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Doctor Who Target Books (Numerical Order) #101
Doctor Who: The Gunfighters
Back in the gun-totin', hard-hittin', fast-shootin' days of the Old Wild West, when outlaws ruled the land and the good guys stayed off the streets, a troupe of traveling players - Miss Dodo Dupont, Steven Regret and the mysterious Doctor Caligari - moseyed into the town of Tombstone one October afternoon. Their method of transportation was a mite peculiar though. After all, a police box materializing out of thin air sure ain't the usual way to enter a sedate town like Tombstone. And when the Doctor and his pardners meet up with Wyatt Earp and the notorious Clanton brothers, they soon find out that the scene is all set for high noon at the O.K. Corral.
152 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1985
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 40 reviews
December 19, 2018
The Gunfighters is one of them stories that fans either love or hate, personally I think it’s a great fun romp as the show try’s to do something a bit different.
Admittedly it’s the catalyst for the series to faze out historical’s during the 1960’s, but there’s so much to enjoy.
This novelisation is such a fun read. Narrated by Doc Holliday, the infamous gambler gunfighter and dentist who The Doctor seeks to help with he’s toothache.
It gives an authentic feel to the story.
It’s not long before the TARDIS crew are caught up in events leading up to the events at the O.K. Corral.
Cotton humours scripts really adds a different flavour to the show, it’s a shame that they fazed these out as I would have been fascinating to see a Second Doctor story written by him.
Admittedly it’s the catalyst for the series to faze out historical’s during the 1960’s, but there’s so much to enjoy.
This novelisation is such a fun read. Narrated by Doc Holliday, the infamous gambler gunfighter and dentist who The Doctor seeks to help with he’s toothache.
It gives an authentic feel to the story.
It’s not long before the TARDIS crew are caught up in events leading up to the events at the O.K. Corral.
Cotton humours scripts really adds a different flavour to the show, it’s a shame that they fazed these out as I would have been fascinating to see a Second Doctor story written by him.
September 13, 2021
This is a novelization of the seventh serial of the third season of Doctor Who, and was broadcast in April and May of 1966. Donald Cotton wrote the teleplay, and then adapted it into novel form almost two decades after the original version. The story features the original Doctor and two of the least-favorite companions, contemporary teen-aged orphan Dorothea Chaplet (known as Dodo), and futuristic space pilot Steven Taylor. The story is filled with much more slapstick humor than was usual; The Doctor has a toothache and stops to find a dentist. He finds "Doc" Holliday and the OK Corral, complete with Ned Buntline (who narrates the story), Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson, Johnny Ringo, the Clanton family, Big Nose Kate, etc. Though it's classified as one of the early historical adventures, it's much more of a satire of the American Western genre, and perhaps even of the British perception and portrayal of it. The dialog and descriptions are over-the-top, and Cotton allowed himself free reign in adding some wild points to his original version. There are some funny dramtic scenes, but I'm sure it was tailored more to a British sense of humor than I could appreciate.
May 9, 2011
Save me from Brits who try to write American. It comes off poorly, even if it's done well, and it's not done well here. The only thing that I can imagine that might be worse is Brits on television trying to play American, so I am grateful that I have never seen this episode of Doctor Who.
The plot is typical … The Doctor being confused for someone else who is supposed to be in the area, in this case Doc Holliday, with the Clanton boys coming to Tombstone looking for revenge.
The tale is told in first person, narrated in this instance by Ned Buntline, designer of the famous revolver and writer of penny-dreadful novels, who flings anachronisms faster than a two-tongued frog catches flies. Similar analogies are annoyingly strewn through the book. It comes off more West End than Western.
I wish Target had cared enough to edit the Doctor Who books more severely, but I guess that they figured that kids and Whovians don't care that much about good storytelling.
The plot is typical … The Doctor being confused for someone else who is supposed to be in the area, in this case Doc Holliday, with the Clanton boys coming to Tombstone looking for revenge.
The tale is told in first person, narrated in this instance by Ned Buntline, designer of the famous revolver and writer of penny-dreadful novels, who flings anachronisms faster than a two-tongued frog catches flies. Similar analogies are annoyingly strewn through the book. It comes off more West End than Western.
I wish Target had cared enough to edit the Doctor Who books more severely, but I guess that they figured that kids and Whovians don't care that much about good storytelling.
