What's Wrong With... The Ark

A rather middling sort of story, which annoys some as it is the first complete story to have survived intact in the archives since The Time Meddler, and one of only three complete stories from the whole of the third season.
It's the first story to have a woman on the writer's credit - except that Lesley Scott never actually wrote any of it. She was the partner of Paul Erickson, who decided to share the credit with her. This was his only story. The director is Michael Imison, and this was his only work on the series as well. He found out that he wasn't going to be offered a BBC contract just as he was going into studio on the evening of recording the final episode.
This was the first story to really reflect what producer John Wiles and Story Editor Donald Tosh wanted to do with the series. The notion of a generational spaceship had come from Wiles. Ironic, then, that Tosh had already left by the time this went into production, replaced by Gerry Davis, and John Wiles was already handing over to Innes Lloyd, and this would be his last on screen credit.
As everyone knows, this story comes in two halves. The first two episodes see the TARDIS arrive on a space ark which is about to take the population of a dying Earth to a new home on the planet Refusis II. The Doctor's new companion Dodo has a cold, which she passes on to the crew of the Ark, which proves lethal as they no longer have immunity. Also are affected are cyclopean, reptilian Monoids who serve the human crew. After initially being sentenced to death for deliberately bringing the contagion, the Doctor is allowed to find the cure. The TARDIS leaves at the end of the second episode - only to arrive in exactly the same spot 700 years later, when the Ark has now arrived at its destination. However, Dodo's cold has had far reaching consequences, and now the Monoids have become the masters, enslaving the humans who they plan to exterminate when they claim Refusis II for themselves.
The idea that the Doctor and companions can see the consequences of their travels is a good one, especially when it takes place within the same story. It should be remembered that at this time stories didn't have overall titles on screen, and viewers did not know how long an adventure was going to last, so people watching at the time would have thought they had just witnessed a two part story when the TARDIS suddenly landed back at the same location it had just departed from.
So why is this story not regarded more highly?
Well, there are some very good production values - and some not so good ones. The costumes leave a lot to be desired. The Monoids waddle like ducks as their legs are solid down to around the knees. They have silly Beatles mop-top haircuts - to hide the fact that their heads quite literally zip up the back. The haircuts also hide the actors' eyes, as they have half a ping-pong ball in their mouths to replicate the Monoid eye.
The humans are lumbered with grass skirts over their knickers - or at least that's what they look like. In 700 years, they don't decide to do anything about these outrageous costumes, unless fashion really does go round in circles.
The Doctor and companions have brought a deadly disease on board. They are locked up - but never properly quarantined. They are accused of being spies from Refusis II. How could the Refusians have gotten to Earth so quickly, if it will take the humans 700 years to travel to them? What makes them think that there are even Refusians on the planet? Why select a planet that is already inhabited as a new home when there must be lots more uninhabited worlds within 700 years travel time. Why go there at all if you believe that not only is the planet inhabited, but the natives are hostile towards you - enough to send spies who are going to poison you.
Dodo's accent goes all over the place, and it is hard to know if it is changing or if it is just being affected by her doing "having a cold" adenoidal acting. (Actually, the plan had been for her to have a regional accent, and she had started with this, but then the BBC top brass decreed it had to be RP - Received Pronunciation). Despite having travelled to societies all over the cosmos, the Doctor has a problem with her use of slang.
For a story that's supposed to be all about tolerance and different species getting along together, no one seems to bother too much when Monoids die from the infection, but it is a totally different story when humans start to expire.
When the TARDIS rematerialises in the jungle, the surrounding plants are exactly the same as they had been some 700 years earlier, after there has been a revolution. Amazing that the gardening was kept up for so long, even through all these troubles, and the plants were manicured to the exact same shape and height as they looked 700 years before. Maybe this is why there is a CCTV camera pointing at the TARDIS landing site. Monoid One seems to recall the Doctor's previous visit, as he's able to dig out the footage of their departure remarkably quickly, bearing in mind he had 700 years of recordings to go through.
It's one of those stories where there are cameras only where the plot requires them to be. There aren't any looking at where the Monoids have planted their bomb, for instance, otherwise Steven and the humans could have just looked back through the CCTV footage to spot the Monoids hiding it, rather than spend hours hunting for it.
The enslaved humans are held in what's referred to as the "security kitchen". Needless to say no other story has ever featured a security kitchen. A room full of implements which can cut and stab and skewer and slice and dice might not be the most sensible place to put your prisoners. Even if the humans hadn't thought of poisoning their Monoid masters, you'd think they would at least have pee'd in the soup at some time.
You can understand why the Monoids were helped to develop artificial voice boxes by the humans, but you do have to wonder why they went along with helping them develop heat guns when they are all unarmed themselves.
When exactly did the Monoid revolution take place? The statue which was supposed to depict a human being has a Monoid head, so did the change of regime happen exactly when they had just got to the neck, or was there a bit of human head which the Monoids lopped off? Would it really take 700 years to build this statue anyway? It is supposed to be really, really big, yet it can fit through the hangar doors at the end.
More silly science - the Refusians were rendered invisible by "a galaxy accident".
No fluffs from Hartnell this time, but the actor playing the Commander struggles with the word "approximately" in the first episode.
Surprisingly, the Monoids don't trip over their feet all that often, but there is a very noticeable trip from Monoid Two when he is in the Refusian house.

