Wednesday

Doctor Who Notes 13

With the thirteenth season of Doctor Who, the show began to explore a more “gothic horror” atmosphere, and also sought a balance between UNIT stories and outer-space adventure. Though Sarah Jane remained throughout, Harry Sullivan drifted away from the Doctor, appearing in only two non-consecutive stories. New facts about Time Lord history were revealed, in a story which also introduced an intriguing mystery about the Doctor’s past.


From “Terror of the Zygons”

Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart uses a device the Doctor calls a psionic beam to summon the TARDIS to Scotland, where UNIT is investigating the mysterious destruction of several off-shore oil rigs, so that the Doctor, Sarah Jane Smith, and Harry Sullivan can assist. They discover it is the handiwork of alien Zygons, trying to make Earth their new home after their own planet was destroyed by a solar explosion. The Doctor discovers the Loch Ness Monster is a cyborg creature under the Zygons’ control. Once all the Zygons have been killed, the Doctor and Sarah Jane leave in the TARDIS, intending to go to London. Harry, however, elects to remain behind with the Brigadier. It would seem the rest of the Zygon diaspora would continue en route to Earth, a journey of several hundred years.


From “Planet of Evil”

Rather than London, the TARDIS materializes in outer space some 30,000 years in the future. Picking up a distress call, it materializes on planet Zeta Minor, which the Doctor and Sarah Jane discover holds an interface between our universe and the antithetical anti-matter universe. The balance of the interface has been upset by a mineralogical expedition, but the Doctor is able to restore the balance and avert catastrophe.


From “Pyramids of Mars”

The Doctor and Sarah Jane converse within the TARDIS.

Sarah Jane: Hey, Doctor! Doctor, look what I found!
The Doctor: Hello, Vicki.
Sarah Jane: What?
The Doctor: Where did you get that dress?
Sarah Jane: I just told you, I found it back there in the wardrobe. Why, don’t you like it?
The Doctor: Yes. Yes, I always did. Victoria wore it. She travelled with me for a time.
Sarah Jane: Well, as long as Albert didn’t wear it. Oh, come on, Doctor. That’s worth a smile, surely. What’s the matter? You should be glad to be going home!
The Doctor: The Earth isn’t my home, Sarah. I’m a Time Lord.
Sarah Jane: Oh, I know you’re a Time Lord.
The Doctor: You don’t understand the implications. I’m not a human being. I walk in eternity.
Sarah Jane: What’s that supposed to mean?
The Doctor: It means I’ve lived for something like 750 years...
Sarah Jane: Well, you’ll soon be middle-aged.
The Doctor: Yes! It’s about time I found something better to do than run round after the Brigadier.
Sarah Jane: Oh, come on, if you’re tired of being UNIT’s scientific advisor, you can always resign!

The TARDIS suddenly lurches as the relative continuum stabilizer fails. They materialize on the site of UNIT headquarters, but seven decades too early. In 1911, it is the house of an Egyptologist, and they discover menacing mummies wandering the grounds. They also detect a radio signal emanating from the planet Mars. The Egyptologist has fallen under the influence of Sutekh, a member of the alien Osiran race, who were worshipped as gods by the ancient Egyptians. Sutekh plans to escape entombment on Earth by destroying the pyramid of Horus, his brother and enemy, located on Mars. The Doctor barely manages to stop Sutekh in time, causing the mansion to burn to the ground in the process.


From “The Android Invasion”

When the TARDIS materializes in a field, the Doctor believes they are on Earth, since oak trees don’t grow anywhere else in the galaxy, but he mentions the TARDIS is way overdue for its 500-year servicing. Witnessing a UNIT soldier walk over a cliff leads the Doctor and Sarah Jane to find a large pod. Though it looks familiar to the Doctor, he curses his memory for getting terrible, saying 300 years ago, he’d have recognized it like a shot. They come upon a deserted English village which is actually a mock-up used to plan a Kraal invasion of Earth. The Doctor gives Sarah Jane the TARDIS key before they split up. Back at the ship, she puts the key in the lock, but is distracted. The empty TARDIS dematerializes. Later, at the site with an android Sarah Jane, the Doctor realizes what happened.

