Doctor Who & Spin-Offs A-Z Game

[Guest]

O ~ Ogros - Ogros a planet of Tau Ceti notable for its amino acid swamps. The Ogri originate from Ogros. Mentioned though not seen in 'The Stones of Blood'.

[Alan]

P ~ Paradise Towers - 1987 story starring Sylvester McCoy as "The Doctor" and Bonnie Langford as "Mel Bush".

Synopsis
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Built towards the end of the twenty-first century, Paradise Towers is a massive housing block, stretching up towards the sky. With its beautiful decor, smart apartments, fantastic facilities and high standards of maintenance, it is hardly surprising that the architect, Kroagnon, won many professional awards.

Mel wants to go swimming and as the TARDIS pool has been jettisoned due to a leak, Paradise Towers seems to fit the bill. However, when she and the Doctor arrive, instead of the bright squares and charming cloisters the brochure promised, they find dark, rat-infested corridors full of uncontrollable cleaning machines, undisciplined street gangs and over-worked and belligerent caretakers, some of whom are disappearing in mysterious circumstances.

What has caused such terrible decay? How could such perfect accommodation have become so run down and dangerous? And why do the street-wise Kangs, apathetic caretakers, sinister Rezzies and Pex - the self-appointed warrior who puts the world of Paradise Towers to rights - all fear whatever terrible force dwells in the basement? Only the unpredictable Chief Caretaker knows what is down there - and the real secret behind the disappearances...

[Guest]

Q ~ Quark - The Quarks appeared in the Second Doctor serial 'The Dominators' (1969).

The Quarks were used on Dulkis by the Dominators to enslave and terrorise the indigenous Dulcian population to ensure the drilling of bore holes through the planet's crust. The Dominators planned to use their technology to fire seeds down the holes which would force the core to erupt, thus providing a new fuel source for their fleet.

The Quarks were rectangular in shape, with four arms: one pair which folded into the body, the other pair being retractable. On the end of each arm was a solitary claw. The legs extended out below the Quark body. The spherical head was visibly divided into octants; the upper four octants formed the sensory hemisphere, which detected changes in light, heat and motion. At five of the corners of the octants were directional crystal beam transmitters (the sixth corner joined with the robot's extremely short neck). Quarks communicated by means of high-pitched sound waves. Their major weakness was a tendency to run out of energy rather quickly.

[Alan]

R ~ Rutans - The Rutans were a race of amorphous green blobs who waged a millennia-long war with the Sontarans.

In their natural forms, the Rutans were shaped somewhat like jellyfish, with a green glowing body and many light-green tendrils. They were amphibious and could cling to sheer vertical surfaces, with considerable mobility out of the water despite their shape. Rutans could see, even without visible eyes, but their vision was limited and monochromatic. They could also speak by forming vocal apparatus, giving them a harsh, tinny, male voice. Rutans reproduced by binary fission, with two identical Rutans being produced.

Rutans were considerable fighters, even when they had weapons. Rutans could generate lethal biolelectrical shocks to defend themselves and seem to be able to absorb electrical energy directly for sustenance. They could also use this energy to produce a force field to absorb energy from weapons, though this required great effort. Though they preferred colder environments, Rutans could survive almost anywhere, including the vacuum of space.

[Kidwizz]

S ~ Ssard - Ssard was an Ice Warrior from an early period of Martian history who decided to join the Doctor on his travels. He would later marry Stacy Townsend, another of the Doctor's companions.

[Alan]

T ~ Torchwood - Doctor Who spin-off series which had its début in 2006. It follows the adventures of the Doctor's former companion Captain Jack Harkness and the Cardiff section of the Torchwood Institute.

Starring John Barrowman as "Captain Jack Harkness", Eve Myles as "Gwen Cooper",
Gareth David-Lloyd as "Ianto Jones", Naoko Mori as "Toshiko Sato", and Burn Gorman as "Owen Harper".

Series 3 (known collectively as Children of Earth) is due to begin in the UK on July 6th on BBC1.

[Guest]

U ~ Usurian - The Usurians from the planet Usurius are a species that abandoned military conquest in favour of economic conquest. They enslaved humanity after their engineers made Mars suitable for human habitation, humans having depleted the Earth's resources. Once humanity had depleted Mars's resources as well, the Usurians engineered Pluto so that humans could inhabit it. They created six artificial "Suns" around it and installed the Collector, seen in 'The Sun Makers', to oversee the collection of taxes from their human workforce. They intended to abandon Pluto and leave humanity to become extinct once the humans had exhausted its resources, there being no economically viable planet to relocate humanity to once more. The humans on Pluto revolted against the Collector and seized control of Pluto. The revolutionaries intended to relocate to Earth as the Doctor assured them it would have regenerated in their absence.

