Doctor Who & Spin-Offs A-Z Game

[Guest]

Q ~ Quantum Accelerator - A TARDIS component, one of the items exchanged between the Master and the Doctor in 'Time Flight'.

[Spimman]

R - Randomiser

The Fourth Doctor fitted this device to the TARDIS console in The Armageddon Factor to randomise his travel coordinates and prevent the Black Guardian from finding him. The Randomiser was removed from the TARDIS and left on the planet Argolis in The Leisure Hive. A similar process is seen in The Price of Paradise, in which the Doctor uses the random shuffle function on Rose's MP3 player to select the TARDIS's destination, and the Doctor is able to "set all the settings to random" in the 2008 episode "Planet of the Ood". The Eighth Doctor also fits a randomiser to his companion Compassion in The Fall of Yquatine to stop her being traced by the Time Lords.

[Alan]

S ~ State of Decay - 1980 story starring Tom Baker as "The Doctor", Lalla Ward as "Romana", Matthew Waterhouse as "Adric", and John Leeson as the voice of "K-9".

Synopsis
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Searching for a way out of E-Space, the Doctor, Romana, and K-9 joined by a young stowaway, land on a planet eerily similar to Medieval Earth. Its people live in fear, under the thumb of the Three Who Rule, cruel lords who suppress all learning to keep their subjects ignorant and helpless.

The Doctor falls in with a group of rebels and discovers a cache of advanced technology banned by the Three Who Rule. But who are these ruthless monarchs?

Meeting the lords and exploring their tower, he and Romana uncover a chilling secret. The Doctor realizes an ancient evil is rising once again, a terrible threat to the universe fought by his own race long ago, and one that only he can destroy now.

Trivia
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• Second part in the "E-Space Trilogy" of stories which started with Full Circle and concludes with Warriors' Gate.

[Spimman]

T - Terraforming device

A round glass container made in a laboratory that holds gases and liquids designed specifically for making a barren planet habitable. Even when the device is in a transit state vegetation grows in the area surrounding it. Used in "The Doctor's Daughter" to make the planet Messaline habitable.

[Guest]

U ~ 'Utopia' - Is the first of three episodes that form a linked narrative, followed by 'The Sound of Drums' and 'Last of the Time Lords'.

This episode is set upon the planet of Malcassairo in the year 100 trillion, where a professor is working to send the last remnants of the human race to a place called "Utopia". It sees the return of Jack Harkness and the Master.

[Spimman]

V - VCR Seen in "The Idiot's Lantern". Using parts obtained from a 50's electrical shop the Doctor constructed a working video cassette recorder. He used it to foil the Wire by using it as a receiver, sucking in the villain and trapping her in a betamax videotape. He assures Rose that he will destroy the Wire by recording over it.

[Guest]

W ~ 'Warriors' Gate' - Was first broadcast in four weekly parts from January 3 to January 24, 1981. The serial is the last of three loosely connected serials known as the E-Space trilogy and the last to feature Romana and K-9 as companions.

[Spimman]

X - Xeraphin were an ancient species encountered by the Fifth Doctor in the story Time-Flight by Peter Grimwade. Originating from the planet Xeriphas, they possessed immense psychokinetic and scientific powers. The Doctor believed the race to have been wiped out during the crossfire during the Vardon/Kosnax war. Instead, the entire race fled to Earth in an escaping spacecraft. The ship crashed near present day Heathrow some 140 million years ago. When the Xeraphin emerged they built a Citadel to mark their new home but the Xeraphin were so plagued with radiation that they abandoned their original humanoid bodies and transformed into a single bioplasmic gestalt intelligence within a sarcophagus at the heart of the Citadel.

The arrival of the Master coincided with their emergence from the gestalt state when the radiation effects had subsided, and his influence caused the emergence of a split personality of good and evil, each side competing for their tremendous power while yearning to become a proper species once again. The Master, who was stranded on Earth at the time too, succeeded in capturing the Xeraphin as a new power source for his TARDIS. However, the Doctor's intervention meant his nemesis' TARDIS was sent to Xeriphas where events became out of his control.

Before fleeing Xeriphas and the Xeraphin, the Master took with him Kamelion, a Xeraphin war weapon with advanced shape-changing abilities dependent on the will of its controller. Kamelion was freed from the Master and joined the Doctor's TARDIS crew in "The King's Demons".

[Guest]

Y ~ 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'.

[Spimman]

Z - Zarbi appeared in the 1965 First Doctor story The Web Planet written by Bill Strutton, and are an ant-like insectoid species, with some characteristics associated with beetles, from the planet Vortis, which were controlled by the power of the Animus. They are roughly eight feet long, and the Menoptra claim, perhaps a little callously, that they are "little more than cattle".

