Doctor Who Notes 5

The Cybermen are the showcased villains of the fifth season of Doctor Who, appearing in the opening and closing stories. Also of note is the introduction of the series’ longest-running recurring character, the stalwart military man Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart, better known later as “the Brigadier,” in a story that lays the foundation for the “UNIT” concept that would soon play an integral role in the Doctor Who mythos. New facts about the Doctor also come to light.


From “The Tomb of the Cybermen”

Still on Skaro, the Doctor brings the newly orphaned Victoria Waterfield aboard the TARDIS for the first time, and he and Jamie McCrimmon explain to her its nature.

Victoria: Flight?
Jamie: Well, yes. You see, we travel around in here through time and space.
The Doctor: Oh, no, no, no, no. Don’t laugh. It’s true. Your father and Maxtible were working on the same problem. But I have perfected a rather special model, which enables me to travel through the universe of time.
Victoria: But how can you? I mean, if what you say is true, you must be -- er, well -- how old?
The Doctor: Well, if we count in Earth terms, I suppose I must be about … four hundred … yes, about 450 years old. Yes, well … quite.

They depart, and the TARDIS soon materializes on the planet Telos, where they find an archaeological expedition investigating the lost citadel of the Cybermen five centuries since their last appearance. The creatures are merely in suspended animation, however, and are revived through the treachery of two of the team members. The humans are able to seal the Cybermen in their cryogenics complex but must remain in the upper levels of the citadel while their sabotaged spaceship is repaired. During the night, the Doctor has a heart-to-heart talk with the grieving Victoria.

The Doctor: Are you happy with us, Victoria?
Victoria: Yes, I am. At least, I would be … if my father were here.
The Doctor: Yes, I know. I know.
Victoria: I wonder what he would have thought if he could see me now.
The Doctor: You miss him very much, don’t you?
Victoria: It’s only when I close my eyes. I can still see him standing there … before those horrible Dalek creatures came to the house. He was a very kind man. I shall never forget him. Never.
The Doctor: No, of course you won’t. But, you know, the memory of him won’t always be a sad one.
Victoria: I think it will. You can’t understand, being so ancient --
The Doctor: Eh?
Victoria: I mean old. You probably can’t remember your family.
The Doctor: Oh, yes, I can -- when I want to. And that’s the point, really. I have to really want to, to bring them back in front of my eyes. The rest of the time they sleep in my mind, and I forget. And so will you. Oh, yes, you will. You’ll find there’s so much else to think about, to remember. Our lives are different to anybody else’s. That’s the exciting thing. Nobody in the universe can do what we’re doing.

The Cybermen are released by the traitors, but the creatures desire only the humans’ deaths. The humans fight them off using their own weapons, and the Doctor is able to place the creatures back in suspended animation and to seal the complex once again, leaving only a lone Cybermat outside. The Cyberman Controller, leader of their race, is destroyed in the battle. Despite the passage of time, the Cybermen recognize the Doctor as having foiled their 21st-century attack on Earth’s moonbase.


From “The Abominable Snowmen”

The TARDIS returns to Earth, materializing outside a Tibetan monastery in the 1930s. Realizing he had been there some 300 years earlier, the Doctor rummages around and finds a ceremonial bell he intends to return. Reaching the monastery, the Doctor meets the young Professor Travers, who is investigating Yeti sightings. The Doctor, Jamie, and Victoria help Travers find the monsters, which turn out to be robots controlled by a non-corporeal alien being called the Great Intelligence, which is trying to create a physical form for itself on Earth. With the help of the Buddhist monks, the Doctor is able to sever the being’s link to this world, trapping it on the astral plane. Professor Travers continues his hunt for the true Yeti, and the time-travelers depart in the TARDIS.


From “The Ice Warriors”

The TARDIS materializes in Britain roughly a thousand years in the future, when glaciers are rolling south, heralding the dawn of a new ice age. The Doctor, Jamie, and Victoria find themselves in a remote scientific base where an ionizer is being used to halt the advancing ice. However, they discover a Martian spaceship and its crew of warriors frozen in the glacier, which they inadvertently revive. Learning that Mars has long since become a dead world, the warriors decide to conquer the Earth, but the ionizer is used to destroy their ship with the aliens on board.


