Doctor Who & Spin-Offs A-Z Game

[Spimman]

I ~ Isolus are an alien species, tiny spore-like creatures traveling through space, first appearing in the episode "Fear Her". In that episode, one of them was separated from the swarm and the creature wound up on Earth, inhabiting a young English girl named Chloe Webber. The Isolus was confused by Chloe's fears of her father and, acting through her, trapped neighborhood children in Chloe's crayon drawings. The Isolus released Chloe when the Doctor showed it the love the human race could produce in the events just before the 2012 Summer Olympics. An Isolus is a creature of intense emotion and it is sheer need to be together that keeps them alive.

[Guest]

J ~ Jethrik - An extremely valuable mineral. A small piece can power an entire fleet of battleships. One of the pieces of The Key to Time was disguised as a lump of Jethrik in 'The Ribos Operation'.

[Spimman]

K ~ Krynoids appeared in the 1976 Fourth Doctor story The Seeds of Doom by Robert Banks Stewart. They are a highly dangerous, sentient form of plant life which are renowned amongst galactic botanists. They spread via seed pods which travel in pairs and are violently hurled through space by frequent volcanic eruptions on their unnamed home planet. The pods when opened are attracted to flesh and are able to infect and mingle their DNA with that of the host, taking over their body and slowly transforming them into a Krynoid. The species can also exert a form of telepathic control over other plant life in the surrounding area, making it suddenly dangerous and deadly to animal-kind. In the later stages of development the Krynoid can also control the vocal cords of its victims and can make itself telepathically sympathetic to humans. Fully grown Krynoids are many meters high and can then release hordes of seed pairs for further colonisation.

Two pods arrived on Earth at the South Pole during the prehistoric Pleistocene era and remained dormant in Antarctica until discovered at the end of the twentieth century. One of them hatched after being exposed to ultra-violet light, and took control of a nearby human scientist. The Fourth Doctor intervened in the nick of time and ensured the Krynoid was destroyed in a bomb, but the second pod was stolen and taken to the home of millionaire botanist Harrison Chase in England. Chase ensured the germination of the second pod, which overtook his scientific adviser Arnold Keeler, and transformed its subject over time into a virtually full-sized Krynoid. Unable to destroy the creature by other means – and with the danger of a seed release imminent from the massive plant – the Doctor orchestrated an RAF bombing raid to destroy the creature before it could germinate.

[Alan]

L ~ Laser Screwdriver -

Laser Screwdriver. Who'd have Sonic?

The Laser Screwdriver was a device used by the Master. It was larger and bulkier than the Doctor's Sonic Screwdriver and generally used as a weapon. It incorporated various technologies, namely a miniaturized system based on the age-regression technology developed by Professor Richard Lazarus.

The Laser Screwdriver had "Isomorphic Controls" so only the Master could operate its functions as revealed when the Doctor attempted to shoot him with it.

When a large trigger on the grip was pressed, the emitter would extend with a fierce click, and the triple-section tip would slide into place. Another button-push would release a highly lethal beam of bright yellow laser energy with a piercing whine, the force of which was enough to send a human being flying several feet. A single hit to the chest proved lethal to Captain Jack Harkness. A large dial integrated into the bottom of the handgrip, textured similarly to the "cracked porcelain" look of the Doctor's sonic screwdriver would activate another series of control settings.

The Master used this to activate the Laser Screwdriver's ageing technology, copied and improved upon from Doctor Lazarus' previous attempts. using a sample of the Doctor's genetic code, taken from his severed hand, the Master was able to forcibly advance the Doctor's age by approximately 100 years, leaving his foe nearly crippled and helpless with age and later still further to turn him into an aged creature.

[Spimman]

M ~ Midnight creature An unnamed and unseen creature, found on the surface of the planet Midnight, an environment supposedly inimical to all life. Described briefly as a "shadow" glimpsed running across the landscape, it was encountered in Shuttle Bus 50 in "Midnight." It violently boarded and took over the body and mind of Sky Silvestry, repeating the speech patterns of the passengers, influencing them, and then consuming the Doctor's voice. The shuttle's hostess ultimately sacrificed herself by opening a door and sucking them both out of the bus, where Silvestry's body was presumably vaporised by the deadly Xtonic sunlight. Though its hold on the Doctor and the other passengers was broken, the nature and fate of the creature itself remains uncertain. Disturbingly, even the Doctor had no idea what the creature was.

[Alan]

N ~ Nightmare of Eden - 1979 story starring Tom Baker as "The Doctor", Lalla Ward as "Romana", and David Brierley as the voice of "K-9".

Synopsis
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The TARDIS lands at the site of a hyperspatial collision between two spacecraft, the Empress and the Hecate. As a result, neither ship is dimensionally stable, risking the lives of all those aboard. The Doctor, K-9 and Romana offer to help out.

When a crewmember is found dead, his face lacerated by huge claws, it seems something deadly has been released by the accident. But how is the death linked to the discovery that the killer drug Vraxoin has been smuggled aboard - and where has the supply come from?

The Doctor soon realises that the aliens stored in a projection machine may hold the answers - and that the cages holding these specimens are anything but secure as the savage Mandrels, hideous swamp-creatures from the planet Eden, tear through the corridors of the helpless spaceships...

