Doctor Who & Spin-Offs A-Z Game

[Guest]

W ~ 'Web of Fear, The' - The TARDIS narrowly avoids becoming engulfed in a web-like substance in space. It then arrives in the London Underground railway system, the tunnels of which are being overrun by the web and by the Great Intelligence's robot Yeti.

The time travellers learn that this crisis was precipitated when Professor Travers, whom they first met in the Himalayas some forty years earlier, accidentally caused one of the Yeti to be reactivated, opening the way for the Intelligence to make another invasion attempt.

The travellers work alongside army forces - led initially by Captain Knight and then by Colonel Lethbridge-Stewart - as they battle against the alien menace, hampered by the fact that one of their number has fallen under the Intelligence's influence and is a traitor in their midst.

The Intelligence's ultimate aim is to drain the Doctor's mind. The Doctor manages to sabotage the device with which it intends to achieve this, so that he can drain the Intelligence's mind instead, but he is 'rescued' by his friends before he can bring his plan to fruition.

The Intelligence is repelled into space, and the Doctor and his friends leave the army to clear up the mess.

[Alan]

X ~ Xeraphin - The Xeraphin were an ancient species encountered by the Doctor in the 1982 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.

[Guest]

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 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'.

[Alan]

Z ~ Zero Room - Area in a TARDIS that helps a Time Lord deal with a potentially failing regeneration. In the 1982 story Castrovalva, the newly-regenerated 5th Doctor made use of his TARDIS' Zero Room until he was forced to jettison it along with several TARDIS rooms it in order to escape a trap set by the Master. Although gone, the Doctor had his companion Nyssa build a cabinet out of the Zero Room's remains. The cabinet was later destroyed.

[Guest]

A ~ 'Axos, The Claws Of' - The Axons land on Earth, desperately in need of fuel. They propose to exchange the miracle substance they call Axonite for some much needed energy. Axonite is a "thinking" molecule that can replicate any substance... or so they claim. As it turns out, the ship is a single organism called Axos whose purpose is to feed itself by draining all energy through the Axonite (which is just a part of itself), including the energy of every life form on Earth. The deception about the Axonite's beneficial properties was to facilitate the distribution of Axonite across the globe.

Meanwhile, the Master, who was captured by Axos and used his knowledge of Earth as a bargaining chip for his life and freedom, escapes Axos and makes his way to the Doctor's TARDIS — his own having been seized by Axos. He plans to repair it to escape from Earth.

[Alan]

B ~ Bessie - Name of the canary-yellow roadster driven by the 3rd Doctor during his exile on Earth from 1970 to 1974. It's registration was WHO 1 but later changed to WHO 7. Bessie first appeared in the 1970 story The Silurians. Bessie was not an ordinary car as the Doctor had made several high tech modifications to it which included - an anti-theft force field, a remote control, and a minimum inertia hyperdrive.

Bessie's last regular appearance was in the 1974 story Robot and was seen being driven by the newly-regenerated 4th Doctor.

Although Bessie was next seen in the 1983 TV movie The Five Doctors, its actual next chronological appearance was in the 1988 story Battlefield in which it was driven by the 7th Doctor. UNIT had kept Bessie in storage for the Doctor and presumably still does today.

[Guest]

C ~ Crystal of Kronos - From the Third Doctor serial 'The Time Monster', this is used by the Master to power his TOMTIT machine, but turns out to be something much more powerful.

[Alan]

D ~ Day of the Daleks - 1972 story starring Jon Pertwee as "The Doctor", Katy Manning as "Josephine 'Jo' Grant", Nicholas Courtney as "Brigadier Alistair Lethbridge-Stewart", John Levene as "Sergeant John Benton", and Richard Franklin as "Captain Mike Yates".

Synopsis
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World peace hangs in the balance. Sir Reginald Styles, a high-ranking diplomat is the only person that stands between mankind and a third and final World War. But a mysterious and savage guerrilla force from the 22nd Century believe Styles is the agent that shaped their terrifying future and therefore must die...

The Doctor and Jo find themselves flung into the guerrillas' world; a brutal dictatorship policed by the merciless and ape-like Ogrons. The Daleks have invaded Earth, enslaved the population and face certain triumph unless the Doctor betrays all he believes in and condones the cold-blooded murder of Styles in an attempt to change the course of history... irrevocably.

[Guest]

E ~ Eternals - Eternals 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.

[Alan]

F ~ Frontier in Space - 1973 story starring Jon Pertwee as "The Doctor" and Katy Manning as "Josephine 'Jo' Grant.

Synopsis
---------
It is the twenty-sixth century. Known space is divided between the great empires of Earth and Draconia. A fragile peace exists between the humans and the lizard-like Draconians, a peace that is put in jeopardy when each race claims that its cargo vessels are being raided by the other's warships.

When the TARDIS accidentally brings the Doctor and Jo aboard Earth cargo ship C982, they find it under attack. As the ship is boarded, a strange pulsing sound fills the air. The crew believe their attackers to be Draconians, but the Doctor and Jo see only Ogrons - brutish, simian mercenaries who steal the cargo, including the TARDIS, and head off into space.

The Doctor's investigations take him to Earth, the Moon and then to Draconia itself. He discovers that the Ogrons are employed by his sworn enemy, the Master, who is attempting to provoke a war between the space empires. The Doctor suspects the scale of the plan is too grand for the Master, but even he is shocked to discover the identity of the far deadlier foe waiting in the wings...

[Guest]

G ~ Genesis Ark - A Dalek-shaped prison ship created by the Time Lords to store millions of captured Daleks, introduced in 'Doomsday'. Like the TARDIS, it is bigger on the inside, containing millions of prisoners yet being only large enough to release one Dalek at a time. It is sucked into the Void after the Doctor opens the breach.

[Alan]

H ~ Harkness, Captain Jack - Captain Jack Harkness (sometimes simply "Captain Jack" to those close to him, or as the Doctor refers to him "Captain"), was the name adopted by a con man from the 51st century and a companion of the Doctor. His original identity remains a mystery, whenever asked he refuses to answer. Reluctantly immortal and stranded on early 21st century Earth, he leads Torchwood 3.

Jack's first appearance was in the 2005 Doctor Who story The Empty Child.

He is played by actor John Barrowman.

[Guest]

I ~ Ice gun - A fire extinguisher used by the Tenth Doctor to immobilise the Clockwork Droids in 'The Girl in the Fireplace'. The name "ice gun" was suggested by Mickey Smith. The Doctor called it a fire extinguisher.

[Alan]

J ~ Jagrafess - To give it it's full title - The Mighty Jagrafess of the Holy Hadrojassic Maxarodenfoe - appeared in the 2005 story The Long Game. It was a large, slimy, creature that attached itself to the ceiling of floor 500 on Satellite Five. It wanted to control the Earth through the use of a news station. The Jagrafess could not survive in extreme heat and was killed after one of the reporters purposely channeled the heat towards floor 500.

It was later revealed in the story Bad Wolf, that the Jagrafess was actually installed by the Daleks as part of a plan to manipulate Earth and steer history down a different route.

[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.