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

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

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

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.


Next Season

Doctor Who Notes 9

With the ninth season of Doctor Who, the show began to drift inexorably back to the original premise, with the Doctor traveling to different planets or eras aboard the TARDIS, even though he was still technically exiled to 20th century Earth. The Master appeared in only two stories, so his villainy was less diluted this time around. The Daleks made a comeback after five years, and for once, there were no major cast turn-overs. In the final story of the season, the Doctor speaks for the first time about his early life on his still-as-yet-unnamed home planet.


From “Day of the Daleks”

The Doctor’s tireless efforts to get the TARDIS operational again are interrupted when Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart asks him and Jo Grant to assist with the investigation of strange sightings at the site of an international conference. They discover a group of guerrillas who have come from the 22nd century to change history and thus prevent a war that led to a Dalek invasion. When the Doctor and Jo are accidentally transported to the future via the Daleks’ crude time corridor technology, they discover a temporal paradox -- the guerrillas were themselves responsible for the devastating war due to their time-meddling. Returning to September 1971, the Doctor is able to prevent the assassinations and thereby stop that future from ever coming about.


From “The Curse of Peladon”

The Doctor manages to get the TARDIS operational enough to transport Jo and himself to the planet Peladon, where the indestructible ship tumbles down the side of a mountain. They take refuge in a castle built into the rock face, wherein they find the planet’s ruler negotiating for admission into the Galactic Federation. The Doctor passes himself off as the delegate from Earth and presents his companion as “Princess Josephine of Tardis.” After resolving the usual political intrigues, the Doctor and Jo prepare to leave in the salvaged TARDIS.

The Doctor: You don’t really think that our appearance on the planet of Peladon at this precise crisis in their history was just coincidence, do you?
Jo: Time Lords again?
The Doctor: Yes, I think so.
Jo: Well, you didn’t beat them after all.
The Doctor: No, not yet. But I will, Jo, just give me time. Still, now that we’ve done what they wanted us to do, I suppose they’ll whip us straight back to Earth.


From “The Sea Devils”

The Doctor and Jo go to visit the Master in his specially prepared prison, where the Master claims to be repentant and longing for intelligent conversation. The Master refuses to reveal the whereabouts of his TARDIS. The Doctor refuses to shake his hand, though he is sympathetic.

Jo: Doctor, you felt sorry for him, didn’t you? You wanted to come down here and see that he was all right.
The Doctor: Well, he used to be a friend of mine once. A very good friend. In fact, you might almost say we were at school together.

The Doctor discovers that a rash of ship disappearances are the work of an aquatic reptilian race related to the Silurians, whom he encountered previously. The Master plans to ally himself with the Sea Devils, whom he learned of through stolen Time Lord files, and help them exterminate the human race. The Doctor tries to negotiate a peace between the humans and the reptiles, but the Master forces a conflict. During the battle, the Sea Devils take both Time Lords prisoner, forcing them to work together against their captors. In order to prevent a full-scale war, the Doctor causes the destruction of the Sea Devil’s base, but the Master makes good his escape.


From “The Mutants”

The Doctor receives a strange black sphere from the Time Lords indicating they have an assignment for him. The reactivated TARDIS takes him and Jo to a 30th century space station orbiting the Earth colony world Solos, a gray and misty planet.

The Doctor: Well, the Earth these people know now, Jo, the 30th century empire, is even more grey and misty.
Jo: Can’t be!
The Doctor: Land and sea alike, all grey. Grey cities linked by grey highways across grey deserts.
Jo: Really?
The Doctor: Yeah. Slag, ash, clinker. The fruits of technology, Jo.

The sphere contains tablets that reveal the secret of the Solonians’ mutation and allow the Doctor to prevent the colonial forces from terraforming the planet and killing the native population. Why the Time Lords sent the tablets via the Doctor, or involved themselves at all, remains a mystery.


From “The Time Monster”

The Master is found passing himself off as a Greek physicist at the Newton Institute near Cambridge, building a primitive transporter device he calls TOMTIT -- Transmission Of Matter Through Interstitial Time -- which is powered by the legendary Crystal of Kronos, an ancient artifact from the lost continent of Atlantis.

The Doctor: Well, luckily, you are already familiar with the idea of stepping outside of space-time.
Ingram: I’ve lived with the concept for months.
The Doctor: And I’ve lived with it for many long years. I’ve been there.
Ingram: You have?
The Doctor: Yes, I have. Strange place it is, too. A place that is no place. A dangerous place, where creatures live beyond your wildest imagination. Chronovores -- time-eaters -- who’ll swallow a life as quickly as a boa constrictor can swallow a rabbit, fur and all.
Ingram: Are you saying that Kronos is one of these creatures?
The Doctor: I am. The most fearsome of the lot!

The Master is unable to control Kronos with the piece of crystal in his possession, prompting him to take his TARDIS back in time to Atlantis. In order to follow along, the Doctor attempts to materialize his TARDIS within the Master’s ship, but instead they materialize one inside the other, trapping them both in the time vortex.

Jo: How long is it going to take us to get there?
The Doctor: Well, that’s the curious thing, no time at all. We’re outside time. Of course, it always seems to take a long time, but that depends upon the mood, I suppose.
Jo: What, your mood?
The Doctor: No, hers. The TARDIS’s.
Jo: You talk as if she was alive.
The Doctor: Well, it depends what you mean by alive. Take Bessie for instance.