The Doctor: You haven’t lost it. You never had it. Sarah came here, turned the key in the lock and cancelled the pause-control. The TARDIS continued on its set co-ordinates back to Earth.

The Doctor and Sarah Jane stow away on the Kraal’s rocket ship back to Earth and then join the androids in the advance party. However, they each have an android duplicate as well. The Doctor manages to jam the androids’ circuits and foil the invasion plot. Apparently tiring of his role as UNIT’s scientific advisor, the Doctor leaves again without even waiting for the Brigadier to return from Geneva, but presumably he said good-bye to Sergeant Benton and Harry Sullivan.


From “The Brain of Morbius”

The Doctor is furious when the TARDIS is commandeered by the Time Lords and brought to the planet Karn, where lives a secret sisterhood who tend a flame that produces a life-extending elixir. However, the flame seems to be dying.

Maren: The secret of the life elixir is known only to our Sisterhood and the High Council of the Time Lords. Since the time of the stones, we have shared the elixir with them. But now there is none to share. The few vials that are left I have kept for ourselves. But for months I have felt that the Time Lords would come to rob us of these last precious drops.

The Doctor and Sarah Jane stumble upon the laboratory of mad scientist Mehendri Solon, an earthman from the future whom the Doctor knows by his academic reputation, who is trying to engineer a new body for Morbius, a war criminal banished from Gallifrey. Solon decides he must have the Doctor’s head for his creature, but the unconscious Doctor is spirited away by the mystical power of the Sisterhood of Karn, who believe he has been sent to steal the elixir.

Ohica: Morbius was executed for leading the rebellion. His body was placed in a dispersal chamber and atomised to the nine corners of the universe.
The Doctor: I know that. But I tell you, Maren, just for a second, before I passed out, his mind touched mine. I felt his burning hatred and anguish. Morbius is alive!
Maren: I suppose you think raising these old fears can somehow help you, but I was present at his execution! Morbius is dead, Doctor, and you will join him very shortly!

Somehow, Morbius and Solon were able to outwit the Time Lords, and Morbius’ brain was removed from his body before his atomization. Solon then connected the brain up to a life-support system through which Morbius could still communicate while he worked to create a new body for brain-transplantation. Solon makes a deal with the Sisterhood to deliver the escaped Doctor in exchange for his head. However, when Morbius learns that the Doctor is a Time Lord, he refuses to wait and demands Solon put the brain into an artificial head attached to a patchwork body, but the desperate measures drive Morbius to the brink of total madness. The Doctor challenges Morbius to a mind-bending contest, a sort of telepathic wrestling match. A psychic image appears between them of the Doctor, pushed back through his regenerations by the mental power of Morbius. Strangely, beyond the Doctor’s first persona is a succession of other, unfamiliar faces. Morbius shouts, “How far, Doctor? How long have you lived? Back, back to your beginning!” The Doctor collapses and Morbius leaves the laboratory, only to be driven over a cliff by the Sisterhood. Maren then sacrifices herself to provide the Doctor with enough elixir to survive. The Doctor leaves the Sisterhood, now under Ohica’s leadership, with the means to keep the fire burning brightly.

Morbius was apparently once the leader of the High Council of the Time Lords, but became a ruthless tyrant with a band of fanatical followers. He formed a personal army of “riffraff and mercenaries, the scum of the universe” and laid waste to several planets. When he wiped out the civilization on Karn in an attempt to gain control over the Elixir of Life, however, the Time Lords came to the aid of their ancient allies, the mystical Sisterhood. Maren believes the Time Lords acted only out of self-interest. Morbius was sentenced to be executed, but he hatched a plan with the earthman Solon, living on Karn at the time of his trial, to escape death. The secret of the elixir revealed, the Sisterhood went into hiding and destroyed any passing spacecraft, turning Karn into a spaceship graveyard. The Doctor tells Maren that the Time Lords use the elixir only in times of acute regenerative crisis, so as not to fall into the trap of immortality, and he extracts from them a promise not to down any more passing ships.


