Doctor Who & Spin-Offs A-Z Game

[Guest]

G ~ Ghost Machine - An alien device appearing in "Ghost Machine", containing nanotechnological quantum transducers that can convert emotional energy left over from significant events into visions of those events. One half of the device allows the user to see the past, while the other allows them to see the future. Jack's report on the Torchwood Institute website speculates that it belonged to a "transdimensional being" that used it like a GPS receiver, locking on to significant events to locate itself while traveling in time and space. Another memo on the website shows that the team believed that the "ghost shifts" created by Torchwood One in "Army of Ghosts" made it easier for such residual memory "ghosts" to manifest themselves (although in actual fact they were simply helping Cybermen from a parallel universe to enter the world).

[Alan]

H ~ Harkness, Captain Jack - Originally from the 51st century and formerly a Time Agent and Con Man. Former companion to the 9th Doctor and then the 10th Doctor. Current leader of Torchwood Three in Cardiff in the 21st century.

Captain Jack Harkness first met the Doctor in the year 1941 during an attempt to con them into buying a ship but instead accidentally released Nano Genes which turned the human race into a sort of Gas Masked Zombie. Jack helped the Doctor and his companion Rose Tyler into setting things right and after his ship was destroyed, he was invited to join them aboard the TARDIS.

Jack was made immortal in the year 200,100 after being killed by Daleks and later being brought back to life by Rose who was channelling the power of the space / time vortex. He was abandoned by the Doctor but he used his wrist Vortex Manipulator to travel to Earth in the 21st century to catch-up with him but accidentally ended up in the year 1869.

Jack was killed for a second time in 1892 and it was after that he then realised that that he was ageless and immortal. In the year 1899, Jack was recruited by the Torchwood Institute and on New Year's Eve 1999, Jack became the leader of Torchwood Three after his predecessor killed all of his team and then himself. In 2008, after a century of waiting, Jack was reunited with the Doctor and he learnt about why the Doctor abandoned him and where his inability to die came from. Jack helped the Doctor and his new companion Martha Jones defeat the renegade Time Lord known as the Master from taking over Earth and the universe and then returned to Torchwood Three where he resumed his place as leader.

Jack's first appearance was in the 2005 Doctor Who story The Empty Child. His first Torchwood appearance was in the Series 1 première episode Everything Changes in 2006.

He is played by John Barrowman.

[Guest]

I ~ Invisible lift - A lift which runs from the Hub to the Roald Dahl Plass. Any person standing on the lift cannot be seen, due to the presence of a "perception filter" that was caused by a "dimensionally transcendental chameleon circuit placed right here on this spot which welded its perception properties to a spatial-temporal rift." In subsequent Doctor Who episodes, the Doctor and the Master use their TARDISes to apply perception filters to Chameleon Arch fob watches and in key chain necklaces to simulate invisibility.

[Alan]

J ~ Jackson, Ben - Ben Jackson was an Able Seaman of the British Merchant Navy. He originally came from the year 1966.

Ben first met the Doctor, Dorothea "Dodo" Chaplet, and Polly Wright in the nightclub Inferno. He later helped them in their fight in defeating the Artificial Intelligence WOTAN which attempted to take over the Earth by using machines. Afterward, Ben and Polly are the bearers of the news of "Dodo"'s decision to stay in 1966 to the Doctor, and accidentally get carried away in the TARDIS when they try to return "Dodo"'s key to the time machine.

The TARDIS took them to 1986 and he helped fend of an attack by Cybermen at the North Pole. Afterwards, he and Polly witnessed the Doctor's first regeneration. Ben and Polly continued travelling with the 2nd Doctor.

Eventually, the TARDIS finds its way back to 1966 London on the very day Ben and Polly had left (although about a year had passed for them). They decide to remain behind to resume their lives without disruption.

Ben Jackson first appeared in the 1966 story The War Machines. His last appearance was in the 1967 story The Faceless Ones.

Ben Jackson was played by the late Michael Craze.

[Guest]

K ~ Key of Rassilon - A Gallifreyan artifact that allows access to the Matrix, the repository of all Time Lord knowledge. It is kept by the Keeper of the Matrix, and should not be confused with the Great Key of Rassilon or the Rod of Rassilon.

[Alan]

L ~ Leela - Leela was a companion to the 4th Doctor. Leela first appeared in the 1977 story, The Face of Evil, where she was a warrior of the savage Sevateem tribe, who were the descendants of the crew of an Earth ship that crash landed on an unnamed planet in the far future. The name of her tribe, "Sevateem", was a corruption of "survey team". Although the Doctor at this point was content to travel alone, Leela forces her way into the TARDIS and continues to accompany the Doctor on his journeys.

