10 Doctor Who Novels That Would Make Great TV Episodes

6. The Banquo Legacy

1898. A disparate group of men and women gather at Banquo Manor at the invitation of Richard Harries to be witnesses of his most ambitious experiment yet. Using the new science of electricity, he has built a machine which he believes will transfer human thoughts from brain to another. Amongst his guests are Doctor Friedlander and Herr Kreiner, men the reader knows to be the Doctor and his friend Fitz. But the house has evil reputation, which is confirmed when first a murder takes place, then increasingly unnatural and terrifying events occur, leading to the survivors being under siege by a horror from beyond the grave. Victorian gothic is one of Doctor Who€™s comfort zones and this novel by Andy Lane and Justin Richards is a glorious mash up of Sherlock Holmes, H P Lovecraft and Agatha Christie. The novel uses the literary device of being told through the diaries and reports of a solicitor and a policeman but that is no impediment to a television adaptation. The sub-plot relating to a Time Lord agent trying to capture the TARDIS, which had become a living woman called Compassion at this point in the series, would undoubtedly have to be removed but it doesn€™t affect the core of the story, which develops into a kind of period Die Hard as the Doctor and his comrades are forced to fight around the manor house against a madwoman and her zombie servant. It€™s the ultimate old dark house horror.