Doctor Who & Spin-Offs A-Z Game

[Guest]

K ~ Key to Time, The - A figure presenting himself as the White Guardian commissions the Doctor, Romana and K-9 to find all six segments of the Key to Time, a cosmic artifact resembling a perfect cube that maintains the equilibrium of the universe. Too powerful for any single being to possess, it has been split into six different segments and scattered across space and time, disguised by the raw elemental power within them into any shape or size. However, the Guardian claims that the forces balancing the universe are so upset that the segments of the Key must be found and assembled, to stop the universe so that he can restore the balance.

The first segment is disguised as a lump of Jethryk on the planet Ribos. The second is actually the planet Callufrax, but that planet has been shrunk by the space-hopping pirate planet Zanak. The third is the Great Seal of Diplos, having been stolen by a criminal of that planet. The fourth is part of a statue on the planet Tara. The fifth has been consumed by the monster squid Kroll, causing it to grow to gigantic proportions. The final segment is in fact a female humanoid — Princess Astra.

In the final episode, the purported White Guardian attempts to take the Key from the Doctor. The Doctor sees through the figure's charade, however, reveals him as the Black Guardian in disguise, and once again scatters the segments of the Key across time and space.

[Alan]

L ~ Leisure Hive, The - 1980 story starring Tom Baker as "The Doctor", Lalla Ward as "Romana", and John Leeson as the voice of "K-9".

The Doctor and Romana take a holiday at the Leisure Hive on the planet Argolis, which is recovering from the legacy of a nuclear war with the Foamasi. However, when things start going wrong with the Tachyon Recreation Generator, the Doctor fears that a new war might be in the offing.

[Billz]

M ~ Marinus, The Keys Of,
The Keys of Marinus is a serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in 6 weekly parts from April 11 to May 16, 1964.

On a small island with a glass beach, surrounded by an acid sea, on the planet Marinus, stands a tower with many secret entrances. Within the tower is Arbitan, Keeper of the Conscience of Marinus, a vast computer developed two millennia earlier as a vast justice machine which kept law and order across the entire planet. For seven hundred years, the Conscience was absolute, radiating its power across the planet Marinus, and eliminating all thought of evil. But then a Voord named Yartek worked out how to resist its impulses.

When the First Doctor and his companions Barbara Wright, Ian Chesterton and Susan Foreman arrive on the island, they are brought into the tower to an audience with Arbitan, who explains that the society of Marinus is in danger. Several submersibles, containing Voord, humanoid creatures protected by amphibian-like black rubber wet suits, have washed up on the beach. Inspired by Yartek, the Voord are seeking to enter the tower and take control of the Conscience.

[Guest]

N ~ Nova Device - The Movellans failed to destroy the Daleks' homeworld of Skaro with this device in the serial 'Destiny of the Daleks'.

[Alan]

O ~ Orcini - Orcini was a Mercenary for hire and former Knight of the Grand Order of Oberon with a great sense of honour. He appeared in the 1985 story Revelation of the Daleks.

Orcini and his squire Bostock were hired to assassin the "Great Healer" who was based at the facility Tranquil Repose on the planet Necros. The "Great Healer" turned out to be Davros who was using the humans in stasis at Tranquil Repose and turning them into Daleks and Orcini and Bostock became victims of a Dalek assault. Bostock was killed, but when Davros was taken captive by the Daleks still loyal to the Emperor to be taken back to Skaro to stand trial for his crimes, Orcini sacrificed himself in an attempt to blow up Tranquil Repose before the Dalek ship that had landed there could leave. Unfortunately he failed but he was successful in destroying Davros' new Dalek breeding ground.

Orcini was played by William Gaunt.

[Guest]

P ~ Peladon - The setting of the Third Doctor serials 'The Curse of Peladon' and 'The Monster of Peladon'...
_______________________________
'The Curse of Peladon'

The Doctor and Jo make a test flight in the TARDIS and arrive on the planet Peladon. Seeking shelter, they enter the citadel of the soon-to-be-crowned King Peladon, where the Doctor is mistaken for a human dignitary summoned to act as Chairman of a committee assessing an application by the planet to join the Galactic Federation.

The other committee members - Alpha Centauri, Arcturus and the Martian Lord Izlyr and his Warrior subordinate Ssorg - have already arrived, but are disconcerted by the death of one of the King's advisors, Chancellor Torbis. High Priest Hepesh, who opposes the union with the Federation, attributes Torbis's death to the Curse of Aggedor, the sacred beast of Peladon. Other incidents occur and the Doctor concludes that a saboteur is at work.

