Doctor Who & Spin-Offs A-Z Game

[Alan]

B ~ Bad Wolf - 2005 story starring Christopher Eccleston in his final appearance as "The Doctor", Billie Piper as "Rose Tyler", John Barrowman in his last regular appearance as "Captain Jack Harkness", and introducing David Tennant as "The Doctor".

Synopsis
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The Doctor, Rose and Captain Jack have to fight for their lives on board the Game Station. But a far more dangerous threat is lurking, just out of sight. The Doctor realises that the entire human race has been blinded to the threat on its doorstep, and Armageddon is fast approaching.

Trivia
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• The Doctor goes through his ninth regeneration. This is caused by cell damage after absorbing vortex energy.
  
  
• Captain Jack Harkness is left on Satellite 5. We later see him in the spin-off series Torchwood but don't actually learn what happens to him until the 2007 story Utopia and how he joins the Torchwood Institute until the Torchwood Series 2 episode Fragments.
  
  
• The TARDIS returns to the space station Satellite 5 (now renamed Game Station). It had last visited the station in the story The Long Game.
  
  
• A Dalek Emperor is seen again. The last time an Emperor had been seen was in the 1988 story Remembrance of the Daleks.
  
  
• Torchwood is mentioned for the first time during questions asked in The Weakest Link.

[Spimman]

C - Cheetah People were a group of aliens featured in the final episode of Doctor Who's original run, Survival. Like many more recent aliens, such as the Judoon and Hath, the Cheetah People strongly resembled an Earth animal. The Cheetah People were depicted as savages and had the ability to turn others into Cheetah People, including for a while the Master and Ace.

The Cheetah People in Survival had been kidnapping people and taking them to their planet. Following the episode, it was implied in the 1996 Doctor Who film that the Master retained some influences from the Cheetah People by his eyes constantly glowing.

[Alan]

D ~ Daleks - Daleks first appeared in the 1963 story, The Daleks. They are the mutated descendants of the Kaleds of the planet Skaro. They fought the Time Lords in the Last Great Time War, resulting in the almost total destruction of both races. They regard the the Doctor as their greatest single enemy and were hated and feared throughout time and space.

The creatures inside their "travel machines" were most frequently Kaled mutants, which the Doctor once described as "little green blobs in bonded polycarbide armour", although mutated members of other species, mainly Humans, also occupied the casings on occasion.

Externally, Daleks resembled human-sized peppershakers, with a single mechanical eyestalk in a rotating dome, a gunstick and a manipulator arm. The casings were made of bonded polycarbide armour, a material that was also called Dalekanium.

The Daleks' last appearance, to date, was in the 2008 story The Stolen Earth.

[Spimman]

E - Eternals, as seen in Enlightenment (1983), are beings who live in the "trackless wastes of eternity", as opposed to the likes of the Doctor and his companions who are "Ephemerals". Eternals use Ephemerals for their thoughts and ideas. The Eternals have lived for so long that they are unable to think for themselves and need human minds to give them existence, and entertainment; as such, they use human crews on their ships. Eternals seek out "Enlightenment", the wisdom to know everything. They are aware of the Void, calling it "the Howling" ("Army of Ghosts" (2006)) and were responsible for banishing the Carrionites ("The Shakespeare Code" (2007)).

An article by Russell T Davies in the Doctor Who Annual 2006 states that during the Time War between the Time Lords and the Daleks, the Eternals, one of the Higher Species who were aware of the war's presence and its outcomes, fled the Doctor's reality in despair, never to be seen again.

A group of Eternals who had taken the role of gods to the ancient Gallifreyans were recurring characters in the Virgin New Adventures. The most notable were Time, Death and Pain, and the Seventh Doctor was "Time's Champion".

[Guest]

F ~ Fenric - Fenric a.k.a. Hastur the Unspeakable was an immensely powerful sentient force, at least as old as the universe itself and an intelligence of pure evil. Appeared in the serial 'The Curse of Fenric'.

The being known as Fenric was one of two forces, one good, one evil, which were present at the Dawn of Time. Some sources state that Fenric originated not in the beginnings of this universe but, like the other Old Ones, in a universe before this one. These accounts state that Fenric bore (and still bears) the name of Hastur the Unspeakable. The name Fenric came from a mythic figure in Norse mythology. The myths described a monstrous wolf which would, during the final battle between gods and beasts, destroy the world at the end of time.

[Alan]

G ~ Genesis of the Daleks - 1975 story starring Tom Baker as "The Doctor", Elisabeth Sladen as "Sarah Jane Smith", and Ian Marter as "Harry Sullivan".

Synopsis
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Intercepted while travelling between Earth and the Ark, the Doctor and his companions are transported to the planet Skaro, thousands of years in the past, on a mission for the Time Lords — to prevent the creation of the Daleks.

Trivia
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• First appearance of Dalek creator, Davros (played here by Michael Wisher).
  
  
• Third appearance of the Thal race. They'd previously appeared in the 1963 story The Daleks and the 1973 story Planet of the Daleks.
  
  
• It is believed that the Doctor's mission to stop or delay the development of the Daleks was the first shot fired in the Time War.

[Guest]

H ~ 'Horror of Fang Rock' - The cursed island of Fang Rock is a place of rumour and tales of beasts from the sea. Three lighthouse men face their fears when something comes in from the sea which brings death to all it touches.

