Moffat and the Novelmen

Steven Moffat loves to reuse characters, plot lines, and themes from the New Adventures and Eighth Doctor Adventures novels—but always with a new twist, and often a whole new meaning.

Background

The classic series was accompanied by comic strips almost from the start, with the publication of "The Klepton Parasites" in TV Comics on 14 November 1964. But these early stories are barely Doctor Who at all.

Things began changing in the mid-80s. TV producer John Nathan-Turner was explicitly raising (and attempting to answer) questions about continuity. The comic strips in Marvel's Doctor Who Weekly/Monthly/Magazine, largely written by fans like Gary Russell, attempted to fit their stories into that continuity. Target expanded beyond novelizations and into original stories about the companions. Some of the TV writers even began writing for other media.

But Virgin's New Adventures (launched in 1991) and BBC's Eighth Doctor Adventures (launched in 1997) were different. These novel ranges were designed from the beginning to take over where the TV series left off. They were also intended to tell stories for adults that were "too big for the small screen". And they deliberately tried to police their continuity far more seriously than the TV show had, even in the JNT/Cartmel era. RTD and Moffat both read the novels, and RTD even wrote one.

Continuity

When the series came back, novel fans immediately began wondering whether the novels were part of the continuity of the new TV show. But that was always a silly question. The EDAs were all about changes to not just history, but the very nature of history. And the new series was set in the aftermath of a Last Great Time War that had removed the Time Lords from space-time and again changed the way history works.

While RTD was always cagey about the question, Moffat has told people from the start that it's not even a question worth answering. Off-camera, he pointed people to Paul Cornell's blog post on Canonicty in Doctor Who. On-camera, even before he was in charge, he had the Doctor describe post-Time War continuity as a ball of "timey-wimey". His first story arc was about cracks in time eating history, ending with Amy and the Doctor rebooting the whole universe. And, just to hammer to point home, he gave us this speech:

The thing is, Amy, everyone's memory is a mess. Life is a mess. Everyone's got memories of a holiday they couldn't have been on, or a party they never went to, or met someone for the first time and felt like they've known them all their lives. Time is being rewritten all around us, every day. People think their memories are bad, but their memories are fine. The past is really like that.

Anyone who asks whether the novels are part of continuity is missing the point of Doctor Who entirely. Sure, if you're trying to put together a wiki like the TARDIS Data Core, you have to make some decisions about what does and doesn't count—but if you think there's a "right answer" out there to be discovered, you're watching the wrong show. If you remember the Doctor fighting Kleptons with John and Gillian, your memories are fine. The past is really like that.

The more interesting question is how the new stories have made use of the enormous amount of source material. Even ignoring the stories that weren't written to carry on the main narrative, you've got 26 years of classic shows, 61 NA novels, the TV movie, 73 EDAs, two web animations, and dozens of audio plays that were.

RTD

Early in the EDAs, the novel Alien Bodies began dropping hints of a Time War in the Doctor's personal future. Some of the other novels followed up on this. About halfway through the range, in The Ancestor Cell, the Doctor finally caught up with this War, and ended it by destroying both Gallifrey and their Enemy. The Enemy in the novels were definitely not the Daleks, and RTD has said behind-the-scenes that his Time War was a different one to the one in the novels, but the idea is the same. Both the later EDAs and the revived TV series are set in a post-Time Lords universe. Both took advantage of the narrative freedom from continuity, while at the same time exploring what the effects of such a change would have on both the Doctor and the universe.


But in a sense, the Time War was an idea whose time had come. The 1996 TV Movie had tried to weaken the links to the past without openly severing them, as did the 2003 webcast animation Scream of the Shalka. But in 2000, the EDAs openly broke history, in-universe. 2001's webcast Death Comes to Time, the Big Finish audios did the same starting in 2004, and the new TV series starting in 2005 all similarly gave us a war that destroyed the Doctor's people and changed the nature of history. The four Time Wars were very different in their particulars, but the effect was the same. They loosed the bonds of continuity without breaking the narrative connection to Doctor Who's past, opening the scope for new stories. Most fans who followed the novels agree that the second half of the EDA series was far better than the first half, and of course it's Rose, not the TV movie or Shalka, that kickstarted a new series that finally brought Doctor Who back to the masses.

Outside the Time War, RTD didn't borrow much from non-TV stories, or from the classic series. (While some fans have drawn parallels between Rose and Ace, they seem pretty thin to me.) When he did, the borrowings were far from subtle.

