Stories Book Target Collection Doctor Who: The Gunfighters 1 image Overview Characters How to Read Reviews 1 Statistics Related Stories Quotes Overview Released Thursday, January 9, 1986 Written by Donald Cotton Publisher Target Books Pages 152 Time Travel Past Tropes (Potential Spoilers!) Celebrity Historical, Mistaken Identity, Pure Historical Location (Potential Spoilers!) Earth, Tombstone, USA Synopsis 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 travelling 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 materialising 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... Read Read Favourite Favourited Add Review Edit Review Log a repeat Skip Skipped Unowned Owned Owned Save to my list Saved Edit date completed Custom Date Release Date Archive (no date) Save Characters First Doctor Steven Taylor Dodo Chaplet Doc Holliday Bat Masterson Johnny Ringo Wyatt Earp Kate Fisher Charlie Show All Characters (9) How to read Doctor Who: The Gunfighters: Books The Gunfighters Reviews Add Review Edit Review Sort: Date (Newest First) Date (Oldest First) Likes (High-Low) Likes (Low-High) Rating (High-Low) Rating (Low-High) Word count (High-Low) Word count (Low-High) Username (A-Z) Username (Z-A) Spoilers First Spoilers Last 1 review 30 May 2025 · 220 words Review by bethhigdon The Gunfighters is my least favorite Hartnell story on tv. It’s not bad, but I do consider it weaker than most of his other outings. So imagine my surprise when the randomizer landed on the novelization for it. I would argue that this adaptation is better written than the episode it’s based off of. The plot is more or less the same, but the characterization is stronger, the tone is more consistent, and there’s no blasted song nor fake western accents to sit through. The story is written almost like a parody of Mark Twain, if Mark Twain had a darker and more violent sense of humor. The book reads like how Revelation of the Daleks watches. It’s a black comedy through and through, where death is common, casual, and caviler. Almost too caviler at times. I personally did not care for the additional scene of the Doctor accidentally shooting some bystanders, presumably killing them, and the story treating it as no big deal. The overall story is well written, but it suffers from being saddled to a preexisting, family friendly series where we have established characters that simply would not behave in the way that they do on the page. While it was an interesting read, the actual filmed story, for all its faults, feels more like Doctor Who. bethhigdon View profile Like Liked 0 Open in new window Statistics AVG. Rating20 members 3.35 / 5 Member Statistics Read 38 Favourited 2 Reviewed 1 Saved 1 Skipped 8 Related Stories Other adaptations of this story: We define an adaptation as a recreation of a similar story but on a different medium or with different characters. Classic Who S3 • Serial 8 · (4 episodes) The Gunfighters Rating: 3.40 Story Skipped Television Reviews(17) More Actions View Sets Close Related Sets Set of Stories: Doctor Who Season 3 Set of Stories: First Doctor Set of Stories: Doctor Who (1963-1996) Add Review Edit Review Skip Skipped Unowned Owned Save to my list Saved Quotes Add Quote Submit a Quote