When the Type-40 machine comes to rest, the view on the scanner screen only serves to confirm Tegan's rather low expectations of the TARDIS's performance.

The most sensible course of action would be to leave immediately - but despite Turlough's protests the Doctor rushes out to take on a seemingly hopeless rescue mission...
 

The Doctor has promised Tegan that he will take her to her grandfather's village of Little Hodcombe. But all is not well in this little village - the whole population is involved in a war game that seems ever more sinister, and Little Hodcomb itself is surrounded by an energy field. Something is very wrong indeed, and the Doctor, Turlough and Tegan take on what sees to be a hopeless rescue mission.

This is a novelization by Eric Pringle of his own original story, first broadcast in 1984 and featuring Peter Davison in the role of the Doctor.
 

The TARDIS has brought the Doctor, Tegan and Turlough to the picture-postcard English village of Little Hodcombe. Tegan has come to visit her grandfather -well-known local historian Andrew Verney - but he seems to be missing. The residents of Little Hodcombe, led by the obsessive Sir George Hutchinson, are playing a vicious war game - an exact recreation of a battle of the English Civil War fought there in 1643.

As each of the TARDIS crew witnesses a terrifying apparition from the past, the Doctor realises that he faces a far greater menace than the unstable Hutchinson. An ancient and alien force for evil is at work - one which will glory in the slaughter of them all...

Originally transmitted 19th - 20th January 1984 Produced by John Nathan-Turner Directed by Michael Owen Morris

As a strange force takes hold of the TARDIS, the doctor and his friends find themselves grounded on the inhospitable planet of Frontios, where the last survivors of the human race scratch out a desperate existence far away from their long-dead homeworld.

The colonists are gripped by fear and paranoia as the planet is battered by attacks from space and they watch as the bodies of their dead are sucked into the ground. But the Doctor only appreciates the true gravity of the situation when he finds out that the TARDIS has been destroyed...

Originally transmitted 26th January - 3rd February 1984 Produced by John Nathan-Turner. Directed by Ron Jones

Running time: 148 mins approx
Cover Illustration: Colin Howard
 

US Cover