The Doctor and the Master debate their situation via their viewscreens until the Master switches off the sound.

The Master: You know, he has an excellent brain, that man, though a bit pedestrian. But, oh dear, what a bore the fellow is!
Krasis: But is he dangerous?
The Master: He’s dangerous enough. But don’t worry. I can handle him.
Krasis: But you said he was in there! You told me he was safe in there!
The Master: Once he realises that he’s talking to himself, he’ll be out here like a shot! Ah! He’s realised it at last. That took a long time, the slow-witted fool. Now, you watch. He cannot bear not to have the last word!

When the Doctor bypasses the Master’s sound system, the villain scrambles the Doctor’s speech instead.

The Doctor: He’s picking up my words even before I’ve spoken them and feeding them back to me through the TARDIS’s telepathic circuits, making them come out backwards!
Jo: The TARDISes are telepathic?
The Doctor: Yes, of course. How else do you think they communicate?

As a last resort, the Doctor goes out into the Master’s console room to try to convince him to give up his mad scheme. Instead, the Master summons Kronos and the creature engulfs the Doctor, transporting him out into the time vortex. The Master then jettisons the Doctor’s TARDIS and continues on his way. However, the TARDIS’s telepathic circuits enable the Doctor to contact Jo, who helps the Doctor rematerialize in his physical form.

Jo: Where are you?
The Doctor: I’m nowhere, Jo. I’m in the time vortex. The TARDIS is relaying my thoughts to you.
Jo: What are all those other voices I can hear?
The Doctor: What other voices? Oh, those are my subconscious thoughts. But I shouldn’t listen to them too hard if I were you. I’m not all that proud of some of them.

Each TARDIS soon materializes in Atlantis, where the Master is able to seduce the queen and stage a coup, imprisoning the king as well as the Doctor and Jo.

Jo: It makes it seem so pointless, really, doesn’t it?
The Doctor: I felt like that once when I was young. It was the blackest day of my life.
Jo: Why?
The Doctor: Ah, well, that’s another story. I’ll tell you about it one day. The point is, that day was not only my blackest, but also my best.
Jo: What do you mean?
The Doctor: Well, when I was a little boy, we used to live in a house that was perched halfway up the top of a mountain. And behind our house, there sat under a tree an old man, a hermit, a monk. He’d lived under this tree for half his lifetime, so they said, and learnt the secret of life. So, when my black day came, I went and asked him to help me.
Jo: And he told you the secret? What was it?
The Doctor: Well, I’m coming to that, Jo, in my own time. I’ll never forget what it was like up there. All bleak and cold it was. A few bare rocks with some weeds sprouting from them, and some pathetic little patches of sludgy snow. Yes, it was just grey. Grey, grey, grey. Well, the tree the old man sat under was ancient and twisted, and the old man himself, he was as brittle and dry as a leaf in the autumn.
Jo: What did he say?
The Doctor: Nothing. Not a word. He just sat there silently, expressionless, and he listened whilst I poured out my troubles to him. I was too unhappy even for tears, I remember. And when I’d finished, he lifted a skeletal hand and he pointed. Do you know what he pointed at?
Jo: No.
The Doctor: A flower. One of those little weeds. Just like a daisy, it was. I looked at it for a moment, and suddenly I saw it through his eyes. It was simply glowing with life, like a perfectly cut jewel. And the colours, well, the colours were deeper and richer than anything you could possibly imagine. Yes, it was the daisiest daisy I’d ever seen.
Jo: And that was the secret of life? A daisy? Honestly, Doctor!
The Doctor: Yes, I laughed, too, when I first heard it. So, later I got up and I ran down that mountain and I found that the rocks weren’t grey at all. They were red, brown, purple, and gold. And those pathetic little patches of sludgy snow, they were shining white -- shining white in the sunlight. You still frightened, Jo?
Jo: No, not as much as I was.
The Doctor: That s good. I’m sorry I brought you to Atlantis.
Jo: I’m not.
The Doctor: Thank you.

The Master summons Kronos in the temple, but the creature goes berserk. The Master takes Jo aboard his TARDIS and dematerializes. The Doctor quickly follows in his own ship, leaving Kronos to destroy Atlantis forever. Since the controls of both ships are linked together, the Doctor threatens to create a time-ram, which would annihilate both ships and the crystal with them, thus freeing Kronos from the Master’s control. Despite the Master’s goading, the Doctor is unable to bring himself to do it, so Jo activates the control herself. The ships collide, freeing Kronos, and the creature transports them all to the boundary between their universes and there expresses its gratitude to the Doctor. When Kronos decides to send the Doctor and Jo back to Earth but keep the Master in perpetual torment, the Doctor asks that the Master be remanded to his custody. The ungrateful Master makes his escape and Kronos finds the whole situation rather amusing.


Next Season

Doctor Who Notes 8

The eighth season of Doctor Who introduced a new arch-enemy for the Doctor in the form of his evil counterpart the Master, played with sinister panache by Roger Delgado. Like the Doctor, the Master was a renegade Time Lord, and even had his own TARDIS, but their views were diametrically opposed. Their snappy exchanges reveal much about both men, and are a highlight of the season. However, the Master may have been a bit overused, for his appearance in every story does strain credulity a bit. The Doctor also received a new companion, the girly scatterbrained sex kitten and secret agent wannabe Jo Grant. The Brigadier and the men of UNIT continued to play a dominant role in the series as well.


