The Wheel in Space was novelised for Target by Terrance Dicks and first published in August 1988. The cover art is by Ian Burgess. The Cyberman image he has used as reference comes from Tomb of the Cybermen (see below), though he has adapted the helmet to match the Mark III version that was seen in this story.
The space station, however, appears to have come straight from the James Bond movie Moonraker...This was not Burgess' original design for the cover, however. He came up with three drafts, as can be seen below - as reproduced in The Target Book (Telos Publishing). One attempt featured Troughton's Doctor as well as three Cybermen and the Servo Robot. Another had a trio of Cybermen along with Cybermats. The other image is less developed. Personally I prefer the top left image best, over what was finally used, though perhaps the number of Cybermen was the issue. (By this stage, artists were allowed to use the image of previous Doctors on the covers again, so that wasn't the issue).
This was the last book to have the neon tube logo on its cover. Thereafter the McCoy logo was employed.
The book was re-released as part of the first Essential Terrance Dicks collection in 2021.
Target never got round to commissioning a reprint with a new cover during their initial run, but in 2025 it was reissued, in slightly edited form. This was to tie in with the 2023 release of the novelisation of the repeat screening of The Evil of the Daleks, written by Frazer Hines, which follows on directly from this story's ending. The artist this time is Dan Liles, who has more accurate reference material to work from. This book was given away free with DWM 617. The Hines book had also been given away free by DWM previously.
The original soundtrack was released on CD as part of the BBC Radio Collection in May 2004. The linking narration was by Wendy Padbury, and it features the usual cluttered photo-montage cover, mainly of publicity stills but also using a telesnap of the Wheel as reference. This was re-released as part of a collection in August 2012.
The two orphan episodes were first released on video on the Cybermen: The Early Years VHS in 1992. This had on its cover the photograph which Burgess had used for reference for his novelisation artwork. One of the publicity images of the Cybermen with Zoe featured on the reverse.
Colin Baker presented, and was filmed at the MOMI Doctor Who exhibition on London's South Bank, sitting in front of a Cyberman mask display which featured a Mark III looking over his right shoulder as he delivered his links.
These two episodes, plus the Australian censor clip from the fourth episode, later appeared on the Lost in Time DVD set in 2004.
A large section of the opening episode was animated to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the "Missing, Believed Wiped" events, in December 2018. This got fans' hopes up that the full story might be released shortly in animation form, but so far nothing has come of it. You can find it as an extra on the DVD / Blu-ray of The Macra Terror. It is hoped that the work will be completed for the Season 5 Collection Blu-ray set when it eventually materialises, as all the other episodes from this season either exist in the archives or have already been animated.
A version of the story also exists on DVD which marries the soundtrack to the telesnap images, but this was only ever available on the Region 1 NTSC format. The image above is how it is advertised on Amazon, where it is currently unavailable.
The soundtrack, with Wendy Padbury's narration, was released by Demon Records on "Bernalium Blue" vinyl in February 2026. The cover features a Cyberman and the Wheel, whilst Cybermats adorn the reverse of the sleeve.
Finally, the moviedb website uses another colourful photomontage to illustrate this story, in the absence of a genuine DVD cover. They have the Cyberman egg floating through space. Now if only the Cybermen had simply done this in the actual story it could have been a much tighter four-parter...
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