They possess little intelligence but were not at all aggressive until the Animus arrived. They were enslaved to the alien consciousness and considered the butterfly-like Menoptra their mortal enemies. Only they could control the woodlouse-like venom grubs, also known as larvae guns.

They returned to their normal ways after the Animus was defeated by the First Doctor, Ian Chesterton, Barbara Wright and Vicki. It is presumed that the various species on Vortis are now living peacefully together.

[Guest]

A ~ Argolin - Appeared in the Fourth Doctor story 'The Leisure Hive' (1980), and are the inhabitants of Argolis. In 2250, the Argolin, led by Theron, fought and lost a 20-minute nuclear war with the Foamasi. As a result of this war, the Argolin became sterile. They were also quite long-lived, but when they neared the end of their life they aged and declined very rapidly. The Argolin who survived the war put aside their race's traditional warlike ways and remade Argolis as "the first of the leisure planets", catering to tourists from many worlds. They built a "Leisure Hive" dedicated to relaxation and cross-cultural understanding; due to radioactive fallout from the war, the Argolin planned to live in the Hive for at least three centuries. Argolis continued to struggle financially, and by 2290 faced possible bankruptcy. A rogue faction of Foamasi known as the West Lodge attempted to purchase the entire planet to use as a criminal base, sabotaging recreation facilities to encourage the Argolin to sell. The criminal nature of the offer was exposed by a Foamasi agent, aided by the Fourth Doctor and Romana.
Since the Argolin were sterile, they attempted to renew their race using cloning and tachyonics, but only one of the clones, Pangol, survived to adulthood. Pangol was mentally unstable and obsessed with the Argolin's former warrior culture. He attempted to create an army of tachyonic duplicates of himself, but was unsuccessful and was eventually restored to infancy through the same tachyonic technology that had created him.
In appearance, Argolin are humanoids with greenish skin. Their heads are covered with what appears to be elaborately coiffed hair, but may not be (since when Pangol is reduced to infancy he retains the distinctive Argolin hairstyle). Their heads are capped with small domes covered in beads, which fall off when the Argolin become sick or die.

[Spimman]

B - Bazoolium

A metal that Rose Tyler gives to her mother in "Army of Ghosts". It can be used to predict the weather, warming up when it will be hot and cooling down when it is about to rain.

[Guest]

C ~ Chameleon Circuit - A component of a TARDIS which allows it to change shape to match its surroundings and remain inconspicuous. The circuit on the Doctor's TARDIS has malfunctioned, leaving it stuck in the shape of a 1950s-style British police box. Attempts to repair the circuit have led to unpredictable results, including the TARDIS taking on the form of a pipe-organ (on which The Doctor sarcastically plays a few notes of J.S. Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor). Since these episodes, the Doctor has said that he has become fond of the Police Box form ('Boom Town'), and so has stopped trying to repair it. The TARDISes owned by the Master, the Rani, and the Meddling Monk had fully functioning chameleon circuits.

[Alan]

D ~ Destiny of the Daleks - 1979 story starring Tom Baker as "The Doctor" and introducing Lalla Ward as "Romana".

Synopsis
---------
Accompanied by the newly regenerated Romana, the Doctor lands on a mystery planet intrigued by the evidence of drilling taking place there, deep underground.

The discoveries he makes are chilling. For the planet is Skaro and the Daleks are in charge of the operation. But just what are his old enemies searching for? And why?

Perhaps the answers lie with the Movellans, a beautiful humanoid race led by Commander Sharrel. They are waging a war of their own with the Daleks and the situation is now stalemate. Should the Doctor tip the balance of power to aid the Daleks' ultimate destruction? Or are their intentions no less sinister than the Daleks' themselves?

Suddenly the Doctor finds himself enmeshed in a deadly battle which could result in the destruction of the universe itself as, once more, he summons the strength to face an all too familiar, timelessly evil adversary.

Trivia
------

• First appearance of the second incarnation of Romana.
  
  
• Second appearance of Davros (played in this story by David Gooderson).
  
  
• Although K-9 appears he doesn't speak due to laryngitis.

[Kidwizz]

E ~ Euro Sea Gas - Euro Sea Gas was a business corporation that provided gas for Europe and Great Britain. In the late 20th century, a Euro Sea Gas refinery headed by Robson and its off-shore rigs were attacked by a Weed Creature, but was defeated by the Doctor. (DW: Fury from the Deep)