From “Terror of the Autons”

A time capsule materializes at the small-time Rossini Brothers International Circus in the form of a large “horse box” van and a man emerges calling himself the Master. Displaying amazing hypnotic abilities, he enslaves the circus manager, steals the Nestene energy pod from a nearby museum, and infiltrates the Beacon Hill radio telescope facility, killing two scientists with his tissue-compression eliminator. The theft and the deaths alert UNIT, and Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart calls upon the Doctor and his new assistant, agent trainee Josephine Grant, to investigate. The Doctor goes alone to investigate the sabotage atop the control tower, where a bowler-hatted Time Lord suddenly appears.

Time Lord: Oh dear. Don’t go away, Doctor. My co-ordinates seemed to have slipped a little. Still, not bad after 29,000 light years. I do hope you can spare a moment or two, Doctor.
The Doctor: Sarcasm always was a weak point with you, wasn’t it? And may I say I think you look quite ridiculous in those clothes?
Time Lord: I am travelling incognito.
The Doctor: Oh? Why?
Time Lord: We Time Lords don’t care to be conspicuous. Some of us, that is.
The Doctor: Now, look, if you’ve come down here merely to be rude --
Time Lord: I came to warn you. An old acquaintance has arrived on this planet.
The Doctor: One of our people?
Time Lord: The Master.
The Doctor: That jackanapes? All he ever does is cause trouble!
Time Lord: He’ll certainly try to kill you, Doctor. The Tribunal thought that you ought to be made aware of your danger.
The Doctor: How very kind of them.
Time Lord: You are incorrigibly meddlesome, Doctor, but we’ve always felt that your hearts are in the right places. But be careful. The Master has learnt a great deal since you last met him.
The Doctor: I refuse to be worried by a renegade like the Master. He’s an -- he’s an unimaginative plodder!
Time Lord: His degree in cosmic science was of a higher class than yours.
The Doctor: Yes, well -- Yes, well, I was a late developer.

The Master is working with the Nestenes to build a new army of Autons for a second invasion attempt. Meanwhile, the Doctor investigates the circus and discovers the Master’s time capsule, from which he steals the dematerialization circuit. Two Autons kidnap the Doctor and Jo, but they escape.

Farrel: And you’re not angry?
The Master: Because the Doctor’s escaped again? No. He’s an interesting adversary. I admire him in many ways.
Farrel: But you still intend to destroy him?
The Master: Of course. And the more he struggles to postpone the moment, the greater the ultimate satisfaction.

The Doctor is frustrated when the Master’s dematerialization circuit is not enough to make his own disabled TARDIS functional, but he realizes that without it, the Master is also marooned on 1970s Earth. While the UNIT forces are out tracking the Autons to a remote quarry, the Master appears in the Doctor’s lab, and the two old enemies come once more face-to-face. The Master describes the Doctor as almost his intellectual equal, while the Doctor characterizes the Master’s typical strategy as “vicious, complicated, and inefficient.” To prevent an air strike on the quarry, the Master takes the Doctor and Jo prisoner and retrieves his dematerialization circuit before moving back to the radio telescope facility to open the way for the Nestene invasion force. However, when the Doctor suggests the Master is likely to be double-crossed, the two Time Lords work together to repulse the invasion. The Autons collapse, but the Master makes good his escape. However, the Doctor reveals that the Master actually took the wrong component and is still trapped on Earth. The Doctor seems to feel the Master’s presence will at least alleviate his own boredom.

Josephine Grant had an influential uncle who got her assigned to UNIT after her initial security training, so the Brigadier pawned her off on the Doctor. He developed something of a paternal attitude toward the scatterbrained girl, and they doubtless spent a good deal of time together during his long exile on Earth. Once the TARDIS was made operational again, she traveled with the Doctor briefly until she fell in love with Professor Clifford Jones and resigned from UNIT to marry him. Jo was always more comfortable as a lab assistant than as a traveling companion.

The Master and the Doctor met again for what was probably the first time since they both left Gallifrey, where they knew each other and even spent their Academy days as friends. At some point, however, they became deadly enemies -- so much so that the Doctor’s jailers saw fit to warn him of the Master’s presence on Earth. The Master’s lust for power seemed to know no bounds, nor did his imagination for ways to achieve it. However, he nearly killed himself trying to regenerate a thirteenth time, leaving his body a decaying wreck. He existed in this state for some while, spurred on only by his intense hatred for the Doctor and the Time Lords. Finally, he succeeded in a scheme to usurp the awesome power of the Keeper of Traken, which enabled him to permanently commandeer the body of Consul Tremas. Thus renewed in body, the Master also renewed his schemes to gain total power and to bring the Doctor’s life to a fitting end, always managing to escape from even certain death. Ultimately, the Master found himself on the unnamed planet of the Cheetah People, where his new body was corrupted by the feline mutation that brought out his most savage instincts. When the planet disintegrated, the Master was teleported to an unknown destination, doubtless to continue to spread evil and chaos throughout time and space.