From “The Seeds of Doom”

When a scientific expedition unearths a strange plant pod deep in the Antarctic ice, the Doctor is once again called in as UNIT’s scientific advisor. He and Sarah Jane travel to the bottom of the world, where the Doctor doesn’t bother to bundle up any more than usual, even while outside at night. The Doctor realizes an alien Krynoid, a sort of interstellar man-eating vegetable, is trying to overrun the Earth. The pod is brought back to England by a mad plant fancier, but with the help of UNIT’s arsenal, the Doctor is able to blow the giant intelligent weed to smithereens. The Doctor decides that he and Sarah Jane should take a holiday to Cassiopeia.


Next Season


Tuesday

Doctor Who Notes 12

Season twelve of Doctor Who saw the introduction of Tom Baker in the lead role, who would prove to be the longest-serving and generally most popular Doctor, in a series of interconnected stories. It began on familiar ground with a contemporary UNIT story, then moved on to bring back the Daleks, the Cybermen, and the Sontarans, as the producers began to really mine the resources of the “Doctor Who universe” that had grown up over the preceding decade. The Doctor and Sarah Jane were also joined by a new companion, Harry Sullivan.


From “Robot”

Following his regeneration, the discombobulated Doctor can think only of leaving in the TARDIS as soon as possible. After overcoming UNIT’s medical officer, Lieutenant Harry Sullivan, the Doctor is prevented from disappearing only by some fast talking by Sarah Jane Smith and Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart. Once he recognizes them again, he is intrigued by reports of thefts of components for a top-secret weapon. After choosing a new set of clothes, the Doctor deduces that the crimes were committed by a large robot. Sarah Jane discovers just such a machine at Think Tank, a scientific consortium that turns out to be a cover for the reactionary Scientific Reform Society’s plot to take over the world. When the villains hole up in their underground bunker, the Doctor uses his sonic screwdriver to open the door. After the plot is foiled and the robot is destroyed, the Doctor, Sarah Jane, and an unwitting Harry depart in the TARDIS, leaving Bessie to be mothballed by the Brigadier.

Surgeon-Lieutenant Harry Sullivan was attached to UNIT from the Royal Navy as a medical officer and, when called upon to treat the regenerated Doctor, found himself on a roller-coaster of adventures, which he managed to take in his stride despite some bumbling when out of his depth. Once back on Earth, Harry decided to steer clear of the TARDIS, seeing the Doctor again only when he and Sarah Jane turned up at the Space Defence Station where UNIT was operating.


From “The Ark in Space”

The Doctor was planning a trip to the moon until Harry fumbled with the helmic regulator, taking them to an orbiting satellite 11,000 years in the future. While trying to deactivate an automatic guard, the Doctor’s scarf is singed, prompting him to remark that it was made for him by Madame Nostradamus, a “witty little knitter.” They discover the station was built in the 30th century and is now a vast cryogenic repository used to escape Earth’s devastation by solar flares. The station has been infested by the insectoid Wirrn, who want the Earth for themselves. The alien creatures are destroyed in the station’s transport ship. With the ship destroyed and the humans resuscitated, resettlement of the Earth depends on the station’s transmit system, which has developed a fault. The Doctor, Sarah Jane, and Harry transmit down to the Earth to correct the problem, leaving the TARDIS aboard the ark.


From “The Sontaran Experiment”

After a slightly spotty materialization, the Doctor sets about repairing the transmit receptors. Sarah Jane and Harry go for a walk and they are soon separated. They fall into the hands of some marooned astronauts from an Earth colony that pre-dates the space station. The astronauts were led into a trap by the Sontaran Field-Major Styre, whose intention is to conduct experiments on the humans in preparation for the seizing of the Earth for its strategic use in their never-ending war with the Rutans.

Harry: Doctor, I thought you were both dead!
The Doctor: Not me. Piece of the synestic locking mechanism from Nerva’s rocket. Popped it in my pocket.
Harry: Fortuitous.
The Doctor: Foresight. You never know when these bits and pieces will come in handy. Never throw anything away, Harry. Where’s my 500-year diary? I remember jotting some notes on the Sontarans. It’s a mistake to clutter one’s pockets, Harry.
Harry: Yes, Doctor.

The Doctor challenges Styre to single combat in order to tire him out, forcing him to return to his sabotaged ship to re-energize. Styre is killed and the ship explodes. The Doctor uses Styre’s remote communication gear to turn back the Sontaran fleet. With the space station personnel ready to disembark, the Doctor, Sarah Jane, and Harry enter the transmit beam and dematerialize.