The Usurians have knowledge of the Time Lords, graded as "Grade 3" in their "latest market survey", considering it to be of low commercial value. Usurians can adopt a humanoid form but in their natural state they resemble seaweed. Shock can force them to revert to their natural form. According to the Doctor, Usurians are listed in a "flora and fauna" of the universe written by a Professor Thripthead under poisonous fungi.

[Alan]

V ~ Voyage of the Damned - 2007 TV movie starring David Tennant as "The Doctor" and Kylie Minogue as "Astrid Peth".

Introducing Bernard Cribbins as "Wilfred Mott".

Synopsis
---------
The Doctor finds his TARDIS colliding with a spaceship based on the RMS Titanic during a Christmas party. With the help of a waitress named Astrid, the Doctor must take on the robotic Hosts, as the lives of the Titanic crew and the whole of humanity are in danger.

[Guest]

W ~ Woman Wept - Woman Wept is a planet visited by Rose Tyler and the Ninth Doctor where the continental land mass is shaped like a lamenting woman; and the entire ocean, including waves hundreds of feet high, froze in an instant by means of some undisclosed natural disaster. Rose mentioned her visit in 'Boom Town'. It is one of the planets revealed to have been taken by Davros in 'The Stolen Earth'.

[Alan]

X ~ X-Ray - Machine used in hospitals to check patients for internal problems.

It was in the 1970 story Spearhead from Space that an X-Ray of the Doctor's chest first revealed that Gallifreyans have two hearts.

[Guest]

Y ~ Yeti - The Yeti although resembling the cryptozoological creatures also called the Yeti, are in actuality alien robots. Their external appearance, that of a huge hairy biped, disguises a small spherical mechanism that provides its motive power. The Yeti serve the Great Intelligence, a disembodied entity from another planet, which tried to form a physical body in order to conquer the Earth. The Yeti are initially a ruse to scare off curiosity seekers, and later form an army serving the Great Intelligence.

The Great Intelligence and its Yeti minions were thwarted twice by the Doctor's second incarnation, played by Patrick Troughton, in the serials 'The Abominable Snowmen' and 'The Web of Fear'. A Yeti was also one of the creatures in the Death Zone featured in 'The Five Doctors'.

[Alan]

Z ~ Zygon Who Fell to Earth, The - Big Finish audio adventure starring Paul McGann as "The Doctor" and Sheridan Smith as "Lucie Miller".

Synopsis
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Ten years later and Aunty Pat is in her prime. She's snagged herself an ex rock star at the Kendal Folk Festival and now, in the brave new world of the early 1980s they manage together a snazzy hotel on the poetic and shingly shore of Lake Grasmere. However, still waters run deep and friends from the past are returning, intent on milking the old cash-cow...

[Guest]

A ~ Alzarius - Alzarius is Adric's homeworld, located in E-Space. It appeared in the serial 'Full Circle'. Its galactic coordinates are identical to that of Gallifrey - except they were negative. In 'Full Circle', Alzarius is discovered to be covered in lush, dense forests and marshlands. Every 50 years, the planet is dragged further away from its sun by a larger planet, causing an occurrence known as "Mistfall".

[Alan]

B ~ Battlefield - 1989 story starring Sylvester McCoy as "The Doctor" and Sophie Aldred as "Ace".

Guest starring Nicholas Courtney as "Brigadier Alistair Lethbridge-Stewart".

Synopsis
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The Doctor and Ace receive a mysterious distress signal and land in the Earth village of Carbury, where a nuclear convoy has halted. The Doctor's concern is heightened when knights from another dimension begin to land in the area. Nearby is Lake Voortigen, the mythical resting-place of Excalibur, King Arthur's mystical sword...

But the lake holds a more sinister secret. A spaceship from the same alien dimension lurks under the lake - but does it really contain Arthur's corpse? And what is it that the Witch Queen, Morgaine, is really after?

The Doctor's old friend the Brigadier is sent in to investigate, but the Doctor's happiness is short-lived. It seems his friend must take on the might of the deadly Destroyer, a horned demon intent on bringing about the end of the world...

Trivia
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• Nicholas Courtney returns as "Brigadier Alistair Lethbridge-Stewart". Prior to this he was last seen in the 1983 TV movie The Five Doctors.
  
  
• UNIT returns. Prior to this it was last seen briefly in The Five Doctors but from the Doctor's perspective he hasn't encountered it since the 1976 story The Seeds of Doom.
  
  
• The Doctor's yellow roadster Bessie returns. It was last seen in The Five Doctors but from the Doctor's perspective he hasn't seen it since the 1974 story Robot.

[Spimman]

C - Crespallions are a humanoid alien race with blue skin from a planet of the same name. Some are the average height of human adults and some are the average height of human children. They were seen in "End of the World" working on Platform One.