September 29, 2024
There’s fun to be had from this cod Western tale being written in cod western vernacular, but it remains a really slight tale.
Read
February 4, 2025I'm going to risk a few sacred cows and suggest that this might be the most beautifully written piece of Who fiction out there. A pitch-perfect parody of American Western literature, a prologue sets it up as an account of the Gunfight at the O. K. Corral as told to its author, Ned Buntline, by Doc Holliday himself on his death bed, and proceeds to narrate the yarn in an inspired stream of Old West jargon. I was completely sold from the description of the Doctor 'clutching at an apparently haphazard selection of levers with the air of a demented xylophonist, who finds he's brought along the wine list instead of the score'. The commitment to sustain this level of wit and invention for the duration of what could have been a throwaway script-to-page novelisation is admirable and the result is a minor masterpiece.
Quite what readers made of it when it was published in 1985 is anybody's guess. The Target audience (pun intended) of young readers were presumably baffled, and Doctor Who fandom was at the height of its pretentious desire to see its favourite programme as Definitely For Grown-Ups And Ideally Set In A Space Ship, so this historical whimsy was probably anathema to them and may have contributed to the entirely wrong-headed contemporary view that 'The Gunfighters' was the series' low point.
More fool them.
Quite what readers made of it when it was published in 1985 is anybody's guess. The Target audience (pun intended) of young readers were presumably baffled, and Doctor Who fandom was at the height of its pretentious desire to see its favourite programme as Definitely For Grown-Ups And Ideally Set In A Space Ship, so this historical whimsy was probably anathema to them and may have contributed to the entirely wrong-headed contemporary view that 'The Gunfighters' was the series' low point.
More fool them.
June 15, 2018
Briefly, I feel I should say I preferred this to the televised version which I've never been a fan of. Principally because that damned 'Ballad of the Last Chance Saloon' doesn't keep intruding on the narrative. Donald Cotton's writing style's quite humourous too which helps a great deal. It'd have been interesting to see what it would have been like if he'd been let loose on a bunch of other sixties stories. I wonder if he'd have made 'The Sensorites' a little more tolerable...
September 15, 2015
1 of the very worst Doctor Who episodes.
August 21, 2019
Another boring history lesson (inaccurate) from Donald Cotton. Sorry Donald, you are my least favourite Dr Who novelist. 😕
October 21, 2019
Once again, Donald Cotton uses the questionable conceit of having a character out of history narrate the story of Doctor Who’s time-traveling escapades. In The Gunfighters, the literary puppet for Cotton’s machinations is the dime novel raconteur, Ned Buntline telling the story as told by Doc Holliday. And, while this works somewhat better than Homer’s role in The Myth Makers, it still isn’t entirely satisfactory. This doddering, relatively clueless version of the “Doctor” just doesn’t work for me, even though the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (albeit misnamed in popular history) is a major part of the Wild West mythos in the U.S.
Fortunately, there seem to be less anachronisms in the dialogue for The Gunfighters than I complained of in The Myth Makers. Perhaps, the most glaring was a reference to “Little Orphan Annie Oakley” as a comedic description of Big Nose Kate (p. 61). Naturally, the character of “Little Orphan Annie” wouldn’t have been known by narrator Buntline. Still, there was some delightful and colorful word play throughout the book which actually fit the era. Some of the word play dealt with the inadequacy of Phineas Clanton as he tried to create similes and usually ended up with some kind of reference to frogs, but some were interesting descriptions that “could” have come from the Wild West. When Big Nose Kate gets angry at Doc Holliday, we read: “The effect was similar to a hot spring erupting in a mud hole, …” (p. 91) At another point, the angry mob is “murmuring menace like bees at a barbeque – or possums in a bakery…” (p. 98). I sort of liked the character who protested his innocence because he had been sleeping like “a snowbound gopher.” (p. 126) I absolutely can’t resist the one about the prostitute “…who had always known which side her bed was bartered, …” (pp. 135-136).