From “The Mind of Evil”

In the autumn of 1970, the Doctor and Jo go to Stangmoor Prison to witness a demonstration of the Keller machine, which purportedly drains hardened criminals of their evil impulses. After the demonstration, a medical student is found dead of mysterious causes in the laboratory.

The Doctor: But Linwood is dead.
Kettering: Because of heart failure!
The Doctor: No, Professor Kettering, because of this machine!
Kettering: I tell you that man’s death had nothing to do with this machine, and if you were a scientist, you’d understand!
The Doctor: If I were a scientist? Let me tell you, sir, that I am a scientist, and I have been for several thousand --
Kettering: The man’s mad.
Jo: On the contrary, sir, he happens to be a genius! I do wish you’d listen to him.

Meanwhile, UNIT is providing security for a world peace conference which the Master is intent on disrupting by killing the delegates using the power of the Keller machine, which he himself installed in the prison nearly a year earlier. When the Doctor frees the assassin from hypnotic control, the Master returns to Stangmoor Prison in the guise of Emil Keller and leads a riot to take over the facility. When the Doctor returns, he is taken prisoner as well, and the Master reveals his plan to cause a full-scale nuclear war on Earth. The Doctor realizes the Keller machine contains a living creature that feeds off the evil of the mind. The Master leaves the prison prior to a UNIT attack to ready his hijacked missile for launch, then calls the Doctor on the telephone.

The Master: And then later, when this planet is in ruins, I shall take over.
The Doctor: I see. Aren’t you forgetting something?
The Master: Am I, Doctor? What?
The Doctor: The dematerialisation circuit from your own TARDIS. You can’t leave Earth without that, can you?
The Master: Are you offering me a deal?
The Doctor: I am. Hand me back that rocket, and I’ll return your circuit.
The Master: That’s very generous of you.
The Doctor: Leave Earth. Stop bothering us. Go somewhere else and be a nuisance elsewhere. Well, what do you say? Well?
The Master: Right. But you will bring that circuit to me here at the hanger. You and you alone. At the first sign of treachery, the first sign of interference from your UNIT friends, and I launch the missile immediately!

Unwilling to actually give the Master back his freedom, the Doctor uses the Keller machine to incapacitate him long enough for UNIT to detonate the missile on the ground. However, the Master manages to escape with his dematerialization circuit. He returns to his time capsule and departs, gloating over the Doctor’s exile.


From “The Claws of Axos”

Representatives from the British and American governments are at UNIT headquarters to discuss the “renegade Time Lord problem” when an alien spacecraft lands on the southeast coast of England. The ship and its occupants are really one organism, a giant parasite called Axos, which had captured the Master’s time capsule. In exchange for his freedom, the Master agreed to lead Axos to Earth, where it could feed on the planet’s resources, destroying all life, including the Doctor, in the process. The Master is reluctant to trust Axos to keep its side of the bargain, so he tricks UNIT into bringing the Doctor’s TARDIS to a nearby nuclear research facility, where he can try to get it operational while the Doctor and Jo are captives of Axos. The Doctor escapes and the Master’s scheme is foiled, but the Doctor tells the Brigadier the Master may he useful in defeating Axos. The two Time Lords confer aboard the disabled TARDIS.

The Master: Well, Doctor, I’m still waiting to hear this marvellous scheme of yours.
The Doctor: Actually, there isn’t one.
The Master: Well, then, why -- ?
The Doctor: Because if you mend the TARDIS, we can both escape!
The Master: Both? Tell me, Doctor, are you suggesting an alliance?
The Doctor: Why not? I don’t want to spend the rest of my life as a heap of dust on a second-rate planet to a third-rate star. Do you?
The Master: Do you mean to say that you are actually prepared to abandon your beloved Earth to the Axons’ tender mercies?
The Doctor: Certainly. After all, we are both Time Lords.
The Master: Look, why should I help you?
The Doctor: Because if you don’t, I shall hand you over to UNIT and you’ll become a prisoner on a doomed planet.
The Master: Yes, well, you’ll be doomed along with me.
The Doctor: Exactly. We either escape together or we die together.
The Master: Oh, very generous. Look, why not just hand me over to UNIT and make your escape by yourself? Well?
The Doctor: Because the Time Lords have put a block on my memory of dematerialisation theory, that’s why!
The Master: Oh. I see.

With the Master’s help, the Doctor is successful in getting the TARDIS operational. However, they travel only as far as the nerve center of Axos, where the Doctor offers a deal to give Axos time-travel capability if it will join him in attacking the High Council of the Time Lords. The Master is forced into the deal in order to gain possession of his own time-capsule. However, the Doctor uses the link only to hurl Axos into an inescapable time-loop, from which the TARDIS only barely escapes. The Doctor is frustrated to find that his TARDIS will only rematerialize on 1970s Earth. The Master, of course, escapes once again.


From “Colony in Space”

Some time later, the Time Lord tribunal has convened to discuss a grave matter.

First Time Lord: You are sure the Master knows?
Second Time Lord: The report on the Doomsday Weapon is missing from our files. Only he could have taken it.
First Time Lord: Then we can use the Doctor to deal with this problem.
Third Time Lord: The Doctor resents his exile bitterly. Do you think he’ll co-operate with us?
Second Time Lord: I doubt it. We immobilised his TARDIS, took away his freedom to move in space and time.
First Time Lord: Then we must restore his freedom … for as long as it serves our purpose.

