Second paragraph of chapter Three:

‘Mollie, Mollie, Mr McCrimmon has been kidnapped. It means the end of us unless we can find him quickly!’

I wrote at length about the TV story, John Peel’s novelisation and Simon Guerrier’s Black Archive on it just over two years ago; however I’m coming back to it now because Frazer Hines, who starred as Jamie in the original show, has produced an alternative novelisation, assisted by Mike Tucker and Steve Cole. The authors have taken the step of the framing narrative of the second (and last) showing the the TV story in 1968, when newly acquired companion Zoe was invited to watch it as an example of the Doctor’s previous adventures.

Is there a point? Yes, I think so; John Peel in his novelisation was trying to make sense of Dalek mythology in the context of the show as a whole, whereas here we have Hines and co-writers humanising the experiences of both Jamie and Victoria, giving a lot more back-story to the companions and indeedto the other characters.

One of the problems I have with The Evil of the Daleks is that quite a lot of the plot doesn’t really make sense. But the TV story keeps you entertained with the pace of events, and this novelisation does the same, from a slightly different direction to John Peel’s. You can get it here.

Bechdel fail, as is the TV story. (Some argue that Ruth Maxtible telling Mollie to get some tea at the end of episode 2 crosses the Bechdel threshold, but this is incorrect, because the tea is for Jamie.)