As 1986 unfolded, Target no doubt began to feel the full impact of the strange combination of circumstances in which the range found itself. With no new Doctor Who on television between the spring of 1985 and the autumn of 1986, and the series’ future very much in doubt beyond that point, it must have seemed that fears about running out of stories to adapt were about to become reality- a dangerous state of affairs for a range which depended on the novelty of having a new adventure hitting the shelves at least once a month. Having said that, the 1986 output is remarkably balanced, with five of the six Doctors to date represented; after Robert Holmes’s adaptation of ‘The Two Doctors’ in the previous year, 1986 saw the first attempts at bringing a number of the Sixth Doctor’s stories into print, with Eric Saward turning in a very enjoyable revision of ‘The Twin Dilemma’ while ‘Timelash’ and ‘The Mark of the Rani’ were adapted with less ambition by their respective writers. Terrance Dicks remained active, producing adaptations of ‘The Time Monster’ and ‘The Seeds of Death’ which are all the better for reflecting Dicks’s involvement in the original productions. There’s also a crop of stories from William Hartnell’s third season, adapted as far as possible by their original writers- ‘The Gunfighters’, ‘Galaxy Four’, ‘The Savages’ and ‘The Celestial Toymaker’ opening a window on an era of Doctor Who not particularly familiar to fans at the time. And Victor Pemberton’s faithful yet expansive revisiting of ‘Fury from the Deep’ showed just how much could be done with a straightforward adaptation by adding to the character and atmosphere of the story.

One weapon which Target did have to hand was however the idea of original novels featuring the Doctor’s companions in solo adventures, which debuted in 1986 with stories for Turlough and Harry. Although it would take a few more years for the idea of original Doctor Who fiction to come of age, there are some promising signs in these early attempts, and while ‘Turlough and the Earthlink Dilemma’ is overlong, overambitious and too far removed from the character of Turlough as presented on television, Ian Marter’s Harry novel is pitched rather more sensibly and reads as a fair addition to the range. In retrospect it’s difficult to see how the concept could have had a long-term future, as there are only so many companions about whom follow-up novels could really have been written, but it’s probably best to see the Companions range as a testbed for working out just how original stories set in the universe of Doctor Who would and wouldn’t work- there’s a fine line between fidelity to the feel of the television series and the conception of the characters on the one hand, and the need for originality and a new direction on the other.

The future of Doctor Who on television at the end of 1987 was ultimately no more secure than it had been at the beginning of the year- and yet Target seemed to respond to that uncertainty with a completist’s enthusiasm for going back to the black and white years and bringing to the nation’s bookshelves adaptations of stories which not one fan in ten could ever have seen legitimately. In the face of waning enthusiasm for the then-current series, such a course shows either a reckless courage or a basic conviction in the quality and appeal of the material going to press- or more likely both- but it’s certainly one without which many fans of the time would have had a less balanced perspective on Doctor Who’s past.