[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 the Daleks - 1973 story starring Jon Pertwee as "The Doctor" and Katy Manning as "Jo Grant".

Synopsis
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Injured after a shoot-out between his old nemesis the Master and the Ogrons, slaves to the evil Daleks, the Doctor sends a message to the Time Lords, asking them to pilot his TARDIS and follow the Daleks to their new base. After he slips into a coma, it falls to his assistant Jo Grant to explore the planet where the TARDIS finally materialises.

Not only must the Doctor contend with the Daleks' new stratagem, but he must try to stop them unleashing a plague that will exterminate all organic life. When a rescue ship of Thals arrive, they bring with them darker news still - somewhere on Spiridon 12,000 Daleks are waiting to emerge and take what they believe is their rightful place as the Universe's supreme beings!

[Guest]

Q ~ Quark - The Quarks appeared in the Second Doctor serial 'The Dominators' (1969).

The Quarks were used on Dulkis by the Dominators to enslave and terrorise the indigenous Dulcian population to ensure the drilling of bore holes through the planet's crust. The Dominators planned to use their technology to fire seeds down the holes which would force the core to erupt, thus providing a new fuel source for their fleet.

The Quarks were rectangular in shape, with four arms: one pair which folded into the body, the other pair being retractable. On the end of each arm was a solitary claw. The legs extended out below the Quark body. The spherical head was visibly divided into octants; the upper four octants formed the sensory hemisphere, which detected changes in light, heat and motion. At five of the corners of the octants were directional crystal beam transmitters (the sixth corner joined with the robot's extremely short neck). Quarks communicated by means of high-pitched sound waves. Their major weakness was a tendency to run out of energy rather quickly.

[Spimman]

R ~ Raston Warrior 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 ~ Sutekh - Sutekh, a member of an alien race called the Osirans, was encountered by the Fourth Doctor in the 1975 story 'Pyramids of Mars'. The Osirans were an ancient and incredibly powerful but now extinct race. The renegade Sutekh was a crazed super-being who feared all forms of life might one day challenge his hegemony and so became Sutekh the Destroyer, the destroyer of all living things. This included his home planet Phaester Osiris and ancient Mars.

Sutekh's brother Horus and the remaining 740 Osirans tracked Sutekh down to Ancient Egypt and used their powers to restrain and imprison him in a pyramid on the planet Earth. He was placed in a remote location with the Eye of Horus beaming a signal from Mars to suppress Sutekh's powers and hold him an immovable prisoner. The tales of the Osirans were remembered in Egyptian mythology — Sutekh as the god Set, brother of Horus; and in the designations Sados and Satan.

In the year 1911, the archaeologist Professor Marcus Scarman broke into the inner chamber of the Pyramid of Horus on Earth, discovering Sutekh and allowing him a chance of escape. Scarman's cadaver was used to construct Osiran service robots and a rocket aimed at the controlling Eye of Horus on Mars. The Doctor was successful in destroying the rocket, but then taken over by Sutekh and made to take Scarman and the Robots to Mars, where they succeeded in destroying the Eye and freeing Sutekh. The Doctor was eventually able to defeat the freed Sutekh by trapping him in a time tunnel for thousands of years — Longer even than the extended life span of an Osiran.

[Spimman]

T ~ Terror of the Zygons Following on from 'Revenge of the Cybermen', 'Terror of the Zygons' was first broadcast in four weekly parts from August 30 to September 20, 1975. It also marked the final regular appearance in the series of companion Harry Sullivan.

The Fourth Doctor is summoned to Earth by an emergency signalling device he left with the Brigadier who is in Scotland investigating the mysterious loss of oil rigs.

[Alan]

U ~ Utopia - 2007 story starring David Tennant as "The Doctor" and Freema Agyeman as "Martha Jones".

Guest starring John Barrowman as "Captain Jack Harkness".

Synopsis
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As Captain Jack stows his way back into the Doctor's life, the TARDIS lands at the end of the universe. But as the last of the human race sets out to their dream homeland, will the vicious Futurekind scuttle the rocket?

[Spimman]

V ~Vampires have been featured a number of times in the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who and its other media tie-ins. The canonicity of the non-television stories in relation to the television series is open to interpretation, and the various media may not be consistent with respect to each other.

[Alan]

W ~ War Machines, The - 1966 story starring William Hartnell as "The Doctor", Jackie Lane in her last appearance as "Dodo Chaplet", and introducing Anneke Wills as "Polly Wright" and Michael Craze as "Ben Jackson".

Synopsis
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London, 1966. The TARDIS materialises in the shadow of the newly-completed Post Office Tower in London and the Doctor senses a strange energy in the air. He instinctively knows that evil is at work nearby.

Posing as a scientist, the Doctor and his 'secretary' Dodo gain access to a suite at the top of the tower, and meet the driven Professor Brett. His life's work, the thinking computer WOTAN, is about to be linked up in a problem-solving network with many other machines around the world.

But the Doctor is concerned. How can WOTAN possibly know the meaning of the word TARDIS and about the Doctor's travels through time and space? What is the strange control that WOTAN can exert over humans via a mere telephone call? And what is the computer's link with the deadly robots being assembled in a Covent Garden warehouse? Soon, London will face an army of war machines, ruthlessly programmed to eliminate all who stand in their way...