Spoiler:

At first he suspects the Ice Warriors, but the guilty parties are eventually revealed to be Hepesh and Arcturus. Arcturus has convinced Hepesh that the Federation would only exploit Peladon for its mineral riches, whereas this is in fact his own race's intention. Arcturus is destroyed with a blast from Ssorg's sonic gun, but Hepesh escapes into a network of tunnels beneath the citadel, where he foments rebellion amongst the guards. The rebels storm the citadel and take the King prisoner.

Hepesh then orders Aggedor - a real beast he has been using for his own ends - to kill the Doctor. The Doctor, however, has tamed Aggedor, and it is Hepesh who dies.

_______________________________
'The Monster of Peladon'

The TARDIS returns to Peladon some fifty years after the Doctor's last visit. The planet is now ruled by Queen Thalira - daughter of the late King Peladon - with advice from Chancellor Ortron. The Doctor and Sarah are arrested by Ortron for trespassing on sacred ground but their names are cleared by Alpha Centauri, now Galactic Federation ambassador to Peladon.

Spoiler:

A ghost-like image of Aggedor has been responsible for some deaths in the planet's trisilicate mines, heightening unrest amongst the miners. The Doctor discovers that the apparitions are really the result of the use of a matter projector and a directional heat ray by a human engineer, Eckersley.

Eckersley is in league with a group of renegade Martian warriors, led by Commander Azaxyr, in a plot to seize the trisilicate deposits for Galaxy 5, a power bloc at war with the Federation. Azaxyr mounts an attack on the throne room and kills Ortron.

The Doctor however turns the heat ray on some of the Martians, while others are dispatched by the miners. Eckersley flees, taking the Queen hostage, but the Doctor uses the real Aggedor to track him down. Eckersley is killed, but Aggedor also dies in the skirmish.

Its plans thwarted, Galaxy 5 surrenders to the Federation. The Doctor is invited by Thalira to take over as Chancellor but he declines, suggesting the miners' leader Gebek would make a better candidate.

[Alan]

Q ~ Quinnis - At some point prior to the very first TV story An Unearthly Child, the Doctor and his granddaughter Susan Foreman visited the planet Quinnis. This planet and their visit to it was mentioned in the 1964 story The Edge of Destruction.

[Guest]

R ~ 'Revenge of the Cybermen' - Following on from 'Genesis of the Daleks', 'Revenge of the Cybermen' was first broadcast in four weekly parts from April 19 to May 10, 1975.

The time ring takes the Doctor, Sarah and Harry back to Nerva, but to a period many thousands of years earlier than their previous visit. The station is currently acting as a beacon warning space traffic of the existence of a new asteroid orbiting Jupiter.

Spoiler:

This is Voga, also known as the planet of gold as that metal can be found in abundance there. The three friends learn that a space plague has killed all but a handful of Nerva's crew. A visiting civilian scientist named Kellman is in fact a traitor working with a group of Cybermen who want to destroy Voga as gold dust can coat their breathing apparatus and suffocate them.

The 'plague' is the result of poison injected into its victims by Cybermats. The Cybermen invade the beacon and force the Doctor and two of the remaining humans to carry some cobalt bombs down into the heart of Voga.

Kellman however is really a double agent, secretly working with one faction of the Vogan race on the planet below. Their plan has been to lure the Cybermen onto the beacon and destroy it with a rocket, known as the Skystriker. The Doctor rids himself of the bomb he has been forced to carry and returns to the beacon, which the Cybermen evacuate on learning of the Vogans' intentions.

The missile is launched, but the Doctor gives instructions for it to be redirected away from the beacon and onto a collision course with the Cybermen's ship, which is thus destroyed.

[Alan]

S ~ Sound of Drums, The - 2007 story starring David Tennant as "The Doctor", Freema Agyeman as "Martha Jones", & John Barrowman as "Captain Jack Harkness".

The Master arrives in the 21st Century—as Harold Saxon, Prime Minister—and the world enters a period of terror when contact with an unknown alien race whom the Master calls the Toclafane is announced.

[Guest]

T ~ 'Terror of the Zygons' - Following on from 'Revenge of the Cybermen', 'Terror of the Zygons' was first broadcast in four weekly parts from August 30 to September 20, 1975. It also marked the final regular appearance in the series of companion Harry Sullivan.

The Fourth Doctor is summoned to Earth by an emergency signalling device he left with the Brigadier who is in Scotland investigating the mysterious loss of oil rigs.

[Alan]

U ~ Underworld - 1978 story starring Tom Baker as "The Doctor", Louise Jameson as "Leela", & John Leeson as the voice of "K-9".

