Doctor Who and the Green Death by: Malcolm Hulke

 

Doctor Who and the Green Death was written by Malcolm Hulke, based on The Green Death by: Robert Sloman.  It was the 15^th story to be novelized by Target Books.

 

The early Target Novelizations right between the Jon Pertwee/Tom Baker eras of the show sit in this great early place where Terrance Dicks hadn’t become known as the Doctor Who novelizations guy.  Yes, he wrote the first one Doctor Who and the Auton Invasion, but in the first two years of regular novelizations (there were three initial Hartnell novelizations between 1964 and 1965), he only contributed seven of the fourteen.  The others were generally from the original author, except for one, Doctor Who and the Green Death.  Malcolm Hulke ended up adapting the script originally from Robert Sloman, after his connection to the television show ended.  Hulke had no connection to the original script, outside of the fact that politically it feels like a script he would have written.  The Green Death on television is a story all about taking down a chemical plant which is polluting a Welsh community, causing maggots to grow to huge sizes and killing people.

 

It’s all about the perils of climate change and looking for alternative energy and food sources.  When people claim Doctor Who isn’t political, The Green Death is one of those stories which often comes up as it is blatantly political and that’s what makes it work.  Hulke’s novelization excels at translating the politics from the screen and onto the page, building up a lot of the horror aspects with the prose not having to deal with the restraints of the special effects.  The fly at the end actually makes for a threatening villain and the BOSS and its relationship to Stevens is also more fleshed out than just appearing near the end of the story.

 

Where the novelization falls flat ever so slightly is in the ending, not the resolution, but the final events where Jo Grant professes her love to Prof. Clifford Jones and leaves.  The scene is one that is perfect simply because of the direction and acting from Pertwee and Manning.  Hulke tries to get the emotions across on the page, but by not having the Doctor leave the party silently there is something just missing.  There is also a lot of truncation when it comes to the events of the book which is one of those little points where the pace is nice and quick, but some of the characterization is off.  The villains outside of Stevens are reduced to slightly more thugs, and you don’t get the slow turn of Elgin to being a villain which is kind of a shame.

 

Overall, Doctor Who and the Green Death does excel from Malcolm Hulke’s always enjoyable prose, but there isn’t a whole lot that actually brings it any extra depth.  It was already a very deep story, and the only thing that needed improvement were some of the lackluster puppetry effects in the final two episodes.  It also goes slightly too quick, but it’s still an excellent adaptation and a great alternate version of the story.  9/10.