In her travels with the Doctor, Leela faces killer robots (as seen in the story The Robots of Death), murderous homunculi (as seen in the story Talons of Weng-Chiang), the Rutan Host (as seen in Horror of Fang Rock), and the Sontaran invasion of the Doctor's home planet of Gallifrey. It is during this final adventure (the 1978 story The Invasion of Time) that she met and fell in love with Andred, a native Gallifreyan, and decides to stay behind to be with him. The first K-9 remains with her.

It was revealed in the 1982 story Arc of Infinity that Leela had married Andred.

In the New Adventures novel Lungbarrow, it is revealed that Leela and Andred are expecting a child, the first naturally conceived baby on Gallifrey for millennia.

In the 2005 story The End of the World, the Doctor revealed that Gallifrey was destroyed in a Time War between the Time Lords and an alien race (later revealed to be against Daleks in the following story Dalek). It is presumed that Leela was killed in this Time War when Gallifrey was destroyed.

Leela was played by Louise Jameson.

[Guest]

M ~ Miniscope - From the Third Doctor serial 'Carnival of Monsters'. Its use as a peep show containing various creatures is outlawed, but the Doctor found an active one in the hands of the Lurman entertainers Vorg and Shirna on the planter Inter Minor. Their miniscope included Drashigs, Cybermen, and humans on board a ship.

[Alan]

N ~ Ninth Doctor, The - It is unknown how the 9th Doctor came into existence but many presume that it was after the 8th Doctor sacrificed himself during or to end the Time War with the Daleks. The 9th Doctor first appeared in the 2005 story Rose.

After his regeneration, he travelled to the year 2005 and helped save London from an invasion by the Autons, living plastic automatons animated by the Nestene Consciousness. He did this with the help of Rose Tyler, a teenager whom he subsequently invited to be a companion in his travels. When they journeyed to Utah in 2012, the Doctor found that a single Dalek was being kept in a secret museum filled with alien artifacts. There, the first details of the Time War fought by the Time Lords and Daleks were revealed, and how it concluded with the mutual annihilation of both races, leaving the Doctor the last of the Time Lords. A young man named Adam Mitchell travelled with them from Utah.

The Doctor, Rose, and Adam travelled to the future to Satellite Five, where they discovered a plot by the Jagrafess to manipulate Earth through its mass media. When Adam tried to smuggle future knowledge back to his own time, he became the first companion to be deliberately expelled from the TARDIS.

Following a mysterious spaceship to wartime London in 1941, the Doctor and Rose met Captain Jack Harkness, a confidence trickster and former Time Agent from the 51st century. Jack's latest con nearly caused a deadly nano technological plague to sweep through the human race, but he helped the Doctor and Rose end it prior to joining the TARDIS crew.

When the Doctor and his companions became caught in a series of deadly versions of 20th Century game shows, they found themselves in the year 200,100 at the mercy of the Bad Wolf Corporation, based on Satellite Five. However, the true enemy was soon revealed to be the Daleks. The Dalek Emperor had survived the Time War, and had rebuilt the Dalek race. The Doctor sent Rose back to her own time in the TARDIS, before attempting to destroy the Dalek army. In doing so, he would have been forced to destroy a great part of the human race, which he ultimately finds himself incapable of doing. Meanwhile, after seeing more "Bad Wolf" graffiti, Rose realised it was somehow a message linking her to the events in the future. Managing to open up the heart of the TARDIS, she absorbed the energies of the time vortex, and used it to destroy the Daleks. In order to save Rose from being consumed from within by those energies, the Doctor absorbed the fatal energy himself. However, the damage to his cells caused him to regenerate into the 10th Doctor. He regenerates while still standing, warning Rose to keep away. His last words are, "Rose, before I go I just wanna tell you — you were fantastic...absolutely fantastic...and d'you know what? So was I!!"

The 9th Doctor was played by Christopher Eccleston.

[Guest]

O ~ Opera Glasses - These are a small set of binoculars that the Doctor carries with him in the 2005 episode "The Empty Child", as well as in the novel The Nightmare of Black Island. In the latter, he uses them to gain a closer view of Ynis Du's lighthouse. The actual origin of the glasses are unknown; however, the fact that they are described as having "computer-enhanced lenses" suggests that they are a product of some future time.

[Alan]

P ~ Pirate Planet, The - 1978 story starring Tom Baker as "The Doctor", Mary Tamm as "Romanadvoratrelunder (Romana) I", and John Leeson as "K-9 Mk. II". The Pirate Planet was the second chapter of The Key to Time series.

The Doctor, Romana and K-9 continue their search for the six segments that make up the powerful Key to Time.

