“interesting”, legendarily prolific Doctor Who author and former script writer/producer Terrance Dicks produced the late BBC Books World Game which “canonised” Season 6B once and for all, describing how the conclusion to Troughton’s final story The War Games offered the ‘official’ version of events but in ‘reality’ (or the Doctor Who version of it) the Doctor was indeed sent out on missions for the CIA (Celestial Intervention Agency – get it?), a rare example of an old series legend embracing the way the fans view their programme.

Who Killed Kennedy by David Bishop (Virgin Books)

Oh yes. What was good enough for Quantum Leap and Red Dwarf became good enough to Doctor Who in the mid-nineties. Who Killed Kennedy tells the story of a cub reporter, James Stevens, in thesurprising amount of publicity greeted the announcement that Tom Baker, everybody’s favourite Doctor, the Doctor for adults of une certaine age, was returning to the role after thirty years (give or take the odd cameo). That was followed by general disappointment when a preview of The Stuff of Nightmares was released, a short scene between Tom and visiting companion, retired UNIT officer Mike Yates played by Richard Franklin, in which neither actor seemed to be putting in much of a performance, sounding like they were reading from a script.

On listening to the whole thing, it becomes apparent that what Magrs has written for Baker is a fireside chat, in which the Doctor regales his friend with tales of sentient alien hornets and madcap escapades.

The first of a series