Inspirations - The Caves of Androzani

When he took over the Script Editor role on Doctor Who, Eric Saward had the opportunity to look back at tapes of earlier stories. One writer in particular stood out for him - Robert Holmes. Saward enjoyed his stories, and the stories he had script edited (often at the same time). When it came to finding someone to write the 20th anniversary story, it made sense to find someone who knew the programme's history well, and who was a great writer to boot. Producer JNT remained resistant to using writers or directors from before he took over, but was talked round, and this is why Robert Holmes was commissioned to write "The Six Doctors". We all know that that story didn't work out in the end, but Saward was determined still to work with Holmes.
One of the reasons Holmes had been so successful was because of his borrowings from popular books and films, adapting their themes to suit the Doctor Who format. Films which he had borrowed elements of included The Manchurian Candidate, The Beast With Five Fingers, Forbidden Planet and various Universal and Hammer horror titles; whilst books he had been inspired by ranged from The Phantom of the Opera to The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. He even borrowed from his own earlier works. The Krotons was adapted from an unproduced generic science fiction story which he hoped would form part of the Out of the Unknown TV series, whilst he used elements from his 1960's low budget sci-fi picture Invasion for Spearhead from Space. It was mostly to his own work that he looked when he devised the storyline for The Caves of Androzani.

The Doctor and companion arrive on the smaller of twinned worlds - the larger of which is densely populated with colonists. There is something on the smaller world which the people on the larger planet want. The Doctor encounters a colonial party from the larger planet on the smaller one, who are in the middle of a conflict. A gun-runner is arming the anti-colonial force, but is secretly working for one of the colonial people (the villain of the story). The villain wants to keep the conflict going so that he can wipe out the anti-colonial force. There is a monster on the smaller world, hiding in the depths. The monster has been added to the story at the behest of the producer, but the writer is more interested in the conflict. The writer is Robert Holmes.
That could be a synopsis of two stories - this one and The Power of Kroll. Holmes had never been very happy with his second story for Season 16, which had been commissioned as a late addition after other stories had fallen through. Clearly he felt that some of his ideas were wasted on it, and this story allowed him to reuse them in a more satisfying manner.
Kroll isn't the only Holmes story which he looks to. The idea of a General who is not as clever as he thinks he is, who has a far more intelligent second-in-command could refer to Chellak and Salateen here, but it could equally be a description of General Hermack and Major Warne in The Space Pirates.
The villain betrayed by his own blonde-haired assistant? Could be Morgus and Krau Timmin, or it could be Gatherer Hade and his underling Marne, from The Sun Makers.
Holmes had borrowed from Gaston Leroux's The Phantom of the Opera for his villain Magnus Greel in The Talons of Weng-Chiang, and he does it again here with Sharaz Jek, this time bringing the unrequited love story aspect as well (Jek's obsession with Peri mirrors the Phantom's for Christine).
The appearance of the masked protagonist isn't just borrowed from another source - it is a wholesale steal. This is Sharaz Jek:

