Doctor Who & Spin-Offs A-Z Game

[Guest]

Q ~ Quantum-locking - Quantum-locking is a feature gained by species through evolution. The only known species to evolve this ability were the Weeping Angels who appeared in 'Blink'.

If a creature is quantum-locked, then they are turned to stone whenever they are observed. However, if the observer turns away, blinks or stops observing them in any way, the creature can move for the time until the observation resumes.

If two creatures are quantum-locked and are facing each other, they must be careful to cover their eyes before they are turned to stone. If they don't, they risk looking at each other, and being that they are both being observed by the other, they would be trapped in stone form.

[Spimman]

R ~ Recorder The Second Doctor was often seen playing a recorder. It played a pivotal role in the serial The Three Doctors as well as often being used by the Second Doctor to distract and confuse his enemies.

[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.

[Spimman]

T ~ TOMTIT machine Ostensibly a teleportation device, seen in the Third Doctor serial The Time Monster. The acronym stands for Transmission Of Matter Through Interstitial Time.

[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.

[Spimman]

V ~ Validium A living metal created on Gallifrey that has the power of life and death. It appears in the serial Silver Nemesis.

[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.

[Spimman]

X ~ Xeraphin were an ancient species encountered by the Fifth Doctor in the story Time-Flight by Peter Grimwade. 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 [disambiguation needed] 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.

Before fleeing Xeriphas and the Xeraphin, the Master took with him Kamelion, a Xeraphin war weapon with advanced shape-changing abilities dependent on the will of its controller. Kamelion was freed from the Master and joined the Doctor's TARDIS crew in "The King's Demons".

[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.

[Spimman]

Z ~ Zarbi appeared in the 1965 First Doctor story The Web Planet written by Bill Strutton, and are an (ant-like) insectoid species, with some characteristics associated with beetles, from the planet Vortis, which were controlled by the power of the Animus. They are roughly eight feet long, and the Menoptra claim, perhaps a little callously, that they are "little more than cattle".

They possess little intelligence but were not at all aggressive until the Animus arrived. They were enslaved to the alien consciousness and considered the butterfly-like Menoptra (with which they once lived peacefully) their mortal enemies. Only they could control the woodlouse-like venom grubs (also known as larvae guns).

They returned to their normal ways after the Animus was defeated by the First Doctor, Ian Chesterton, Barbara Wright and Vicki. It is presumed that the various species on Vortis are now living peacefully together.

[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'.

[Spimman]

B ~ Bloodtide, Mother played by Linda Clarke, was a Carrionite involved in the plot to begin a new Carrionite Empire on Earth, as seen in "The Shakespeare Code" (2007). She, along with the other Carrionites, was eventually captured inside a crystal ball, which the Doctor stored in a casket inside the TARDIS console room ("The Unicorn and the Wasp").

[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.

[Spimman]

D ~ Data Ghost is a short-lived imprint of the consciousness of the user of a Lux Industries spacesuit, created at the moment of death by the suit's built-in comms unit which links to the user's nervous system to allow thought-based communication. The concept first appeared in "Silence in the Library" and appeared again in "Forest of the Dead", when a member of Professor River Song's archeology team, Miss Evangelista, is killed by a swarm of Vashta Nerada. Their consciousness remains active in the device for a few minutes, and then the last thought of the dead person is simply repeated on an endless loop, until the device is shut down. In "Forest of the Dead", the Doctor finds out that the sonic screwdriver he gave to Professor Song in the future contains a neural relay that stored her data ghost into the device when she died rescuing the 4022 people trapped inside the Library's computer. He uses the screwdriver to store her Data Ghost in the computer, whereupon she is "resurrected" and can live on forever inside the computer, along with Miss Evangelista and the other members of her team who were killed by the Vashta Nerada.

[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.