Tag: James Goss

Doctor Who: Scratchman

Doctor Who: Scratchman

by Tom Baker with James Goss (BBC Books, 2019)

Baker_Scratchman

A novelisation of the film script that Tom Baker and Ian Marter wrote back in the 1970s. The content is dark verging on horror, yet the tone is very much Baker’s latter-day staple of bemused, gently deadpanned, Doctor as lost man-child comedy.

 

 

Doctor Who: Legends of Ashildr

Doctor Who: Legends of Ashildr

by James Goss, David Llewellyn, Jenny T. Colgan & Justin Richards (BBC, 2015)

Goss_Llewellyn_Colgan_Richards_Legends of Ashildr

A shameless, mostly unreadable cash-in. Of the four stories in this collection, only Colgan’s could claim anything like independent worth. In the other tales, Ashildr is either unrecognisable (Goss), superfluous (Llewellyn), or bland (Richards). Uninspiring narratives that fritter away Ashildr’s unique potential.

 

 

Doctor Who and the Krikkitmen

Doctor Who and the Krikkitmen

by Douglas Adams & James Goss (BBC Books, 2018)

Adams_Goss_Krikkitmen

Goss takes delight in adding a fourth book to Douglas Adams’ trilogy of Doctor Who stories, channelling the unfocussed wit of ‘Life, the Universe and Everything’ (Adams’ version), diligently but to the detriment of the Doctor Who tale that could have been.

 

 

Now We Are Six Hundred: A Collection of Time Lord Verse

Now We Are Six Hundred: A Collection of Time Lord Verse

by James Goss; ill. Russell T Davies (BBC Books, 2017)

Goss_Davies_Now We Are Six Hundred

By themselves Davies’ illustrations would make this a 4-star book, but the unmitigated celery stick of Goss’s verse (so-called) diminishes this to a dudgeon-inducing 1-star cash-in from the direst depths of e-space. Utterly unreadable to poets, Doctor Who fans and everyone else.

 

 

Doctor Who: Dead Air

Doctor Who: Dead Air

by James Goss (BBC Audio, 2010)

Goss_Dead Air

Doctor Who meets The Boat That Rocked: a creepy tale somewhat at odds with the drollness of its recounting – an extended Tenth Doctor monologue in which David Tennant (sublime and Scottish in other readings) sounds like Bill Nighy crossed with Arnold Rimmer.

 

Doctor Who: City of Death (2015)

Doctor Who: City of Death

by Douglas Adams & James Goss (BBC Books, 2015)

Goss_City of Death

Like Douglas Adams’ script before it, this posthumous collaboration appears to have been written somewhat hastily; while it does capture (and at times build upon) the splendour of the 1979 serial, this isn’t quite the much-pined-for novelisation that Gareth Roberts’ Shada was.

The Doctor: His Lives and Times

The Doctor: His Lives and Times

by James Goss & Steve Tribe (BBC Books, 2013)

Goss & Tribe_The Doctor

This photograph-rich primer on Doctor Who comprises one-third a potpourri of reminiscences by cast and crew across fifty years (with crosspollination between classic and news series Who) padded unfortunately with an excruciating, nigh unreadable pastiche of ersatz news articles and faux memoire.

Derelict Space Sheep