Written by Terrance Dicks, based on Bob Baker and Dave Martin’s scripts for the 1972-3 TV serial.

This seems to be pitched at a slightly younger audience than some of the earlier Targets, with straightforward language, as if it needs to be super accessible. There are some efforts to make Omega and his realm more impressive than on TV. The infamous Gell Guards become “blob-men”, shambling semi-humanoid avatars which keep on attacking even after they’re cut to pieces by gunfire (including a particularly gruesome attack sequence in which even Jo arms herself). Omega’s palace is reimagined as resembling something from the Arabian Nights, and Dicks explains that the entire anti-matter universe, which now looks like a Cromer beach, used to be teeming with Omega’s invented life – but over the millennia the effort of will required to sustain anything more than the bare minimum became too much.

The Time Lords are interestingly characterised. Omega’s sacrifice is said to have allowed them to come into being, and his return is literally “draining away our very life” (which might be a neat ret-con for the decrepit state of Gallifrey and its inhabitants in The Deadly Assassin versus the much more vigorous planet we glimpsed in The Three Doctors). Their main go-between is a particularly crotchety Doctor William, who takes an almost malevolent pleasure in the predicaments both of his fellow Time Lords and his fellow Doctors – but then, Hartnell was the only one of the three Dicks had never previously written for, and perhaps that explains why he seems the least faithful.

Because elsewhere, Dicks’ characterisation is as strong as ever, particularly for Doctor Patrick, referred to throughout as “Doctor Two”. Whereas Doctor Jon views him as an irritating younger brother, Dicks sees him as the impish hero of the story, finding far more nuance than he ever does for the Pertwee version. The dishevelled, mild-mannered exterior is just a front: “Doctor Two spoke, and there was nothing comic about him now. His voice was stern, his manner imposing.” Later, “the second Doctor’s usually mild spirit was burning with a savage resolve. They would destroy Omega if it was the last thing they ever did.” The scenes between Doctor Two and the Brigadier are particularly amusing, as this Doctor enjoys puncturing his pomposity. Dicks must have been delighted to write for the pair again in The Five Doctors.

On the whole, this is as good a celebration as the TV serial, with the same delicate balance of nostalgia and continuity with scale and novelty, and one of the most vivid encapsulations of Troughton’s Doctor in print. Grade 2.

Next Time: Doctor Who And… The Loch Ness Monster.