Season 23 of Doctor Who was a product of the most turbulent period in the original television series' history.
The previous season had seen Doctor Who criticised for the level of violence shown, not least from high up in the BBC itself. With plans already laid for Season 23, and scripts already being written, it was therefore something of a surprise when the plug was temporarily pulled on the show. Newspaper headlines proclaiming that the show had been axed were soon in evidence, but the BBC were swift to maintain that the show would be back the following year, albeit six months later than usual in a new Autumn timeslot, and would actually have an increased number of episodes — words that any politician would have been proud of, as the reality was that the series would be changing from thirteen 45-minute episodes to 14 25-minute episodes...
As part of this change, the existing scripts for Season 23 were scrapped, and a new set were commissioned. Three of the abandoned scripts were eventually novelised by Target Books in the late-1980s. The Nightmare Fair and The Ultimate Evil were published in 1989, with Philip Martin's Mission to Magnus appearing in 1990.
Aware that the series itself was now effectively on trial, producer John Nathan-Turner decided that the season should see the Doctor himself put on trial by the Time Lords, and came up with the idea of a story arc which spanned all fourteen episodes, with four distinct sections showing various adventures as part of the evidence presented. Although these were numbered Parts One to Fourteen on screen, the novelisations from Target Books treated them as four distinct stories, each being novelised under a different title. For the purposes of this page, the book titles will be used to distinguish each section.
With the basic format for the season established, things then went from bad to worse. Robert Holmes had been commissioned to write the opening four-part story story as well as the two-part conclusion, but ill-health meant that he had only finished the first half of The Ultimate Foe before he died. Eric Saward, who had recently departed as script editor on the programme, then took over resposibility for writing the concluding episode, but his working relationship with producer John Nathan-Turner then broke down irretrievably and Saward withdrew his script. At which point Pip and Jane Baker, who had written Terror of the Vervoids, were hastily asked to finish off the season.
Doctor Who: The Mysterious Planet
by
Terrance Dicks
Country UK
Format Hardback
Publisher WH Allen
Publication Date November 1987
Original Price £7.95
ISBN 0491030967
Cover Artist Tony Masero
A novelisation of the first four episodes of the epic 1986 television story The Trial of a Time Lord, featuring the Sixth Doctor and Peri.
Tony Masero's cover art was one of two pieces reproduced in David J Howe's large-format book Timeframe: An Illustrated History (Doctor Who Books, 1993) to represent Season 23 of the television series.
Other Editions
UK | Paperback | Target Books | April 1988 | £1.99 | 0426203194 | No. 127
The TARDIS has been taken out of time and the Doctor has been brought before a court of his fellow Time Lords. There the sinister Valeyard accuses the Doctor of breaking Gallifrey's most important law and interfering in the affairs of other planets.
If the Valeyard can prove him guilty, the Doctor must sacrifice his remaining regenerations. To prove his case the Valeyard focuses on an adventure set in the Doctor's past.
It is an adventure set on the planet Ravolox, a seemingly primitive world but one which the Doctor and Peri find strangely familiar...
Television Story
The Trial of a Time Lord: Part One — Part Four
4 × 25 Minutes | BBC1 | Colour
06/09/86 Part One Robert Holmes
13/09/86 Part Two Robert Holmes
20/09/86 Part Three Robert Holmes
27/09/86 Part Four Robert Holmes
Regular Characters
Sixth Doctor / Peri Brown
Familiar Faces / Returning Characters
The Inquisitor / The Valeyard / Sabalom Glitz
Notes
- The episodes novelised in The Mysterious Planet comprise the final complete story for Doctor Who by veteran script-writer Robert Holmes, who died before writing the very final episode of the season.
- The Mysterious Planet was the only Sixth Doctor novelisation to be written by Terrance Dicks, and with the increasing number of original script writers novelising their own stories, he wasn't to do any for the Seventh Doctor at all.
- Rather bizarrely, although The Trial of a Time Lord has a very definite beginning, middle and end, WH Allen/Target did not release the four parts in the correct order. The first book to be released was Terror of the Vervoids (Parts Nine to Twelve), followed by The Mysterious Planet (Parts One to Four), The Ultimate Foe (Parts Thirteen and Fourteen) and finally Mindwarp (Parts Five to Eight).
