Doctor Who & Spin-Offs A-Z Game

[Spimman]

P ~ Paradox Machine Designed by the Master in 'The Sound of Drums', the device is constructed from the Doctor's TARDIS, centred around the main console with several large pipes leading into it, installed on the airborne aircraft carrier Valiant. The paradox machine uses the power of the TARDIS to prevent the universe from collapsing under the inherent logical contradiction of a grandfather paradox when the Toclafane kill their ancestors, modern day humans. When destroyed, it has the effect of reversing time up to the point immediately before it was originally activated. However, those in proximity to the device are immune to this effect by virtue of being in the "eye of the storm", the radius of which is at least sufficient to encompass the Valiant. The paradox machine was destroyed by Jack Harkness who shot at it with a machine gun.

[Alan]

Q ~ Quark - Quarks were the robot slaves of the Dominators' galactic empire also known to have conquered worlds on their own. Quarks were cuboid in shape with a sphere on top two spikes come from opposite sides of this sphere and one comes out on top. They had rectangular compartments on their chests where their cuboid gun folded inside. The spore spikes were red along with the rim attaching them all. The rest of the sphere is black and the body is grey. The robots feet were large pieces of metal in the shape of a block; poles attach these to the body. Quarks communicate with bleeps and shrill squeaks.

Quarks were originally the robot servants of the Near-Human Dominators. The Doctor and his companions first encountered them on Dulkis. Among other tasks, they operated drills for the Dominators. Other accounts show the Quarks working alone, without reference to the Dominators.

The Quarks attempted to invade Earth several times, once in 1971 when they caused the Quarks caused the Martha series of robots, which were invented by the Doctor to do housework, to turn against humanity as a prelude to their invasion and in the later part of the 20th century, led by Dominators they invaded Earth secretly and came up against UNIT. In 2044, the Quarks arrived on the planet Hekton to kill the Doctor, but were defeated by the Human colonists and in 2053, a Quark pursued the Doctor when he participated in an automobile race on Earth.

[Guest]

R ~ Reaper - Reapers appeared in the Ninth Doctor episode 'Father's Day'. Although not named on screen, they were referred to as "Reapers" in the publicity material for the episode. The production team based their design on the Grim Reaper, with their tails shaped like scythes.

Reapers are multi-limbed, flying creatures similar to pterosaurs, with a large wingspan, sharp teeth both in the form of a beak and a secondary mouth in their torsos, coupled with a rapacious attitude. The Reapers are apparently extradimensional, materialising and dematerialising out of the spacetime vortex. They are attracted to temporal paradoxes that damage time, like bacteria swarming around a wound. They then proceed to "sterilise" the wound by consuming everyone in sight.

Once in this dimension, however, they can be blocked by material barriers. The older the barriers, the more effective they are, but even the oldest of barriers cannot stop them forever. Paradoxes can also allow them to directly materialise at the spot of the paradox. If the timeline is restored, they vanish, with their actions reversed as if they had never happened.

In 'Father's Day', the Doctor explained that when the Time Lords were still around, there were laws to prevent the spread of paradoxes and that such paradoxes could be repaired. This implies that the Reapers are a natural phenomenon whose manifestation could be prevented if the paradox was resolved quickly. However, with the elimination of the other Time Lords in the Time War, there was no longer any agency that could repair time.

[Alan]

S ~ Seventh Doctor, The - When the TARDIS was attacked by the Rani, the 6th Doctor was injured and forced to regenerate. After a brief period of post-regenerative confusion and amnesia (chemically induced by the Rani), the 7th Doctor thwarted the Rani's plans, and rejoined his companion Melanie 'Mel' Bush and they continued their travels through time and space.

On the planet Svartos, Mel decided to leave the Doctor's company for that of intergalactic rogue Sabalom Glitz. Also at this time, the Doctor was joined by time-stranded teenager Ace. Although he did not mention it at the time, the Doctor soon recognised that an old enemy from a past adventure, the ancient entity known as Fenric, was responsible for the Time Storm which transported Ace from 1980s Perivale to Svartos in the distant future. Growing more secretive and driven from this point on, the Doctor took Ace under his wing and began teaching her about the universe, all the while keeping an eye out for Fenric's plot. The Doctor began taking a more scheming and proactive approach to defeating evil, using the Gallifreyan stellar manipulator named the Hand of Omega as part of an elaborate trap for the Daleks which resulted in the destruction of their home planet, Skaro. Soon afterwards, the Doctor used a similar tactic and another Time Lord relic to destroy a Cyberman fleet. He engineered the fall of the oppressive government of a future human colony in a single night and encountered the Gods of Ragnarok at a circus on the planet Segonax, whom he had apparently fought throughout time. Later, he was reunited with his old friend, Brigadier Alistair Lethbridge-Stewart and UNIT while battling the forces of an alternate dimension on Earth.