From “The Enemy of the World”

The Doctor, Jamie, and Victoria find themselves embroiled in political intrigue when, arriving in futuristic Australia, the Doctor learns he looks exactly like the megalomaniacal Mexican dictator called Salamander. The Doctor impersonates Salamander, and when his plans lie in ruins, the dictator impersonates the time-traveler in an attempt to escape in the TARDIS. The Doctor arrives just in time, but Salamander manages to activate the dematerialization circuit. However, the doors are still open and he is sucked out into the time vortex. The danger is ended when Jamie manages to get the doors closed, and the travelers continue on their way.


From “The Web of Fear”

The TARDIS materializes in the London Underground, where the Doctor, Jamie, and Victoria come under attack by Yeti robots. They are separated, and Jamie and Victoria are picked up by the army detachment battling the monsters. They discover the unit’s scientific advisor is Professor Travers, now some forty years older. Travers is, of course, astonished that Jamie and Victoria have not aged at all. They soon find the Doctor with the officer-in-charge, Colonel Lethbridge-Stewart. Together, they battle against the monsters but find their efforts hampered by a traitor in their midst. To their horror, the traitor is the reanimated corpse of Sergeant Arnold, controlled by the Great Intelligence, which is trying once more to take over the Earth. The alien being tries to drain the Doctor’s mental energy, but the Doctor’s sabotage destroys Arnold’s body and traps the Intelligence on the astral plane once again.

Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart first met the Doctor while he was a colonel in the British Army, leading an operation to rid the London Underground of the Yeti monsters and their mysterious web, which probably occurred around 1965. Shortly thereafter, partly in response to this crisis, the United Nations formed a special paramilitary force to investigate paranormal or extraterrestrial threats to the Earth. The United Nations Intelligence Taskforce, or UNIT, was headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, with branch operations in different countries (probably the members of the U.N. Security Council) that were led by officers of that nation’s military on attachment to the special taskforce. Lethbridge-Stewart was promoted to brigadier and set up the British branch, apparently with the help of Professor Travers, until he and his daughter Anne went to America. Four years after their first encounter, Lethbridge-Stewart and the Doctor met again, this time to fend off an invasion by the Cybermen. Needing a scientific advisor, Lethbridge-Stewart then recruited Dr. Elizabeth Shaw from Cambridge University, only to receive a report that the TARDIS had returned. Although mystified by the Doctor’s new appearance, the Brigadier was glad to have the time-traveler’s knowledge at his disposal and made the Doctor UNIT’s official scientific advisor for the duration of his exile. The Brigadier took personal responsibility for the Doctor, as the Time Lord had no “official” existence on Earth, which undoubtedly made members of the U.N. Security Council nervous. Throughout the first half of the 1970s, the Brigadier oversaw a variety of missions, aided by Sergeant John Benton and Captain Mike Yates. In fact, he and the Doctor became friends over time, though the Brigadier never lost any of his upright military bearing. In 1976, Lethbridge-Stewart retired from UNIT and the military and took a position teaching mathematics at an English boys’ school, his UNIT post taken over by a Colonel Creighton. Then in 1977, he suffered a nervous breakdown following a strange encounter with the TARDIS, after which he suppressed all memory of the Doctor. It wasn’t until six years later that his memory was restored and he learned the truth about that strange encounter, which involved the Doctor and an alien named Mawdryn. A few years later, the Brigadier was scheduled to give a speech at what was probably the 20th anniversary of UNIT, when the Doctor’s second incarnation turned up and they found themselves whisked away to the Doctor’s home planet, Gallifrey, where the Brigadier encountered three of the Doctor’s other incarnations as well and learned a bit about Time Lord history. Returned to Earth, Lethbridge-Stewart eventually retired from his teaching post and married his long-time love, Doris, settling down in a large house in the country. Sometime after the year 2000, Lethbridge-Stewart met the Doctor once more, helping him to drive a cadre of Arthurian knights back to their own dimension, saving the Doctor’s life and killing a monster in the process. UNIT was involved as well, still going strong and under the leadership of Brigadier Winifred Bambera. Realizing he was getting too old for such adventuring, Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart resigned himself to a quiet domestic life in his garden.


From “Fury From the Deep”

The TARDIS materializes on the North Sea, off the coast of England, and the Doctor, Jamie, and Victoria row ashore in a rubber raft. They soon find themselves helping to defend a gas refinery from a strain of killer seaweed. Once the creature is destroyed and the travelers are ready to depart, Victoria elects to give up adventuring and remain behind to live with Frank and Maggie Harris, workers at the refinery. The Doctor and Jamie are both disheartened by her decision.