On the other hand, Cotton does a marvelous job of portraying Wyatt Earp’s hypocritical posturing as a Baptist deacon, including marvelous dialogue where he uses imagery and speech reminiscent of the King James Version of the Bible. Some of the best moments in the entire novel revolve around this affectation of Earp’s (who while a Baptist deacon in real life was also known to “cheat” at Faro at the Oriental Saloon (where he owned part interest) and to have lived with more than one prostitute as his common-law wife, not to mention allegedly living in a brothel long enough to be arrested with his brother Morgan and the “girls”) and how it affected his relationship with Bat Masterson and Doc Holliday. With Earp’s historical reputation, it was rather unsettling to hear him describe Doc Holliday’s common-law wife (and prostitute/saloon owner) Big Nose Kate as a “Jezebel of Babylon,” considering the common-law wives (and prostitutes) with whom he lived (p. 86).
Nonetheless, this fictional jaunt through the periphery of the lore offers an interesting comedic premise, mistaken identity. [Spoiler Alert!] If you don’t want to know the obvious character with whom the mistaken identity occurs, don’t read the rest of this review, especially the next brief quotation of dialogue:
“’Doc?’ he enquired.
The Doctor leaped like a bee that has sat on its sting. …
‘Eh?’ he enquired in his turn, ‘Yes, my good man, what is it?’
‘Holliday?’ pursued Seth….
The Doctor considered the question. ‘Well, yes - in a way, I suppose. Yes – you could say so …’
After all, he generally took a break at this time of year …” (p. 54)
What can I say? That doesn’t seem like the person I expect to see in this role. Maybe I didn’t watch enough of the early episodes, but I don’t remember this incompetent character. And the mistaken identity threatens to take Steven’s life in true Wild West lynching fashion! It isn’t that they think Steven is someone else per se; it’s that they believe he is Doc Holliday’s friend and they want to use Steven’s lynching as leverage to bring the Doc out. Meanwhile, the “real” Doc Holliday tries to figure out how to stop this out-of-control mob, “Because you gotta be more than fast to get the drop on a whole town – you gotta be mayor; which he wasn’t.” (p. 96)
Truth be told, The Gunfighters could just as easily be entitled, “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the OK Corral.” It seems like every comedic trope is used such that it needs a disclaimer that “No tropes have gone unharmed in the writing of this novel.” Still, significantly more than The Myth Makers, I was satisfied with The Gunfighters as parody, slightly disappointed with the almost inert role of the Doctor in this story—even more so than the other.
Fortunately, there seem to be less anachronisms in the dialogue for The Gunfighters than I complained of in The Myth Makers. Perhaps, the most glaring was a reference to “Little Orphan Annie Oakley” as a comedic description of Big Nose Kate (p. 61). Naturally, the character of “Little Orphan Annie” wouldn’t have been known by narrator Buntline. Still, there was some delightful and colorful word play throughout the book which actually fit the era. Some of the word play dealt with the inadequacy of Phineas Clanton as he tried to create similes and usually ended up with some kind of reference to frogs, but some were interesting descriptions that “could” have come from the Wild West. When Big Nose Kate gets angry at Doc Holliday, we read: “The effect was similar to a hot spring erupting in a mud hole, …” (p. 91) At another point, the angry mob is “murmuring menace like bees at a barbeque – or possums in a bakery…” (p. 98). I sort of liked the character who protested his innocence because he had been sleeping like “a snowbound gopher.” (p. 126) I absolutely can’t resist the one about the prostitute “…who had always known which side her bed was bartered, …” (pp. 135-136).
On the other hand, Cotton does a marvelous job of portraying Wyatt Earp’s hypocritical posturing as a Baptist deacon, including marvelous dialogue where he uses imagery and speech reminiscent of the King James Version of the Bible. Some of the best moments in the entire novel revolve around this affectation of Earp’s (who while a Baptist deacon in real life was also known to “cheat” at Faro at the Oriental Saloon (where he owned part interest) and to have lived with more than one prostitute as his common-law wife, not to mention allegedly living in a brothel long enough to be arrested with his brother Morgan and the “girls”) and how it affected his relationship with Bat Masterson and Doc Holliday. With Earp’s historical reputation, it was rather unsettling to hear him describe Doc Holliday’s common-law wife (and prostitute/saloon owner) Big Nose Kate as a “Jezebel of Babylon,” considering the common-law wives (and prostitutes) with whom he lived (p. 86).
Nonetheless, this fictional jaunt through the periphery of the lore offers an interesting comedic premise, mistaken identity. [Spoiler Alert!] If you don’t want to know the obvious character with whom the mistaken identity occurs, don’t read the rest of this review, especially the next brief quotation of dialogue:
“’Doc?’ he enquired.
