( 16) Doctor Who - Warriors of the Deep, by Terrance Dicks )
( 17) Doctor Who - The Awakening, by Eric Pringle )
( 18) Doctor Who - Frontios, by Christopher H. Bidmead )
( 19) Doctor Who - Resurrection of the Daleks, by Paul Scoones )
( 20) Doctor Who - Planet of Fire, by Peter Grimwade )

( Tegan )

( Turlough )

And, since I read Terrance Dicks' rather flat adaptation of The Caves of Androzani a year ago, that takes me to the end of the Fifth Doctor's run as well. My two polls on the best and worst stories of each Doctor's era (full analysis coming soon) were pretty emphatic in their choices here, and I agree with the conventional wisdom: The Caves of Androzani was the best, and Time Flight the worst. The others that I enjoyed were Castrovalva, The Visitation, Snakedance, Enlightenment and The Five Doctors (though the last much more for the nostalgia value than for any artistic merit). But the lows were much lower than for any previous Doctor. Time Flight has particularly poor production values and plotting, but it just happens to be the worst of a generally poor bunch. If I had to sum it up, I would say that this was when Doctor Who started to look cheap rather than magical.

( more on the Fifth Doctor )

Previous summary posts: the Fourth Doctor, Third Doctor novels, Second Doctor novels, First Doctor novels, the first three Doctors on screen.

Continuing my project, these are the novelisations of the Season 20 stories, plus one that got away from Season 19 and the anniversary special. A number of these confounded my expectations.

( 5) Doctor Who and the Visitation, by Eric Saward - better than expected )
( 6) Doctor Who - Arc of Infinity, by Terrance Dicks - standard stuff )
( 7) Doctor Who - Snakedance, by Terrance Dicks - standard stuff )
( 8) Doctor Who - Mawdryn Undead, by Peter Grimwade - better than I expected )
( 9) Doctor Who - Terminus, by John Lydecker - the best of this bunch )
( 10) Doctor Who - Enlightenment, by Barbara Clegg - starts well, ends with a whimper )
( 11) Doctor Who - The King's Demons, by Terence Dudley - the least impressive of this bunch )
( 12) Doctor Who - The Five Doctors, by Terrance Dicks - a guilty pleasure )

This brings me to the end of Nyssa's run on the show. As with a lot of the brainier companions, she doesn't transfer particularly memorably to the printed page. Although she does bring with her a tragic back-story, losing first her father and then her whole homeworld, this fades more and more into the background as time goes on. Having said that, there are a couple of stories - eg Black Orchid, Terminus - where she is pretty central to the action and this works well.

Nyssa of course continues to feature on Fifth Doctor audios from time to time, including on several of the best Big Finish stories - The Mutant Phase (with Daleks), Primeval (a sort of prequel to The Keeper of Traken), The Game (which brings back William Russell rather gloriously) and two particular favourites, Creatures of Beauty (which has a very unusual format but none the less works) and most of all Spare Parts (the origin of the Cybermen). Any or all of these would be a decent jumping off point to get into Big Finish, if you haven't already done so.

Two good ones among this lot, and one total dud.

( 39) Doctor Who - Castrovalva, by Christopher H Bidmead: one of the good ones )
( 40) Cold Fusion, by Lance Parkin )
( 41) Doctor Who - Four to Doomsday, by Terrance Dicks )
( 42) Doctor Who - Kinda, by Terrance Dicks )
( 43) Doctor Who - Black Orchid, by Terence Dudley: very good indeed )
( 44) Doctor Who - Time Flight, by Peter Grimwade: awful )

I've been in the habit of writing up each companion as they leave the sequence of novels. Adric really makes very little impression. His tendency towards siding with the baddies is almost his only interesting characteristic. Terence Dudley does make him rather more filled out in Doctor Who - Black Orchid but that is about the high point of his printed career. (And of course the Seventh Doctor and companions acknowledge his coming fate in Cold Fusion but apart from that he doesn't get much to do.)

Edited to add: I see I forgot to include Eric Saward's Doctor Who and the Visitation in this batch. Nt rushing to it, I must admit.