- The Mysterious Planet saw the first appearance of intergalactic villain Sabalom Glitz, who was to re-appear in the two-part season conclusion as well as in Season 24's Dragonfire.
Doctor Who: Mindwarp
by
Philip Martin
Country UK
Format Paperback
Publisher Target Books
Publication Date June 1989
Original Price £1.99
ISBN 0426203356
Cover Artist Alister Pearson
Book Number No.139
A novelisation of Parts Five to Eight of the epic 1986 television story The Trial of a Time Lord, featuring the Sixth Doctor and Peri.
Back Cover Blurb
Accused of 'crimes against the inviolate laws of evolution', the Doctor is on trial for his life.
The sinister prosecutor, the Valeyard, presents the High Council of Time Lords with the second piece of evidence against the Doctor: a dramatic adventure on the planet Thoros-Beta which led to the renegade Time Lord's summons to the Court of Enquiry.
But as the Doctor watches the scenes on the Matrix he is puzzled by what he sees — his behaviour is not as he remembers. Only one thing is certain: on the evidence of the Matrix the Doctor is surely guilty as charged...
Television Story
The Trial of a Time Lord: Part Five — Part Eight
4 × 25 Minutes | BBC1 | Colour
04/10/86 Part Five Philip Martin
11/10/86 Part Six Philip Martin
18/10/86 Part Seven Philip Martin
25/10/86 Part Eight Philip Martin
Regular Characters
Sixth Doctor / Peri Brown
Familiar Faces / Returning Characters
The Inquisitor / The Valeyard / Sil
Notes
- Mindwarp was the last of Philip Martin's three scripts for Doctor Who, although only Vengeance on Varos and Mindwarp made it to the screen — Mission to the Magnus was written for the ill-fated original version of Season 23 which had been scrapped. He subsequently novelised the story for Target Books, and like his two produced stories it featured Sil, with the added bonus of the Ice Warriors.
- Mindwarp saw the final appearance in the series of Peri, who was written out at the conclusion, apparently having died. In a rather ridiculous turnaraound, it was then claimed in the final story of the season that Peri had not actually died, but instead had survived and had married King Yrcanos.
Although she wasn't to be seen in the television series again, Peri did make an appearance in Bad Therapy, a 1996 novel from Matthew Jones which dealt with what happened to her after she was abandoned on Thoros Beta by the Sixth Doctor.
Doctor Who: Terror of the Vervoids
by
Pip and Jane Baker
Country UK
Format Hardback
Publisher WH Allen
Publication Date September 1987
Original Price £7.95
ISBN 0491030568
Cover Artist Tony Masero
A novelisation of Parts Nine to Twelve of the epic 1986 television story The Trial of a Time Lord, featuring the Sixth Doctor and Melanie Bush.
Other Editions
UK | Paperback | Target Books | February 1988 | £1.95 | 0426203135 | No. 125
The Time Lords have brought the Doctor to trial, accusing him of gross interference in the affairs of other planets. If he is found guilty he must forfeit all his remaining regenerations.
In his defence the Doctor tells of an adventure set on board the Hyperion III space liner in his future. Answering a distress call, the Doctor and Mel arrive on the liner just as a series of grisly murders begins.
Who is behind the murders? Do the enigmatic Mogarians have anything to do with them? Who sent the distress call to the TARDIS? And what hideous menace lies waiting in the Hydroponic Centre?
Television Story
The Trial of a Time Lord: Part Nine — Part Twelve
01/11/86 Part Nine Pip and Jane Baker
08/11/86 Part Ten Pip and Jane Baker
15/11/86 Part Eleven Pip and Jane Baker
22/11/86 Part Twelve Pip and Jane Baker
Regular Characters
Sixth Doctor / Melanie Bush
Familiar Faces / Returning Characters
The Inquisitor / The Valeyard
Notes
- Terror of the Vervoids was the second complete story to be written for the television series by Pip and Jane Baker, who had made their debut the previous year with The Mark of the Rani.
- Terror of the Vervoids saw the introduction of new companion Melanie Bush, a computer programmer from Pease Pottage. However, this causes a few problems in terms of continuity, as the story we see aboard the Hyperion III is set in the future after the Sixth Doctor and Mel have started travelling together. But at the time of the Sixth Doctor's trial, when he is presenting this future story as part of his defence, he has never actually met her.