[Alan]

I ~ Invasion of the Bane - 2007 TV movie of spin-off series The Sarah Jane Adventures starring Elisabeth Sladen as "Sarah Jane Smith" and introducing Yasmin Paige as "Maria Jackson", Tommy Knight as "Luke Smith", and Alexander Armstrong as the voice of "Mr. Smith".

Guest starring John Leeson as the voice of "K-9 Mk. IV".

Synopsis
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Investigative journalist Sarah Jane Smith teams up with her 13-year-old neighbour, Maria Jackson, to face up against the scheming Mrs. Wormwood, the head of a company producing a popular and addictive soft drink called Bubble Shock!

Trivia
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• First appearance of Mrs. Wormwood and the Bane species.
  
  
• First appearance of Alan and Chrissie Jackson.
  
  
• A "Butterfly Person"-type alien (an Arcateenian from the planet Arcateen V) is seen. This type of alien was first seen in the Torchwood episode Greeks Bearing Gifts.
  
  
• This TV movie reveals that apart from the Doctor giving Sarah Jane K-9 Mk. IV in School Reunion, she also got a Sonic Lipstick and a Scanner Watch.

[Guest]

J - Judoon - The Judoon were a race of rhinocerid humanoids employed, as the Doctor put it, as "police-for-hire" (or, he added, "interplanetary thugs"). Judoon were two-metre high humanoids with a stocky build and rhinoceros-like heads. They had large lungs to help with breathing even in environments with low levels of oxygen. Their thick skin was capable of withstanding most forms of attacks and their ears were capable of selective hearing.

[Alan]

K ~ Katarina - Katarina appeared in the 1965 stories The Myth Makers and The Daleks' Master Plan. She originally came from the 12th century BC and was a servant to Cassandra, Princess of Troy and went on to become a brief companion to the Doctor.

Cassandra sent Katarina to spy on the Doctor and his friends, and in particular Vicki Pallister, known to Cassandra by the name of Cressida, in order to gather evidence that she was really a spy for the Greeks. To this end, she befriended Vicki, who sent her to help the Doctor get Steven Taylor back to the TARDIS after a spear thrust had critically injured him. Once there, Katarina tended to Steven's wounds, and joined Steven and the Doctor on their travels.

Shortly thereafter, the TARDIS took them to the year 4000 AD and the planet Kembel where they learned of a Dalek plot to take over the universe. Separated from the TARDIS, they travelled to Earth via another spacecraft to warn the authorities of the Daleks' plan. Unfortunately the ship had an escaped prisoner as a stowaway and he captured Katarina and locked them both in the airlock. Threatening Katarina's life at knife point, he forced the Doctor to return to Kembel in-spite of the fact that Daleks were there ready to destroy them. Unwilling to let her friends die, Katarina sacrificed herself by ejecting them both out of the airlock.

Katarina was played by the late Adrienne Hill. Katarina has the distinction of being the first companion to die.

[Guest]

L ~ 'Logopolis' - 'Logopolis' is a serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in four weekly parts from February 28 to March 21, 1981. It was Tom Baker's last story as the Doctor and marks the first appearance of Peter Davison in the role. This serial also marks the first appearance of Janet Fielding as new companion Tegan Jovanka, whilst Nyssa, played by Sarah Sutton and seen in previous serial 'The Keeper of Traken', returns and also joins the Doctor as a companion.

[Alan]

M ~ Meat - 2008 episode of Torchwood starring John Barrowman as "Captain Jack Harkness", Eve Myles as "Gwen Cooper", Burn Gorman as "Owen Harper", Naoko Mori as "Toshiko Sato", and Gareth David-Lloyd as "Ianto Jones".

Synopsis
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Gwen's fiancé, Rhys Williams, discovers the truth about Torchwood and helps the team as they investigate a mysterious alien-meat supply. Will Rhys go too far? And can Torchwood save the alien from being used as cheap meat?

[Spimman]

N - Nitro-9 An explosive substance created and used by the Seventh Doctor's companion Ace, often carried around in her backpack in aerosol spray cans, despite the Doctor's warnings.

[Guest]

O ~ Ogron - The Ogrons are low-intelligence, ape-like hominids who live in scattered communities on an unnamed planet on the outer fringes of the Milky Way, far from the central spaceways. The dominant lifeform on their home planet is a giant slug-like lizard named the Eater, and the Ogrons both pray to and are preyed on by it.

Ogrons are hired mercenaries. Those who have employed their services include the Master and the Daleks. On some human planets, Ogrons are employed as police officers, usually led by a mentally augmented leader.

[Spimman]

P - Perception filter

A perception filter is a field generated by a TARDIS that convinces people to ignore it, which in the case of the Doctor's TARDIS makes the normally anachronistic police box seem perfectly ordinary wherever it lands, no matter how out of place it may be. The field extends to objects associated with the TARDIS, such as the keys used to open it. Perception filters can also be added to other objects, such as the fob watches used by the Doctor and the Master. The TARDIS also imparts a perception filter to a stone slab near a fountain in Cardiff during the events of "Boom Town", which Torchwood Three has attached to an elevator. The field does not work if the object it surrounds draws too much attention to itself, or if someone is specifically searching for the object in question. Those with even minor telepathic abilities are also immune. Martha Jones uses the one installed on her TARDIS Key to protect her from the Master's detection during the year he ruled the world.