Doctor Who: Four to Doomsday: 5th Doctor Novelisation Audio CD – CD, 2 March 2017

This is a fairly standardised novelisation but it does what it needs to do and captures the essence of the televised serial.There is little embellishment, further explanation or clarification and as such some of the more dubious elements of the story are repeated without consideration. Most notably this includes the questionable historical periods Monarch has supposedly visited which has Mayan civilisation reach its height thousands of years earlier than it does (in fact several thousand years before it is estimated to have begun) and an invented Chinese dynasty. However, as this somewhat inventive dating is integral to the plot history is required to be warped around it and changing it in the novelisation would mean significant alteration to the storyline.In a similar vein Tegan is able to converse in an ancient aboriginal dialect that there is no way she could possibly know. Even if she had any knowledge of aboriginal language it would be radically unrecognisable anyway over the immense period of time mentioned in the story. As silly as this is it remains unchanged or unexplained. However, it does show Tegan in a more positive light than the rest of the story that portrays her as pretty ineffectual and inconsiderate.The novelisation does give a better impression of why Adric behaves as he does. It makes it much clearer that he is under some type of malign influence of Monarch’s. However, at the same time, he is also portrayed as more sexist.The novelisation is less wandering and more coherent than its onscreen counterpart. Dicks also instils a somewhat faster pace to events. The story benefits from this and flows better. It also helps to justify the overly dramatic title by making the threat seem more urgent.There also feels like a touch of humour applied that wasn’t readily apparent onscreen. It seems that the author might even be mocking the story to some extent. However, it does seem to work and Dicks is having fun portraying Monarch, the villain of the piece.At times the text jumps very rapidly between perspectives and scenes. Often this is quite irritating in most novels but it somehow seems to benefit this story as it is usually applied to create the impression of characters watching others on monitors. It is quite effective.

Four to Doomsday probably doesn't rank as the best of Doctor Who stories, and I probably enjoyed Terrence Dicks' novelisation of it more than I did watching it. Whilst his reliable clear prose doesn't perhaps capture the best of the TV serial's performances (Philip Locke and Stratford Johns were always favourites of mine), if I'm not mistaken Dicks does tighten up the plot a bit and (for instance) make Adric's wild character swings seem a bit more explicable than simply being bad acting :)