Meanwhile, the Doctor continues his endless tinkering with the TARDIS’s circuitry. When Jo questions the value of his work, he offers her her first look at the inside of the TARDIS. Once inside, however, the ship takes off by remote control and materializes on the planet Uxarieus. Jo is somewhat astonished that all the Doctor’s stories of time travel are actually true. They discover a 25th century Earth colony being menaced by an unscrupulous mining conglomerate. The Master arrives, passing himself off as an Adjudicator from the Earth government. Unable to convince the colonists that the Master is an impostor, the Doctor and Jo break into the villain’s time capsule.

Jo: You’re right, Doctor, it is a TARDIS!
The Doctor: Yes. A slightly more advanced model, actually.

The Doctor discovers that the Master has come to Uxarieus to find the Doomsday Weapon, which was built by the indigenous population before the weapon’s radiation caused their civilization to collapse into savagery. The weapon can detonate stars from long distance, and the Master intends to hold the galaxy to ransom.

The Doctor: You deduced all that from these pictures?
The Master: Well, not exactly. I knew it already. The files of the Time Lords are very comprehensive.
The Doctor: Yes, that’s more like it. You mean that you stole the information.
The Master: Well, it seemed an awful pity not to make use of it, you know. But of course that’s typical of the High Council of the Time Lords -- know everything, do nothing!

* * *

The Master: Doctor, why don’t you come in with me? We’re both Time Lords, we’re both renegades. We could be masters of the galaxy. Think of it, Doctor, absolute power -- power for good. Why, you could reign benevolently. You could end war, suffering, disease. We could save the universe!
The Doctor: No! Absolute power is evil!
The Master: Consider carefully, Doctor! I’m offering you a half-share in the universe! You must see reason, Doctor!
The Doctor: No. I will not join you in your absurd dreams of galactic conquest!
The Master: But why? Why? Look at this -- look at all those planetary systems, Doctor! We could rule them all!
The Doctor: What for? What is the point?
The Master: The point is that one must rule or serve; that’s a basic law of life. Why do you hesitate, Doctor? Surely it’s not loyalty to the Time Lords, who exiled you on one insignificant planet!
The Doctor: You’ll never understand, will you? I want to see the universe, not rule it!

The leader of the Uxarians intervenes, helping the Doctor to activate the self-destruct mechanism. The Doomsday Weapon is destroyed along with the underground city. The Master escapes yet again aboard his time capsule. The TARDIS returns the Doctor and Jo to Earth just seconds after they left.


From “The Dæmons”

At midnight 1 May 1971, powerful forces are released by an archaeological dig in the town of Devil’s End, forces the Master intends to control. The Doctor and Jo arrive just in time before a heat barrier surrounds the village, preventing the Brigadier from bringing in his troops. The Doctor realizes that, rather than being of a supernatural nature, the creatures are actually from the planet Dæmos.

Benton: Well, I still don’t get it. I mean, what’s the creature doing here? I mean, why did they ever come?
The Doctor: To help Homo sapiens kick out Neanderthal man. They’ve been coming and going ever since. The Greek civilisation, the Renaissance, the Industrial Revolution -- they were all inspired by the Dæmons.
Hawthorne: But this thing the professor let loose is evil; you said so yourself. And now you’re trying to say they’ve been helping mankind for a hundred thousand years!
Jo: Yes, and you say they come from another planet -- well, then what’s all this jazz about witchcrafts and covens and so on?
The Doctor: Look, don’t you see? All the magical traditions are just remnants of their advanced science, and that is what the Master is using!
Hawthorne: Then these creatures are linked with the black arts -- they are evil!
The Doctor: Amoral, perhaps. They help Earth, but on their own terms. It’s a scientific experiment to them, just another laboratory rat!
Yates: Then what’s the Master up to?
The Doctor: He’s established a link with the Dæmon. What worries me is the choice: domination by the Master or total annihilation.
Jo: This … demon could destroy the world?
The Doctor: What does any scientist do with an experiment that fails? He chucks it in the rubbish bin.

When the Dæmon Azal appears to the Master, he says that his race destroys its failures, such as Atlantis. He is prepared to destroy the Earth also, but Jo’s act of self-sacrifice causes Azal and his buried spaceship to self-destruct. The Master is captured at last by the UNIT troops and taken off to prison.


Next Season

Doctor Who Notes 7

Doctor Who takes off in an all-new direction with its seventh season. Jon Pertwee takes over the main role and brings his own interpretation of the character. Now marooned on Earth in the twentieth century, the Doctor becomes involved with the Brigadier’s UNIT missions. A new companion, Liz Shaw, is introduced, though her role is somewhat different, as the Doctor doesn’t actually travel anywhere in the TARDIS. Fewer, longer stories allow for more exploration of the Doctor’s relationships with the humans he is now forced to live among, and the show in general seems to strive for greater realism. This season was also the first to be made in color.


From “Spearhead from Space”

The TARDIS materializes in Oxney Wood, Epping, and the newly regenerated Doctor stumbles out and collapses into the grass, unconscious. UNIT troops in the area to investigate a strange meteor shower find him and take him to a nearby hospital, unaware of his identity. Meanwhile, Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart is interviewing Dr. Elizabeth Shaw, hoping she will agree to lend her scientific expertise to his organization.

