Doctor Who & Spin-Offs A-Z Game

[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".

Synopsis
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The Argolin-Foamasi War lasted for just 20 minutes, during which time the planet of Argolis was turned into a blasted cinder - a radioactive wasteland deadly to almost all.

The few surviving members of the now ageing and sterile Argolin race made a remarkable decision: the story of their people and the husk of their world would stand as a lesson to the galaxy about the horrors of war. The planet would become the most unlikely of holiday resorts...

To the Doctor and Romana, Argolis seems like a restful and fascinating place to relax after their recent adventures. They can take in the beauty of the multi-coloured shifting sands from the safety of the towering Leisure Hive, and catch up with Argolin advances in the obscure science of tachyonics.

Typically enough, however, murder and intrigue follow the time travellers wherever they go; and a lunatic's plan to restore Argolis' proud warrior past could, quite literally, tear the Doctor and his friend apart...

[Guest]

M ~ Movellans - Outwardly resemble physically attractive humans, of various ethnicities and both genders. All of the Movellan androids wear white, form-fitting uniforms and wear their hair in silver braids. Being androids, the Movellans are stronger and have more endurance than normal humans. However, the major weakness of the Movellan design is that each android's external power pack, carried on its belt, can be easily removed to completely shut down the android. The power pack circuitry can also be modified, reprogramming the android to obey human orders.

[Alan]

N ~ Necros - The planet Necros was the location of Tranquil Repose, the finest funeral home in the galaxy. It was also the location of Kara's food processing factories which provided food for starving planets, the food being made from humans that had been placed in Tranquil repose the product was manufactured by Davros, who called himself "the Great Healer".

As it was the location of Tranquil Repose, the official colour of mourning on Necros was blue, and women's legs were to be covered at all times. The planet was cold and was home to dangerous creatures such as the voltrox and speelsnape. The weed plant was the only plant that grew on Necros and provided protein when refined.

Davros took over Tranquil Repose to hide from the faction he called the the renegades, led by the original Dalek leader, the Supreme Dalek. He was later found and taken by them for a trial.

This planet featured in the 1985 story Revelation of the Daleks.

[Spimman]

O ~ Osirans are a powerful alien race who are equal to the Time Lords. Sutekh, a renegade who became evil, was one of them. He was pursued across the galaxy by his brother Horus and was finally defeated on Earth by the combined might of 740 Osirans. Sutekh was trapped on a pyramid on Mars.

[Alan]

P ~ Planet of Evil - 1975 story starring Tom Baker as "The Doctor" and Elisabeth Sladen as "Sarah Jane Smith".

Synopsis
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A distress call from the last planet in the known universe forces the TARDIS to commence emergency materialisation on Zeta Minor. Simultaneous with the Doctor's arrival, is the landing of a spacecraft from the planet Morestra on a rescue mission to recover a missing group of scientists. An expeditionary force from the spacecraft soon uncovers their sinister remains, but who or what has caused their gruesome deaths?

Only one scientist, Professor Sorenson, has survived and he is hell-bent on tapping the powerful resources within Zeta Minor to save his own planet which is slowly dying. But he and his compatriots cannot possibly realise the full extent of the dark forces at work. And so it is left to the Doctor to convince them that Zeta Minor is indeed, the Planet of Evil...

[Spimman]

R ~ Raston Robot is an advanced killing machine that relies on movement to track its quarry. Its speed is such that if it leaps from the ground, it will appear to have teleported. It is built with an impenetrable yet flexible armour, and the speed and accuracy by which it throws projectiles makes them just as deadly as bullets.

[Guest]

S ~ Sonic knife - A tool used by Scaroth to steal the Mona Lisa in 'City of Death'.

[Alan]

T ~ Time Loop - A time loop, known technically as a chronic hysteresis is a loop in time, in which the individuals are always experiencing the same events in an endless loop.

The 3rd Doctor attempted to explain the concept to Brigadier Alistair Lethbridge-Stewart and Jo Grant as a "loop in time".

[Spimman]

U ~ 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.

[Alan]

V ~ Visitation, The - 1982 story starring Peter Davison as "The Doctor", Matthew Waterhouse as "Adric", Sarah Sutton as "Nyssa", & Janet Fielding as "Tegan Jovanka".

Synopsis
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Something is very wrong in 17th Century England. The shadowy figure of Death stalks the forests, terrifying the local people. Behind the chaos fugitive alien life forms called Terileptils lurk. Stranded on Earth, they have seized one of the local houses, murdering its inhabitants.

But just what do they want? The Doctor must discover the answer - and fast. For as events unfold, he finds he too is looking death in the face, not to mention the threat of mass genocide...

[Spimman]

W ~ Waterhive is the description given to an unnamed alien race from the New Series Adventures novel The Feast of the Drowned. They are composed of water (much as the Gelth are gaseous) and can take over the body of a drowned being. The body is thus preserved, although the eyes of their host will become "pearly", forcing glasses to be worn. They infiltrated the high ranks of the Navy in order to send sailors and their loved ones to their watery graves. Their plan was to use the living drowned as human incubators for their larvea,this failed when the doctor reduced the hive to atoms.

[Alan]

X ~ Xana - Xana was the lover of Kane.

She was a member of Kane's criminal gang on Proamon. She killed herself to avoid being arrested and tried for her crimes. Her image and history were recalled in a archive within the Dragonfire creature. Kane had a ice statue erected in her honour but it melted in an assassination attempt on him.

[Spimman]

Y ~ Yeti of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, 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.

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

[Guest]

Z ~ Zygon - The Zygons appeared in the Fourth Doctor serial 'Terror of the Zygons', where it was revealed that centuries ago, the Zygon homeworld was destroyed in a stellar explosion. A craft escaped and somehow made it to Earth, where it then crashed into Loch Ness. When the Doctor encountered the Zygons, they were led by a warlord named Broton. Broton wished to conquer the world to allow a refugee fleet of Zygons to colonize Earth.

The Zygons have shape-shifting abilities, allowing them to replicate the appearance of another being, but they must keep the subject alive in order to use its body print. This skill was vital in their concealment and in their scheme to seize power despite their small numbers. The Zygons were also accompanied by an armoured cyborg creature called the Skarasen, the lactic fluid of which was necessary for them to feed. Broton planned to unleash the Skarasen (or Loch Ness Monster as it was known) as part of a bid to conquer the Earth. The plan was foiled and both he and his crew were killed due to the intervention of the Fourth Doctor and the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce (UNIT). Zygon technology is biological in nature: in essence their ships and equipment are actually alive.

[Alan]

A ~ Attack of the Cybermen - 1985 story starring Colin Baker as "The Doctor" and Nicola Bryant as "Peri Brown".

Synopsis
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Whilst narrowly avoiding a collision with Halley's Comet in the TARDIS, the Doctor and Peri encounter a distress call emanating from London, Earth in 1985. The Doctor decides to investigate...

In central London, a gang of diamond thieves, led by ex-Dalek agent Lytton, plan to enter their target building via the sewers. But once down in the darkness, things start going wrong, for lurking in the underground shadows are the Cybermen...

After the Doctor and his companion Peri are captured by the Cybermen, they are caught up in a complex scheme which involves dramatically altering history, allowing the Cybermen to prevent the destruction of their first home planet Mondas. Forced to take the TARDIS to the new homeworld of the Cybermen (the ice-tombs of Telos), the Doctor realises the situation is being sinisterly manipulated, but by whom? The Cybermen? Lytton? The Cryons (the original inhabitants of Telos)? Or perhaps even his own race, the Time Lords?