Virgin Books publishes the non-fiction book Doctor Who: The Nth Doctor by Jean-Marc Lofficier, detailing the development – including abandoned scripts and storylines – that led from proposals to a never-made Doctor Who theatrical movie to the 1996 TV movie starring Paul McGann. 
Story: Detailed breakdowns of the various permutations of a feature film project which eventually became the 1996 Doctor Who TV movie.
Review: This book examines the almost decade-long process that led to the production of the 1996 BBC/Universal Studios Doctor Who television movie, from its humble beginnings as a side project that would have hopefully starred the then-current television Doctor, to a proposed big-budget feature headlined by a major star, and everything in between.
If one thing about this book annoys me the most, it is that the breakdowns of each incarnation of the story seem amazingly similar to one another. The Dark Dimension story treatment – an abandoned 1993 30th anniversary special created by Adrian Rigelsford – seems the most interesting and inventive of all of the book’s studies. The other story outlines, every last one of them, are very similar, and they all share another trait – they make me even more appreciative of the Doctor Who movie that did make it to our screens.
The author, however, would seem to disagree with that; at every step of the way, Lofficier points out what a great movie we would have gotten out of each treatment. And in the end, one wonders if he’s not lamenting the fact that these stories were passed over in favor of what was eventually produced. Much more interesting than the story details themselves are the histories of each outline, in many cases augmented by short introductions from the various writers who got their hands on the story over the years. The evolution of the movie project, as well as the impact that the cancellation of the Doctor Who series had on it, is easy to follow. Amusingly, the least revealing section is an almost humorous interview with a BBC production staffer regarding the death of the Dark Dimension project – the poor interviewee offers a steady stream of “no comment” answers that gets a bit tedious and perhaps should have been left out. Hopefully the bewildered fellow still has his job at the BBC!
Curiously, the final movie itself is omitted almost entirely, mentioned only in relation to the scripts that were abandoned before its inception. Information on the Paul McGann movie could have easily made this a much more fascinating book…and probably would have sold a few more copies, too.
Even more of a niche item than Lofficier’s previous guide books or the two excellent lines of behind-the-scenes books by Howe, Stammers and Walker, I can recommend The Nth Doctor only to those who are really, really, really fascinated by the circuitous path the TARDIS took from low-budget BBC serial to expensive American-produced TV movie.
Year: 1997
Author: Jean-Marc Lofficier
Publisher: Virgin
Pages: 279
2001 book review by Earl Green