The TARDIS lands on the world of Zanak, despite the Tracer indicating that they seek another planet altogether - Calufrax. On Zanak they find the populace living under the cruel tyranny of the Captain; a bullying, arrogant cyborg who is using the hollow planet as a giant spaceship materialising it around worlds and then mining them dry.

Living apart from the other people of Zanak are the Mentiads, a feared group of silent men with heightened extra-sensory powers. The Doctor tries to rally the Mentiads into attacking the Captain's base and free the planet from his control. But the Doctor has failed to realise who actually wields the power on Zanak.

Having failed to find the second segment, Romana finds herself put to work on the planet's massive engines, K-9 battles the lethal robot parrot Polyphase Avatron and the Doctor discovers the identity of the next planet targeted for destruction... Earth!

[Guest]

Q ~ Quantum Crystaliser - A device featured in the audio drama Human Resources used by the Celestial Intervention Agency to control time over a small area. It uses branching timelines to explore various possible futures and select the one it likes. Exposure to two Crystalisers causes dangerous instability, potentially leading to death.

[Alan]

R ~ Regeneration - Regeneration is a biological ability exhibited by the Time Lords, a race of humanoids originating on the planet Gallifrey. This process allows a Time Lord who has become too old or mortally wounded to undergo a transformation into a new physical form and a somewhat different personality. The Doctor has undergone this process 9 times and each time brought about by different circumstances:

The 1st Doctor - His regeneration was brought about when his body succumbed to natural causes.

The 2nd Doctor - His regeneration was forced on him by the Time Lords after he was found guilty of interfering in the affairs of other planets.

The 3rd Doctor - His regeneration was brought about after the cells of his body were severely damaged by radiation given of from a powerful crystal from the planet Metebelis III.

The 4th Doctor - His regeneration was caused after being mortally wounded following a fatal fall off of the Pharos Project Telescope.

The 5th Doctor - His regeneration was brought about after his body contracted the fatal disease Spectrox Toxaemia.

The 6th Doctor - His regeneration was caused after absorbing energy fatal to him and suffering a mortal head wound after his TARDIS was attacked.

The 7th Doctor - He was gunned down during a gunfight. Although the wounds weren't fatal, he was taken to hospital to have the bullets removed and had an unnecessary medical procedure was performed on him after it was believed his cardiovascular system was damaged. The procedure went wrong and appeared to kill him. But the Doctor had actually faked his death to escape the surgery so as to have the privacy of a morgue to regenerate to recover from his gunshot wounds.

The 8th Doctor - His regeneration was not seen but it is believed to have happened either during the Time War with with the Daleks or whilst ending it.

The 9th Doctor - His regeneration was caused after he absorbed the power of the space/time vortex to save his companion which quickly destroyed the cells of his body.

[Guest]

S ~ Seal of Rassilon - A spiralling insignia somewhat reminiscent of a Celtic knot, it serves as a logo of the Time Lords. It is seen in multiple episodes of the series to designate the Time Lords and Gallifrey. The Seal is most often seen on Time Lord architecture and artifacts, as well as badges on ceremonial clothing. The Seal was featured heavily in the interior design of the Eighth Doctor's TARDIS. It was seen most recently in "The Sound of Drums", set in stonework beneath the Untempered Schism.

[Alan]

T ~ Torchwood - Spin-off series from Doctor Who which started in 2006. It stars John Barrowman as "Captain Jack Harkness", Eve Myles as "Gwen Cooper", Burn Gorman as "Dr. Owen Harper", Naoko Mori as "Toshiko 'Tosh' Sato", and Gareth David-Lloyd as "Ianto Jones".

The series is set in Cardiff and follows the Welsh branch of a covert agency called the Torchwood Institute which investigates extraterrestrial incidents on Earth and scavenges alien technology for its own use (its origins are outlined in the Doctor Who 2006 story Tooth and Claw). To paraphrase Torchwood Three's commander-in-chief, Captain Jack Harkness, the organisation is separate from the government, outside the police, and beyond the United Nations. Their public perception is as merely a 'special ops' group.

The events of the first series of Torchwood take place some time after the Doctor Who series two finale, in which Torchwood's London headquarters was destroyed (as seen in Army of Ghosts), and just before the series three penultimate and finale stories (Utopia and The Sound of Drums respectively).

[Guest]

u ~ Umbrella - The Seventh Doctor carried, from "Delta and the Bannermen" onwards, an umbrella with a question-mark shaped handle. He had ceased using it by the time of his last appearance in the Doctor Who television movie. The Sixth Doctor occasionally carried a different umbrella, a multicolored model with a straight handle. This was destroyed in the Seventh Doctor's first story, "Time and the Rani", leading to the question-mark umbrella. The first time the Doctor is seen on screen with an umbrella (this one a simple black one), is in the story "The Krotons" with the Second Doctor.