The Wonderful Doctor of Oz (novel)

The Wonderful Doctor of Oz
Doctor:	Thirteenth Doctor
Companion(s):	Yaz, Ryan, Graham, K9 Mark V, Dorothy
Main enemy:	Missy
Main setting:	Los Angeles, 15 August 1939; Land of Fiction
Key crew
Publisher:	BBC Children's Books
Writer:	Jacqueline Rayner
Cover by:	Angelo Rinaldi
Release details
Release date:	10 June 2021
ISBN:	ISBN 9781405948005
Puffin Classics crossovers
← Previous	The Maze of Doom
Next →	Legends of Camelot

You may be looking for The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, the book or The Wizard of Oz, the film.

The Wonderful Doctor of Oz was the first novel released in the Puffin Classics crossovers range on 10 June 2021 by BBC Children's Books. Written by Jacqueline Rayner, it featured the Thirteenth Doctor, Yaz and Ryan, Graham and Missy. The novel was firmly rooted in the mythos of Frank L. Baum's children's novel, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

Publisher's summary

When a sudden tornado engulfs the TARDIS, the Thirteenth Doctor and her fam find themselves transported to the magical land of Oz. With a damaged TARDIS and an unexpected stowaway from the 1930s, their only hope of getting home is to follow the yellow brick road.

But when an army of scarecrows ambushes them, they quickly realise that everything is not as it should be, and they're thrown into a fight for survival against a mysterious enemy. As each of her companions becomes a shadow of their former selves, only the Doctor is left standing.

Desperate to save her friends, she must embark on a perilous journey to seek help from the mysterious Wizard of Oz - and stop whatever forces are at work before she and her friends are trapped in the fictional world forever.

Plot

to be added

Characters

• Thirteenth Doctor
• Yasmin Khan
• Ryan Sinclair
• Graham O'Brien
• Missy
• K9 Mark V (2-2)
• Dorothy
• Doorman
• L. Frank Baum
• Melinda
• Peter
• Limited Edition Smiling Shepherdess ("Smiley")
• Limited Edition Shy Shepherdess
• Guard One
• Guard Two
• Airgrons

Worldbuilding

Popular culture

• It's a Wonderful Life and Citizen Kane are both films that flopped upon their original releases before becoming renowned later on.
• Graham suggests watching classic films such as Frankenstein and King Kong. The Doctor recommends James Bond.
• Dorothy thinks the Doctor is like Gandalf, and understands the Wizard of Oz to be like the Fairy Godmother from Cinderella.
• Dorothy has read Frankenstein, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, The Wind in the Willows, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Just So Stories, The Jungle Book. Treasure Island, White Fang, and The Hobbit.
• The Doctor describes Missy as a cross between Long John Silver, Shere Khan, Smaug, and the Red Queen.
• Missy mentions fictional characters she defeated to take control of the Land of Fiction, including Nosferatu, Long John Silver, Professor Moriarty, Sweeney Todd, Mr Hyde, the Minotaur, Yog-Sothoth and Jemima Puddle-Duck. Other fictional characters that appear include Moby Dick, Dracula, the Mummy, Cinderella's Ugly Sisters, and Cerberus. The Doctor also mentions Mowgli.
• Missy mentions TikTok.
• The Doctor mentions that she can think of “loads” of books “with a library in it”, then asks “How do you feel about orangutans?” This is a reference to the orangutan Librarian of Unseen University, a character in the Discworld novels by Terry Pratchett.

Foods and beverages

• Graham has packed sausages and bread in his backpack.
• Melinda serves Team TARDIS "little pink cakes" laced with pollen pills.
• The inhabitants of the Emerald City only eat green foods such as peas, apples, grapes, limes, zucchini and lima beans.

Individuals

• The TARDIS team visited the handprints and footprints of Douglas Fairbanks, Charlie Chaplin and the Marx Brothers.
• Graham mentions Dr Seuss and Enid Blyton.
• The Doctor mentions Roald Dahl and Beatrix Potter, and quotes Alfred Tennyson and Arthur C. Clarke.

History and geography

• Graham's grandfather joined the RAF in 1939.
• The Doctor asks Dorothy if Hitler is dead yet. She says conscription will start in America the next year, and in 1941 Japan would bomb Pearl Harbor. World War II would end in 1945.
• Dorothy discusses life in America during the Great Depression and the New Deal. She mentions Chinatown and Little Italy in Los Angeles.

Species

• The Doctor mentions the Cybermen and the Stenza.
• The TARDIS team encounters multiple alien species introduced by Missy, including Chumblies, Cybermats, Cybermen, and winged Ogrons called Airgrons. Green aliens guarding the Emerald City include the Slitheen, Rutans, Terileptils, Sea Devils, Monoids, Krynoids, Silurians, Tythonian, Urbankans, Fendahleen, Abzorbalovians, Skarasen, Myrka and the Kroll.