And this is an image of a Nubian tribesman from the Sudan, taken by photographer Leni Riefenstal in the 1960's:

As you can see, the monochrome patterning isn't just similar - it's identical.
The story plays out like a Jacobean revenge tragedy, wherein characters are driven by greed, anger and revenge which ultimately destroys the characters who would normally be expected to survive a drama. The only character who does not suffer here is the peripheral character of Timmin, who actually comes out of it richer and more powerful. Her ruthlessness suggests that Androzani Major won't be a happier place with Morgus out of the way. Every other character, including the relatively sympathetic General Chellak, perishes by the end. Only Peri makes it out alive, but she has spent most of the story sick and in captivity, lusted over by Jek. Even the Doctor fails to make it out alive, as this is Peter Davison's final story. He is forced to regenerate at the conclusion - a death of sorts. (This is even more of a tragedy, in hindsight, as the nice, likeable Doctor will be replaced by a rather unlikeable incarnation).

One of Morgus' traits is to turn and appear to address some of his comments directly to camera, as if he's colluding directly wit the audience. Again, this is something you'd see in stage drama, and apparently it came about because of a misunderstanding. Director Graeme Harper had asked hi to address comments just off camera, but John Normington misheard him and looked directly into the camera. Harper actually liked this, feeling it added to the performance, and so kept it going.
The last inspiration came from the director. In order to make the regeneration more dramatic, Harper was inspired by a Beatles song - A Day in the Life - which ends with a weird cacophony of sound.
The series had featured fan-pleasing clips from earlier stories since JNT took over, for flashback scenes and the like. For the regeneration scene it was decided not to use old clips of all the Davison companions, but instead to get everyone in to record special inserts. They were invited to Davison's farewell party later that evening anyway.
As well as all the companions, we also get a cameo of Anthony Ainley's Master, who has been the recurring villain of Davison's era.
Davison has subsequently stated, jokingly, that he felt his death scene was upstaged by Nicola Bryant's chest. Colin Baker, meanwhile, has always said that he hated his blink. He wanted to stare fixedly into camera for his first words as the Doctor.
Next time: from the sublime to the ridiculous. A story which has often topped the polls is followed immediately by the one that usually sits on the bottom...

Story 223 - The God Complex

In which the Doctor attempts to take Amy and Rory to another holiday resort destination, but the TARDIS instead materialises in what appears to be a sprawling hotel on 1980's Earth. As they look around they discover a number of portrait photographs adorning the walls. Under each name is a word - a person, a place, an object or an emotion. The place seems to be deserted but they come upon three individuals when they go downstairs to the hotel lobby. There is a young nurse named Rita, a young man named Howie and a mole-like alien named Gibbis, who comes from the planet Tivoli. This world has a reputation as the most invaded in the universe, and its inhabitants are cowardly by nature. They actually welcome oppression, as it is the only way of life they know. There is one other person with them, but he is tied up in the dining room. He is named Joe, and he is surrounded by dozens of identical ventriloquist dolls. He appears to be quite mad, and claims that he used to have an irrational fear of these dummies, but not now. The Doctor notes that all his personal jewellery bears a gambling motif. When they learn that they are trapped in this hotel, with all the doors and windows bricked up, the Doctor leads everyone to the TARDIS, but it has vanished. Rita explains that somewhere in the hotel is a room designed for each person who comes here - containing something that they fear above all other things. The Doctor warns everyone not to be drawn towards any particular room, after Joe claims that someone is about to come for him and feast. Bizarrely, he seems to be looking forward to this.

