Hi everyone! How are you all? Today is Friday, and it’s time for another review. Today, I am reviewing the novelisation of the second of Doctor Who’s 60th anniversary specials, Doctor Who: Wild Blue Yonder, by Mark Morris.

Doctor Who: Wild Blue Yonder was first published in ebook format in December 2023 and in paperback in January 2024 by BBC Books and runs 176 pages.

The Plot
This second novelisation of the second episode of three specials celebrating Doctor Who’s 60th anniversary takes place aboard a spaceship with the Doctor and Donna unravelling the mystery of a couple of entities with very familiar faces.

Characters
The Fourteenth Doctor
As with the previous novelisation in this series of special episodes, the story’s protagonist is the fourteenth incarnation of the alien time traveller, the Doctor.

Unlike in the Star Beast, where there is lots of action and aliens blowing things up, here, the Doctor can take a moment to breathe; he gets to enjoy having his best friend back and being on an adventure with her, even though it’s only for a brief time.

We get to see them really reconnect in this story, and although they’re both older, we can see that they are the same people deep down.

Donna Noble
After correcting the issue of the Time Lord-human meta-crisis in the previous book (and the episode from which it was adapted), it is nice to see Donna Noble back in action.

It was such a harrowing thing for us Donna fans when her whole arc and growth as a character was wiped out in the 2008 episode Journey’s End. She had seen such wondrous things and been pivotal to the very survival of the universe, yet wasn’t allowed to remember any of it, lest her brain burn up.

In Wild Blue Yonder, we see her back to her sarcastic, confident old self, her memories intact. She is older and wiser and fiercely protective of her family.

The Entities
The entities in this story are creepy. They are strange beings, drawn over the edge of nothingness into the universe by all the accoutrements that come with life, like emotion and war. They have come from being and feeling nothing and want to see and feel and consume everything – and how they learn is by transforming into the people they are around, taking all of their knowledge and information before consuming them.

Wilfred Mott
Wilfred Mott is a recurring character in the Doctor Who series. He is Donna’s grandad (Gramps) and is known for his kind and courageous nature. It was lovely to have him back in a Doctor Who story; even though his part in this story is small, it’s essential in showing Donna as an ordinary woman with an ordinary family life since leaving the TARDIS.

I believe there was originally more of Wilf in the earlier scripts for the three 60th anniversary specials. However, Wilf’s actor, Bernard Cribbins, took ill and sadly passed away before production on the specials was completed.

I’m just glad we got to see Wilf back. He is such a warm character who loves Donna more than anything. He was devastated when she was forced to forget and unlearn everything she had seen and experienced. However, as he says in this story, he knew the Doctor would find a way to save her.

Writing Style
Morris’s writing style in this book is simple yet engaging. From the very first page, you are off on the ride with the Doctor and Donna, which continues after the end of the previous novelisation, The Star Beast, by Gary Russell.

In terms of story expansion or character depth, there isn’t anything extra here; the plot sticks with the screen version pretty closely, but then again, the story itself is pretty much confined and restricted to the spaceship and the two main characters, so there really isn’t a lot to expand upon.

As in the TV episode, the dialogue is sharp and engaging, and the character interactions are deeply compelling. Like Gary Russell’s The Star Beast novelisation, Morris has done an excellent job capturing the entire essence of the characters and their dynamics, making the reader feel as if they’re real people and that they are actually right there on the edge of the universe in the spaceship.

Furthermore, without giving anything away, there are certain moments when all seems lost; in those moments, Morris manages to keep you on the edge of your seat. Even though I’d watched the episode and knew what would happen next, I was still pulled into the story and even found myself holding my breath more than once.

Morris has done a marvellous job of capturing what I saw on the screen and transmogrifying it onto the page. In fact, I would go so far as to say those scenes where the Doctor and Donna first find themselves on an abandoned spaceship at the start are more intense in the novelisation because your imagination conjures its own imagery along with what it already knows from the episode, intensifying the mood.

Final Thoughts
Like I said in my review for The Star Beast, I am a massive fan of all things Doctor Who and was thrilled by the announcement of David Tennant and Catherine Tate’s return (less thrilled about the long wait between announcement and air date, but still) and I was not disappointed.

I very much enjoyed this story. I found it nicely paced and thought it brought balance to the overall arc of the three stories.

While I have heard some people saying that they thought this story was a filler story between the two more exciting parts of this trilogy of specials, I disagree. In terms of action, it is a less intense story; its tension arises in other ways, like when the entities are first introduced, just before you quite realise what is happening.

I think it’s also important to showcase the connection between the Doctor and Donna and how they interact and behave around each other as older, more grown-up people in the less intense and action-filled moments.

Overall, I enjoyed the book and found it a great way to bridge the Star Beast and the next action-packed story, The Giggle.

I am giving Doctor Who: Wild Blue Yonder a 7/10.

Have you watched Wild Blue Yonder or read the novelisation? What are your thoughts?

Thank you, as ever, for reading my review. It means the world.
Until next time,

George

© 2024 GLT

Categories: Book Reviews, Reading

Tags: anniversary, BBC, book review, Doctor Who, Donna Noble, Mark Morris, novelisation, Russell T Davies, Wild Blue Yonder