Technology

• The Doctor plugs a copy of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz into the TARDIS's console slot.
• The Doctor gives Graham a yo-yo.

Time Lords

• The Doctor mentions the things of Rassilon, including the Sash, the Crown, the Key, the Coronet, the Harp, the Ring, and the Black Scrolls.
• Missy describes the Twelfth Doctor as 'Mr Grumpy Trousers'.

Notes

• The story features a Cyberman in the role of the Tin Woodman. A fanmade illustration of a Cyberman in the role of the Tin Woodman (by Simon Breeze) had been showcased on the Official Doctor Who Tumblr as early as 22 September 2012. Before that, a Cyberman played the role, along with a K9 model in the role of Toto, in an image of a Doctor Who-themed The Wizard of Oz seen in DWA 47.

Continuity

• The fact that the Doctor used to be a man is mentioned frequently, (TV: An Unearthly Child, et al.) a fact that Team TARDIS are fully aware of. (TV: Spyfall)
• The Doctor has told Team TARDIS about the Cybermen (TV: Fugitive of the Judoon) and that they are vulnerable to gold. (TV: Earthshock, Silver Nemesis, Ascension of the Cybermen et al.)
• Ryan and Graham remember Grace. (TV: The Woman Who Fell to Earth)
• Yaz and Ryan are once again subjected to racial discrimination in a past era. (TV: Rosa)
• The Doctor tells Yaz that she knows the latter ran away from home when she was younger. (TV: Can You Hear Me?)
• Yaz recalls facing Daleks (TV: Resolution) and giant spiders. (TV: Arachnids in the UK)
• Yaz uses her police training to reassure Dorothy, and to get her to calm down and feel safe. (TV: It Takes You Away)
• The Doctor's TARDIS suffers a mercury shortage due to damaged fluid links. (TV: The Wheel in Space; PROSE: The Duke of Dominoes, Companion Piece, To the Slaughter, Natural Regression)
• The Doctor mentions that a friend of hers gave the Chumblies their name, that Chumblies were used as translation and communication devices, contained flamethrowers, and had been created by a race of giant telepathic walruses that breathed ammonia. (TV: Galaxy 4)
• The Doctor recalls the time in her third incarnation that he told a young man that "Courage isn’t a matter of not being frightened. It’s being afraid and doing what you have to do anyway." (TV: Planet of the Daleks)
• The Doctor believed that the Rani was behind the evil scheme, due to the presence of tree mines and biological experimentation, and her description as a woman with dark curls in her hair. (TV: The Mark of the Rani)
• The Doctor has not seen the Rani since they were "nine hundred and fifty-somethings". (TV: Time and the Rani)
• The Doctor implies to Missy that she has met a future regeneration of her who is once again male, at which Missy is aghast. (TV: Spyfall et al.)
• Missy says she is no longer a "bit-of-gel-and-beard-wax kind of guy". (TV: Terror of the Autons et al.)
• Missy somewhat jokingly tells the Doctor she "copied" her, in reference to her changing gender. (COMIC: The Master Plan)
• The Doctor apologises to a casualty of the tree mines, saying "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." (TV: New Earth, The Age of Steel, The Impossible Planet, Army of Ghosts, The Poison Sky, Silence in the Library)
• The Doctor recalls being in the Land of Fiction in her second incarnation, and recalled that the Master of the Land of Fiction had a library with every book ever written. (TV: The Mind Robber) She also encountered the Land of Fiction in her fourth, (AUDIO: The Crooked Man) sixth, (AUDIO: Legend of the Cybermen) and seventh incarnation. (PROSE: Conundrum, Head Games)
• The Doctor attempts to get the fictional characters to fade away by believing that they are not real. (TV: The Mind Robber; PROSE: The Mystery of the Haunted Cottage)
• The Master had previously visited the Land of Fiction and destroyed a council of 19th century literary villains who resided there. (COMIC: Character Assassin)
• Missy has disguised her TARDIS not as a grandfather clock. (TV: The Deadly Assassin et al.) This time she chooses a grandmother clock.
• Missy's trap to bring the Doctor into the Land of Fiction was sprung via the Doctor plugging a copy of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz into the TARDIS's console slot. The Master also entrapped the Second Doctor and Jamie in a similar way by giving the latter the Necronomicon, which was activated in the TARDIS control room and sent the TARDIS to the Archon homeworld. (PROSE: The Nameless City)
• Yaz thinks to herself that Team TARDIS has encountered many aliens in Sheffield. (TV: The Woman Who Fell to Earth, Arachnids in the UK, Resolution)

External links

• Official The Wonderful Doctor of Oz page at Penguin Books