The 7th Doctor's manipulations were not reserved for his enemies. With the goal of helping Ace confront her past, he took her to a Victorian house in her home town of Perivale in 1883 which she had burned down in 1983. Eventually, the Doctor confronted and defeated Fenric at a British naval base during World War II, revealing Fenric's part in Ace's history.

The 7th Doctor was given the responsibility of transporting the remains of his former enemy the Master from Skaro to Gallifrey. This proved to be a huge mistake: despite having a limited physical form, the Master was able to take control of the Doctor's TARDIS and cause it to land in 1999 San Francisco, where the Doctor was shot in the middle of a gang shoot-out. He was taken to a hospital, where surgeons removed the bullets but mistook the Doctor's double heartbeat for fibrillation. Although under anaesthetic, the Doctor was still aware of all that was going on around him. He faked his death by stopping his hearts in order to escape the surgery. Once in the privacy of a morgue locker, he initiated his 7th regeneration.

[Spimman]

T ~Time Beetle is a member of the Trickster's Brigade, a group of aliens who serve the Trickster. The Trickster first appeared in the The Sarah Jane Adventures. In the Sarah Jane Adventures episode The Trickster said he make the Doctor never exist which explained the Doctor Who episode Turn Left. The Time Beetle, similar to the Trickster himself, feeds on time energy and can cause a victim to change a decision they made in the past, thereby altering history. The change in history is usually very minor, affecting only the person the beetle attaches to; the universe simply "compensates" for the discrepancy. However, as is the case with Donna, even the slightest change of decision can alter the whole future in unimaginable ways (chaos theory).
When the beetle attaches to Donna in "Turn Left", it prevents her from ever meeting the Doctor. The resulting change of history is disastrous — the Doctor, Martha Jones, Sarah Jane Smith, and Torchwood staff Ianto Jones and Gwen Cooper were all killed, the city of London was completely destroyed, Captain Jack Harkness was taken to the Sontaran homeworld, and millions of people died from threats the Doctor would have otherwise prevented. Furthermore, if the change had been carried out to its conclusion, reality itself would have been destroyed by Davros.
In an accompanying "Monster Files" episode, Captain Jack raised doubts over whether the whole of the Trickster's brigade consists of beetles, suggesting all individuals are of different species.

[Guest]

U ~ Usurian - The Usurians from the planet Usurius are a species that abandoned military conquest in favour of economic conquest. They enslaved humanity after their engineers made Mars suitable for human habitation, humans having depleted the Earth's resources. Once humanity had depleted Mars's resources as well, the Usurians engineered Pluto so that humans could inhabit it. They created six artificial "Suns" around it and installed the Collector, seen in 'The Sun Makers', to oversee the collection of taxes from their human workforce. They intended to abandon Pluto and leave humanity to become extinct once the humans had exhausted its resources, there being no economically viable planet to relocate humanity to once more. The humans on Pluto revolted against the Collector and seized control of Pluto. The revolutionaries intended to relocate to Earth as the Doctor assured them it would have regenerated in their absence.

The Usurians have knowledge of the Time Lords, graded as "Grade 3" in their "latest market survey", considering it to be of low commercial value. Usurians can adopt a humanoid form but in their natural state they resemble seaweed. Shock can force them to revert to their natural form. According to the Doctor, Usurians are listed in a "flora and fauna" of the universe written by a Professor Thripthead under poisonous fungi.

[Spimman]

V ~Viyrans are an allusive race of aliens heard in Big Finish Productions audio stories. They originate from a distant galaxy that waged a huge war using a wide variety of powerful technologically advanced biological weapons. A final peace agreement was reached and the biological weapons were gathered together with the intention of destroying them. But then there was an accident and all of the dangerous virus weaponry was spread throughout the universe, landing on various worlds and causing havoc.
The Viyrans come from that distant galaxy. Their job is to seek out all the stray viruses, neutralize them and cure any victims, if possible. They also feel it's their duty to make sure no one finds out anything about any of this, in case someone of low morals tries to track down some of these viruses themselves.
They have no real spoken language, but communicate psychically or through hand motions or sometimes by trying to replicate an individual's voice. They can also time travel. What they actually look like is a mystery, but they are humanoid in shape, always appearing in a white type of hazmat suit. When they find an infected location, they block off the area and work in secret, never letting anyone know they were there, before, during or after. They collect all the victims in flying glass coffins and attempt to cure them. If the infected individuals can be cured, they are returned and their memories of the events are erased. If not, they are destroyed.
The first appearance of The Viyrans was in a short story called No One Died from the 2007 Doctor Who Storybook, featuring the Tenth Doctor and Rose Tyler. Their first appearance in an audio story was Mission of the Viyrans with the Fifth Doctor and Peri Brown. They will return to deal the Sixth Doctor and Charley Pollard in Patient Zero and Blue Forgotten Planet.
Although they did not appear themselves, their engineered viruses were featured in Urgent Calls, Urban Myths and The Wishing Beast & The Vanity Box. These one part stories (and Mission of the Viyrans) were listed in their booklets as being part of the "Virus Strand" arc. Some of the viruses they've tried to neutralize include a virus that can destroy the minds of an entire planet (No One Died), a particle that can induce beneficial coincidences for communications devices (Urgent Calls), an exaggerating frenzy illness (Urban Myths), a living wish-granting device (The Wishing Beast & The Vanity Box) and a rapidly spreading contagion that crudely distorts DNA, slowly killing its victims (Mission of the Viyrans).

