Written by Terrance Dicks, based on Robert Banks Stewart’s scripts for the 1975 TV serial Terror of the Zygons.

There’s a common criticism that the Target novels roughly between 1976 and 1980 are very straightforward, script-to-page adaptations with fewer authorial flourishes than the earlier novels and less willingness to experiment than the 1980s books. While it can be over-stated, I think there’s an element of truth to it. This, for instance, is much less vivid than the same writer’s Doctor Who and the Terror of the Autons, published less than a year earlier. But Terrance Dicks is an incorrigible script editor, and even when he’s doing “barebones”, the story is tighter and pacier than the TV episodes, with witty asides and some memorably pithy turns of phrase.

As an example, Dicks has a lot of fun with Nick Courtney’s adoption of Scottish dress for the occasion: “The Brigadier was beginning to have second thoughts about his decision to celebrate his return to the land of his ancestors by wearing the kilt. He had a shrewd suspicion that he looked ridiculous.” Throughout, the Brig is both a pompous figure of fun (harassing a hapless subordinate about petty operational matters), and an honourable man keen to prevent unnecessary deaths and more directly challenging the Doctor to care about the fate of the oil rig workers.

Similarly, the Zygons’ cyborg technology is rather more clearly explained in the book than the scripts: their tracking devices have little tentacles that wrap themselves around the Doctor’s wrist while summoning the Skarasen, and their spaceship is described as a “huge crab shell” much more impressive than the TV model. Their stings can only be used when they are in their natural, “evil baby” form.

Still, there are points when the brisk approach almost feels slapdash, such as the description of the Zygons’ “claw-like hands” three times in three pages, or the moment “The Brigadier looked on, his face bleak and angry. ‘Why, Doctor?’ he demanded angrily.” While I acknowledge it reflects the grammar of the TV production, Dicks introducing the Zygons and their ship in parentheses in the middle of a creepy scene between Sarah Jane and Angus both undermines the effectiveness of the book’s first true reveal of the monsters, and interrupts the building tension and atmosphere in the early chapters. It’s one of the moments when a less screen-accurate rendition would have worked in the novel’s favour.

The result is mildly disappointing in comparison to Dicks’ Doctor Jon novelisations, and his version of “Doctor Four” is much less compelling than the “Doctor Two” in his previous book. It’s not helped by his habit of Doctor Tom calling people “old chap” like he’s still stuck in all nose and frills mode. It’s OK, but for such a milestone story it should have been something more. Grade 4.

(As an aside: while reading this, I was struck by how simply this could have been repurposed as a third Homo Reptilia story, with “surrounded by fools” Broton substituted by a saturnine “Laird McMaighstir” and his Sea-Devil allies, and the Skarasen a sort of Myrka).

Next Time: Doctor Who And… The Dinosaur Invasion.