Written by Terrance Dicks, based on Chris Boucher’s scripts for the 1977 TV serial.

On TV, Image of the Fendahl should have been one of my favourite stories – a Nigel Kneal-esque BBC ghost story – but I’ve always found it underwhelming. The Fendahl is “fur coat and no knickers”, its allegedly awesome power limited by some salt and the Doctor pulling out a plug and declaring he’s saved the planet (though to be fair, a few seasons later he’s pulling out a plug to save the entire universe).

I think a big reason why I’ve never fallen in love with the TV version is because I first encountered the story via this novelisation, wrapped inside its grotesquely lurid cover by John Geary. It’s an entirely more frightening proposition for a child. Dicks pumps up the unease, with some splendid touches like the death of Mitchell – he “screamed – and died” – and the hideous, gobbling hunting sounds of the Fendahleen, described like something from an E.F. Benson story, “a suggestion of a caterpillar”.

Dicks does his usual script editorial duties of tidying up some of the inconsistencies of the TV production, fleshing out a couple of the characters (particularly Stael, whose unhappy childhood and thwarted ambitions get a whole page of backstory), to present a taut and effective rendition of Boucher’s scripts. As always, he avoids the temptation to drastically rewrite – the Fendahl is still curiously underpowered, despite the trip to the Fifth Planet and the suggested fate of Mars indicating what it could do given the chance. Instead, Dicks finds some pathos in the fates of Stael, who has “the right to die while he was still human”, and even the Fendahl itself, as the Thea-Priestess flickers around the Priory before accepting her doom. In his hands, this is the best version of the story. Grade 2.

Next Time: Doctor Who And… The War Games.