would need 7 of them in the current time frame for the 7 potential buyers so each would think he/she was the only one who won the bidding war on the famous painting. I also liked the Doctor writing on Leonardo daVinci's boards with a sharpie marker and then just telling him to "paint over them".

I didn't connect Scarlioni and Scaroth at first or understand that he was fragmented. I think something similar may have happened with Clara in the newer series--that she was scattered somehow and often there to save the Doctor in his various incarnations.

I didn't quite understand the purpose of the Harrison Mandel parts of the book. There's an attempt to get him to appreciate Paris and art--something that only succeeds when he sees the TARDIS where the Doctor has "parked" it in an art gallery. The story probably could have gotten along without these bits. Perhaps it was supposed to be a counterpoint story to Romana appreciating Paris.

I've always thought when I watch the episodes that I lost focus and missed some bit that was crucial to the final act--reading this, I wonder if that is not the case and that I just really don't "get" the premise somehow.

The end of a species and the beginning of another... although not necessarily in that order. The fourth Doctor and Romana are in Paris when the Mona Lisa is stolen, which leads them on a time-spanning journey to save it and humanity. It's a good story. Douglas Adams rewrote the original script by David Fisher for the televised episodes, and James Goss wrote this novelization. So the story was written, rewritten, televised, and then rewritten again to produce this book. That makes for a lot of condensed talent, and it shows. The story is wonderfully imaginative. The prose, I thought, was choppy, with odd word choices, 'head-hopping' POV issues, and mixed tenses, but enjoyable nonetheless. I found it a nice break from the nonfiction reading streak I've been on.

This is a novelisation of the brilliant Douglas Adams-penned Tom Baker Doctor Who story set in Paris, famed for being the first Doctor Who story filmed abroad and for having the highest viewing figures of any Doctor Who story ever (albeit helped by an ITV strike in an era when there were only three TV channels in the UK). The novelisation is based on the original camera script, which includes some scenes not included in the broadcast version, but the plot and dialogue are very similar to the version we watched in 1979 - no bad thing, as the script and dialogue are widely considered to be some of the most sparkling and stylish ever seen in the show. There are some key differences here - Count Scarlioni is unaware at first of his own past identity, and the Countess here is a somewhat colder and less sympathetic character than that depicted on TV. Some of the additional background given to the characters is very interesting, and the Count's treatment and eventual killing of Professor Kerensky is quite haunting and horrible. A good read.

It's a soufflé of a television story, delicately constructed, ethereal and subsisting almost entirely on wit and joie de vivre of the Parisian bouquet. As much of its appeal lies in Tom Baker and Lalla Ward running down boulevards to Dudley Simpson's best score as it does in Douglas Adams and Graeme Williams being deliciously, vibrantly witty. It isn’t style over substance, the style is the substance. In my head this was the impossible novelisation; what we might get in print wouldn’t be close to what we got on screen. It’s a task which entirely defeated Gareth Roberts, who'd made a deft job of Shada. So instead they turned the job over to James Goss, the most active writer of Who prose and adaptor of Dirk Gently for the stage.

Let’s get the unfair comparison out of the way first; Goss is no Douglas Adams. But then the original’s been dead for nearly fifteen years now and no-one’s quite replicated his deadpan existentialist Wodehouse act.
Instead Goss seeks to replicate the main virtues of the televised story by steeping it in Parisian culture and light comedy. It’s a fine choice; few of Who’s other novelisations have such a sense of place and even fewer have such good jokes. He even succeeds in dealing with the questions about Scaroth’s nature which the original simply skated over and fills in the backgrounds of even minor characters admirably – the characters played in a cameo by John Cleese and Eleanor Bron get a whole background world, as do Countess Scarlioni and his henchman. His most admirable success is in delineating the relationship between the Doctor and Romana; on screen it was all about two actors falling in love with each other, here it’s more mutual fondness tempered by opposite approaches to life.

Perhaps some of the jokes fall flat on the page – the whip smart exchanges of the Doctor’s first meeting with Scarlioni don’t play as well on the page as they do onscreen for instance, and the in-joke of the Doctor Who crew who filmed in Paris appearing – and the extensive backgrounds given to the characters end up a touch overdone but overall it’s a noble and fun attempt at the impossible.