The Doctor leaped like a bee that has sat on its sting. …
‘Eh?’ he enquired in his turn, ‘Yes, my good man, what is it?’
‘Holliday?’ pursued Seth….
The Doctor considered the question. ‘Well, yes - in a way, I suppose. Yes – you could say so …’
After all, he generally took a break at this time of year …” (p. 54)
What can I say? That doesn’t seem like the person I expect to see in this role. Maybe I didn’t watch enough of the early episodes, but I don’t remember this incompetent character. And the mistaken identity threatens to take Steven’s life in true Wild West lynching fashion! It isn’t that they think Steven is someone else per se; it’s that they believe he is Doc Holliday’s friend and they want to use Steven’s lynching as leverage to bring the Doc out. Meanwhile, the “real” Doc Holliday tries to figure out how to stop this out-of-control mob, “Because you gotta be more than fast to get the drop on a whole town – you gotta be mayor; which he wasn’t.” (p. 96)
Truth be told, The Gunfighters could just as easily be entitled, “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the OK Corral.” It seems like every comedic trope is used such that it needs a disclaimer that “No tropes have gone unharmed in the writing of this novel.” Still, significantly more than The Myth Makers, I was satisfied with The Gunfighters as parody, slightly disappointed with the almost inert role of the Doctor in this story—even more so than the other.
March 11, 2025
Donald Cotton managed to pull the same trick twice, and considering he also contributed the novelization of Dennis Spooner’s The Romans, it’s possible he did it a third time. When looking at Target novelizations, especially those 1984 and later, you realize less and less that they were being published to relive the story as the BBC had begun the VHS range at that point, but really to complete the range. The exceptions to this are of those serials that were missing and several of the Seventh Doctor serials, the former attempting to recapture the missing episodes in some way while the latter would often be expanded as tests to see if proper Doctor Who novels would work. It makes The Gunfighters a weird beast of a novelization. Published in 1986, the VHS range had started but was still limited to a handful of Baker stories, The Five Doctors, and The Seeds of Death, and there was a copy of The Gunfighters in the archive as well to draw from, yet it seems Cotton didn’t have access to draw from.
Cotton clearly was interested in adding characterization to much of his supporting cast. In television there certainly was characterization and larger than life performances, but Cotton seems to understand he can’t really replicate some of those performances in prose. Instead, he decides while sticking to a lot of the original script (or perhaps an earlier version with some differences lacking some improv), Cotton keeps a lot of the humor to more wry dialogue. Johnny Ringo is the character perhaps most expanded by this, much time is spent going into how he’s motivated by wanting enough money to buy a particularly expensive set of Latin classics. He and the Doctor speak to each other in Latin, and is generally calmer and more collected. His shooting of Charlie the barman is changed from a sudden act to this genuine buildup of suspense. Cotton writes it as if Charlie is dead as soon as Ringo enters the bar.
The same can be said for Dodo, a character already served well by the comedic stylings of the serial, Cotton makes the decision to make her completely competent. There seems to be an injection of the original, more working class less BBC English version of the character here. Dodo plays poker and actually puts Holliday out of money in a very brief description that nevertheless says a lot more for the character than nearly anything on television ever did. It helps inform her actions when she threatens Holliday at gunpoint to get back to Tombstone. There is time given to both Dodo and Steven’s pasts, though Cotton seems to think Steven is actually an American which kind of reflects the 1980s view of where space travel was going which is an interesting addition, even if his dialogue is still very much Peter Purves’ Steven. The one character hurt by the change in style of comedy is Kate, while she’s still proactive and there is some added characterization to specify she is Big Nose Kate Elder, the dialogue being reserved means she isn’t nearly as fun or flirty as Sheena Marshe’s television portrayal.
Overall, The Gunfighters is just a plain different interpretation of essentially the same serial from the same author. It’s just about as enjoyable in almost every different way, and perhaps if you’re one of those Doctor Who fans stuck in the ways that the television serial is bad, you may actually enjoy the more reserved take, even though the comedy is where it excels. 8/10.
