![]() What Cornell highlights most of all is one theme from Moffat's script: Hope. These are perhaps the biggest highlights of the book though none of them make earth-shattering changes to the special as aired. Indeed, what Cornell most restores are character moments and pieces of dialogue between the two versions of the same Time Lord which further highlight the scenes of these two old men seeming to rage against the dying of the light and wondering if they should continue. There's how the Captain ended up in his predicament for example as well as an expanded sequence on Villengard with the two Doctors dealing with a swarm of creatures. There are no great big dramatic twists or eliminated scenes as such and, yet, the book is full of extended sequences. Something else which makes the novelization intriguing is the material deleted from the TV version it reinstates. All of which helps make this fun reading for a fan, especially someone who enjoyed the special. There's even room for the fates of the Twelfth Doctor's companions. On the topic of the First Doctor, Cornell also finds some explanation for the characterization some found over the top for that Doctor including teasing his future self and being exasperated by events. Some of which are quite cheeky fan references such as what was on the VHS tape that Mark Gatiss' First World War Captain holds up in the TARDIS and some laugh out loud moments regarding the backstory of a few of the UK celebrities that the Peter Capaldi Doctor calls his earlier self. The novelization builds on what was onscreen last December, finding moments during and around dialogue. Elements of that are down, of course, to the original Steven Moffat script for it but it's what Cornell does with it that counts here. ![]() Where Cornell and the novelization shines is in its characters. Cornell, in both his Who prose and TV scripts, had shown himself a particular practitioner of more character-centric storytelling and he excels at bringing that sensibility to the novelizing the Christmas special. Twice Upon A Time is, after all, perhaps more of a character piece disguised as a sci-fi runaround. Among them was the most recently aired episode, the 2017 Christmas Special Twice Upon A Time, written by a stalwart making one last comeback: Paul Cornell.Ĭornell (whose Doctor Who credits include episodes such as Father's Day and Human Nature/Family Of Blood alongside original creations such as Saucer Country) was a natural choice to novelize this final outing of the Twelfth Doctor. That hasn't stopped such demand for new Target style novelizations of twenty-first-century episodes which BBC Books debuted a set of earlier this year. These days, of course, that isn't the case with a multitude of watching options to chose from including DVDs and streaming platforms. The Target novelizations, slim books often running little more than 150 pages, was the cornerstone of the show's merchandise. I’m excited to see what Jodie brings to the role and hopefully her first adventure will also get the Target novelisation treatment!īack in the 1970s and into the 1980s, the only way fans of Doctor Who often could encounter an older story was by reading it. I’m a big fan of Capaldi’s Doctor, but the show has always been about change. The regeneration scene was perfect, teasing the reader that the next incarnation would be a male again as The Doctor is stuck-in-a-rut Timelord made me smile. There’s lots of nice nuggets in here aswell, various references to the other Doctors was very welcomed. I really liked how Cornell was able to make it so simply clear in which incarnation of the Doctor he was talking about. This is a pretty straightforward novelisations of the story, any multi-Doctor story is always fun and this made for a pleasant read. ![]() Capaldi and Moffat were originally intending to leave at the end of Series 10, so the fact that they managed to add in an extra episode for the Christmas Special by having The Doctor refusing to regenerate is such a simple but effective way for him to have one more adventure. I’ve always liked this original televised episode. Good.With the Thirteenth Doctor’s arrival the weekend, I just had a real urge to read Twelve’s swan song beforehand. Goodness is not goodness that seeks advantage. This is what *he* believes, and this is the reason above all I love him, my husband. Good is good in the final hour, in the deepest pit, without hope, without witness, without reward. None of them moving, just frozen moments! The Doctor They’re just pictures, just lots and lots of pictures, all of them still. You remember being alive yesterday, you hope you’re going to be alive tomorrow, so it feels like you are traveling one to the other, but nobody’s moving anywhere! Movies don’t really move. Because Life only lets you see one day at a time.
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