Joe is strapped into a wheelchair and removed from the dining room. Gibbis suggests that he be left behind for whatever is coming for them, in order that they might be spared. Rory discovers that Howie believes in conspiracy theories, suspecting that they are being held in some kind of government experiment. A page from a notebook is found, belonging to a policewoman named Lucy. She writes about her fear of being attacked by a gorilla, which she encountered in her room. She talks of the thing which will come for her, and writes about praising it. Rory sees a door marked exit, but no-one else sees it, and they are forced to flee as they hear some animal approach. Howie is compelled to enter a room in which there is a group of girls. They mock him as he begins to stammer. He undergoes a mental upheaval, and begins to speak of praising whatever is lurking in the hotel. Hiding from it, Amy finds herself in a room containing two Weeping Angels, and she assumes that this must be her room. However, she is not alone and Gibbis and the others are with her. Joe is killed by the creature, and now Howie must be restrained so that he doesn't succumb to the same fate. The Doctor decides to use him as bait so that he can observe the creature. Rita also feels compelled to enter a room, where she sees her father berate her for her lack of ambition and failure to get the grades to become a doctor.

Once again, Gibbis thinks only of his own safety and allows Howie to escape. The young man is killed. The Doctor discovers that the thing which is hunting them is a massive Minotaur-like creature, which he deduces might be distantly related to the Nimon. He recalls how they set themselves up as god-like beings on the planets they wished to conquer, demanding tribute from the locals. The Doctor is horrified to discover that Rita is to be the next victim. She takes herself off alone to die, to save the others. The Doctor finds that he also has a room - No.11. What is inside, he expected to find...
It transpires that the Weeping Angels were never intended for Amy. They were for Gibbis, as they were creatures which his people could never be oppressed or dominated by in the same way as other invaders. Amy's room proves to be one containing her younger self, sitting waiting for the Doctor to come back and take her away. The Doctor had thought that the Minotaur was feeding on fear, and so had encouraged everyone to have faith is something which would hold that fear in check. He realises that he has been totally wrong. It isn't the fear which the Minotaur feeds on, but the faith. He has put his friends in even greater danger. When the Minotaur comes to the room to attack Amy, the Doctor must break her faith him in. When this happens, the Minotaur collapses. Without faith to sustain it, it cannot survive. The hotel surroundings vanish and they see that they are really inside a space vessel, equipped with holo-emitters. The Doctor learns that the Minotaur was once worshipped on a planet, whose inhabitants eventually turned against it and trapped it on this craft, where unwary travellers would be trapped to feed it. The creature dies. Realising the danger that he has recently been putting his companions in, the Doctor decides that it is time for them to stop travelling with him. He takes them to Earth, where he has obtained a house and car for them. They will remain his friends, but will not be joining him in the TARDIS any more...

The God Complex was written by Toby Whithouse, and was first broadcast on 17th September 2011.
The idea of setting a story in a strange hotel came from Steven Moffat, who had toyed with the notion for a Christmas Special. A woman was to have been staying at a very grand hotel at Christmas time, but would have found that everyone had vanished and the place had become a maze, where the corridors and rooms moved around. He even had Helen Mirren in mind for the role of the woman. Moffat had been inspired after staying in some large hotels on business trips, where all the corridors looked the same on every floor and it was easy to get lost in them. The idea was given to Whithouse to develop as a story for Series 5, but was then held back for the sixth series. This was because of the Weeping Angel story being set in a maze. The notion of the hotel becoming like a labyrinth inspired Whithouse to have as his creature a Minotaur-like being, and it was easy to link its appearance and modus operandi to the Nimon, which had featured in the 1979/80 story The Horns of Nimon. Whithouse already had a keen interest in Greek mythology. He populated the rooms with things which he himself found creepy - such as clowns and ventriloquist dummies.

Since taking over the show, Moffat had started to reposition the Doctor away from being just a traveller and explorer. It was now being stated by various characters that he had some great cosmic reputation, and this wasn't always positive. To many races he was a warrior, steeped in blood. We see this here as the Doctor communicates with the dying Minotaur. It speaks to him of a lonely traveller with many lives on his hands, whose end is now fast approaching. The Doctor assumes the creature is thinking of itself, until he realises that it is actually referring to him. In the previous episode, Rory had berated the Doctor for putting himself and Amy into danger through his recklessness, and this is reinforced in this story as the Doctor gets the Minotaur's motivation entirely wrong, putting everyone in even greater danger, having got them to rely on their faith instead of their fear. Previously, only Jo Grant had been seen to have a life away from the TARDIS whilst being a companion, as she was based at UNIT HQ for some of the time. We don't know if she lived on site or had some sort of flat nearby. (We shan't count Liz Shaw, as obviously the Doctor had no working TARDIS at this time). Every other companion appears to have lived on the TARDIS throughout their travels. Amy and Rory become the first companions since Jo to now have a life away from the Doctor, as he gifts them a house at the conclusion of this story.

