Reading Doctor Who novels can take you back to a time of the show you thought was lost.
Oh Doctor Who, you don’t half change. And no, I don’t mean the titular Time Lord who changes their face when mortally wounded and dying. I mean the show itself undergoes changes. From the theme song and titles to cast and characters to Tardis interior. Be it with new showrunners or showrunners just wanting to mix things up. Usually this coincides with the Doctor regenerating but not always; sometimes it happens during an actor’s run. Only under Russell T Davies’ two eras have Doctors changed their faces but had their surroundings stay the same.
Whereas change brings great things and you can enjoy all the new and exciting stuff, you do find yourself pining after a certain era of Doctor Who. At least I do, anyway. If only there was a way to discover new stories in your preferred era with your preferred Doctor. If you’ve seen all the episodes, it’s impossible, isn’t it?
Nothing is impossible and if you think that then you’d be wrong, dead wrong! For, once again, the written word comes to our rescue.
Sitting down to read books like Prisoner of the Daleks, The Krillitane Storm and The Eyeless, to name but a few, I’m instantly transported to my favourite era of Doctor Who. I can see David Tennant’s Tenth Doctor going up against Daleks on distant worlds, Krillitanes in medieval Worcester and ghosts and glass men in the hunt for a deadly weapon. I can imagine hearing the Tenth Doctor’s intense tone when the stakes are at their highest, I can feel the same surroundings as were in the show during his run and I can imagine the story as it would have been told and acted out in his era – right down to the last detail. For someone reading those books over ten years after the Tenth Doctor era came to an end, it’s like stepping back through time. Appropriate, given the time travel theme of Doctor Who.
But it goes much further than that. The Tenth Doctor era may have been my favourite but that doesn’t mean I didn’t like the other eras and it certainly doesn’t mean I don’t like delving into their past through time portholes that are printed and bound.
Matt Smith’s era was a great era as well and I found myself having exactly the same experience when reading books featuring the Eleventh Doctor. From The Dalek Generation to Plague of the Cybermen; I imagined it all in the way Steven Moffatt had shaped that era of Doctor Who when he took the keys to the Tardis from Russell T Davies. I imagined the broken Cybermen as they were from series six of the show but refused to accept any of the newly designed Paradigm Daleks alongside the bronze Daleks until the Eleventh hour; perhaps because they were the one change I couldn’t get on board with when the show introduced them.
We can’t forget the classic, pre-2005 eras of Doctor Who either but with so many eras and stories, I’ve barely had time to scratch the surface of the pre-noughties Classic Doctor Who.
Change is a fact of life and Doctor Who is no exception. Without said change, we would have been deprived of so many wonderful things. But it’s hard not to feel nostalgia for favourite past Doctors and eras of the show. Despite great things incoming, it’s hard not to miss them. You might want more, but you can’t have it. Or can you? For if you haven’t read all the Doctor Who books out there, get reading them as through the words on the pages, you will be transported to your favourite eras once more and can enjoy new adventures with your favourite Doctor; whoever it may be.
Words by James Jobson
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