Confused? You soon will be...
Things then get seriously weird as Mel is transported to the Gallifreyan space station in The Ultimate Foe, and at the end of that story leaves in the TARDIS with the Doctor. Meaning that at some point the Sixth Doctor must drop Mel off, resume travelling on his own, meet her for the first time without mentioning anything, encounter the Vervoids and then see Mel disappear for her Gallifreyan space station adventure. At which point he then picks her up from where he left her sometime earlier and they can then travel on together until Mel's final departure in Dragonfire.
Or something like that, anyway...
Luckily, Pip and Jane Baker had the foresight to think through this tangled time travel torment, and their novelisation of The Ultimate Foe ends with Mel being dropped off temporarily.
Gary Russell's original 1998 novel Business Unusual would construct a reason for Mel joining the Doctor for the very first time in an adventure which brought back the Autons and also contrived to have the Sixth Doctor meet Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart for the first time.
Doctor Who: The Ultimate Foe
by
Pip and Jane Baker
Country UK
Format Hardback
Publisher WH Allen
Publication Date April 1988
Original Price £7.95
ISBN 0491031068
Cover Artist Alister Pearson
A novelisation of the final two parts of the epic 1986 television story The Trial of a Time Lord, featuring the Sixth Doctor and Melanie Bush.
An unused piece of cover art, created for the book by Alister Pearson and showing Lynda Bellingham as the Inquisitor and Michael Jayston as the Valeyard, was one of two pieces reproduced in David J Howe's large-format book Timeframe: An Illustrated History (Doctor Who Books, 1993) to represent Season 23 of the television series.
Other Editions
UK | Paperback | Target Books | September 1988 | £1.99 | 0426203291 | No. 131
Snatched out of time and place and brought before the Time Lords of Gallifrey, the Doctor is on trial for his life.
While the Doctor asserts that the evidence of the Matrix, the repository of all Time Lord knowledge, has been tampered with, the mysterious and vengeful prosecuting council, the Valeyard, is confident that the Doctor will be sentenced to death.
In a dramatic intervention the Valeyard's true identity is revealed but he escapes from the Courtroom into the Matrix, and it is into this nightmare world that the Doctor must follow — to face his ultimate foe...
Television Story
The Trial of a Time Lord: Part Thirteen — Part Fourteen
2 × 25 Minutes | BBC1 | Colour
29/11/86 Part Thirteen Robert Holmes
06/12/86 Part Fourteen Pip and Jane Baker
Regular Characters
Sixth Doctor / Melanie Bush
Familiar Faces / Returning Characters
The Inquisitor / The Valeyard / Sabalom Glitz / The Master
Notes
- The Ultimate Foe contained the very final episode of Doctor Who to be written for the series by Robert Holmes, whose first story had been The Krotons way back in 1968 for the Second Doctor. The concluding episode of the entire Trial of a Time Lord season was eventually written by Pip and Jane Baker — see above for full details of how this came about.
- The Ultimate Foe saw the return of both Sabalom Glitz, who was introduced in the opening story of the season, and the Master, who was making his first appearance since the previous season's The Mark of the Rani. No explanation for how the latter had escaped from the Rani's TARDIS was forthcoming on television, although the Baker's novelisation of Time and the Rani would explain that the Tyrannosaurus Rex had broken its back on the ceiling of her TARDIS.
- The final two-part story of the epic Trial of a Time Lord season revealed that the Doctor's true nemesis was actually the Valeyard — the prosecutor at his trial.
Anyone whose brain still hurts at the thought of how Mel came to be travelling with the Sixth Doctor should probably look away at this point...
Rather surprisingly, it is revealed by the Master that the Valeyard is effectively the Doctor's evil side, from somewhere between his twelfth and thirteenth incarnations.
Given this rather unlikely twist, it's not surprising that Virgin Publishing decided that going down that road was asking for trouble and the Valeyard didn't make a re-appearance in any of their original Doctor Who novels, although Craig Hinton's Millennial Rites did give the matter some thought. BBC Books weren't so circumspect, allowing Mike Tucker and Robert Perry to bring the character back in Matrix, in which it is revealed that the Valeyard is none other than the infamous serial killer Jack the Ripper...
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Doctor Who: The Mysterious Planet