The guest cast is headed by comic actor and writer David Walliams. He is a lifelong fan of the programme, as is his Little Britain partner Matt Lucas (which was why they chose Tom Baker to narrate their comedy series). Walliams had previously co-written and appeared in a trio of comedy sketches for BBC 2's Doctor Who Night, with Mark Gatiss. Walliams was initially concerned that his character would be wearing full prosthetics, but later said that they allowed him to properly express himself, and he was still recognisable to the viewers.
Rita is played by Amara Karan. She becomes the latest in a long line of 'companions who never were'. The Doctor has met a few people he thought might make a good companion - only for them to then die (e.g. Astrid Peth, Lynda with a Y).
Howie is Dimitri Leonidas, who had come to fame as a regular on BBC children's series Grange Hill (acting then under the name Shane Leonidas). More recently he has been a regular on the crime drama Riviera.
Joe is Daniel Pirrie, who had just appeared in the soap Hollyoaks. Caitlin Blackwood returns as young Amelia Pond. The Minotaur is portrayed by Spencer Wilding, who will return periodically to the series as a creature performer (most recently as the lead Dreg in Orphan 55). His most high profile role has been as the new incarnation of Darth Vader, as seen in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.

Overall, not a bad episode, with some very surreal visual imagery. The regulars are well served, and each of the guest artists has their moments. The Minotaur is mostly only glimpsed throughout, but when we do finally get to see it it is an excellent creature design.
Things you might like to know:

• Another inspiration for this story is clearly George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, in that it features rooms within which are people's greatest fears (e.g. Room 101). Joe quotes part of the nursery rhyme "Oranges and Lemons", as does Winston Smith in Orwell's book.
• A visual inspiration appears to be the Overlook Hotel from Stanley Kubrick's film adaptation of The Shining.
• Another story about people being killed by their greatest fears (this time not because of the faith this generates) was 1971's The Mind of Evil.
• And the resolution of the Doctor saving his companion by destroying her faith in him is similar to 1989's The Curse of Fenric.
• As well as the cameo from the Weeping Angels, we glimpse some other old monsters amongst the portraits hanging on the hotel stairwell. These include a Sontaran, a Silurian, a Cat Nun, a Hoix, a Tritovore and a Judoon.
• Producer Marcus Wilson is one of those pictured - the man whose greatest fear was Plymouth.
• The original scripts had another character named Edward, who was very right wing and believed in authority and discipline. He was very self centred, and some of his material was given to Gibbis.
• Some of the rooms' occupants are left unexplained. One has a clown with a red balloon, whilst another has a bullying gym teacher. It is clearly stated that Rory does not have a room here as he lacks faith (which is why he alone is able to see an exit). However, this doesn't quite ring true as we know he has faith in Amy, and in another story - The Doctor's Wife - he mentioned having a sadistic gym teacher whom he greatly disliked.
• The Doctor's room - naturally enough No.11 - we don't get to see inside. We only hear the TARDIS cloister bell, and he remarks that its contents don't surprise him. This naturally led to all sorts of fan speculation, which wouldn't be answered until Matt Smith's final episode more than two years later.
• This is the fourth Doctor Who story to feature a Minotaur, or something based upon it. We've already mentioned that it is related to the Nimon, but Minotaurs had also previously featured in The Mind Robber and The Time Monster. 
• We mentioned that Amy and Rory become the first companions since Jo not to live permanently on board the TARDIS. Actually, from this point on, every companion has been seen to have a home to go to between TARDIS travels, including the current trio.