[Guest]

W ~ Wright, Barbara - Companion to the 1st Doctor. She first appeared in the very first Doctor Who story 'An Unearthly Child'. Barbara was a History Teacher at Coal Hill School in London. She comes from the year 1963. She and her fellow teacher Ian Chesterton accidentally discovered the TARDIS at a junkyard at 76 Totter's Lane when curiosity about the unusual behaviour of their pupil and the Doctor's granddaughter Susan Foreman led them to investigate her. They were forced to join the Doctor and Susan in their travels. In the 1965 story 'The Chase', Barbara and Ian eventually left the TARDIS to return to Earth in 1963 by using a Dalek time machine but ended up returning to Earth in 1965 instead. Barbara Wright was played by the late actress Jacqueline Hill.

[Alan]

X ~ Xenon - Xenon is the home planet of the shapeshifting race called Whifferdills. The 6th Doctor's companion Frobisher came from this planet. It is in Mutter's Spiral.

[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 ~ Zodiac - The Zodiac formed an integral part of astrology on the many planets where sentient beings practised this art. It resembled a wheel, with beings of different birth dates having a different place on that wheel depending on the influence of the stars and/or planets. Humans and Draconians both used Zodiac signs in their astrology.

[Guest]

A ~ Anne Droid - In the episode 'Bad Wolf', the Anne Droid made an appearance in a parody of The Weakest Link. The robot is based on the host of The Weakest Link, Anne Robinson. The Anne Droid has also made an appearance on the real Weakest Link during a Doctor Who special.

[Alan]

B ~ Bad Wolf - 2005 story starring Christopher Eccleston in his last regular appearance as "The Doctor", Billie Piper as "Rose Tyler", John Barrowman in his last regular appearance as "Captain Jack Harkness", and introducing David Tennant as "The Doctor".

Guest starring Noel Clarke as "Mickey Smith".

Synopsis
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The Doctor, Rose and Captain Jack have to fight for their lives on board the Game Station. But a far more dangerous threat is lurking, just out of sight. The Doctor realises that the entire human race has been blinded to the threat on its doorstep, and Armageddon is fast approaching.

[Guest]

C ~ Cybermen - Cybermen were originally a wholly organic species of humanoids originating on Earth's twin planet Mondas that began to implant more and more artificial parts into their bodies as a means of self-preservation. This led to the race becoming coldly logical and calculating, with emotions usually only shown when naked aggression was called for.

They were created by Dr. Kit Pedler (the unofficial scientific advisor to the programme) and Gerry Davis in 1966, first appearing in the serial, 'The Tenth Planet', the last to feature William Hartnell as the First Doctor. They have since been featured numerous times in their extreme attempts to survive through conquest.

A parallel universe version of the Cybermen appeared in the 2006 series' two-part story, 'Rise of the Cybermen' and 'The Age of Steel'. These Cybermen also appeared in the two-part 2006 season finale, 'Army of Ghosts' and 'Doomsday'. This then carried through to the spin-off Torchwood in the episode 'Cyberwoman'. They would later return to the revived series in the 2008 Christmas Special 'The Next Doctor', introducing two new variants of the race; the Cyber-Shades and the Cyber-King.

[Alan]

D ~ Doctor's Daughter, The - 2008 story starring David Tennant as "The Doctor" & Catherine Tate as "Donna Noble".

Guest starring Freema Agyeman as "Martha Jones".

Synopsis
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The Doctor, Donna and Martha crash on the distant planet Messaline, which is in the middle of an endless war. While there the Doctor meets the most important woman of his life; his daughter, Jenny.

But as General Cobb threatens genocide, and Martha is kidnapped by the Hath, the Doctor faces an even greater battle – can he find peace with his own child?