By Paul Cornell

BBC Books, out April 5

Two Time Lords refuse to regenerate, the twist being that they’re both the same person, and facing their own mortality versus the opportunity of a new life.

Somebody more of a Target Books aficionado than me will no doubt be able to identify the specific times that it has happened, but surely it’s a rare and special thing for the most recently televised episode of Doctor Who to be  novelised before the next story or serial has been shown? Which leads me to assume that Paul Cornell was adapting Steven Moffat’s farewell script long before it was shown on Christmas Day 2017.

Paul Cornell is of course Doctor Who writing royalty, from his Virgin New Adventures Love and War and Human Nature (later adapted as a David Tennant TV two-parter) to Scream of the Shalka and countless comic strips and Bernice Summerfield spinoffs. Showrunner Moffat’s final script for the 12th Doctor, and indeed his own entire six season tenure on the show, always deserved the best of adaptations, and his work is in safe hands with Cornell.

At 18 Chapters plus Prologue and Epilogue and at a respectable 161 pages, the one-hour special has been neatly translated into a Target book, complete with bullseye logo, faux faded cover and a design that screams (not of the Shalka) of 70s Achilleos book jackets. Cornell has added material that didn’t make it to the final cut of the episode – some 30 minutes of Steven Moffat content – which to his credit is so well integrated that in the novelisation it doesn’t stick out. In all honesty I haven’t had the repeat viewings of this most recent of episodes to be able to spot all the new content, but I plan on doing so now.

I have a sneaking suspicion that regardless of all the other Doctor Who books that he has written, adapting a televised story in the style of a Target paperback has taken an item off the author’s bucket list. Cornell approaches the story in a no-nonsense manner, providing some additional background context for Captain Archie’s predicament, while resisting reinstating the filmed but not used scenes in the base with Ben and Polly – we’re just told ‘They had many adventures together’.

This isn’t a showy piece of work that’s trying to add unnecessary material that was never there, and instead gets inside the characters’ heads by shifting the perspective between chapters. Cornell also has the honour of penning the adaptation of Jodie Whittaker’s Doctor’s first scene, and it’s ‘brilliant.’ The author is commended for taking Moffat’s narrative and making the Glass Woman’s scheme… ahem… crystal clear, without the need to embellish it.

Verdict: A respectful version of the 12th Doctor’s final story that presents the narrative tidily and engagingly. Forget you can already own the story in multiple formats and instead imagine a young Doctor Who fan in the 1970s discovering that a Target book adds an extra polish to every story. I’m guessing that Paul Cornell was that reader and he’s paying that gift forwards. 8/10

Nick Joy

Click here to order Twice Upon a Time from Amazon.co.uk