The Brigadier: Since UNIT was formed, there’ve been two attempts to invade this planet.
Liz: Really?
The Brigadier: We were lucky enough to be able to stop them. There was a policy decision not to inform the public.
Liz: Do you seriously expect me to believe that?
The Brigadier: It’s not my habit to tell lies, Miss Shaw.
Liz: I’m sorry. But it is a fantastic story!
The Brigadier: We were very lucky on both occasions. We had help from a … scientist with great experience of other life-forms.
Liz: Really? Who was this genius?
The Brigadier: Well, it’s all rather difficult to explain. We used to call him … the Doctor.

When informed of the mysterious police box, the Brigadier and Liz drive down to the hospital at once, but the Brigadier is baffled when the Doctor appears to have a new physical appearance. However, the physicians discover that the Doctor has a completely alien physiognomy, including two hearts and an inhuman blood type. While the Doctor is in a deep self-induced coma, the Brigadier returns to UNIT headquarters with the TARDIS. The Doctor soon arrives in a stolen car and wearing stolen clothes, having homed in on his ship. He reluctantly agrees to help the Brigadier investigate the artificial meteorites in exchange for the TARDIS key. The Doctor soon tricks Liz into getting him the key and he immediately tries to dematerialize, only to find the TARDIS has been completely disabled by the Time Lords.

The Doctor discovers that an alien race called the Nestenes are planning to invade Earth using an army of Autons. By destroying the physical nerve center of the Nestenes, the Doctor foils the invasion attempt, although he speculates that they may one day try again. Back at UNIT headquarters, the Doctor agrees to act as the Brigadier’s scientific advisor in exchange for facilities to repair the TARDIS, and a bargain is struck.

Liz Shaw was recruited by UNIT from Cambridge University for her scientific expertise. After the Doctor took over as scientific advisor, she stayed on for a while, despite her lack of interest in “security work.” Eventually growing frustrated, she returned to Cambridge and resumed her research.


From “Doctor Who and the Silurians”

The Doctor is modifying his new vehicle, a vintage yellow roadster he calls “Bessie,” when Liz brings in an official summons from the Brigadier, who is investigating strange power failures at a top-secret atomic research center in the Derbyshire caves.

Liz: Yes, but he wants us to join him. “Miss Shaw and the Doctor will report themselves forthwith to Wenley Moor, attend a briefing meeting at precis --
The Doctor: My dear Miss Shaw, I never report myself anywhere, particularly not forthwith.

Deep in the caves beneath the facility, the Doctor discovers that the power is being siphoned off by the Silurians, an ancient reptilian life-form who went into suspended animation millions of years ago. Hoping to prevent an all-out war between the two species, the Doctor tries to negotiate for the Silurians to inhabit Earth’s deserts. However, one Silurian faction is bent on genocide and releases a deadly plague among the human population. The Doctor and Liz work desperately to develop a cure.

The Doctor: You know, I’m beginning to lose confidence for the first time in my life. And that covers several thousand years.

Just as the cure is found, the Doctor is taken prisoner by the Silurians and made to provide more power to revive their race. However, the Doctor starts a nuclear meltdown, prompting the Silurians to go back into suspended animation until the radiation clears. The Doctor is eager to begin studying the Silurians’ technology, but the Brigadier blows up their base, sealing it underground forever.


From “The Ambassadors of Death”

The Doctor has removed the main console from the TARDIS and set it up in his laboratory where he can work on getting it operational again. He manages to project both Liz and himself 15 seconds into the future before it burns out again. His work is interrupted by news of a space mission disaster, for which he offers his assistance. He discovers that an unidentified alien race has sent three ambassadors to Earth in place of the human astronauts, who were kidnapped by the revenge-seeking General Carrington. The Doctor and UNIT foil the general’s scheme and exchange the ambassadors for the astronauts. Perhaps because of Carrington’s crimes, the aliens felt Earth’s inhabitants are not to be trusted and canceled their diplomatic mission.


From “Inferno”

A strange murder brings UNIT to an experimental government project dedicated to drilling into the Earth’s crust in search of alternative energy supplies. The Doctor is already on hand, using the facility’s computers and nuclear power plant to attempt to reactivate the TARDIS console. A sudden power surge hurtles the Doctor and the console into a time-warp from which he barely escapes. A second attempt shunts the Doctor, the console, and Bessie into a parallel universe where England is run by a fascist regime. When the parallel drilling project penetrates the crust, forces are released that tear the planet apart. The Doctor only just manages to cross back over the dimensional boundary and stop the drilling in time. The project officially shut down, the Doctor’s final attempt merely lands the TARDIS console in the garbage dump.


Next Season

Doctor Who Notes 6

Season six of Doctor Who finally introduces us to the Doctor’s own people, the Time Lords, when he is forced to contact them for help, thus bringing to an end -- temporarily, at least -- his renegade existence. In the process, we gain insight into the Doctor’s motivations for his life of wandering through time and space. Also of note is the first UNIT story, which lays out the parameters for that concept and also brings back the Cybermen for another go-round. The end of the season marks a complete cast turnover, as the companions are returned home and the Doctor is forced to regenerate. It is, in many ways, a major turning point for Doctor Who.