From “The Wheel in Space”

The TARDIS eventually finds itself aboard a spaceship, whereupon its mercury fluid links overheat, forcing the Doctor and Jamie to evacuate. The Doctor removes the time-vector generator and takes it with him. However, the vessel is adrift, and the two travelers are rescued when they pass a space station known as the Wheel. Here they meet Zoe Heriot and must defend the Wheel from a group of Cybermen hidden aboard the derelict vessel. The Cybermen hope to use the space station as a beacon for the Cyber Fleet to invade the Earth. The Doctor patches the time-vector generator into the station’s weapons systems to enable it to destroy the Cyber Fleet. When they are ready to depart, they find Zoe has stowed away aboard the TARDIS.

Zoe Heriot was born in the 21st century, studied astrophysics, and was the librarian on a space station when she saw a chance to travel through time and space. Her mathematical skill and photographic memory proved valuable, but her time with the Doctor was cut short when the Time Lords brought them to Gallifrey and sentenced the Doctor to exile. Zoe was returned to the space station just after the Cybermen were defeated, her memory of subsequent events suppressed. It is unknown what effect this psychic tampering had on her mental health. Perhaps her adventures with the Doctor resurfaced in her mind as nightmares.


Next Season

Doctor Who Notes 4

With its fourth season, Doctor Who made television history when a new actor took over the lead role and the change in appearance was made part of the story. Rather than trying to find someone similar to William Hartnell, the producers decided to take the show in an entirely new direction. Their choice, Patrick Troughton, famously interpreted the character as a “cosmic hobo” and gave the Doctor a fresh new attitude. The Daleks returned to ease the transition, and a new recurring menace was introduced in the form of the Cybermen.


From “The Smugglers”

The TARDIS materializes on the coast of Cornwall in the seventeenth century, where the Doctor, Ben Jackson, and Polly Wright get mixed up with a band of pirates seeking a hidden treasure and a smuggling ring led by a corrupt squire. When the local militia moves in, the time-travelers slip away unnoticed and depart.


From “The Tenth Planet”

The TARDIS arrives in Antarctica in December 1986, where the Doctor, Ben, and Polly help the soldiers and scientists at a space program installation fend off an invasion by Cybermen, whose home planet, Mondas, has traveled into the solar system and is draining energy from the Earth. When Mondas is destroyed by absorbing too much energy, the Cybermen die, unable to survive without their planet’s energies. Totally exhausted from his recent adventures and complaining that “this old body of mine is wearing a bit thin,” the Doctor staggers back to the TARDIS and collapses after hurriedly setting the controls. The ship dematerializes, and as Ben and Polly look on in astonishment, the Doctor’s appearance completely changes. He has regenerated for the very first time.


From “The Power of the Daleks”

The Doctor’s post-regenerative symptoms are slight: blurred vision and a drumming sensation in his head. His amazed companions try to understand what they have just witnessed, but the Doctor’s vague and elliptical comments are of little help. Ben finds the Doctor’s ring on the floor.

Ben: The Doctor always wore this. If you are him, it should fit. That settles it!
The Doctor: I’d like to see a butterfly fit into a chrysalis case after it spreads its wings!
Polly: Then you did change!
The Doctor: Life depends on change… and renewal.
Ben: Oh, that’s it, you’ve been renewed, have you?
The Doctor: Renewed? Have I? That’s it, I’ve been renewed. It’s part of the TARDIS. Without it I couldn’t survive.

While the Doctor is engrossed in his 500-year diary, the TARDIS materializes on the planet Vulcan, where an Earth colony has been established. The Doctor passes himself off as an examiner from Earth in order to infiltrate the colony, having witnessed the murder of the examiner in the mercury swamps outside. The Doctor becomes even more concerned when he discovers that the colony’s scientists are attempting to reactivate some Daleks discovered in a ship which crashed there 200 years earlier. The scientists are successful, and though the Daleks at first claim to be subservient, when they are all revived, they attack the humans. With the help of the Doctor, Ben, and Polly, the colonists destroy the four Daleks.


From “The Highlanders”

When the TARDIS materializes in Scotland in 1746, the Doctor, Ben, and Polly are captured by a group of Highlanders on the run from the English army. However, they join forces when they are taken prisoner by the army and nearly sold into slavery by a crooked solicitor. The Doctor smuggles arms aboard the slave ship, and the Highlanders set sail instead for France. One of their number, however, a lad named Jamie McCrimmon, leads the time-travelers back to the glen in which waits the TARDIS. The Doctor invites Jamie to join them.

