Doctor Who & Spin-Offs A-Z Game

[Alan]

R ~ Raxacoricofallapatorian - The Raxacoricofallapatorians were a race from the planet Raxacoricofallapatorius.

Raxacoricofallapatorians were large, bulky humanoids, up to eight feet tall. They were well adapted to their home-planet, with large eyes for seeing through the blizzards of the poles and powerful arms to swim through the oceans. They had thick, lumpy skin, ranging in colour from a yellowish green to a paler, grey-green.

Raxacoricofallapatorians hatched from large green eggs with several tendrils and would break out of these eggs using their powerful claws . By the age of 12, Raxacoricofallapatorians were still considered children and were shorter than a Human of equivalent age.

Raxacoricofallapatorians had a great instinct to hunt, and would use their strength and poison-tipped claws to kill their prey. Despite their large bulk, they were also capable of surprising speeds and could easily overpower a Human. Raxacoricofallapatorians could hunt by scent and could identify an individual's species, age, sex, emotional state and location by it. This sense of smell was officially the best in the Galaxy. They could also sense the pain of closely related individuals from far away.

Raxacoricofallapatorians first appeared in the 2005 Doctor Who story Aliens of London. Their last appearance, to date, was in the 2007 The Sarah Jane Adventures story The Lost Boy. A Raxacoricofallapatorian also appeared in The Sarah Jane Adventures 2009 Comic Relief mini-episode From Raxacoricofallapatorius With Love.

[Guest]

S ~ Slyther - The Slyther was a monster that served the Daleks. It was seen in episodes four and five of 'The Dalek Invasion of Earth' (1964), guarding the Dalek mines in Bedfordshire. After the Slyther attacked a small group of humans, killing Ashton, Ian hit it with a rock, causing it to fall down a pit to its death.

[Alan]

T ~ Terminus - 1983 story starring Peter Davison as "The Doctor", Sarah Sutton in her final regular appearance as "Nyssa", Janet Fielding as "Tegan Jovanka", and Mark Strickson as "Vislor Turlough".

Synopsis
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Sabotage! The TARDIS is breaking up! Thanks to the combined efforts of the treacherous Turlough and his evil master, the Black Guardian, the Doctor and his companions are in terrible danger. The outside world has begun to break through and Nyssa has disappeared.

Can the TARDIS' fail safe mechanism save them all by docking with another ship? Unlikely, when the nearest vessel is a carrier of plague victims destined for the infamous Terminus, the time-bomb planet ticking at the centre of the universe...

[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.

[Alan]

V ~ Valeyard, The - The Valeyard was an entity created between the Doctor's "twelfth and final incarnations", perhaps the essence of the Doctor's dark side from that time.

Other than a cryptic hint as to the Valeyard's origins as the Doctor's future self (or part of his self), we do not know the origins of the Valeyard.

The Valeyard served as the prosecutor during the trial of the Doctor. He presented extracts from the Matrix depicting past events in the Doctor's life as evidence of the Doctor violating the non-interference policy of the Time Lords. Later in the trial he added a charge of genocide against the Vervoids.

The Valeyard had secretly tampered with the Matrix extracts to show the Doctor in the worst possible light and steer the trial to a guilty verdict. The Valeyard was acting on behalf of the High Council to cover up the Ravolox affair. As payment, the Valeyard was to have received the Doctor's remaining regenerations. The Master stepped in and revealed the Valeyard's true origins.

The Valeyard escaped into the Matrix via the Seventh Door, which he opens using a copy of the Key of Rassilon. He is pursued and finally defeated by the Doctor when an explosion the Valeyard had intended to destroy the court is fed back into the Matrix due to the Doctor's tampering.

However, as the Inquisitor dismissed the trial and the Doctor and his companion departed, the Valeyard was also present, disguised as the Keeper of the Matrix.

The Valeyard appeared in the 1986 story The Trial of a Time Lord. He was played by Michael Jayston.

[Guest]

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.

[Alan]

X ~ Xanthoid - The Xanthoid were a species known to the Doctor. They used Volatalisers in their mining operations.

The Xanthoid were mentioned in the novelisation of the TV story, Terror of the Autons.

[Guest]

Y ~ Yana, Professor - Professor Yana appeared to be a Human scientist, who was in reality an incarnation of the renegade Timelord known as the Master.

Just as John Smith had false memories concerning his early life, Yana's might have remembered false memories created when Yana came to existence. It can be said with some degree of certainty that at least 17 years of Yana's memories prior to Utopia are real, as that is how long he had been with Chantho.

Physically Human, Yana was an orphan found on the coast of the Silver Devastation with only a fob watch, which in reality held the Timelord self of the Master. He could never keep time and was always late for things. He spent his life moving from one refugee ship to another and all his life he heard the sound of drums every waking hour as if they were getting closer.

In actuality, as the Doctor had done, he had subsumed his identity into that of a human form and locked his actual Timelord identity into the fob watch. As the Master later observed, this disguise was so perfect that he forgot who he was, although Yana was plagued by half-remembered fragments of his former life (a fallout of the fob watch) and terrible headaches in which he heard the beat of drums (which had been harassing the Master's mind since he stared directly at the Time Vortex, at Gallifrey). Yana retained the Master's brilliant intellect and ultimately became responsible for sending the remnants of Humanity to Utopia.

He eventually became friends with the last of Malmooth race, scientist Chantho, thought to be the last of her kind. Together, they worked on the Utopia Project to get the humans from the planet Malcassairo to Utopia.