H is for... Hetocumtek

Hetocumtek was a malevolent alien who visited North America many centuries ago. He set himself up as a local ruler, but his cruelty led to a group of shamen imprisoning his spirit in a totem pole, which was then buried in the deserts of Nevada. It was later discovered by archaeologists, and eventually was brought to London to feature in a museum exhibition. This exhibition was visited by Sarah Jane Smith, Luke, Clyde and Rani after a freak fall of fish from the skies was reported in the area. Clyde touched the totem pole and got a splinter in his finger. He woke up the next day to find himself cursed by Hetocumtek. He planned to free himself, and saw Clyde as a threat to this process. Clyde found himself disowned by everyone he knew - including his own mother and by Sarah and his friends. He ended up sleeping rough on the streets. Immune to Hetocumtek's mental manipulation were the computer Mr Smith, and Sarah's adopted daughter Sky. They were able to break the mental conditioning as the totem began to change and come to life. When Clyde touched the totem pole for a second time, it destroyed Hetocumtek.

Appearances: SJA 5.2 The Curse of Clyde Langer (2011).

H is for... Hermack, General

General Nikolai Hermack of the Space Corps commanded the starship V41-LO. It patrolled a lawless frontier region of space which had recently come under attack from space pirates. They were targeting government owned navigation beacons which were made from the highly sought after mineral argonite. Although normally unmanned, the beacons could sustain a small group of people for a short time, and so Hermack decided to plant some soldiers on Beacon Alpha-4, to lie in wait for the pirates to turn up. The TARDIS materialised on the same beacon, and the Doctor and his companions were mistaken for pirates. Hermack discovered an unauthorised spaceship in the area - the LIZ-79, owned by an old mining prospector named Milo Clancey. Hermack came to suspect that he was in league with the pirates, possibly even their commander. Hermack took his ship to the planet Ta to see Madeleine Issigri, daughter of Clancey's old business partner. He didn't realise it but she was actually the one in league with the pirates, who were led by a criminal named Caven. Madeleine was allowing them to use Ta as their base of operations. When the truth was uncovered, Hermack had Caven's spaceship blown up as it tried to flee.

Played by: Jack May. Appearances: The Space Pirates (1969).

• May was best known at the time for his appearances in Adam Adamant Lives! in which he played the title character's butler, Simms.
• On radio, he voiced Nelson Gabriel for 45 years of The Archers, and featured in the BBC radio adaptation of Lord of the Rings as King Theoden. 
• He also voiced the character of Igor in the Count Duckula cartoon series.

H is for... Heriot, Zoe

Companion to the Second Doctor. Zoe was born in the late 21st Century, in a place known simply as "The City". From an early age she was subjected to enhanced learning techniques, and soon achieved the role of astrometricist first class, majoring in pure mathematics and astrophysics. She was assigned to the parapsychology unit of the space station W3. She was the youngest crew member and the other staff often mocked her for her obsession with logic and apparent lack of empathy. She possessed an eidetic memory, and was known as "the librarian". Her colleagues came to trust what she said, consulting her as they would a computer, due to her expansive knowledge of her subjects. It was on the space station - known to its crew simply as "the Wheel", that Zoe first encountered the Doctor. He and companion Jamie had found themselves trapped on a spaceship was adrift near the Wheel, after the TARDIS had developed a major fault. Whilst the concussed Doctor was looked after in the medical bay, Zoe was asked to help look after Jamie, and show him around. She was concerned about a number of spatial phenomena which might threaten the Wheel, and was suspicious about how the spaceship - the Silver Carrier - had gotten to its current location when it was reported missing millions of miles away, and would not have enough fuel to have got to the Wheel in the time available. It must have been refuelled at some point. She was fascinated by the Doctor, as he was not a slave to logic and thought in a more instinctive way.
It soon transpired that the Cybermen were at work in the area, determined to take over the Wheel and use it as a forward base for an invasion of Earth. The Doctor required a TARDIS component to enhance the Wheel's defences, and so Zoe elected to accompany Jamie on a hazardous space walk to the Silver Carrier to retrieve it. Once the Cybermen had been defeated, she realised that she could not simply go back to her old way of life. She wanted to learn more about the universe through personal experience, rather than through learning, and so decided to stow away on board the TARDIS. She was spotted straight away, but the Doctor accepted her as a travelling companion - but only after showing her the sort of dangers they might face - showing her mental images of his last encounter with the Daleks.