James Robert McCrimmon was perhaps the Doctor’s most fiercely loyal companion, and they traveled together for a long time. Jamie saw many wonders during his travels, including meeting the Doctor’s future self and visiting his home planet of Gallifrey. Sadly, however, at the start of the Doctor’s exile to Earth, the Time Lords returned Jamie to 1746 Scotland, his memories of all but his first adventure with the Doctor suppressed. It is unknown whether these memories ever resurfaced or what effect this had on his psyche, if any.


From “The Underwater Menace”

The Doctor, Ben, Polly, and Jamie run afoul of a mad scientist in the underground city that is the last vestige of the kingdom of Atlantis. While claiming that he will raise Atlantis to the surface, the scientist actually plans to destroy the Earth by draining the oceans into the molten core, the resultant superheated steam causing a massive explosion. The city is flooded and the villain drowned, but the Atlanteans and mutated fish-people both survive the catastrophe.


From “The Moonbase”

The TARDIS goes out of control and materializes on the moon in 2070, where a facility has been built to control the weather on Earth. Inside the moonbase, the Doctor, Ben, Polly, and Jamie find a mysterious plague infecting the personnel. The plague has been introduced by the Cybermen, who plan to take over the base and destroy mankind by manipulating the weather. The first wave of Cybermen is destroyed by solvents sprayed from fire extinguishers, and the Doctor uses the base’s gravity-manipulating equipment to repulse the rest of the invasion force.


From “The Macra Terror”

The TARDIS next materializes on an Earth colony planet which appears on the surface to be a utopian society but is in reality utterly controlled by giant crab-like creatures who use the humans to mine a toxic gas they need to breathe. The Doctor, Ben, Polly, and Jamie resist the brainwashing attempts of the Macra creatures, and by destroying the means by which the gas is pumped from the mines, free the colonists from the Macra’s mind control.


From “The Faceless Ones”

The TARDIS returns to England in 1966, materializing at an airport, which causes the Doctor, Ben, Polly, and Jamie trouble with the immigration office. While hiding in a hangar, Polly sees a man killed by an alien ray gun. This leads the time-travelers to uncover a plot by a race of featureless aliens to steal the identities of a number of human victims. Ben and Polly are left behind when the Doctor and Jamie go to the aliens’ orbiting space station for a final confrontation. Once they are reunited, however, Ben and Polly elect to stay behind, finding themselves back in their proper place and time. The Doctor and Jamie return to the TARDIS only to watch helplessly as it is stolen.


From “The Evil of the Daleks”

The Doctor and Jamie follow a trail of clues in order to recover the stolen TARDIS, which eventually leads them to an antique store where all the merchandise looks curiously new. They have walked into a trap, however, as they are gassed into unconsciousness. When they awaken, they find themselves transported one hundred years into the past. They meet the man who organized the theft, Edward Waterfield, and his associate Theodore Maxtible, both of whom have come under the evil influence of the Daleks, who are holding Waterfield’s daughter Victoria hostage. The Daleks want the Doctor’s help with a little genetic engineering. When the Doctor succeeds in “humanizing” three Daleks, they are all transported back to Skaro, where the Doctor learns the true Dalek plan -- to isolate and implant “the Dalek factor” into human minds, using the Doctor and his TARDIS to spread this “Dalek factor” throughout space and time. The Doctor refuses to cooperate and manages to trick the Daleks into implanting “the human factor” into more of their number. A civil war breaks out between the two Dalek factions, during which Waterfield dies saving the Doctor from a Dalek blaster. With his last breath, he asks the Doctor to look after his daughter. As the Dalek war rages on, the Doctor, Jamie, and Victoria find their way to where the Daleks had stored the TARDIS.

Victoria Waterfield joined the Doctor on his travels when her father was killed and her home blown up by the Daleks. Having led a rather sheltered life up to that point (June 1866), she often found their adventures overwhelming, and when the opportunity presented itself to resume a normal life in the twentieth century, she took it. After losing everything she knew and being terrorized by various monsters before settling down some hundred years into her future, Victoria probably faced a difficult period of adjustment with the Harris family on the North Sea Gas refinery.


Next Season

Doctor Who Notes 3

The third season of Doctor Who is notable mainly for its massive thirteen-part Dalek story, which both introduces and kills off companion Sara Kingdom, brings back the Meddling Monk, presents a madcap Christmas episode, and features one segment in which neither the Doctor, the TARDIS, nor any of his companions make an appearance. The season also sees a couple of cast turnovers, ending once again with a brand-new complement of traveling companions.


