Doctor Who & Spin-Offs A-Z Game

[Guest]

Z ~ Zarbi - The Zarbi appeared in the 1965 First Doctor story 'The Web Planet', 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.

[Alan]

A ~ Artron Energy - Artron energy has a connection with, apparently, both life force and with time travel. It seems that life forms made of living Artron energy can exist as well.

In the 1982 story Four to Doomsday, the Doctor claimed to Monarch, an Urbankan, that artron energy had a relationship to the functioning of his TARDIS (or vice versa), though he did not elaborate. Artron energy altered and enhanced human antibodies, making the immune system of the human in question better at fighting diseases. In the 1976 story The Deadly Assassin, Coordinator Engin noted the Doctor must have a great reserves of Artron energy to survive near-fatal attacks on his person while in the Matrix.

In The Sarah Jane Adventures TV movie Invasion of the Bane and the Torchwood episode Reset it was revealed that both Sarah Jane Smith and Martha Jones, had elevated Artron energy levels which suggests that anyone who has travelled on-board the TARDIS through the space/time vortex is gently irradiated by this energy.

[Guest]

B ~ 'Boom Town' - The Ninth Doctor, Rose and Jack travel to modern-day Cardiff and meet up with Rose's boyfriend, Mickey. There, they discover that a recent enemy is very much alive, and is willing to rip apart the planet to ensure her freedom.

[Alan]

C ~ Curse of Fenric, The - 1989 story starring Sylvester McCoy as "The Doctor" and Sophie Aldred as "Ace".

Synopsis
---------
The Doctor and Ace are put to the ultimate test when the TARDIS materializes in Second World War England at a top – secret naval base.

The army church, built on Viking graves, bears inscriptions calling for the wolves of Fenric to return for their treasure. Thereafter evil will reign... Even as the Doctor translates the words hideous corpses rise up from the sea, the evil Fenric now free to summon his wolves to a killing rampage.

In the stand against Fenric, only the Doctor can play the final moves...

[Guest]

D ~ 'Deadly Assassin, The' - A mysterious evil is at work on Gallifrey. The President of the Time Lords has been assassinated and the Doctor caught red-handed. An inexorable master plan has been set in motion. There can be no escape.

In order to prove his innocence the Doctor must pursue his enemy into the Matrix, a dream-like repository of knowledge formed from the minds of dead Time Lords. However, he quickly discovers that in the Matrix the real assassin rules and behind this enemy lurks the even more deadlier menace of his old adversary - the Master.

[Alan]

E ~ Enemy Within - 1996 TV movie starring Paul McGann as "The Doctor" and Daphne Ashbrook as "Grace Holloway".

Guest starring Sylvester McCoy in his final appearance as "The Doctor".

Synopsis
---------
New Year's Eve 1999. Earth is about to run out of time... Returning home to Gallifrey with the remains of his arch-enemy, the Master, the TARDIS is forced off course, returning the Doctor into the middle of a street gang's gun battle in San Francisco's Chinatown district.

Critically wounded in the shootout, the Doctor has to regenerate to save his own life. And he's not the only one - the Master too has a new body with which to wreak havoc, and his ultimate goal is to take the Doctor's own existence.

As the clock counts down to the start of a new millennium, the Doctor has to stop the Master destroying all life on Earth. But at what cost...?

D ~ 'Deadly Assassin, The'

Got this on DVD today! Lovely! Creepy story! The scene with the clown freaks me out!

[Guest]

F ~ Fenric - Fenric a.k.a. Hastur the Unspeakable was an immensely powerful sentient force, at least as old as the universe itself and an intelligence of pure evil. Appeared in the serial 'The Curse of Fenric'.

The being known as Fenric was one of two forces, one good, one evil, which were present at the Dawn of Time. Some sources state that Fenric originated not in the beginnings of this universe but, like the other Old Ones, in a universe before this one. These accounts state that Fenric bore (and still bears) the name of Hastur the Unspeakable. The name Fenric came from a mythic figure in Norse mythology. The myths described a monstrous wolf which would, during the final battle between gods and beasts, destroy the world at the end of time.

[Alan]

G ~ Glass Dalek - A Glass Dalek is a Dalek variant created by Davros for the reproduction of his Imperial Daleks.

In Tranquil Repose on Necros, Davros used the Glass Daleks as part of his experimentation. By placing a cryogenicaly-frozen head into the casing, the head would mutate into the deadly creatures that make up the Renegade Daleks.

When the head has become another Dalek, the Glass Dalek casing changes into that of an Imperial Dalek and another glass casing takes a new head.

Arthur Stengos almost became a Dalek before his daughter, Natasha, killed him.

[Guest]

H ~ Huon particles - Ancient particles from the Dark Times, created independently by Time Lords and later the Torchwood Institute. They are potentially deadly and contain a great amount of energy. Huon particles will magnetise with other sets of Huon particles, causing people to inadvertently teleport. A remnant of them exists in the heart of the TARDIS.

