Doctor Who: Slipback
by Eric Saward (BBC Radio 4, 1985)
Slipback captures much of the Sixth Doctor zeitgeist but also attempts a Hitchhiker’s-style humour, which entirely fails to land. Valentine Dyall is given no interaction. The plot strands are barely developed (yet shamelessly rehashed). Hardly an advertisement for a programme on hiatus.
Doctor Who: Resurrection of the Daleks
by Eric Saward; dir. Matthew Robinson (BBC, 1984)
This serial begins with eerie promise and impressive acting/characterisation but degenerates into a confused mess, redeemed only by the pathos of Tegan’s departure. The Daleks (as so often in Doctor Who) have the intellectual sophistication of tantrum-prone toddlers with no inner monologue.
Doctor Who: Revelation of the Daleks
by Eric Saward (BBC, 2019)
At last, lagging thirty-five years behind the TV serial, former Doctor Who script editor Eric Saward has novelised Revelation of the Daleks. If only he’d spent some of that time learning to write! This is BBC-endorsed beige-wallpaper fan fiction without the heart.