From “Galaxy Four”

The TARDIS materializes on a nameless desert planet, where the Doctor, Vicki, and Steven Taylor find two spaceships which crashed after a space battle. Their ship destroyed, the humanoid Drahvins try to force the time-travelers to help them commandeer the less-damaged Rill ship. However, the Doctor realizes that the Rills, despite their monstrous appearance, are a peaceful race and assists them in blasting off before the planet breaks apart. The warlike Drahvins are left to die.


From “Mission to the Unknown”

Space Security Service Agent Marc Cory discovers the Daleks have established a base on the planet Kembel and are planning an invasion of the Milky Way Galaxy in the year 4000 A.D. He prepares a report on his findings, but before he can send it, he is discovered by the Daleks and exterminated.


From “The Myth Makers”

The TARDIS materializes in the middle of the Trojan War, and the Doctor ends up among the Greek soldiers while Vicki and Steven are captured by the Trojans. Forced to aid the Greek siege, the Doctor uses the idea of the Trojan Horse, which he’d read in Homer. Meanwhile, the Trojans come to believe that Vicki is Cressida, and when she falls in love with Priam’s son Troilus, she decides to remain behind with him. When Steven is injured in the battle, a servant girl called Katarina helps him into the TARDIS. The ship dematerializes while she is still on board.


From “The Daleks’ Master Plan”

The TARDIS now materializes on Kembel in 4000 A.D., where the Doctor, Steven, and Katarina find Space Security Service Agent Bret Vyon investigating his fellow agent’s disappearance. They discover Cory’s report on the Dalek scheme and set off to warn the Earth government. However, the human leader, Mavic Chen, is in league with the Daleks, helping them to prepare their ultimate weapon, the time destructor. The Doctor and his companions steal the weapon’s power core and escape in Chen’s ship. When they are forced to land on a prison planet, a psychopathic convict named Kirksen boards the ship. However, Katarina sacrifices herself to save her friends, and she and the criminal are flung out into space. Mavic Chen then sends Vyon’s own sister, Space Security Service Agent Sara Kingdom, to hunt them down. She kills Vyon before the Doctor can convince her that Chen is the traitor. The Daleks chase the TARDIS through time and space to retrieve the power source. On the planet Tigus, the Doctor again encounters his fellow renegade Time Lord, the Meddling Monk, who betrays him to the Daleks. The Doctor meddles with the Monk’s time capsule, stranding him on a planet of ice. Catching up with the Doctor in Ancient Egypt, Mavic Chen forces the Doctor to surrender the power source. They return to Kembel, where the Daleks exterminate Chen. The Doctor is able to tamper with the time destructor so that when it is activated, it destroys the Daleks. Unfortunately, Sara Kingdom is caught in the time distortion and rapidly aged to death.


From “The Massacre of St. Bartholomew’s Eve”

The TARDIS finds its way to Paris, France in 1572, and the Doctor goes off to visit a noted apothecary. Meanwhile, Steven is befriended by a group of Huguenots, and together they discover the plot of the Catholic queen to massacre the Protestants. Steven finds the Doctor, and they retreat to the TARDIS as the massacre begins.

The TARDIS materializes once again in London in 1966, and believing it to be a real police box, young Dorothea Chaplet rushes inside and is whisked away from Earth. “Dodo,” as she calls herself, reminds the Doctor somewhat of Susan, whom he still misses. This may be the reason he allows her to accompany them. She travels in the TARDIS only a short time before leaving the Doctor’s company as suddenly as she came.


From “The Ark”

The Doctor, Steven, and Dodo find themselves on a gigantic spaceship ten million years in the future, which is transporting life specimens from the doomed planet Earth to a new world, Refusis II. Dodo has a cold, which becomes a plague among the crew, who have no resistance to it. The Doctor devises a cure, and the travelers go their separate ways. However, the TARDIS merely shuttles ahead 700 years to when the ship reaches Refusis II. They discover Dodo’s virus has enabled the alien servants, the Monoids, to enslave the humans. After a battle, the Doctor is able to persuade both races to colonize the planet together.


From “The Celestial Toymaker”

The TARDIS appears in a parallel universe presided over by a powerful, immortal being called the Celestial Toymaker. As he looks on menacingly, the Doctor, Steven, and Dodo must pass a series of childlike tests. The Doctor outsmarts the Toymaker, and as the TARDIS dematerializes, the Toymaker’s universe is destroyed.