From “The Dominators”

The TARDIS materializes on the planet Dulkis, inhabited by a pacifist race, but the Doctor, Jamie McCrimmon, and Zoe Heriot have their holiday plans spoiled by two soldiers from a race of conquerors called the Dominators. Unable to convince the Dulcians to fight for themselves, the Doctor turns the Dominators’ plans to destroy the planet against them, and their spaceship is blown up moments after take-off. However, the resultant volcanic eruption threatens to bury the TARDIS in lava.


From “The Mind Robber”

In order to escape the lava flow, the Doctor hastily installs an emergency unit to the main console, and the TARDIS is lifted out of spacetime into a featureless void, where the three travelers come under psychic attack by a mysterious opponent. The Doctor apparently has an hallucination in which the TARDIS disintegrates and they fall into a land where characters from Earth literature are real. This land is controlled by a man called “the Master,” who is in turn the puppet of a giant computer. When the Doctor defeats his adversary, he finds himself back in the TARDIS as it materializes just beyond Earth’s moon.


From “The Invasion”

To avoid a sudden lunar missile attack, the Doctor moves the TARDIS to Earth, where it materializes near the home of his friend Professor Travers. A damaged visual stabilizer unit has rendered the TARDIS invisible, and the Doctor, Jamie, and Zoe seek out the professor’s help, only to find he has rented his home to another scientist and his niece. The scientist has gone missing, and the travelers offer their assistance. After snooping around International Electromatics, the Doctor and Jamie are picked up by some mysterious men and taken aboard a cargo plane, where they meet another old friend.

The Brigadier: How nice to see you again, Doctor.
The Doctor: It’s Colonel Lethbridge-Stewart!
The Brigadier: Ah, brigadier now. I’ve gone up in the world.
Jamie: Of course, the Yetis! We met you in the --
The Brigadier: That’s right, McCrimmon, in the Underground. Must be four years ago now.
Jamie: That long? It only seems like a couple of weeks ago, doesn’t it?
The Doctor: I’ve told you over and over again, Jamie, time is relative.
The Brigadier: You still making a nonsense of it, Doctor, in your -- what was it called, TARDIS?
The Doctor: Yes, we’re still travelling, yes.
The Brigadier: Yes, Travers told me all about it. It’s -- well, it’s, to say the least, an unbelievable machine.
The Doctor: Any more unbelievable than the Yetis?
The Brigadier: No, true. I’m not quite so much of a sceptic as I was since that little escapade.
The Doctor: But what’s all this? And why all the cloak-and-dagger stuff to bring us here?
The Brigadier: Yes, I’m sorry about that, but my chaps happen to be a bit melodramatic in their methods -- but I’ll explain. Look, do sit down.
Jamie: Thank you.
The Doctor: How nice.
The Brigadier: Sergeant Walters!
Walters: Yes, sir?
The Brigadier: Lay on some tea, will you? You’d like some tea, wouldn’t you, Doctor?
The Doctor: Oh, thank you, and a pattycake biscuit!
The Brigadier: Yes, well, since the Yeti do, I’ve been in charge of an independent intelligence group that we call UNIT -- that’s United Nations Intelligence Taskforce.
Jamie: You mean you’re like a world secret police?
The Brigadier: No, not quite. We don’t actually arrest people, we just investigate.

The Doctor discovers that International Electromatics is part of a five-year invasion plan by the Cybermen, who have placed key government figures under mind-control, including the Brigadier’s immediate superior, Major General Rutlidge, who orders UNIT to cease their investigation.

The Brigadier: Well, you can override my authority but not that of UNIT Central Command. I’m sending a full report to them in Geneva!

Prior to the invasion, the Cybermen broadcast a signal via microchips in I.E. components that place the human race under mind-control. However, the Doctor is able to provide a defensive measure for himself and the UNIT troops. When the invasion meets this unexpected resistance, the Cybermen turn against their human co-conspirator and are about to kill all life on Earth, but UNIT is able to destroy the Cyber Fleet with nuclear missiles. The Doctor then has some time to repair his faulty circuits and he, Jamie, and Zoe are once more on their way.


From “The Krotons”

The TARDIS materializes on the planet of the Gonds, who have spent millennia enslaved by Kroton warriors whose spacecraft crash-landed there after a battle. When the Krotons attempt to destroy the TARDIS, it rematerializes each time in a slightly different location, due to the Hostile Action Displacement System, which the Doctor has activated. The Gond people are freed when the two Krotons and their ship are destroyed with sulfuric acid.


From “The Seeds of Death”

When the TARDIS materializes on 21st-century Earth, the Doctor, Jamie, and Zoe learn that the trans-mat system, upon which the world has grown dependent, has broken down. They volunteer to fly an old rocket to the lunar relay station, only to find the sabotage is part of the invasion plan of the Ice Warriors. The Doctor tricks the Martian fleet into flying too close to the sun, and they are destroyed.


From “The Space Pirates”

The Doctor, Jamie, and Zoe are separated from the TARDIS when the space beacon it has materialized on is broken apart by space pirates. In order to be reuinited with their ship, the travelers must help the authorities find the pirates’ base and defeat them.


From “The War Games”

When the TARDIS materializes in a bombed-out wasteland, the Doctor, Jamie, and Zoe believe themselves to be on the front lines of World War I, but they suspect something is amiss when they begin finding anachronisms. They soon discover the area is a patchwork of time-zones, each representing a different war in Earth’s history, assembled by a group of aliens for study. Infiltrating the command center, the Doctor encounters the War Chief, and they recognize each other as renegade Time Lords, thereby raising the suspicions of the aliens.