From “Genesis of the Daleks.”

The Doctor finds himself not aboard Space Station Nerva, but in a desolate landscape.

Time Lord: Ah. Welcome, Doctor.
The Doctor: What’s going on? Don’t you realise how dangerous it is to intercept a transmat beam?
Time Lord: Oh, come now, Doctor, not with our techniques. We Time Lords transcended such simple mechanical devices when the universe was less than half its present size.
The Doctor: Look, whatever I’ve done for you in the past, I’ve more than made up for. I will not tolerate this continual interference in my life!
Time Lord: Continual? We pride ourselves we seldom interfere in the affairs of others.
The Doctor: Except mine!
Time Lord: You, Doctor, are a special case. You enjoy the freedom we allow you. In return, occasionally -- not continually -- we ask you to do something for us.
The Doctor: I won’t do it. Whatever it is, I refuse!
Time Lord: Daleks!
The Doctor: Daleks? Tell me more.
Time Lord: We foresee a time when they will have destroyed all other life-forms and become the dominant creature in the universe.
The Doctor: That’s possible. Tell on.
Time Lord: We’d like to return you to Skaro at a point in time before the Daleks evolved.
The Doctor: Do you mean avert their creation?
Time Lord: Or affect their genetic development so they evolve into less aggressive creatures.
The Doctor: That’s feasible.
Time Lord: Alternatively, if you learn enough about their very beginnings, you might discover some inherent weakness.
The Doctor: All right. Just one more time.
Time Lord: You’ll do it?
The Doctor: Yes. If you’ll let me have the space-time co-ordinates, I’ll set the TARDIS for Skaro.
Time Lord: There’s no need for that, Doctor. You’re here. This is Skaro.
The Doctor: What?
Time Lord: We thought it would save time if we assumed your agreement.
The Doctor: What’s this?
Time Lord: A time ring. It will return you to the TARDIS when you’ve finished here. There’s just one thing.
The Doctor: What’s that?
Time Lord: Be careful not to lose it. That time ring is your lifeline. Good luck, Doctor.

The Doctor, Sarah Jane, and Harry find themselves caught up in a thousand-year war between the Kaled and the Thal peoples. The Doctor soon meets Davros, chief scientist of the Kaled people and creator of the Daleks. Davros provides the Thals with the capacity to annihilate the Kaled race before unleashing his new Dalek army on the Thals. The last surviving Kaleds are exterminated when the Daleks turn on their creator and declare their independence. The Doctor and the Thal survivors manage to entomb the Daleks in an underground bunker after destroying the incubator room. Davros is hit by a Dalek death ray, but the life-support system in his chair probably saves him from death. Feeling his mission sufficiently accomplished, the Doctor activates the time ring and he, Sarah Jane, and Harry depart from Skaro.


From “Revenge of the Cybermen”

The time ring brings the Doctor, Sarah Jane, and Harry back to Space Station Nerva, but the TARDIS is conspicuously absent.

The Doctor: Well, it probably hasn’t arrived yet. We’re a little early.
Harry: Hasn’t arrived yet?
The Doctor: No, you see, the TARDIS is drifting back through time, Harry. We’ll just have to wait for it to turn up.

The travelers have arrived thousands of years before Earth’s evacuation, when the space station is used as a beacon warning ships of a moon newly captured by Jupiter’s gravity. The moon is Voga, the planet of gold, and Nerva has fallen into the middle of a war between the Vogans and the Cybermen. The Doctor is able to turn the Cybermen’s weapons against them and they are destroyed aboard their ship. The TARDIS finally materializes and, while setting the drift compensators, the Doctor finds he has been summoned back to 20th century Earth by Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart.



Next Season

Monday

Doctor Who Notes 11

The eleventh season of Doctor Who saw the end of Jon Pertwee’s tenure on the show, and introduced long-running companion Sarah Jane Smith. The Brigadier and the men of UNIT continued to play a large role in the stories, and more was revealed about the Doctor’s youth, building on the information revealed last season. Also, the Doctor’s home planet finally received a name.