From “The Gunfighters”

When the Doctor develops a toothache, the TARDIS materializes in Tombstone, Arizona in 1881, where the Doctor seeks out the dental services of Doc Holliday. This leads him, Steven, and Dodo to become embroiled in the shootout at the OK Corral.


From “The Savages”

The TARDIS lands on a world where a race of Elders perpetuate their society on the stolen life-energies of a race of savages. The Doctor, Steven, and Dodo try to end the exploitation and succeed when the leader of the Elders is influenced by the Doctor’s character after siphoning off some of the Time Lord’s life-energy. United, the Elders and Savages then ask Steven to remain with them as their new leader. He agrees, and the Doctor and Dodo go off without him. Steven’s subsequent fate is unknown.


From “The War Machines”

The TARDIS brings the Doctor and Dodo back to London in 1966. When the Doctor senses a sinister force emanating from the impressive new General Post Office Tower, they go to investigate and find a new supercomputer called WOTAN. The computer is sentient and plans to take over the world, and it soon has Dodo and others under its hypnotic sway. The Doctor proves himself an adept hypnotist by freeing Dodo from its influence. A dozen mobile War Machines are built to WOTAN’s specifications, and they attack London, but the Doctor is able to reprogram one and turn it against its creator. As he is about to leave, Ben Jackson and Polly Wright, who helped in the fight against WOTAN, bring him a message from Dodo that she wants to remain in London. Although the Doctor apparently has every intention of going on alone, Ben and Polly slip inside the TARDIS just before it dematerializes.

Polly Wright was working as a secretary for the chief scientist in charge of the WOTAN project when she met the Doctor. Taking Dodo for an evening at her favorite nightclub, the Inferno, Polly introduced herself to a gloomy sailor named Ben. When Polly fell under the computer’s mental control, Ben helped her break free. They then joined the Doctor on his travels and witnessed his first regeneration. When the TARDIS finally brought them back to their proper place and time, Polly decided to resume her normal life -- her many travels having occurred within the space of a day.

Ben Jackson, a merchant seaman, was spending his evenings at the Inferno nightclub as he was depressed over getting a shore posting when his ship, the HMS Teazer, sailed for the West Indies. It was here that he met Polly Wright and they made a lunch date for the next day. When Polly couldn’t be located, Ben’s inquiries led him back to the Doctor, who asked Ben to do some investigating for him. Thus drawn into the Doctor’s adventures, he and Polly joined the Doctor on his travels and witnessed his first regeneration. When the TARDIS finally brought them back to their proper place and time, Ben decided to resume his normal life -- his many travels having occurred within the space of a day.

Ben and Polly became very close during their time aboard the TARDIS and started from an obvious sexual attraction to each other. However, being returned to the very day they left might make them eventually wonder if it had happened at all. Whether this situation created a bond between them or caused them to drift apart is unknown. They both had the chance to resume their former jobs without interruption.

Next Season

Doctor Who Notes 2

The second season of Doctor Who sees the first major cast shake-up. By the end of the season, the Doctor has a completely new compliment of traveling companions. Another notable event ends the season, as we meet the first of many other renegades from the Doctor’s home planet, the troublemaker commonly called the Meddling Monk.


From “Planet of Giants”

A peculiar malfunction of the TARDIS miniaturizes the Doctor, Susan, Ian Chesterton, and Barbara Wright. Although they have returned to 1960s England, they are only an inch tall. However, they are still able to prevent an unethical scientist from unleashing a deadly pesticide.


From “The Dalek Invasion of Earth”

The Doctor, Susan, Ian, and Barbara find themselves in 22nd century London only to discover the Earth has already been conquered by Daleks. The Doctor and Ian are captured while Susan and Barbara are rescued by a group of human resistance fighters. The four travelers are all soon separated and find themselves with different members of the resistance movement, all making their way to the Daleks’ mining operation in Bedfordshire. There they discover the Daleks intend to convert the Earth into a gigantic spacecraft. However, they manage to turn the Daleks’ explosives against them, destroying the invasion force in a volcanic eruption.

Returning to the TARDIS, the Doctor realizes that Susan has fallen in love with one of the resistance fighters, David Campbell, and as they are preparing to depart, David asks Susan to stay behind to marry him. She is torn between her love for him and her loyalty to her grandfather, so the Doctor makes the decision for her, locking the doors of the TARDIS. He then speaks to her over the communications system.