[Alan]

I ~ Invasion, The - 1968 story starring Patrick Troughton as "The Doctor", Frazer Hines as "Jamie McCrimmon", and Wendy Padbury as "Zoe Heriot".

Guest starring Nicholas Courtney as "Brigadier Alistair Lethbridge-Stewart".

Synopsis
---------
When the Doctor, Zoe and Jamie investigate the mysterious disappearance of an eminent scientist, their search takes them to International Electromatics, a powerful firm run by the sinister Tobias Vaughan. Under surveillance by the top secret United Nations Intelligence Task Force (UNIT), it soon becomes apparent that there is more to Vaughan's activities than meets the eye.

Just who are his mysterious allies? What is lurking down the sewers of London? Soon the Doctor discovers his ultimate horror - that the Cybermen are in league with Vaughan. As they begin bursting from the sewers onto the streets of London and cities around the world it is clear that their plan is the total invasion of planet Earth.

Trivia
------

• First appearance of United Nations Intelligence Taskforce (UNIT).
  
  
• First appearance of John Levene as "Corporal John Benton".

[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'.

[Alan]

K ~ Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang - Torchwood's Series 2 première episode.

Synopsis
----------
Following Jack's disappearance, the Torchwood team are determined to continue their work. But when they find themselves in a stand-off with a rogue alien, Jack arrives to save the day. Things are momentarily back to normal, until a face from Jack's past reappears. Time Agent Captain John Hart causes havoc as he goes in search of a hidden artefact. With Gwen's life in danger, and cluster bombs scattered across the city, can the team be sure that Jack is on their side?

[Guest]

L ~ Leela - Leela first appears in the 1977 serial, 'The Face of Evil', where she was a warrior of the savage Sevateem tribe, who were the descendants of the crew of an Earth ship that crash landed on an unnamed planet in the far future. The name of her tribe, "Sevateem", was a corruption of "survey team". Although the Doctor at this point was content to travel alone, Leela barges into the TARDIS and continues to accompany the Doctor on his journeys.

Although Leela is a primitive, she was also highly intelligent, grasping advanced concepts easily and translating them into terms she could cope with. Despite the Doctor's attempts at "civilizing" her, however, Leela is strong-willed enough to continue in her savage ways. She usually dresses in animal skins, armed with a knife or a set of poisonous Janis thorns which she does not hesitate to use on people who threatened her, much to the Doctor's disapproval.

Although Jameson's eyes are naturally blue, as Leela she initially wore red contact lenses to make them brown. However, the contact lenses severely limited her vision, and producer Graham Williams promised her she could stop wearing them. To explain the change in-story, writer Terrance Dicks wrote a scene in the 1977 serial 'Horror of Fang Rock' where Leela's eyes suffer "pigment dispersal" and turn blue after viewing the explosion of the Rutan ship.

In her travels with the Doctor, Leela faces killer robots, murderous homunculi, the Rutan Host, and the Sontaran invasion of the Doctor's home planet of Gallifrey. It is during this final adventure, 'The Invasion of Time', that she meets and falls in love with Andred, a native Gallifreyan, and decides to stay behind to be with him. The first K-9 remains with her.

[Alan]

M ~ Mighty Jagrafess of the Holy Hadrojassic Maxarodenfoe, The - The Mighty Jagrafess of the Holy Hadrojassic Maxarodenfoe (often shortened to Max) was an ancient, enormous, grey-skinned monster which contains a huge amount of heat, fat, muscle and water, that needed to stay cool in order to remain alive.

It was placed in charge of the ersatz Fourth Great and Bountiful Human Empire when it was first formed, in the year 199,909. Outside of its home planet, only a giant facility such as Satellite Five could produce enough cold air to maintain the Jagrafess. If no cold air is supplied, the Jagrafess would overheat and explode spectacularly.

In the 2005 story The Long Game, the Doctor discovered that the Fourth Great and Bountiful Human Empire was being controlled by the Jagrafess in 200,000, via the news-broadcasting space station Satellite Five. The heat from level 500 (where the Jagrafess was installed) was channelled away to the rest of the station, allowing the Jagrafess to remain in a cool climate.

Since the Jagrafess could not operate Satellite Five's controls by itself, a human known only as The Editor carried out its orders. In the story Bad Wolf, the Jagrafess was revealed to have been a pawn of the Daleks, part of a stratagem spanning several hundred years.

In The Christmas Invasion, Rose Tyler tried to invoke the authority of the Jagrafess (among other beings) in order to try to bluff the Sycorax into leaving Earth in peace. This attempt merely amused the Sycorax leader.

[Guest]

N ~ Nova Device - The Movellans failed to destroy the Daleks' homeworld of Skaro with this device in the serial 'Destiny of the Daleks'.