Written by Terrance Dicks, based on Robert Holmes’ scripts for the 1970 TV serial Spearhead from Space.

The Target series proper begins with Terrance Dicks adapting the final scenes of his script for 1969’s The War Games, as the Troughton Doctor defends himself before a court of Time Lords. Like his predecessor David Whitaker in The Crusaders’ prologue, script editor Terrance Dicks brings a sense of the series’ continuity to contextualise this story.

Dicks’ talent for the memorably pithy epithet is instantly on show (the Troughton Doctor has a “gentle, rather comical face and a shock of untidy black hair”; the Pertwee Doctor “positively crackled with life and energy”). The prose is crisp, straightforward and focused on reproducing scripted dialogue (with some script editorial tweaks); the descriptive passages are concise and purposeful, in contrast to Whitaker’s lengthy scene setting. Characterisation is similarly efficient: for instance, General Scobie is sketched as a “shy man who took refuge behind a rough military manner”. I think it takes great skill and thought to be able to convey precisely the right impression in a sentence. The result is the Target house style: punchy and urgent, less is more.

The Doctor criticises the Time Lords for forgetting to change his clothes when they changed his appearance (suggesting that this is an optional part of the process – see The Power of the Daleks; Destiny of the Daleks; The Power of the Doctor). A strong start to the range. Grade 2

Next Time: Doctor Who And… The Cave Monsters