The Doctor: During all the years I’ve been taking care of you, you in return have been taking care of me.
Susan: Grandfather, I belong with you!
The Doctor: Not any longer, Susan. You’re still my grandchild and always will be, but now you’re a woman, too. I want you to belong somewhere, to have roots of your own. With David, you’ll be able to find those roots and live normally as any woman should do. Believe me, my dear, your future lies with David and not with a silly old buffer like me. One day, I shall come back. Yes, I shall come back. Until then, there must be no regrets, no tears, no anxieties. Just go forward in all your beliefs and prove to me that I am not mistaken in mine. Good-bye, Susan. Good-bye, my dear.

With that, the TARDIS dematerializes, and a clearly stunned Susan goes off with David. The Doctor must have certainly believed that living on her beloved Earth was a better life for Susan than the fugitive existence they had led since leaving Gallifrey. Also, with Earth’s population devastated as a result of the Dalek plague, the Doctor may have hoped that her advanced knowledge would help humanity recover. Susan would some years later be reunited with her grandfather on Gallifrey when they were both kidnapped as part of Borusa’s last scheme. It is unclear whether Susan’s alien physiognomy would pose any problems in adjusting to life on Earth, but her lifespan would surely complicate her relationships eventually. If indeed she had many regenerations ahead of her, then humanity probably benefited from the presence of the mysterious woman named Susan for several centuries.


From “The Rescue”

When the TARDIS materializes in a cave on the planet Dido, Ian and Barbara go out to have a look around. The Doctor, however, elects to remain inside, claiming he wants to take a nap.

Barbara: Look, Ian, all the old associations are still in the ship. You can’t expect him to say goodbye to Susan and then forget about it the next minute.
Ian: No, I suppose not. I wonder what she’s doing now.
Barbara: If I know anything about David, she’s learning to milk cows.

The travelers discover a crashed spaceship from Earth with only two survivors, a gruff man named Bennett and a traumatized girl named Vicki, who have been menaced by a creature called Koquillion. However, the Doctor soon learns that Bennett and Koquillion are one and the same, part of Bennett’s scheme to get away with mass murder. When he dies in a fall, the Doctor invites Vicki to join them on their travels.

Vicki left Earth in 2493 after her mother died and her father took a job on the planet Astra. They were en route to Astra when the ship crashed on Dido and her father was killed in the explosion set off by Bennett that killed the rest of the crew and a number of Dido natives as well. Having no one to go back to, Vicki accepted the Doctor’s invitation and traveled with him until they arrived in ancient Troy and she fell in love with Troilus. Assuming the identity of Cressida, she remained behind to begin a new life -- one that, by all accounts, would end unhappily.


From “The Romans”

Upon materializing a few miles outside Rome in 64 AD, the TARDIS takes a tumble, but the Doctor decides to leave it hidden in the shrubbery. They move themselves into an empty villa and live peacefully among the Romans for a month until Ian and Barbara are kidnapped by slave traders while the Doctor and Vicki are visiting the court of Nero. The Doctor inadvertently inspires Nero to start the Great Fire of Rome.


From “The Web Planet”

A mysterious force captures the TARDIS and forces it to materialize on the planet Vortis, where the ship loses all power. However, the Doctor is able to open the doors by passing his ring before a lighted instrument, exclaiming it is “not merely a decorative object.” The Doctor, Ian, Barbara, and Vicki discover the planet’s inhabitants, the moth-like Menoptra, have been subjugated by the ant-like Zarbi, which are under the control of an alien conqueror called the Animus. The Doctor’s astral map unit is damaged in overcoming the Animus, but the creature is ultimately destroyed.


From “The Crusade”

The TARDIS brings the Doctor, Ian, Barbara, and Vicki to 12th century Palestine, where they find King Richard the Lionheart at war with the Saracen ruler Saladin. When Barbara is captured by the Saracen army, Ian rescues her while the Doctor and Vicki get into trouble at King Richard’s court.


From “The Space Museum”

When the TARDIS materializes in a museum on the planet Xeros, the travelers are shocked to find themselves among the displays. They set out to prevent this possible future from coming to pass and in the process help a band of native rebels overcome their alien oppressors.


From “The Chase”

Aboard the TARDIS, Ian, Barbara, and Vicki are getting on each other’s nerves while the Doctor tinkers with a time-space visualizer, a device which can transmit images of any past event to its viewscreen. Among the displays is a view of the Daleks planning their revenge against the Doctor and his companions for foiling their invasion of the Earth. The Daleks have perfected a time machine of their own and intend to pursue the TARDIS throughout eternity, if necessary, until their enemies are exterminated. On the planet Aridius, the Doctor loses the TARDIS in a sandstorm, but the Daleks dig it out in order to destroy it, allowing the travelers to escape.