January 24, 2025
If you see a Donald Cotton Target adaptation, GET IT! They're funny, witty and use unusual and interesting perspectives on stories that he, in almost every case, improves on. The Gunfighters is his third and last (in order of episodes, not sure about publication) and it's a HOOT! The fight at the O.K. Corral episode is retold with a lot of verve - every sentence a comedic gem - by Doc Holliday's biographer, as a kind of Doctor Who dime store novel. Cotton fixes his own script in a number of ways, like - I know you're going to ask this - removing all but one instance of the dreaded Ballad of the Last Chance Saloon. I don't hate the device, but it's not for prose, and besides, it was meant to create a western mood and tell the story beyond the visuals. The novelisation takes care of that anyway. Cotton makes his guest stars much more interesting with easily identifiable shticks (some of which, like Ringo's love of the Classics, are historically true, but weren't in the show), so even the dialogue is improved. He also makes our leads much more active, especially in the finale where, on the program, history just took its course with the TARDIS crew only bearing witness. This is definitely the best version of this Doctor Who tale (if not of the fight itself, plenty of other choices for that, mine being Tombstone).
February 8, 2021
Somewhere between a 2 and a 3, possibly 2.5 :) Not as good as Myth Makers, potentially lands around the Romans, but for different reasons, when comparing to the other comedic ones written by Donald Cotton.
It has one narrator, which helps compared to the Romans, but the voice of the narrator as such is quite painful in such a large dose, to begin with wasn't too bad but just seemed to get more absurd.
Similar to Cotton's other novels, also quite hard to determine the characterisation of characters against the TV story, as all from the narrator's point of view, and I haven't watched the TV story to compare, though I suspect that it was quite different.
Is amusing in parts, but has some very out of character actions in here by the Doctor, and non Doctor Who scenes as such, which I believe weren't in the TV story, making for an interesting at times read, but one that put a dent in my enthusiasm to pick up the next Doctor Who book too quickly.
It has one narrator, which helps compared to the Romans, but the voice of the narrator as such is quite painful in such a large dose, to begin with wasn't too bad but just seemed to get more absurd.
Similar to Cotton's other novels, also quite hard to determine the characterisation of characters against the TV story, as all from the narrator's point of view, and I haven't watched the TV story to compare, though I suspect that it was quite different.
Is amusing in parts, but has some very out of character actions in here by the Doctor, and non Doctor Who scenes as such, which I believe weren't in the TV story, making for an interesting at times read, but one that put a dent in my enthusiasm to pick up the next Doctor Who book too quickly.
August 9, 2024
Based on his own script this is number 101 in the Target catalogue. The cover art is by Andrew Skilleter
This is the 3rd and final (in story order) Doctor Who novelisation by Donald Cotton. It is consistant with his other 2, which is to say bad. Once again he has taken the worst elements of the story and exaggerated them into farce to the point every character sounds like a blithering idiot. Not that he had to go far given the original script which is my least favourite Classic Who story of all time. He is still writing under the delusion his prose is witty and funny. It’s not. It’s crass stupidity.
But what really annoyed me was him making the Doctor a murderer who enjoys killing people.
I read it so say that I can say I’ve read every Doctor Who novelisation, but I will never read this or any of his other novelisations again. I hope a decent writer with respect for the show is able to rewrite better versions of all 3 at some time in the future.
This is the 3rd and final (in story order) Doctor Who novelisation by Donald Cotton. It is consistant with his other 2, which is to say bad. Once again he has taken the worst elements of the story and exaggerated them into farce to the point every character sounds like a blithering idiot. Not that he had to go far given the original script which is my least favourite Classic Who story of all time. He is still writing under the delusion his prose is witty and funny. It’s not. It’s crass stupidity.
But what really annoyed me was him making the Doctor a murderer who enjoys killing people.
I read it so say that I can say I’ve read every Doctor Who novelisation, but I will never read this or any of his other novelisations again. I hope a decent writer with respect for the show is able to rewrite better versions of all 3 at some time in the future.
April 29, 2021
Man. This was a struggle of a book to finish.
It didn't help that I'm not all that into Western stories. To add insult to injury, the book uses a character narrator, so the whole thing is written with a ridiculous amount of stereotype Western slang that really just makes a lot of the book almost unreadable. And then it's a story that really doesn't go anywhere interesting.
The main premise of the story is that the Doctor is having a toothache and they need to make a pitstop to find a dentist. But of course given the TARDIS, they end up in the Wild West with the closest dentist being...the infamous Doc Holliday.
This was definitely one of those crazy time travel story of the week style adventures for the First Doctor, and so we have to grade it on a bit of a curve. But it's really not the sort of Doctor Who adventure that I can really get into.