She was a little disappointed when her first visit to an alien planet coincided with the Doctor deciding to have a holiday. This was on the planet Dulkis, which he had visited before. Zoe became separated from the Doctor and Jamie after the planet came under attack from the warlike Dominators and their robot Quarks. She befriended a young Dulcian named Cully, rebellious son of the planet's leader, Senex, and accompanied him in a travel capsule to the capital city to warn of the alien incursion. She was later captured by the Dominators, who assumed she was a native of the planet as she had changed into Dulcian clothing. When put to work clearing a drilling site, she proved to be a lot stronger than the Dulcian captives.
The TARDIS was forced to make an emergency dematerialisation from Dulkis, taking it out of normal space / time. Some force here attempted to lure Zoe and Jamie from the ship with images of their homes - despite the Doctor warning them that they were in no place and no time. Zoe succumbed first to the lure, believing that they were back in the City. Jamie and then the Doctor were forced to exit the ship to rescue her. The ship then came under attack and apparently broken up, as the Doctor, Jamie and Zoe were flung into the bizarre Land of Fiction. Zoe became separated and found her way to an old cottage. On entering, however, she plunged down a hole and became trapped in a huge glass jar. She was rescued by the Doctor and Jamie, who she did not at first recognise as the Doctor had accidentally given him a new face. Zoe and the Doctor became trapped in a labyrinth where they were threatened by creatures from Greek mythology - the Minotaur and the Gorgon. Zoe's belief in them almost got them killed. She had been able to guide them through the maze due to her perfect memory of the route they had taken. When the Doctor was confronted by another fictional character which he did not recognise, it was Zoe who was able to save him. She fought and overpowered the Karkus, a comic book figure she remembered from the hourly telepress of her youth. Later, in the citadel of the Master of this land, her impulsiveness got them all captured, as she rushed through a door she knew to be alarmed. She and Jamie were later turned into fictionalised versions of themselves after being trapped between the pages of a giant book. It was Zoe who rescued the Doctor eventually, as she gave the Master Brain computer an overload.

Another computer which fell foul of Zoe was the receptionist machine at the HQ of International Electromatics in London. When it failed to give her the information she sought, she gave it an insoluble equation to work out, which caused the machine to explode. She and Isobel Watkins, niece of a missing scientist, were then captured by the firm's sadistic security chief, Packer. They were transported to the IE compound in the country, where boss Tobias Vaughn was working with the Cybermen to invade the Earth once again. On being rescued, Zoe encouraged Isobel to take her camera into London's sewers to get evidence of the Cybermen for the Brigadier - forcing Jamie to come along as well to try to keep them out of trouble. She had a dislike for male chauvinist attitudes. Zoe's mathematical skills would prove useful in the eventual defeat of the Cybermen, as she was quickly able to work out rocket trajectories that would wipe out their entire space fleet.
Her impulsiveness once again got herself and the Doctor into trouble when she elected to take the Kroton mental tests on the planet of the Gonds, despite knowing that the Krotons were belligerent. The Doctor was forced to sit the tests as well, otherwise she would have been summoned into the Kroton teaching machine on her own. This was really the aliens' crashed spaceship - the Dynatrope. Zoe actually scored higher marks than the Doctor, as she needed fewer answers to get top marks.

Zoe's memory wasn't always 100% reliable. It could fail under stress, as happened when she got lost in the air ducts of the Moonbase which housed the T-Mat controls. The base had been taken over by the Ice Warriors, who planned to use the ravel device as part of their invasion plans. Zoe was almost captured whilst trying to raise the temperature in the base to overpower the Martians. Earlier, she had agreed to help pilot Professor Eldred's rocket to the Moon, along with the Doctor, as she had shown considerable knowledge of space flight.
Another lack of memory was when she didn't know what candles were, whilst visiting the planet Ta, despite having seen and commented on them when in the labyrinth in the Land of Fiction. This might suggest that that adventure had all been imaginary and never really happened. Zoe had calculated that the beacon fragments they were trapped on would have been heading for Ta.
Zoe's travels with the Doctor and Jamie came to an end after the TARDIS had landed on an obscure planet where a group of aliens were staging war games, using hypnotised soldiers abducted from real conflicts from throughout Earth's history. During interrogation by the alien Security Chief, Zoe was able to memorise the names of all the known rebel leaders, which proved useful later when the Doctor had to form an army to fight the aliens. The Doctor was captured by the Time Lords after the alien plans had been defeated. He was taken back to his home planet for trial. part of the sentence involved Zoe and Jamie being returned to their own time and place. They would have their memories of their travels with Doctor wiped - remembering only their initial encounter with him. Zoe was returned to the Wheel at a point just after the TARDIS had departed, this time without her.