Scientist: But how could these people get here?
Security Chief: The War Chief. His people have the secret of time travel.
Scientist: Are you suggesting he’s bringing in his own people? The Time Lords?
Security Chief: He came to us because he wanted power. Perhaps there are others of his people who feel the same.
Scientist: Can you prove this? If so, you must tell the War Lord immediately.

The Doctor learns that the War Chief intends to use his time-capsules to help the aliens conquer the galaxy before he seizes total power for himself, and he asks the Doctor to aid him in his scheme. The Doctor pretends to cooperate to prevent the battlezones from being destroyed by a neutron bomb. Then the Doctor and the human resistance fighters are able to gain the upper hand and stop the killing, but the War Chief’s time-capsules have a limited lifespan and too few remain operational to return all the soldiers to their proper places in space and time. The Doctor realizes he has only one option.

Zoe: What did he mean, Doctor? Who mustn’t you call?
The Doctor: The only people who can put an end to this whole ghastly business and send everyone back to their own times -- the Time Lords.
Jamie: Who are they?
The Doctor: They’re my own people, Jamie.
Jamie: Well, that’s all right, then!
Zoe: It isn’t all right, is it, Doctor?
The Doctor: No, it’s not, Zoe. But I’m afraid there’s no alternative.
War Chief: Don’t do it, Doctor! You can’t! You know what will happen!

The Doctor takes six squares from his pocket and lays them out on the floor in front of him and concentrates. The squares form themselves into a little box, which the Doctor says contains a message to the Time Lords. The War Chief tries to escape but is gunned down by the alien War Lord and his guards. The little box dematerializes, and the Doctor, Jamie, and Zoe rush back to the TARDIS to try and escape before the Time Lords arrive.

Jamie: What’s happening? Why was it so difficult to move?
The Doctor: It was the Time Lords!
Zoe: But they’re your own people, aren’t they, Doctor?
The Doctor: Yes, that’s right.
Jamie: Well, why did you run away from them in the first place?
The Doctor: I was bored!
Zoe: What do you mean, you were bored?
The Doctor: The Time Lords are an immensely civilised race. We can control our own environment, we can live forever -- barring accidents -- and we have the secret of spacetime travel.
Jamie: Well, what’s wrong in all that?
The Doctor: Well, we hardly ever use our great powers! We consent simply to observe and gather knowledge!
Zoe: And that wasn’t enough for you?
The Doctor: No, of course not! With a whole galaxy to explore, millions of planets, aeons of time, countless civilisations to meet?
Jamie: Well, why do they object to you doing all that?
The Doctor: Well, it is a fact, Jamie, that I do tend to get involved with things.
Jamie: Aye, you can say that again! Whenever there’s any trouble, he’s in it right up to his neck!
Zoe: But you’ve helped people, Doctor!
The Doctor: Yes, but that’s no excuse in their eyes.
Zoe: Well, then, what are you going to do?
The Doctor: We’re going to run away! I’ve set the controls to take us to a planet on the outermost fringes of the galaxy!

However, the Time Lords take control of the TARDIS and return them to Gallifrey to face the Time Lord Tribunal. The trial of the War Lord is already underway, and despite an armed raid on the court, sentence is passed.

Second Time Lord: A force field has been placed around you, and around your planet, so that your warlike people will remain prisoners forever. You have been found guilty of all charges, and you and your murderous associates will be dematerialised. It will be as though you had never existed.

The sentence is carried out, and the Time Lords turn their attention to the Doctor and his companions. The Doctor readily admits that he has flouted the Time Lord injunction against interfering in the affairs of other planets, claiming that the evil of the universe must be fought and that it is the Time Lords who are guilty of negligence of their moral duty. Following the tribunal’s deliberations, Jamie and Zoe are each returned to their homes just after their first adventure with the Doctor, their memories of subsequent events suppressed. The Doctor is then brought in to receive his sentence.

The Doctor: Now, then, what about me?
First Time Lord: We have accepted your plea that there is evil in the universe that must be fought and that you still have a part to play in that battle.
The Doctor: What, do you mean that you’re going to let me go free?
First Time Lord: Not entirely. We have noted your particular interest in the planet Earth. The frequency of your visits must have given you special knowledge of that world and its problems.
The Doctor: Yes, I suppose that’s true. Earth seems more vulnerable than others, yes.
First Time Lord: For that reason, you will be sent back to that planet…
The Doctor: Oh, good.
First Time Lord: …in exile.
The Doctor: In exile?!
First Time Lord: You will be sent to Earth in the twentieth century and will remain there for as long as we deem proper. And for that period, the secret of the TARDIS will be taken from you.
The Doctor: But you can’t condemn me to exile on one primitive planet in one century in time! Besides, I’m known on the Earth, it might be very awkward for me!
First Time Lord: Your appearance has changed before. It will change again, and that is part of the sentence.
The Doctor: You can’t just change what I look like without consulting me!
First Time Lord: You will have an opportunity to choose your appearance.

However, the Doctor rejects all the choices he is presented with, and believing he is merely stalling, the Time Lords induce a regeneration and send him on his way, to begin his exile on 20th-century Earth.


Next Season

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