character (Richard Mace), which gives Peter Davison and Michael Robbins the space to turn in a pair of lovely performances. The end result is a stylish slice of pseudo-historical nonsense." In The Television Companion (1998), David J. Howe and Stephen James Walker called The Visitation "a very enjoyable story, and one of the highlights of the season". They praised the location filming, but noted a weakness was "Matthew Waterhouse's peculiar performance as Adric". In 2012, Patrick Mulkern of Radio Times awarded it four stars out of five. He said that the story was "pedestrian in places, [but] Saward does execute one or two dramatic flourishes". He said that Davison was growing into the role and the companions were given something to do despite being "variable", and was mixed towards the design of the Terileptils. Reviewing the special-edition DVD release for SFX, Nick Setchfield gave The Visitation three-and-a-half out of five stars. He noted that it was a "throwback" and "built on capture-escape-capture storytelling, but it's brimful of oaky, shadowy 17th-century atmosphere". Peter Davison stated that The Visitation is one of his three favourite serials from his time on the programme. Commercial releases In print A novelisation of this serial, written by Eric Saward, was published by Target Books in August 1982. Its cover was originally to be painted like the other Target Doctor Who novels, but an objection by Peter Davison's agent resulted in a photographic cover being used instead. This was the only Peter Davison story to have its novelisation titled as Doctor Who and the... in its original edition. An unabridged recording of the Target novelisation was released in 2012, read by Matthew Waterhouse. A behind-the-scenes book following the production process of the story was printed by Andre Deutsch Limited in 1982, with text by Alan Road and illustrations by Richard Farley. Home media The Visitation was released on a VHS double pack with Black Orchid in July 1994. It was released on DVD-Video in the United Kingdom on 19 January 2004, and used material from the 16 mm film prints, which still exist in the BBC Archives. A special edition of the story with additional features was released on DVD on 6 May 2013. The serial was released on blu-ray in December 2018 as part of "The Collection - Season 19" box set. Soundtrack The February 2020 issue of Doctor Who Magazine announced that Paddy Kingsland's score