From “The Time Warrior”

Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart calls in the Doctor when several noted scientists vanish without a trace. The Brigadier has brought together the government’s remaining top scientists in a single complex, where the Doctor meets the young journalist Sarah Jane Smith, who is posing as her virologist aunt. When another scientist disappears, the Doctor traces the transmat beam back to the early middle ages. He follows in the TARDIS only to find that Sarah Jane has stowed away, and discovers the kidnappings are the work of a marooned Sontaran soldier attempting to repair his spacecraft. When the Doctor reveals to him that he is a Time Lord, attempting some intimidation, Commander Linx speculates that Gallifrey would never withstand a Sontaran invasion. At this point in time, Earth apparently has no strategic use in the war between the Sontarans and the Rutans. Linx is killed and the Doctor takes Sarah Jane back to the 1970s.

Sarah Jane Smith was working as a freelance journalist when she used her aunt’s credentials to infiltrate a UNIT operation in search of a story. Stumbling into the TARDIS, she suddenly found herself embroiled in the Doctor’s adventures. It took Sarah Jane some time to settle in to life as a time-traveler and to get used to meeting strange-looking aliens. But the Doctor seemed to very much enjoy her company, and they traveled together for many years, through his third regeneration, before finally parting company as he was about to make his first return to his home planet of Gallifrey.


From “Invasion of the Dinosaurs”

The Doctor and Sarah Jane return to 1973 only to find London has been evacuated, due to the sudden appearance of several dinosaurs shortly after they left, according to the Brigadier. To save Sarah Jane from being evacuated with all the other civilians, the Doctor announces that she is his new assistant. The crisis has been caused by a high-level conspiracy to use a scientist’s experiments to erase the last few million years of history and begin human society again. All concerned are shocked to learn that UNIT captain Mike Yates is part of the conspiracy. Although the scientist is able to begin the experiment, the Doctor proves immune to the time-field’s effects and is able to put a stop to it. Later, the Brigadier says that Captain Yates will be put on extended sick leave and given the chance to resign quietly. The Doctor then attempts to persuade Sarah Jane to join him on an excursion to Floriana in the TARDIS.


From “Death to the Daleks”

En route to Floriana, the TARDIS is pulled off course and “crash lands” on the barren planet Exxilon, its systems completely drained of power. The Doctor uses a hand crank to open the door manually. He and Sarah Jane find a marooned Earth military expedition and a contingent of Daleks who have both come to Exxilon in search of a rare chemical each needs for its own purposes. The Daleks recognize the Doctor as their ancient enemy. To find the source of the power disruption, the Doctor enters an enormous temple, wherein he must pass a series of automated intelligence tests. The Doctor reaches the center of the temple and disables its ancient systems while the human soldiers destroy the Dalek taskforce.


From “The Monster of Peladon”

The Doctor plans a return trip to Peladon, but arrives 50 years later than intended, when the society is embroiled in a Federation war, causing unrest among the lower classes. The Doctor and Sarah Jane quickly get mixed up in local politics, but the people of Peladon unite when a cadre of Ice Warriors arrive and impose martial law. Foiling the Ice Warriors’ scheme brings an end to the war and Sarah Jane seems quite proud of what she and the Doctor accomplished.


From “Planet of the Spiders”

Some time later, in March 1974, the Doctor has been conducting an investigation into psychic phenomena and brings a true clairvoyant, Professor Clegg, to his lab at UNIT headquarters, where he and the Brigadier receive a package from Jo Grant in South America -- the blue crystal from Metebelis III. Meanwhile, Sarah Jane has been working for Metropolitan magazine and she receives a tip from Mike Yates about strange goings-on at a Buddhist retreat where he has been trying to sort himself out after being cashiered out of UNIT. When Clegg looks into the crystal, his mental powers go out of control, allowing a giant spider to materialize in the Buddhist retreat. Clegg is killed by the psychic shock. The spider has come from Metebelis III to retrieve the crystal. To find out what happened, the Doctor also stares into the crystal.

The Brigadier: Never mind the dratted coffee! What about the spiders?
The Doctor: Spiders?
The Brigadier: The ones in the crystal!
The Doctor: Oh yes. You know, Brigadier, when I was a young man, there was an old hermit who lived halfway up a mountain just behind our house. I spent some of the finest hours of my life with that old man.
The Brigadier: What are you talking about?
The Doctor: It was from him I first learnt how to look into my mind.
The Brigadier: The crystal, Doctor!
The Doctor: That’s what I’m trying to tell you, Brigadier. When I looked into that crystal, all I could see was the face of my old teacher.