Exploring the very edge of the known universe, the Doctor, Leela and K-9 discover a group of astronauts searching for the lost gene bank of Minyan race. During the perilous voyage, the astronauts' craft plunges into the heart of a recently formed planet, wherein an awesome secret is hidden.

How will the Minyan quest end? What must the Doctor wrest from the Heart of the Oracle?

[Guest]

V ~ 'Vengeance on Varos' - First broadcast in two weekly parts from January 19 to January 26, 1985.

The Doctor visits the planet Varos to obtain supplies of a rare ore called zeiton 7, vital to the functioning of the TARDIS. Varos was once a colony for the criminally insane and the descendants of the original guards still rule, while the poverty-stricken people are kept entertained by screenings of public torture from the Punishment Dome.

Their Governor has been trying to negotiate a better export price for zeiton ore from Sil, an envoy of the Galatron Mining Corporation, whose reptilian body is supported and kept cool by a mobile water tank.

The Doctor and Peri meet two rebels, Jondar and Areta. Peri and Areta are captured and almost reshaped into beast-like creatures by Quillam, the Dome's sadistic commandant, but the Doctor saves them and tells the Governor the true value of zeiton 7.

Quillam and Varos's Chief Officer, who are in the pay of the Corporation, try to kill the Doctor and the Governor but are themselves despatched. Sil plans an invasion of Varos by a force from his home world, Thoros-Beta, but the Corporation veto this and instruct him to buy the zeiton ore at any price.

[Alan]

W ~ Whatever Happened to Sarah Jane? - 2007 story of The Sarah Jane Adventures' 1st series.

Maria Jackson wakes up one morning to discover, much to her horror, that she is the only one who remembers Sarah Jane Smith. Their mutual friend Clyde Langer has never heard of her; Sarah's adopted son Luke is nowhere to be found; and a woman named Andrea Yates now lives in Sarah's house. Maria becomes convinced that Andrea has something to do with the vanished Sarah. But as she begins to uncover a tragedy in the distant past that involves both women, will Maria become the next person to be erased from history?

[Guest]

X ~ Xeraphin - The Xeraphin were highly psychic beings, able to wield psychokinetic energy, possess people in order to communicate, exert a hypnotic influence over people, and telepathically project components of their gestalt - such as people who have been absorbed into it - into other locations, even the interior of a TARDIS.

The power of the Xeraphin was controlled by two aspects, good and evil, of the same personality. The Master was able to access the Xeraphin power to perform what seemed to be conjuring tricks, as well as to create mass hallucinations, but the schism within the Xeraphin meant that the power was unstable - sometimes it worked for him, but sometimes it worked against him.

The Xeraphin were thought to have become extinct after the Vardon-Kosnax War, but the survivors fled to Earth and built a great citadel after their spacecraft crash-landed. Suffering from radiation poisoning the Xeraphin merged into a single bioplasmic organism. In this state they hoped to survive until the poisoning wore off. However, as the moment of their regeneration neared, the Master also arrived on Earth, his TARDIS having been damaged enough to leave him stranded there. In need of a new power source, the Master was irresistibly drawn to the Xeraphin sanctum and its power. At the moment of their regeneration, when the first-reborn Xeraphin emerged, the Master destroyed them with his Tissue Compression Eliminator. The Xeraphin retreated back to their resting place, and were apparently able to expel the Master from their sanctum.

Through the projection of his mind, the Master was able to communicate with the baseness of the Xeraphin being, but his intervention caused a schism in the Xeraphin nature that divided them into a good half and an evil half. The good half of the Xeraphin, which aided Tegan and Nyssa and resisted the Master, wanted to defeat the Master and become corporeal. The evil half of the Xeraphin, which had been aiding the Master, wanted to have its power used by the Master and feared by all others. The side that won would gain control of all the Xeraphin power.

The Xeraphin appeared in the Fifth Doctor's serial 'Time-Flight'.

[Alan]

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 Doctor twice managed to beat off two attempts by the Great Intelligence to overrun Earth with Yeti to kill off the population in the 1967 story The Abominable Snowmen and the 1968 story The Web of Fear. He also encountered a Yeti in the Death Zone on Gallifrey in the 1983 TV movie The Five Doctors.

In the straight-to- video spin-off special Downtime, the Doctor's friends and former companions Brigadier Alistair Lethbridge-Stewart, Sarah Jane Smith, and Victoria Waterfield fought off a third attempt by the Great Intelligence and the Yeti to takeover Earth.