‘Whether or not the Doctor has proved himself innocent of meddling is no longer the cardinal issue before this court. He has proved himself guilty of a far greater crime.’ The titles of the Trial segments have been settled since the Target books were published in the late 1980s, but I think it’s telling that this one came out as Terror of the Vervoids rather than the working title The Ultimate Foe. The latter suggests a sort of Golden Age detective story – shades of The Final Problem or The Secret Adversary. The title it’s now known as promotes the generic Doctor Who monster plot above the detective element – which is entirely fitting because that’s exactly what the script does.

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‘The Doctor is on trial for his life, yet in his defence he presents us with a situation in which he is deliberately flouting accepted authority.’ This is all lively enough, but it introduces what I’ve always felt is a flaw with the story. If this were a true Agatha Christie pastiche then the focus would be on the murderer and the investigation. But as Doctor Who needs monsters, so here the focus begins to shift to the Vervoids and their plans for the crew, and for Earth. Suddenly, it’s no longer a neat murder mystery but a story about obscene vegetable matter exterminating humankind.

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‘Are we to be subjected to a dissertation on interplanetary politics now?’ This is pure 1970s’ Doctor Who, particularly the scenes of the Vervoids attacking, which are shot POV with a green tinge just like the Wirrrn and the Rutans, and the very obvious CSO fringing around the Doctor and Mel’s hair when they stand in front of the observation dome.

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‘Is it going to be the Doctor’s defence that he improves?’ This is the segment of the trial that nearly everyone says works as a standalone story as if that’s a compliment. The court room scenes show some effort to address Peri’s death (more, in fact, than Adric got in Time-Flight), and to provide a bit of juicy context (this is an adventure plucked from the Doctor’s post-trial future, an idea that doesn’t bear more than half a second’s scrutiny), then it’s straight into the web of mayhem and intrigue aboard the very Season 17-looking Hyperion III.

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‘Die well, my lady.’ It seems to me this goes beyond the bounds of what’s legitimately horrible in Doctor Who. I suspect JNT wanted Peri to die because he envisaged a similar impact to Adric’s death – perhaps a ratings bump and some newspaper coverage. It might have added a couple of hundred thousand viewers for the next episode, but I think that’s a fairly meagre reward for seeing the longest-serving current regular stripped of all her agency: at least Adric died choosing to attempt to save the Earth. She’s strapped down, shaved, gagged and drugged, and then erased like an old hard drive so Kiv can be downloaded into the body (and Sil can make a joke about how ugly it is). I suppose the series has often treated Peri as no more than meat, so perhaps it’s a meta comment. I think it’s nasty, and I’m glad the show ret-conned it almost immediately.

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‘The emphasis is all wrong.’ The trial scenes are minimal; the focus is on Kiv’s brain transplant and Yrcanos’ rebellion, and a slight sense of throttling the pace to hold off the finale. The tone continues to be the standout strength, with the lingering question of what happened to Peri, and her apparent death at the cliffhanger having clearly placed the Doctor on the back foot in the court room.

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‘I do grow tired of these constant interruptions.’ I think this is where the real cracks in the Trial format start to show, because the demands of the ongoing story (and the need to remind us that there is a wider conspiracy behind the trial) interfere with the story on Thoros Beta. The Doctor’s uncharacteristic actions in betraying Peri and siding with Sil have a clear in-story explanation: Crozier’s brain experiments have temporarily unbalanced him. Except there is also another explanation: in the court room, the Doctor claims that this is forged evidence, that he’s being set up, and someone is manipulating the Matrix. Either explanation works (although in the Trial context the unreliable evidence works better). Both together introduce an unnecessary layer of complexity, especially when the Doctor further claims it’s all a clever bluff. Maybe that’s the point: if so, I’m not a fan.

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‘Are you really offering this inconsequential silliness?’ Philip Martin probably seemed a safe bet for the Trial scenario: after all, Vengeance on Varos notably featured characters watching and commenting on the action unfolding on TV. And with the promise that this story ‘in which he was engaged when removed from time and brought to this court’ provides the immediate context for the trial there’s a real potential for Martin to build on his earlier ideas and do something truly different.

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‘Wake me when it’s finished.’ It’s Robert Holmes’ final finished Doctor Who story and if The Two Doctors was his Frenzy, this is his Family Plot: a low-key piece of work that is largely content to draw on the back catalogue. When it does strain beyond that, like the Doctor’s attempts to defend the value of all life to Drathro, it rings hollow – the Doctor seems barely able to convince himself. The peroration falls far short of the fourth Doctor’s rousing celebration of humankind in The Ark in Space. His disputes with the Valeyard aren’t much more compelling, although Colin Baker performs them with gusto.

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‘A certain amount of graphic detail is unavoidable.’ After previous episodes set the scene with some general comments on how Doctor Who works, the debate between the Doctor, Valeyard and Inquisitor here turns to the nature of violence in the show, clearly a hot topic in the context of the Colin Baker run. The Inquisitor takes the part of BBC management, asking, ‘Are these unpleasant scenes necessary?’ The Doctor is forced to defend himself (and it’s not hard to see the meta commentary here) against the Valeyard’s accusation that he ‘has a well-known predilection for violence’, claiming, ‘I’m not given to violence as the Valeyard here suggests. Occasionally I might have to resort to a modicum of force… As a means of self-defence’. The conclusion is the same as Jonathan Powell’s: ‘I would appreciate it if these brutal and repetitious scenes are reduced to a minimum.’

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