The crystal is stolen by one of the villains from the monastery, who has merged with the spider creature. They teleport back to Metebelis III, accidentally taking Sarah Jane with them.

The Doctor: Well, there’s only one thing for me to do, Mike. I’ve got to get after her. To Metebelis III.
Yates: In the TARDIS?
The Doctor: Yes, of course.
Yates: But how can you be sure you’ll get there?
The Doctor: Well, the TARDIS may be a little erratic, I’ll admit. After all, she is getting on a bit. But Metebelis III is the one planet I can be absolutely certain of reaching. You see, I wired the co-ordinates into the programmer.
Yates: Yes, but Doctor, a planet’s a big place!
The Doctor: Yes, well, I always leave the actual landing to the TARDIS herself. She’s no fool, you know.
Yates: You speak as if she were alive!
The Doctor: Yes. Yes, I do, don’t I?

Once there, the Doctor and Sarah Jane learn that an Earth colonizing expedition crashed on Metebelis III, whereupon some spiders from the ship were exposed to the native blue crystals which caused them to become large and intelligent. They soon enslaved the surviving humans. Four hundred years later, the spiders intend to invade Earth and conquer it for themselves. However, the invasion must wait until the crystal is off Earth so it cannot be used against them. A spider merges with Sarah Jane before she and the Doctor take the TARDIS back to the monastery, where they meet the mysterious abbot, K’anpo, who seems very familiar to the Doctor.

The Doctor: I know who you are now!
K’anpo: You were always a little slow on the uptake, my boy.
The Doctor: It’s been a long, long time.
Sarah Jane: You know each other?
The Doctor: Oh, yes. He was my teacher My… my guru, if you like. In another time, another place…
K’anpo: Another life.
Sarah Jane: Oh no, don’t tell me you’re a Time Lord, too!
K’anpo: I am. But the discipline they serve was not for me.
The Doctor: No, nor for me.
K’anpo: I wouldn’t have chosen your alternative. To borrow a TARDIS was a little naughty, to say the least.
The Doctor: Yes, well, I had to get away; I hadn’t your power.
K’anpo: Indeed. I regenerated and came to Earth, to Tibet.
Sarah Jane: Regenerated?
The Doctor: Yes. When a Time Lord’s body wears out, he regenerates, becomes new.
K’anpo: That is why we can live such a long time.

K’anpo helps the Doctor realize that he must return the crystal even though doing so means certain death, for the radiation deep in the Cave of Crystal where the leader of the spiders dwells will be more than his body can withstand. The Doctor leaves in the TARDIS for Metebelis III, and K’anpo survives the spiders’ final assault by regenerating. The Doctor descends into the radioactive Cave of Crystal, where the Great One proves to be a spider of gigantic proportions with a terminal case of megalomania. Despite the cellular damage, the Doctor makes it back to the TARDIS. Three weeks after disappearing, he rematerializes in his lab at UNIT headquarters. He collapses to the floor in front of Sarah Jane and the Brigadier. As the Doctor slips into unconsciousness, K’anpo appears as a psychic projection and gives the Doctor’s cells “a little push” before vanishing again, thereby setting in motion the Doctor’s third regeneration.


Next Season


Friday

Doctor Who Notes 10

Season ten of Doctor Who kicks off with the first anniversary special, in which the first two Doctors return to join the third in an adventure that reveals much about Time Lord history. Following this story, the Doctor’s exile is rescinded, and he is free to roam time and space once more. Then, the Master and the Daleks team up to menace the Doctor, in what would turn out to be Roger Delgado’s final appearance in the series.


From “The Three Doctors”

The Doctor is brought evidence of a superluminal energy beam directed at Earth, along which has traveled a strange matter / antimatter goo. When several monsters attack UNIT headquarters to get the Doctor, he and Jo Grant take refuge in the disabled TARDIS, forcing the Doctor to contact the Time Lords for help. Meanwhile, the Time Lords have discovered the energy beam originates from within a black hole that is quickly draining away all power from the Time Lords, disabling them.

