Doctor Who & Spin-Offs A-Z Game

[Alan]

L ~ Lazarus Experiment, The - 2007 story starring David Tennant as "The Doctor" & Freema Agyeman as "Martha Jones".

Synopsis
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When the Doctor takes Martha home after her "one trip", he decides to stay around to witness the experiment of a man who claims to be able to "change what it means to be human".

[Guest]

M ~ Macra - The Macra first appear in the 1967 Second Doctor story 'The Macra Terror'. They are an intelligent, giant crab-like species from an unnamed planet colonised by humanity in the future. The Macra invade the control centre of the colony and seize the levers of power without the colonists — including their Pilot — knowing what had happened. Thereafter the Macra only appear at night, when the humans are in their quarters, observing a curfew. They have strong hypnotic powers which alter human perception. They also have the ability to ensure messages are vocalised through electronic apparatus such as television or sensor speakers. Both these tools are used to keep the human colonists under control, believing they are blissfully happy. This provides a cover for the Macra to use the colonists as miners in a vast gas mine. The gas is deadly to the miners but vital to the Macra, enabling them to move more quickly and rejuvenating their abilities. The Second Doctor effects a revolution on the Macra planet and helps engineer an explosion in the control centre, destroying the Macra in charge.

The Macra also feature in the 2007 episode 'Gridlock', becoming the only one-off opponent of the Doctor in the classic series to appear in the revived series so far. In the episode, some Macra are found to be alive below New New York, a city of New Earth. They live in the thick fog of exhaust gases on the main motorway under the city, tracking the flying cars by their lights and snatching at them when they get too close. The Doctor says that the species is billions of years old and once developed a mighty empire as "the scourge of this galaxy", but the Macra beneath New New York must have devolved into nothing more than beasts.

[Alan]

N ~ Ninth Doctor, The - The circumstances surrounding the Doctor's eighth regeneration in to his ninth incarnation are unknown but it is believed that the 9th Doctor came in to existence after the Doctor ended the Time War with the Daleks at the cost of his eighth life. After his regeneration, the 9th Doctor travelled alone having several adventures which took him to Krakatoa in the 19th century, Southampton in 1912, and Texas in 1963 until he met teenager Rose Tyler in London in 2005 during his investigations into another attempt by the Nestene Conciousness to use Autons to take over Earth. After defeating this threat, he subsequently invited Rose to join him on-board the TARDIS.

After several adventures the Doctor and Rose were joined briefly by Adam Mitchell from the year 2012 until he attempted to steal technological secrets from the year 200,000 and the Doctor took him home. Later, after 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 nanotechnological plague to sweep through the human race, but he helped the Doctor and Rose end it prior to joining the TARDIS crew.

The Doctor and his companions became caught in a series of deadly versions of 20th Century game shows on Satellite 5, in the year 200,100. Eventually the Doctor learns that 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. Rose returned to Satellite 5 after opening up the heart of the TARDIS and absorbing 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 his tenth incarnation.

The 9th Doctor was played by Christopher Eccleston.

[Guest]

O ~ Ood - The Ood are a humanoid species with coleoid tentacles on the lower portions of their faces. In the distant future (circa 42nd century), the Ood are a slave race to humanity, performing menial tasks, and it is claimed that every human has an Ood servant. According to human characters in their first appearance, the Ood offer themselves for servitude willingly, having no goals of their own except to be given orders and to serve. It is also claimed that they cannot look after themselves, and if they do not receive orders, they pine away and die. However, mention is made of a group called the "Friends of the Ood" who are apparently lobbying for Ood freedom. Ood also have purple blood.

The Ood require a translator device, a small sphere connected to their "mouths" by a tube, to facilitate speech between them and humans. The tube was originally connecting their external brains to their body, but to use the creatures, far future humans would amputate the brain and instead fix the translator sphere where the brain used to be. There appears to be no gender differentiation among the Ood, and they say they require no names or titles as they are "one", but they do have designations such as "Ood 1 Alpha 1". The Ood are empaths, sharing among themselves a low-level telepathic communication field, rated at "Basic 5" (with "Basic 30" being the equivalent of screaming and "Basic 100" meaning brain death). When reaching out with their telepathic fields, it can be heard as singing. According to the Official Doctor Who Annual 2007 the Ood live on a planet in the Horsehead Nebula where they were governed by a Hive Mind but it was destroyed by Human colonists. According to the monster book Creatures and Demons, published in 2007, it says they come from the "Ood Sphere", close to the "Sense Sphere" planet, home to the Sensorites, who share a similarity with the Ood. With no hive mind the Ood offered themselves to the Human colonists and became a slave race.

