Doctor Who: The Day of the Doctor

“The Day of the Doctor” was a 50th-anniversary party episode, an extravagant romp featuring three Doctors and Clara, plus UNIT, Zygons, and a very implausible version of Queen Elizabeth I. It's quite fun to watch (John Hurt is good in it), but a bit of a mess, and the Queen Elizabeth stuff is ludicrous.

Moffat is a screenwriter, but here he gets to play at being a novelist, adapting his own script. He makes a decent stab at it. The main features of the story remain, of course, plus some extra details—about which I have mixed feelings, but at least something has been added to the screen version.

I find the result readable enough, but I prefer watching the show on screen. As a novel, I think 3 stars is a fair rating: I can reread it occasionally with some degree of enjoyment, but it doesn't come close to being a favourite.

I haven't bought any other Doctor Who novels; I tried this one as an experiment. Although this wasn't one of his best scripts, Moffat is the best screenwriter yet to write for the show, so it seemed worth trying.