The Second Doctor was to encounter Zoe one more time - but this proved to be only a mental projection generated by the mind of Rassilon - a form of warning to stop intruders from entering his final resting place. The Doctor knew that she was just an illusion as she recognised the Brigadier. This wasn't possible if her memory of her meeting with him had been erased.

Played by: Wendy Padbury. Appearances: The Wheel in Space (1968) to The War Games (1969), The Five Doctors (1983).

• Padbury was invited to stay on when Patrick Troughton gave up the role as the Doctor. As Frazer Hines was leaving with Troughton, she elected to go as well, giving the production team the chance to start afresh with Spearhead from Space, with just the Brigadier as a link to previous seasons.
• She has continued to portray Zoe in a number of Big Finish audio adventures.
• One other Doctor Who connection is her appearance in the 1974 stage play Doctor Who and the Daleks in Seven Keys to Doomsday, where she played companion Jenny.
• For a time she was reunited with Hines when both were appearing in the ITV soap Emmerdale Farm.
• After giving up acting she became an agent, and had Nicholas Courtney, Mark Strickson and Colin Baker on her books. She also helped to discover Matt Smith, after seeing him in a National Youth Theatre production.

H is for... Hepesh

High Priest of the Temple of Aggedor on the planet of Peladon. He and fellow councillor Torbis had acted as father figures for the young King Peladon when he came to the throne at an early age on the death of his father. On Torbis' advice, just before his coronation, King Peladon was encouraged to apply for membership of the Galactic Federation, in order that their world could modernise. Hepesh was fiercely opposed to these moves, fearing that membership would bring alien interference and the loss of their traditional ways. Torbis' views prevailed, but on the eve of the arrival of a Federation delegation, come to assess Peladon's suitability for membership, he was killed in the corridors of the royal palace, struck down, according to Hepesh, by the angry spirit of Aggedor. This bear-like creature was the royal symbol of the planet - creatures long thought to be extinct. The Time Lords redirected the TARDIS to Peladon at this time, and the Doctor was mistaken for the expected delegate chairman from Earth. Several acts of sabotage occurred, including an attack on the delegate from Arcturus. The Doctor initially thought these the work of the Martian delegates - Ice Warriors Izlyr and Ssorg. Hepesh employed the King's Champion, Grun, to lure the Doctor into a trap - leading him to the Temple. Setting foot within this sacred space carried a sentence of death. Hepesh attempted to force the Doctor to flee, claiming that he had no wish to bring down retribution on his planet from aliens. The Doctor elected to stay, and beat Grun in mortal combat. He was almost killed by Arcturus, however, but it was destroyed by Ssorg. It transpired that Hepesh had been in league with Arcturus all along, to keep Peladon out of the Federation. Hepesh would be allowed to maintain their ancient traditions, whilst Arcturus would have sole mineral rights. Hepesh also had one of the Aggedor creatures hidden in the cave system beneath the palace, and had used it to attack and kill Torbis. The Doctor befriended it through hypnotism, and when Hepesh led some of the guards in open revolt, taking the King hostage in his own throne room, the Doctor used Aggedor to scare the rebels into submission. Hepesh ordered Aggedor to kill the Doctor, but it struck him down instead, after its years of mistreatment by him.

Played by: Geoffrey Toone. Appearances: The Curse of Peladon (1972).

• This wasn't Toone's only Doctor Who related role. He had earlier played Thal leader Temmosus in the 1965 film Dr Who and the Daleks.