When encountered by the Tenth Doctor and Rose Tyler in 'The Impossible Planet', a large number of Ood accompanied a human-led expeditionary force on the planet Krop Tor, orbiting a black hole. The empathic nature of the Ood seemed to make them susceptible to psychic possession by the Beast, who formed the Ood on the base into his "Legion". While possessed, the Ood 'zapped' and killed two human security guards by throwing their translation spheres at them.

The Ood were defeated when Danny Bartok, the expedition member in charge of them, broadcasted a telepathic flare which reduced their field to "Basic Zero", creating a "brainstorm" which caused them to collapse. However, the telepathic field began to reassert itself after a time. When Krop Tor was sucked into the black hole, the Doctor was unable to save any of the Ood on the base, who had been freed of the Beast's control, and all of them perished. It is unknown if the Ood on Earth, which were seen in 'The Impossible Planet's TARDISODE, and on their home planet of the Ood Sphere, were influenced by the Beast's control, or not.

On the return of the Ood in the 2008 story 'Planet of the Ood', it was revealed that they are not, in fact, born to serve, but are an enslaved race, with the translation spheres actually replacing their hind brain which had contained their individual personalities. The Doctor aids and successfully frees the race by releasing the main Ood brain, which links all Ood with a telepathic link (which may be why they were before only able to communicate at basic 5). Before this time it had been sequestered away from the Ood for 200 years by Ood Operations, the corporation that processed the Ood slaves. Over that time the brain adapted (assisted by the gradual lowering of its suppression field by a Friends Of The Ood activist who had infiltrated Ood Operations), allowing it to influence the Ood's actions. It made some Ood feral and vengeful (causing their eyes to glow as possession by the Beast did), while directing another to genetically re-engineer the head of the slave trading company into an Ood. Once the Hive brain was freed, the Oods' song could be heard throughout the Human Empire, by Ood and Human alike. After this, all Ood were freed and sent back to the planet of the Ood. In 2008, as part of the first wave of series 4 action figures, there will be releases of a natural Ood and Ood Sigma. There has previously been a release of a normal Ood action figure.

[Alan]

P ~ Planet of Fire - 1984 story starring Peter Davison as "The Doctor" and features the last appearances of Mark Strickson as "Vislor Turlough", Gerald Flood as "Kamelion", and also introduces Nicola Bryant as "Perpugilliam 'Peri' Brown".

Synopsis
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A strange signal from Earth draws the TARDIS to the island of Lanzarote. While the Doctor tries to track the source of the signal, his companion Turlough rescues a young American girl, Peri, from drowning. She is holding an artefact made from platinum bearing a strange symbol - the same symbol that Turlough himself carries on his arm, branded into the flesh...

It is the artefact that is emitting the signal, leading them all to the planet Sarn, a world ravaged by volcanoes and yet holding the secret of eternal life. But an old foe of the Doctor's is desperate for this elixir, and will stop at nothing to gain it.

What is Turlough's link to the artefact? What is the nature of Sarn's mythical god, Logar, and how is it linked to the ruined spaceship crashed on a mountainside? As age-old systems of belief begin to break down, will anyone escape from the planet of fire with their life?

[Guest]

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

[Alan]

R ~ Remembrance of the Daleks - 1988 story starring Sylvester McCoy as "The Doctor" and Sophie Aldred as "Ace".

Synopsis
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London, 1963. The Doctor returns - with his new companion Ace - to tackle some unfinished business.

Once again, unusual events are unfolding at Coal Hill School and Totters, Lane junkyard. The Doctor discovers that his oldest foes, the Daleks, are on the trail of hidden Time Lord technology - technology that he himself left behind on Earth six regenerations ago. The Daleks are planning to perfect their own time-travel capability in order to unleash themselves across all of time and space. Can the Doctor, even with the help of the local military, stop the Daleks from stealing Gallifreyan secrets? Or are things even more complicated?

Two opposing Dalek factions meet in an explosive confrontation with the fate of the entire Universe at stake!

[Guest]

S ~ SIDRAT - Dimensionally transcendent time machines named SIDRATs were provided by the War Chief to the alien race known as the War Lords in 'The War Games'. According to the novelisation of the story by Malcolm Hulke, SIDRAT is an acronym for Space and Inter-Dimensional Robot All-purpose Transporter, as well as the backwards spelling of TARDIS.

