Doctor Who & Spin-Offs A-Z Game

[Alan]

O ~ O - A letter of the alphabet. It comes after N but before P.

Just kidding! Here we go:

O ~ Oberman, Tracy-Ann - Actress. Tracy-Ann Oberman was a guest star in the 2006 story Army Ghosts. She played Yvonne Hartman who was the director of Torchwood One in London.

[Guest]

P ~ Polly - (Anneke Wills)

Polly Travelled with the Doctor between 'The War Machines' and 'The Faceless Ones'.

Polly was the secretary of Professor Brett, who had developed a malevolent computer called WOTAN. Personable, and strong-willed, Polly had recently befriended a despondent sailor, Ben Jackson.

The Doctor defeated WOTAN and the tank-like mobile War Machines it commanded. The Doctor accidentally took off with Polly and Ben on board, leading them into a series of adventures, including the Doctor's first encounter with the Cybermen.

Ben and Polly were present when the Doctor regenerated for the first time. When their travels eventually returned them to contemporary Earth, Ben and Polly took the opportunity to leave.

[Kidwizz]

Q ~ Quarshie, Hugh - Hugh Quarshie (born 1954) played Solomon in Daleks in Manhattan and Evolution of the Daleks. Outside of Doctor Who, he is perhaps best known for playing Captain Panaka in Star Wars: The Phantom Menace.

[Guest]

R ~ Rutan Host - In their natural forms, Rutans resemble large green jellyfish, glowing blobs of biomatter with long ropy tentacles. They are amphibious and can cling to sheer vertical surfaces, with considerable mobility out of the water despite their shape. Rutans can also generate lethal bioelectrical shocks, and seem to be able to absorb electrical energy directly for sustenance. They reproduce by a process similar to binary fission, with each daughter Rutan carrying the memories of the parent. Rutans can speak, although the exact mechanism by which this works is unknown as they seem to lack mouths. The Rutan observed in 'Horror of Fang Rock' spoke with a harsh, tinny male voice.

The title "Rutan Host" implies a gestalt or group intelligence of some kind, and indeed Rutans never refer to themselves as individuals, preferring the first person plurals "we", "us" and "our(s)". Rutans are able to operate independently (and like the Sontarans, often dispatch scout units consisting of a single soldier), but they do not see individuals as important and all individual desires are subsumed by the general desire to win the war with the "Sontaran rabble".

Rutans have also developed advanced shape-shifting technology, allowing them to appear in any form they wish. They often use this technology to adapt to alien environments and infiltrate alien cultures; Rutans are consummate spies. A Rutan usually kills specific individuals and then impersonates them, though it is unclear whether this tactic is merely to prevent discovery or because they need to make a detailed examination of the body before adopting its shape.

[Kidwizz]

S ~ S'rax - he S'rax were Morgaine's forces, for she was their Battlequeen. They were knights with advanced, technological weapons. Guided by Morgaine's powers, they were also able to travel form their home dimension, the Thirteen Worlds, to ours.

[Guest]

T ~ Time Lords - The Time Lords are a group of humanoids, originating on the planet Gallifrey. The female members of this group, such as Romana, are sometimes called Time Ladies. Time Lords are so called because they are able to travel in and manipulate time through technology to a far greater degree than any other civilization.

[Kidwizz]

U ~ United Nations Intelligence Taskforce - UNIT (originally an acronym for United Nations Intelligence Taskforce, later the Unified Intelligence Taskforce) was a military organization that operates under the auspices of the United Nations. Its purpose is to investigate and combat paranormal and extraterrestrial threats to the Earth. UNIT was not the only alien defense organisation, but it was the one with which the Doctor would have the closest personal involvement.

[Guest]

V ~ Varga plant - The Varga plants (sometimes Vaarga) appeared in the First Doctor episode "Mission to the Unknown" and the serial "The Daleks' Master Plan".

Varga Plants grew naturally on the Daleks' homeworld, Skaro, and when the Daleks set up a base on the planet Kembel they brought some Varga plants with them to act as sentries in the jungle surrounding their base. They were suited to this as they could move around freely by dragging themselves along with their roots.

Varga plants resemble cacti; they are covered in fur and thorns. Anyone pricked by a Varga thorn will be consumed by the urge to kill, while simultaneously becoming a Varga plant themselves.

This grisly fate happened to astronauts Jeff Garvey and Gordon Lowery, and their commander, Marc Cory, was forced to kill them.

[Alan]

W ~ Web Planet, The - 1965 story starring William Hartnell as "The Doctor", Jacqueline Hill as "Barbara Wright", William Russell as "Ian Chesterton", & Maureen O'Brien as "Vicki Pallister".

The TARDIS is pulled off course by a mysterious force and trapped on the barren, desolate low-oxygen world of Vortis in the Isop galaxy. The Doctor, Barbara, Ian and Vicki are soon swept up in the struggles of the butterfly-like Menoptra, the original denizens of Vortis who were forced to flee the planet for the moon Pictos to escape the encroaching web of the Animus and its mind-controlled minions, the ant-like Zarbi and their living weapons, the Venom Grubs. With assistance from the caterpillar-like Optera, the devolved descendants of the planet's original inhabitants, the TARDIS crew and the Menoptra are able to destroy the Animus at the center of its web complex with the secret Menoptra weapon, the isotope-powered living cell destructor.

[Guest]

X ~ Xeraphin - The Xeraphin were an ancient species encountered by the Fifth Doctor in the story 'Time-Flight'. 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.

[Lilith]

Y~YANA: Acronym for "You Are Not Alone," the "buzz word" for s3 of the new who. It was also the name of the human professor in Utopia who held the Master's fob watch.

[Guest]

Z ~ Zarbi - The Zarbi appeared in the 1965 First Doctor story 'The Web Planet', 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 (with which they once lived peacefully) 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.

[Alan]

A ~ Aztecs, The - 1964 story starring William Hartnell as "The Doctor", Carole Ann Ford as "Susan Foreman", Jacqueline Hill as "Barbara Wright", & William Russell as "Ian Chesterton".

The arrival of the TARDIS in 15th century Mexico leads the crew to encounter the doomed Aztec people, a mixture of high culture and brutal savagery side by side; and matters are further complicated when Barbara is mistaken for a god and the Doctor becomes engaged to be married...

[Guest]

B ~ Brain of Morbius, The - Years ago, the Time Lord known as Morbius tried to lead a revolution but was executed for his ambition on the planet Karn. When the Fourth Doctor and Sarah arrive on the planet, they discover that, thanks to Dr Solon, the dead may rise...

[Billz]

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.