Chancellor: Are you telling me we’re up against an adversary -- a force equal to our own?
President: Equal and opposite to our own!
Chancellor: A force which inhabits a universe where by definition even we cannot exist?
President: Yes, a force in the universe of antimatter!
Chancellor: But that’s too terrible to contemplate! Someone must go and help the Doctor!
President: I agree, but no one can be spared, Your Excellency. Everyone is needed to combat the energy drain.
Chancellor: Are you saying we can’t help him?
President: Yes, I am. But perhaps he can help himself. Show me the Doctor’s time stream, the section for his earlier self, before he changed his form.
Chancellor: You cannot allow him to cross his own time-stream! Apart from the enormous energy it would need, the First Law of Time expressly forbids him to meet his other selves!
President: I am aware of that, Your Excellency. But this is an emergency.
Chancellor: But you can’t!
President: Your Excellency, I have to!
Chancellor: Be it on your own head!

In the TARDIS, a recorder suddenly appears on the main console, which the Doctor says looks strangely familiar. Suddenly, his previous incarnation materializes, explaining that the Time Lords were able to lift him from his present and deposit him into his own future. The two Doctors begin squabbling immediately, so the Time Lords summon up his first incarnation to keep them in line, but he becomes trapped in a time eddy and can only appear on the TARDIS viewscreen. The goo transports the third Doctor and Jo to a planet within a singularity in the antimatter universe. As the second Doctor tries to fill in the incredulous Brigadier Lethhridge-Stewart, the goo becomes agitated again, causing them to retreat back into the TARDIS. It is the first time inside for both the Brigadier and Sergeant Benton. The second Doctor offers them some jellybabies. Meanwhile, the third Doctor learns the identity of his kidnapper -- Omega, the legendary Time Lord the Doctor thought dead.

Omega: Without me, there would be no time travel. You and our fellow Time Lords would still be locked in your own time, as puny as those creatures you now so graciously protect.
The Doctor: You knew your mission was dangerous.
Omega: Dangerous, yes. But I completed it! And I did not expect to be abandoned! Many thousands of years ago when I left our planet, all this was then a star, until I arranged its detonation!
The Doctor: You were the solar engineer. It was your duty.
Omega: It was an honour, or so I thought then. I was to be the one to find and create the power source that would give us mastery over time itself!
The Doctor: Well, you succeeded. And are revered for it.
Omega: Revered? Here? I was abandoned!
The Doctor: Histories say you were lost in the super-nova.
Omega: I was sacrificed to that super-nova! I generated those forces, and for what? To be blown out of existence into this black hole of antimatter? My brothers became Time Lords, but I was abandoned and forgotten!
The Doctor: No, not forgotten. All my life I’ve known of you and honoured you as our greatest hero!
Omega: A hero? I should have been a god!

Omega demonstrates that in the singularity, he can manipulate reality with his mind, which allowed him to survive and create the matter / antimatter goo that enables the Doctor, Jo, and the others to exist in the antimatter universe.

The Doctor: How do I fit into this picture?
Omega: There are some things that even I cannot do, not alone. And at this point in my plans, I need the help of a brother Time Lord.
The Doctor: Oh, I see.
Omega: And it pleases me to use you against them.

The goo then transports the whole of UNIT headquarters through the black hole, and the second Doctor is also brought before Omega, who deduces that they are both the same person. Omega intends for the Doctors to take over maintaining the energy beam so that he can escape, but the Doctors discover that Omega’s physical form has dissolved completely, and that he can now exist only within the singularity. The second Doctor finds his recorder had slipped into the TARDIS force-field generator, and is therefore still composed of matter. When Omega disrupts the field, the atoms annihilate each other, destroying the singularity and sending all the matter back to its point of origin. The black hole collapses and Omega is once again lost. The first two Doctors are returned to their respective points in the time stream, and the third Doctor receives a gift from the Time Lords.

The Doctor: The Time Lords -- they’ve sent me a new dematerialisation circuit! And my knowledge of time travel law and all the dematerialisation codes, they’ve all come back! They’ve forgiven me … they’ve given me back my freedom!