The Doctor: That’s my time-path detector. It’s been in the ship ever since I constructed it. But, you know, I don’t remember it registering before.
Barbara: What does it show?
The Doctor: Well, it surveys the time path we’re travelling on. The fact that it’s registering can only mean one thing!
Ian: Yes, go on!
The Doctor: There’s another time machine travelling on the same route!

The TARDIS then materializes on top of the Empire State Building in 1966, much to the surprise of a tourist from Alabama. Vicki recognizes it from her history books, stating the city was ultimately destroyed in the Dalek invasion. Next, the TARDIS shuttles back to a Victorian sailing ship, where the Daleks then drive the entire crew overboard. When the time machines materialize in a haunted house full of robotic monsters, Vicki is left behind in the confusion, prompting her to stow away aboard the Dalek time capsule.

Barbara: Isn’t there anything we can do? Is there no way of going back for Vicki?
The Doctor: You don’t think I’d be standing here doing nothing, do you, if there were? Hmm? We’re helpless! And you of all people should know the TARDIS can’t land in the same time and place twice!
Ian: Look, shut up! We’ve never stayed long enough in any one place to repair the time mechanism of the TARDIS! If we did, is there a chance of going back for Vicki?
The Doctor: Yes, of course it’s possible, but it might take months -- even years!

As both time machines arrive on the planet Mechanus, the Daleks unleash an android duplicate of the Doctor. Vicki is able to warn her friends, and the two Doctors battle each other until the robot is destroyed. However, the travelers are captured by the Mechanoids, spherical robots that are already holding prisoner a human astronaut named Steven Taylor. They manage to escape while the Daleks and the Mechanoids fight it out. Discovering the Dalek time capsule is now abandoned, Ian and Barbara decide to use it to get home. It returns them successfully to London in December 1965 before exploding. Overjoyed to be back, Ian and Barbara realize they must think of a way to explain their two-year disappearance. Once that was all sorted out, however, they most likely settled back into a normal routine, and it would come as no surprise if they eventually married.

Steven Taylor was an astronaut fighting an interplanetary war when his ship crashed on Mechanus. He was held prisoner by the Mechanoids for two years, until the Doctor and his friends arrived. Steven stowed away aboard the TARDIS while the Doctor was sending Ian and Barbara home. He traveled with the Doctor until being asked to remain on the planet of the Elders and Savages as their new leader. His subsequent fate is unknown.


From “The Time Meddler”

As the Doctor and Vicki discover Steven aboard the TARDIS, the ship materializes on the coast of England in 1066, where they find another member of the Doctor’s race, known only as the Monk, meddling with the course of history. Outraged, the Doctor sabotages the Monk’s time capsule, causing its interior to be reduced to miniature proportions.

The Doctor: You know, all this is very surprising. That’s a Mark IV.
The Monk: Yes. Yes, indeed.
Vicki: Is that later than yours, Doctor?
The Doctor: Hmm?
Vicki: Oh, I forgot all about it!
The Doctor: Oh? Forgot? Forgot what, child?
Vicki: Doctor. Doctor, we haven’t got a time machine anymore.
The Doctor: Haven’t we now? Oh, I say, well, I wonder what that’s supposed to mean!
Vicki: Well, you know… you know we left it on the beach?
The Doctor: Yes, I remember very well. Yes, it so happens that I was there at the time! My dear, I may appear a little half-witted at times, but—
Vicki: Doctor! The tide came in.
The Doctor: Oh, is that all, my child?
Steven: Isn’t that enough?
The Doctor: The water cannot affect the TARDIS. It won’t wash away. It’ll still be there when the tide goes down. Now, stop fretting, my dear. Well, I must confess, I do congratulate you. It’s a splendid machine. Although I do note there’s been quite a few changes.
The Monk: Oh, yes, indeed, Doctor. In fact, this one is fitted with the automatic drift control.
The Doctor: Oh, I see, yes, of course. And thereby you can suspend yourself in space with absolute safety.
The Monk: Precisely, Doctor. By the way, I tried to get into your police box, but the door was locked. Ha ha ha. What type’s yours, Doctor?
The Doctor: Mind your own business.
Steven: Look, I take it you both come from the same place, Doctor?
The Doctor: Yes, I regret that we do. But I would say that I am fifty years earlier.

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