Doctor Who: The Writer's Tale: The Final Chapter

This book is a blow-by-blow account of the making of the TV series “Doctor Who” in the period 2007–2009, in the form of a long series of e-mail messages, written at the time in the middle of frenzied activity, between Russell T. Davies (the showrunner) and Benjamin Cook (a journalist and fan of the series).

As such, it's of interest to three main categories of people: fans of Doctor Who, fans of Russell T. Davies (RTD), and people who want to be (or are already) scriptwriters or showrunners.

If you don't fall into any of these categories, this is probably not the book for you. Furthermore, it won't make much sense to you if you know nothing about Doctor Who.

If you're still interested at this point, well, the book tells you a lot about how each episode came to be written and put together, from the showrunner's point of view, with what appears to be hold-nothing-back honesty. If you're interested in the subject, it's all quite readable.

I found it quite interesting to watch as RTD worries, procrastinates, and eventually writes or rewrites each story in a tearing hurry at the last minute; then has to modify it further to make it fit the allocated running time and the allocated budget. It turns out that he edited and partially rewrote all the stories credited to other writers—except those by Steven Moffat.

The book aims to give an insight into the creative process, so we find him thinking out loud as he invents, rearranges, and discards ideas on the way to a final script.

In the process, I learned somewhat more about RTD than I really wanted to know, as I'm not a particular fan of his; but he's a fluent writer, capable of expressing himself quite eloquently, and he deserves credit for raising Doctor Who from the dead and making a success of it in the 21st century.

The book became oddly compulsive after a while, so that I had to read it to the end. And now I've quite enjoyed reading it for the second time.

RTD is now at least 13 years older than he was then, and he's committed himself to going though it all again, having signed up for a second stint as showrunner of “Doctor Who”. Must be mad!