We now come to my first review of the Target Novelisations, these were written as direct novelisations of the TV episodes, usually with the same writer adapting them. These novels were at their most popular prior to VHS releases and repeats on TV because back then the books were the only way you could experience the story after broadcast. But the series itself has improved in quality since adapting Modern Who episodes. Because Modern Who stories are mostly too short for a full length book that averages 100-200 pages, the writers have to think more outside the box and come up with new ways of telling the story, as well as expanding and adding more depth to elements that went underdeveloped in the show, so they tend to fare much better than Classic Who releases which by and large are just retellings of the story line for line and scene for scene. Once every so often they repeat a line differently to how it was said on TV, a couple new lines are added, others are redacted and occasionally they’ll go into the inner thoughts of some of the characters. In this book’s case we get two of those, one near the start of Peri feeling homesick and later one of Kiv thinking back to his childhood for no worthwhile reason.

Mindwarp itself is a story I’ll go into more detail with when I get to the episode itself. Most fans consider it to be the best story in Trial of a Time Lord, whether they mean that cynically or not, and honestly I think that’s giving it way too much credit which I’ll get into later. Suffice to say the book is practically the same as the episode, Six is written as more of a jerk to Peri, especially in the opening, again we get one paragraph of Kiv thinking about his childhood which tells us absolutely nothing new about the character. But bizarrely we get a final chapter revealing a different ending for Peri than what we got in Trial of a Time Lord, both in Mindwarp and the retconned ending at the end of the season. The Time Lords decided to send both Peri AND Ycarnos back to Earth in California (even though Peri is from Baltimore which is the opposite coast to California!) and the two of them work together as pro wrestler and valet! I give this a few points over the original retconned ending for Peri for just how utterly random that idea is, and also being a pro wrestling fan myself (damn you Rock for turning John Cena heel!) but it’s still a stupid ending for the character. Not to mention the Time Lords in their infinite wisdom decided to set a blood hungry barbarian alien king from the far future loose on 20^th century Earth, basically forcing Peri to look after him to keep him from going on a rampage, when it’s made very clear she’s not interested in him. Especially given how some of the added lines for Ycarnos and his affection for Peri has a lot of non-consensual undertones shall we say. Not trying to insinuate anything but Philip Martin does have a tendency to write female characters being treated like garbage and are used for sexual pleasure whether they want to or not.