From “Carnival of Monsters”

Attempting to take Jo on a trip to Metebelis III, the Doctor finds the TARDIS has materialized instead on Inter Minor, within a device that contains miniaturized alien environments.

The Doctor: As a matter of fact, I had a great deal to do with the banning of these miniscopes.
Jo: You did?
The Doctor: Yes, I did. I managed to persuade the High Council of the Time Lords that they were an offence against the dignity of sentient life forms.
Jo: But I thought the Time Lords never interfered.
The Doctor: Well, they don’t as a rule. But frankly, I made such a nuisance of myself -- well, they banned the things.
Jo: But if these scope things were banned, how come we’re inside one?
The Doctor: I don’t know. Officially, they were all called in and destroyed.


From “Frontier in Space”

After leaving Inter Minor, the TARDIS nearly has a hyperspace collision with a 26th century space freighter, but manages to materialize on board just in time. The Doctor and Jo find themselves in the middle of a plot by the Master to start a war between the Earth and Draconian space empires. The Master is employing the Ogrons as his henchmen and turns out to be in league with the Daleks, who plan to invade the Milky Way galaxy in the aftermath of the war. Although he asked for only the Earth, the Master intended to double-cross the Daleks and seize total power for himself. The Doctor and Jo escape the Master’s clutches in the TARDIS, but not before the Doctor is wounded by the Master’s ray gun. The Doctor sends a telepathic message to the Time Lords, asking them to send the TARDIS after the Dalek task force. His scheme collapsing, the Master also escapes, not to encounter the Doctor again until their disastrous homecoming.


From “Planet of the Daleks”

The Doctor collapses and falls into a deep coma as a result of his injuries. When the TARDIS finally materializes, Jo goes out to look for help. The Doctor then comes round, only to find the TARDIS doors jammed and the oxygen supply depleted. He is rescued by a group of Thals from Skaro, on an interstellar expedition to the planet Spiridon. The Thals mention their ancient legend of the Doctor and his three companions who once helped them escape the Daleks. Now, a Dalek army has come to Spiridon to learn the secret of invisibility, having subjugated the natives by using germ warfare, and are marshaling their forces for the invasion of the Milky Way galaxy. However, the Doctor buries the Dalek army in an ice floe.


From “The Green Death”

At UNIT headquarters, Jo is having a quick breakfast while the Doctor tinkers with components from the TARDIS.

Jo: Is that the dematerialisation circuit?
The Doctor: No, no. No more trouble there, thank goodness. I can now take the TARDIS wherever and whenever I like. I’ve got absolute control over her.
Jo: Now the Time Lords have forgiven you.
The Doctor: Yes, exactly.
Jo: Well, what is it then?
The Doctor: What, this? This is the space-time co-ordinate programmer. The wretched thing’s nearly worn out. That’s the trouble with the TARDIS, she’s getting on a bit, you know, Jo.
Jo: Momummennememmergobbumebbumebbusbee!
The Doctor: Look, must you?
Jo: I’m sorry, it’s my breakfast. I said no wonder we never got to Metebelis III.
The Doctor: There’s precious little protein in an apple, you know. Protein’s the thing for breakfast, Jo.
Jo: Eggs and bacon? Yuck!
The Doctor: That’s where we’re going to next.
Jo: Where are we going?
The Doctor: Metebelis III. The TARDIS can’t miss this time. I’ll actually wire the co­ordinates into the programmer.

News of a mysterious death at Global Chemicals in Wales leads the Brigadier to ask the Doctor and Jo to assist the investigation. Jo intends to help a group led by Professor Clifford Jones, which opposes Global Chemicals. The Doctor, however, insists on going to Metebelis III, and the three of them go their separate ways. Metebelis III turns out to be a nightmarish experience, but the Doctor manages to pocket a blue crystal. He then joins the Brigadier in Wales, where they find a mine infested with giant maggots. As the UNIT troops arrive in force, the Doctor realizes that Jo is falling in love with Professor Jones. He also discovers that Global Chemicals is run by a sentient computer that has enslaved the human employees, and that the blue crystal can overcome the mental conditioning. The computer thus destroyed, Professor Jones and Jo announce their plans to be married and go on an expedition to the Amazon Jungle. The Doctor gives Jo the crystal from Metebelis III as a wedding gift.


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