[Alan]

T ~ Time Controller - In the story Remembrance of the Daleks, the Time Controller was the device used by Renegade Daleks to travel back in time from the 47th century to 1963 in order to gain possession of the Hand of Omega.

[Guest]

U ~ Untempered Schism - A gap in the fabric of reality, the Untempered Schism allows one to look directly into the Time Vortex. It is depicted as a stonework portal through which one sees the Time Vortex unaided. Gallifreyan children are taken to the Schism at the age of eight and made to face the Schism as a form of initiation into the Time Lord Academy. According to Tenth Doctor, Gallifreyan children who look into the time vortex through the Untempered Schism were either inspired, ran away, or went mad. In a flashback during 'The Sound of Drums', the Master is seen looking into the Schism as a child, an event that Tenth Doctor describes as the moment the Master went mad. The Doctor says he himself was one of those who "ran away, and never stopped".

[Alan]

V ~ Vengeance on Varos - 1985 story starring Colin Baker as "The Doctor" and Nicola Bryant as "Peri Brown".

Synopsis
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On the planet of Varos, prisoners and guards alike are subject to the severest forms of punishment, which are then broadcast to the masses as entertainment.

For the Doctor, Varos is the only hope for him to locate the rare mineral Zeiton-7, which powers his ailing TARDIS. But when he and Peri arrive, they are caught up in events beyond their control...

Freeing the rebel leader Jondar and incurring the wrath of the sinister alien Sil are just the beginnings of their ordeal. Hunted through the concealed terrors of the Punishment Dome, the Doctor becomes the subject of Varos's latest TV entertainment. But this is one show where he is not expected to survive beyond the cliffhanger...

[Guest]

W ~ Weeping Angels - The Weeping Angels are a group of hunters featured in the Tenth Doctor episode 'Blink'. Because their physiology is quantum-locked, they only occupy a single position in space when seen by an observer. When they are not observed they become a "quantum wave form" that occupies many positions in space, thus they cannot move while being observed; but when they are not they can appear to travel exceedingly quickly. They use this ability to approach and attack unwary prey. They turn to stone when observed, acting as a defense mechanism. While in their locked state they appear as stone statues, often covering their eyes so that they will not see each other and lock themselves forever in stone form. This defense mechanism is what gave them the name "Weeping Angels".

According to the Doctor, the Angels are as old as the universe (or very nearly) but no one really knows where they come from. He also describes them as "creatures of the abstract", "the lonely assassins", and "the only psychopaths in the universe to kill you nicely", because their method of killing doesn't do anything of the sort: a touch sends their victims into the past to live out their lives before they were even born; the Angels then feed on the "potential energy" of the lives their victims would have lived in the present.

In 'Blink', a quartet of Weeping Angels strand the Doctor and his companion Martha Jones in the year 1969, and attempt to feed off the vast potential energy reserves of the TARDIS. Despite dispatching the Doctor, the Angels fail to get into the TARDIS; though they get the key, they can't find the machine itself. Sally Sparrow takes the key from one of them while it is in stone form, leading them to stalk Sally to regain it. During their pursuit, Sally inadvertently leads them to the TARDIS. Eventually the four Angels, having surrounded the TARDIS, are tricked into looking at each other when the box disappears, leaving them deadlocked in their stone forms.

[Alan]

X ~ X-Ray - In the 1970 story Spearhead from Space, the newly regenerated 3rd Doctor was examined with an x-ray by the human medics caring for him and revealed to them his Gallifreyan physiology of having 2-hearts.

In the 2005 story Dalek, the 9th Doctor was subjected to a highly advanced type of x-ray machine which not only scanned him but also caused him significant pain.

[Guest]

Y ~ Yeti - Although resembling the cryptozoological creatures also called the Yeti, these 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'.

The sound effect of a Yeti's roar is created by slowing down the sound of a flushing toilet.

[Alan]

Z ~ Zed, Tobias "Toby" - Human who lived in the 42nd century. Tobias "Toby" Zed worked at Sanctuary Base Six on the planet Krop Tor as an Archaeologist. Whilst examining artefacts and trying to decipher the inscriptions and glyphs, Zed fell under the influence of the Beast. It transferred all of its intelligence and evil in to him in order to escape its chained mortal body beneath the surface of Krop Tor. The Beast also gained control of the Ood and forced the possessed-Toby and the other humans of the base, which included Rose Tyler to get to an escape ship. The 10th Doctor discovered the Beasts intents and he forced it to reveal itself to Rose on-board the ship. She ejected Toby and the Beasts consciousness within him out in to space.

Tobias Zed was played by Will Thorp in the 2006 story The Impossible Planet.