This is a fiercely faithful novelisation, feeling like the definitive step into the proto-DVD future. Why now?
Well, ‘Genesis of the Daleks’ had been repeated roughly seven months before Doctor Who and the Genesis of the Daleks was published. This makes it the shortest gap between BBC1 repeat and Target novelisation up to this point (excepting 'The Sea Devils', but that repeat was unscheduled [0]).
Now, that's still a longer gap than between original transmissions and prose adaptations of 'Robot', 'Terror of the Zygons' and 'The Web Planet', but I'd argue that repeats are more important here. A decision to rush a novelisation to print suggests a desire to cash in on short-term recognition of the title (yes, I know all three of these titles were changed for the books but the new titles traded in on the most sensational and presumably most memorable aspect of the broadcast episodes [1]); the decision to repeat a story suggests a belief that that story has somehow lingered in the minds of the audience.
'Genesis' would go on to become the most-repeated of all Who stories in the analogue TV era [2] and it was the only TV story to receive an LP release [3]. All in all, it seems to have been judged to have lingered best.
On top of that, it seems to have heralded a reappraisal of Doctor Who's revisitability. Its repeat was the prelude to what would be a bumper crop of repeats in 1976 [4], suggesting, assuming BBC1 didn't simply feature more repeats in general in 76, that the Hinchcliffe stories were seen as less ephemeral and interchangeable than previous episodes, as more deserving of an opportunity to relive specific moments than just to enjoy a bit more Doctor Who during holiday seasons.
For more tedious speculation on how closely Dicks follows the broadcast episodes, click here...
0 - no, I don't know why that's especially relevant either. Plus, the gap was actually three days shorter for 'Day of the Daleks', but I don't really know what to do with that information
1 - actually, The Zarbi probably was an onscreen title
2 - repeated 27 December 1975, as part of Doctor Who and the Monsters on 26 July & 2 August 1982 and on BBC2 from 8 January to 12 February 1993 and again from 1 February to 29 February 2000 [
gallifreybase.com/w/index.php/Airdates_in_the_UK_(BBC_repeats)]
3 - released October 1979 [timelash.com/tardis/display.php?2394], reissued in 1998 alongside Slipback and again in 2001 with Exploration Earth: The Time Machine [en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genesis_of_the_Daleks#Broadcast_and_reception]
4 - ‘Planet of Evil’ – repeated 5-8 July 1976; ‘The Sontaran Experiment’ – repeated 9 July 1976; ‘Pyramids of Mars’ – repeated 27 November 1976; ‘The Brain of Morbius’ – repeated 4 December 1976 [gallifreybase.com/w/index.php/Airdates_in_the_UK_(BBC_repeats)]
TABLE - Gaps are given in months (excepting 'The Five Doctors'); repeat dates taken from gallifreybase.com/w/index.php/Airdates_in_the_UK_(BBC_repeats) and publication dates taken from tardis.wikia.com/wiki/Doctor_Who_Wiki
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