It didn't help that I'm not all that into Western stories. To add insult to injury, the book uses a character narrator, so the whole thing is written with a ridiculous amount of stereotype Western slang that really just makes a lot of the book almost unreadable. And then it's a story that really doesn't go anywhere interesting.
The main premise of the story is that the Doctor is having a toothache and they need to make a pitstop to find a dentist. But of course given the TARDIS, they end up in the Wild West with the closest dentist being...the infamous Doc Holliday.
This was definitely one of those crazy time travel story of the week style adventures for the First Doctor, and so we have to grade it on a bit of a curve. But it's really not the sort of Doctor Who adventure that I can really get into.
October 8, 2021
Why should you read a novelisation of Gunfighters when you can get the DVD? Because in this novelisation, Donald Cotton decided he was going to write the whole thing as a biographical work by Ned Buntline - real muck-raking biographer of some Western giants - about Doc Halliday and the OK Corral. And it's glorious, the entire work in tobacco-chewin' laconic Western pastiche, full of earthy and sardonic black humour, and throwing in all-new gags like the First Doctor accidentally wandering into a brothel (?!). I don't know how he got away with it but I'm bloody glad he did.
January 20, 2024
This was one of the historical episodes in the First Doctor's run. If you can I would recommend listening to the audio version of this book as the narrator has the best old-west storyteller voice. The book starts with a newsman interviewing Doc Holiday during his final days. Doc goes on to tell the true story of the O.K. Corral and how three time travelers were involved. Overall, this was a good book although there were a few moments that were kind of cringy but for the most part, it was entertaining.
February 7, 2023
Doctor Who : The Gunfighters (1985) by Donald Cotton is the novelisation of the eighth serial of the third season of Doctor Who. The companions are Dodo and Steven. The TARDIS appears in the Wild West.
The story is narrated by Doc Holiday well after the fact. Cotton used a narrator as he had with Homer for The Mythmakers.
The Gunfighters is quite fun. It has lots of twists and turns and a bit of humour. It’s worth a read.
The story is narrated by Doc Holiday well after the fact. Cotton used a narrator as he had with Homer for The Mythmakers.
The Gunfighters is quite fun. It has lots of twists and turns and a bit of humour. It’s worth a read.
May 2, 2020
I admire Donald Cotton for amusing himself when writing these Target books rather than following the televised story. Personally I'm not a bit interested in Westerns, gunfights or the OK Corral but I admire the wit and style of his writing. Dodo has a bit more about her here, but unfortunately that comes across more as Doc H's misremembering than any development on her part.
August 26, 2021
Was very nice after my last novelisation to read one that actually had a distinctive voice! There were a few references in relation to Dodo that made me cringe (is he aware she's 16 and these are grown men?) but mostly I had fun. Disappointed they didn't find a way to play The Ballad of the Last Chance Saloon on repeat in prose though!
October 24, 2021
An enjoyable audiobook set in the Wild West of America. I enjoyed this book, although the style of Shane Rimmer's narration took a bit of getting used to. The music and sound effects really complimented the story, compared to other releases where it was sometimes overwhelming.
As a fan of both Doctor Who and the Western genre, this was right up my street.
As a fan of both Doctor Who and the Western genre, this was right up my street.
January 8, 2024
60th anniversary read through. One of the more stupid and missable stories. Kept using words like GD and damn frequently, which also seemed not Doctor Who. However, it’s been about 10 years ago, but based on my memory of the televised show, the book is way better. Very silly outfits and horrible songs all the way through. Next up, the Savages the penultimate story of very long season three.
May 20, 2025
What I remember of the Gunslingers on TV, is a wailing country song that was played every five minutes and steadily bore it's way into my skull. I thought the novelisation would allow me to appreciate the plot without this irritant - yet after just a few chapters this book had me wishing for the song again. This has to be one of the worst stories in sixty years of Doctor Who history, without a single redeeming feature. 1 star.
June 19, 2023
Long held to be one of the worst stories in the range, Gunfighters is actually a lot of fun. Mr Cotton has clearly worked hard on this but it suffers from having too many characters with the same sort of voice as the narration. Good fun, though.
January 4, 2024
As daring an experiment as Cotton’s original script (and even more so in audiobook form with Rimmer’s total commitment to cowboy drawl). Superbly witty on a line-by-line level, and unlike so much of the Doctor Who canon the prose has independent merit.