Yana met the Doctor and Martha Jones who said phrases curiously familiar to him, phrases such as Time Vortex, Time War and regeneration. Martha made the Professor suspicious of a watch in his possession, so that, hearing voices in his mind that commanded and entreated him; he activated the device and returned to his true identity.

As the Master, he let down the defences allowing the Futurekind in and dismantled the components, which allowed the system for the rocket to start up in the first place. Chantho held him at gunpoint. The Master grabbed the loose end of the live electrical cable and first threatened and then fatally attacked her, incidentally killing the last of the Malmooth.

As the Master grabbed the Doctor's hand, which Jack Harkness had brought to Malcassario, the dying Chantho managed to shoot him before she died herself. The Master stumbled into the Doctor's TARDIS with the hand, locked the door with a deadlock seal and regenerated.

The name Yana is thought to be an acronym of "You Are Not Alone", a reference to the Face of Boe's dying words.

[Alan]

Z ~ Z-Bomb - The Z-Bomb was a doomsday weapon of which by 1986 two or three were available at strategic positions around the Earth. One of them was in the hands of the International Space Command, and their secretary general had the authority to order it used. This particular Z-bomb was located at Snowcap base in Antarctica.

When activated, it caused a nuclear explosion that was said to be powerful enough to split an Earth-sized planet in half.

When Cybermen ships were heading for Earth, General Cutler wanted to use the bomb to destroy Mondas, despite concerns that the radiation effects might kill everyone on the side of the Earth facing the explosion, and that the planet targeted might even turn in a supernova. Cutler considered this an acceptable risk, but his personnel sabotaged the missile.

However, once the Cybermen took control of the base, they planed to use the bomb to blow up the Earth, thus saving their own planet from the effects of the energy transfer between the two worlds. They failed and Mondas was destroyed.

[Guest]

A ~ Alpha Centauri - Alpha Centauri is an alien delegate for the Galactic Federation.

Alpha Centauri is a hermaphroditic hexapod from Alpha Centauri. It is tall, green, has one large blue eye, six arms and a high-pitched voice, wears a long yellow cape and walks with a nervous gait. It is prone to cowardice and hysterics. It has a low opinion of Earth, describing it as a "'remote and unattractive" planet, but regrets that its appearance can frighten humans. It regards females as unimportant.

It appeared in 'The Curse of Peladon' and 'The Monster of Peladon'.

[Alan]

B ~ Bubble Shock! - The Bane attempted to use the orange-coloured Bubble Shock! soft drink in order to control the Earth's Human population.

Bubble Shock! in fact contained secretions from the Bane Mother. When consumed, the secretions of the mother entered the body of humans, allowing the Bane to control them. Sarah Jane Smith's technology even detected the drink as an alien life form in its own right. A free bus took children to tour the Bubble Shock! factory. Upon entering the building, the children were analysed by a scanning device. These analyses served to create the Archetype, a human child grown by the Bane to determine why 2% of the Human population had an immunity to the enzyme. The machine however was disguised by name as an alarm system and metal detector to stop children from attempting to find out about its true purpose.

Pushed into a corner, Mrs Wormwood, the leader of the invasion, into turning Bubble Shock! consumers into possessed slaves who offered the drink to anyone who had not already taken it. With the death of the Bane Mother, however, the drink apparently lost its power. Afterwards, the possession of various humans was attributed to the ingredients in Bubble Shock! causing a combination of causing "chemical imbalances".

Bubble Shock! featured in The Sarah Jane Adventures 2007 TV movie Invasion of the Bane.

[Guest]

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.

[Alan]

D ~ Destiny of the Daleks - 1979 story starring Tom Baker as "The Doctor" and introducing Lalla Ward as "Romana".

Synopsis
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Accompanied by the newly regenerated Romana, the Doctor lands on a mystery planet intrigued by the evidence of drilling taking place there, deep underground.

The discoveries he makes are chilling. For the planet is Skaro and the Daleks are in charge of the operation. But just what are his old enemies searching for? And why?

Perhaps the answers lie with the Movellans, a beautiful humanoid race led by Commander Sharrel. They are waging a war of their own with the Daleks and the situation is now stalemate. Should the Doctor tip the balance of power to aid the Daleks' ultimate destruction? Or are their intentions no less sinister than the Daleks' themselves?

Suddenly the Doctor finds himself enmeshed in a deadly battle which could result in the destruction of the universe itself as, once more, he summons the strength to face an all too familiar, timelessly evil adversary.

[Guest]

E ~ 'Earthshock' - The TARDIS arrives on Earth in the 26th Century in a cave system containing numerous dinosaur fossils. The Doctor's party comes under suspicion from a military force, led by Lieutenant Scott, who are investigating the disappearance of a group of palaeontologists and geologists. They are all then attacked by androids - the true culprits - under the control of the Cybermen.

The Doctor manages to deactivate a bomb intended by the Cybermen to destroy an imminent peace conference. He then follows the bomb's activating signal to an approaching space freighter, commanded by Captain Briggs, on board which it transpires that an army of Cybermen are concealed.

An attempt by Adric to thwart the Cybermen's plans result in the freighter being inadvertently sent millions of years into the past, where it explodes and causes the extinction of the dinosaurs - and also the death of Adric. The Doctor destroys the Cyber Leader by forcing into its chest unit some gold fragments from a badge previously worn by Adric.

[Alan]

F ~ Father's Day - 2005 story starring Christopher Eccleston as "The Doctor" and Billie Piper as "Rose Tyler".

Synopsis
----------
The Doctor takes Rose back to 1987, to witness the day her father died. But when she interferes in the course of events, the monstrous Reapers are unleashed upon the world, and a wedding day turns into a massacre. Even the Doctor is powerless, as the human race is devoured.