Most obviously, the RTD era directly adapted stories from other media. Dalek was based on the audio story Jubilee, Human Nature/The Family of Blood on the novel Human Nature, and Rise of the Cyberman (partly) on the audio Spare Parts. These are among the best stories of the era, or at least the best that weren't penned by RTD or Moffat.

Less obviously, RTD sometimes lifted scenes out of novels and dropped them into the series. In general, they were lifted almost verbatim, and often didn't fit their new context. For example, compare the scene in Journey's End where the Doctor beats himself up over all the people he's led to their deaths to the equivalent scene from the novels. Some of the words are lifted verbatim. But in the novels, they come from a manipulative puppet-master Doctor who's deliberately led people to sacrifice themselves for the greater good, finally admitting that his companions Ace and Benny had been right to accuse him. In the TV series, they come from a heroic Doctor who does everything he can to prevent others from sacrificing themselves, being manipulated by Davros getting into his head. So, what comes across as a powerful cathartic moment for the Seventh Doctor (and, meta-textually, the NA authors) instead plays out as whiny angst from the  Tenth Doctor (and RTD).

The writer responsible for most of the exceptions to that rule was Steven Moffat—who would go even farther once he took over the show.

Moffat

Future posts will explore the various specific instances where Moffat has borrowed from non-TV media, but here I'll attempt to paint an overall picture.

Unlike RTD, Moffat rarely borrows elements unchanged. He often lifts character elements, plotlines, and themes rather than specific lines or scenes. But, even when he does reuse a speech, he puts it into a completely different context, giving the same lines a completely new meaning, that's perfectly in keeping with the new story he's trying to tell.

For the most obvious example, no one would mistake River Song for being the same character as Benny Summerfield, even though they're both dodgy archaeologists from the future, with a taste for drink, skilled at combat despite not being very warrior-like, who keep a journal, who the Doctor has had sex with, etc.

For a less obvious example, both Anji and Rory accuse the Doctor of being dangerous because he inspires his companions—Fitz and Amy, respectively—to try to be like him. In the novels, this is ultimately Anji failing to realize that Fitz is doing what he wants to do; in the series, it's Rory realizing that neither Amy nor the Doctor are being honest to themselves about the danger she's in.

While Moffat borrows from all eras and media, he seems to borrow a lot more from the EDAs than anywhere else. Given that the EDAs were primarily about the idea that "history can change", this isn't too surprising. Moffat wants to write stories that are actually about time travel, the meaning of history and memory, the line between technology and magic, the natural of reality and fairy tale, the nature of the Doctor-companion relationship, and the effect on the universe of the Time Lords' absence. These are all central ideas in the EDAs. When Moffat focuses on other areas, he does borrow more from other stories—for example, the NAs had a lot more to say about the nature of the TARDIS, and when Moffat turns to the TARDIS, he turns to the NAs.

It's probably worth pointing out that Moffat borrows more from some authors than others, and from Larry Miles more than anyone else. Miles seems to think, at least at times, that this is done out of spite, but I think there's a much more innocent reason. Most of what was interesting about the EDAs grew out of Miles' first and last novels for the range, Alien Bodies and The Adventuress of Henrietta Street. Also, his novels are so full of ideas that are so central to understanding Doctor Who in general and the EDAs in particular, that it's hard to imagine how anyone could be inspired by the EDAs without being especially inspired by Miles.

It's always possible that some of these apparent borrowings are just coincidences. There are only so many stories to tell, and the number of stories that can be told about a madman in a box traveling through time are even more restricted. With 73 EDAs, plus 61 NAs and hundreds of classic TV stories, comic strips, short stories, audio plays, and past-Doctor stories in all media, you eventually run into the "Simpsons Did It" effect. Plus, in some cases, the borrowings might be not coincidental, but still unintentional—if you were writing a story about being trapped in a damaged TARDIS, and you read Time's Crucible 20 years ago, you might incorporate some ideas from it without consciously realizing you're doing so. But there are enough connections that are sufficiently blatant that they can't _all_ be unintentional.

Finally, why does it matter? Really, the only thing that matters is whether Doctor Who gives us a compelling story that's worth following. And in many cases, seeing the parallels, and seeing how Moffat has used some element from an earlier story to tell a completely different story enhances your enjoyment of both. Fitz's 1000 years as a Remote and Rory's 2000 years as an Auton are both great stories, and when you notice that they use the same lines to describe their very different stories, it sheds new light on both.