September 30, 2017
One of my fave Doctor Who books so far, well written.
November 22, 2017
Corny Western plot with not much of a story but humorous writing made up for it.
March 14, 2020
A brilliant adaptation, as expected from Donald Cotton.
October 6, 2023
I didn’t care too much for this story and the songs were irritating but it was okay. I liked the interview after.
They only had four days of rehearsal before filming each episode? That’s crazy!
They only had four days of rehearsal before filming each episode? That’s crazy!
July 8, 2013
"The Gunfighters" is not one of the more well-regarded serials from the first Doctor's era.
So this could be why I skipped Donald Cotton's adaptation of the serial in my Target novel collecting days.
I will also admit it's been a long while since I've seen the original serial, though it sits on my DVD shelf. Call me a slave to my completest tendencies.
When I saw that the story was coming out as an audio book, I decided I'd take the plunge on it, figuring it would be a nice way to spend a few hours while working out or working around the house.
Unfortunately, the old saying that "the horses get the best lines" in this story is further evidenced by Cotton's adaptation of the story.
Seeking a cure to a toothache, the Doctor sends the TARDIS to the wild, wild west, around the time of the historic gunfight at the OK Corral. Before long, the Doctor, Stephen and Dodo are caught up cases of mistaken identity and the events leading up to the infamous gun battle.
On the printed page, Cotton is freed from the limitations of a TV budget and allowed to let the story roam a bit more freely. And thank heavens he doesn't try to incorporate the infamous song from the television serial into his novel. But the novel does tend to ramble a bit and while some of the asides and alleys are humorous, often times I found the humor falling a bit flat.
The novel is read by Shane Rimmer, who was part of the guest cast in the original serial. His deep Western drawl gets a bit tedious and quickly wears out its welcome.
So this could be why I skipped Donald Cotton's adaptation of the serial in my Target novel collecting days.
I will also admit it's been a long while since I've seen the original serial, though it sits on my DVD shelf. Call me a slave to my completest tendencies.
When I saw that the story was coming out as an audio book, I decided I'd take the plunge on it, figuring it would be a nice way to spend a few hours while working out or working around the house.
Unfortunately, the old saying that "the horses get the best lines" in this story is further evidenced by Cotton's adaptation of the story.
Seeking a cure to a toothache, the Doctor sends the TARDIS to the wild, wild west, around the time of the historic gunfight at the OK Corral. Before long, the Doctor, Stephen and Dodo are caught up cases of mistaken identity and the events leading up to the infamous gun battle.
On the printed page, Cotton is freed from the limitations of a TV budget and allowed to let the story roam a bit more freely. And thank heavens he doesn't try to incorporate the infamous song from the television serial into his novel. But the novel does tend to ramble a bit and while some of the asides and alleys are humorous, often times I found the humor falling a bit flat.
The novel is read by Shane Rimmer, who was part of the guest cast in the original serial. His deep Western drawl gets a bit tedious and quickly wears out its welcome.
March 28, 2015
I've never watched the original episode, but I can't imagine it working as well as the novel.
Donald Cotton, who wrote both the original script and the novelization, displayed a terrible grasp of the history of the American west, but a playful willingness to attempt the style of the dime novel's overblown prose.
As a result, half of the humor in the book comes from the Clanton brothers and their attempts at literary phrasing, and the other half from near-slapstick versions of Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday and others.
The result is better than I would have expected. Although not a great story, it actually does explain why the renowned shootist Doc Holliday was using a shotgun at the O.K. Corral. Well, sort of. Okay, so it was really the William Hartnell incarnation of the doctor, but the confusion of characters called "Doc" something or other and wearing frock coats could happen to anyone.
Donald Cotton, who wrote both the original script and the novelization, displayed a terrible grasp of the history of the American west, but a playful willingness to attempt the style of the dime novel's overblown prose.
As a result, half of the humor in the book comes from the Clanton brothers and their attempts at literary phrasing, and the other half from near-slapstick versions of Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday and others.
The result is better than I would have expected. Although not a great story, it actually does explain why the renowned shootist Doc Holliday was using a shotgun at the O.K. Corral. Well, sort of. Okay, so it was really the William Hartnell incarnation of the doctor, but the confusion of characters called "Doc" something or other and wearing frock coats could happen to anyone.
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