M is for... Morbius

Morbius was once the President of the High Council of Time Lords. Frustrated at his lack of real power, Morbius decided to forge his own empire, independent of the Time Lords. He built an army of followers and embarked on a campaign of aggression across the cosmos. In return for their loyalty, his army was promised access to the Elixir of Life, a substance which could prolong life and was found only on the bleak planet of Karn where it was protected by the powerful Sisterhood. Karn lay in the same region of space as Gallifrey, and ancient ties linked the Sisterhood with the Time Lords.

It was on Karn that Morbius' crusade was eventually brought to a halt by the forces of Gallifrey. Morbius was captured, his army destroyed or routed. Though it existed on their law books, the execution of a Time Lord had never been envisioned by the Time Lords, but the crimes of Morbius were so great that there was no other option.

Maren, leader of the Sisterhood, was present as sentence was carried out, and saw the body placed in a dispersal chamber. 

However, the attending physician - a human named Mehendri Solon - was a secret follower of Morbius. On the eve of execution, he removed the despot's brain and preserved it for the day when it could be transplanted into a new host body.

Solon established a laboratory on Karn, where he began using miscellaneous body parts to construct a frame for the brain, which was kept in a tank of nutrients. It was connected to a vocal synthesiser, so Solon and Morbius could communicate with each other. 

The Sisterhood had now come to fear strangers and used their psychic powers to cause passing spacecraft to crash onto their planet. The victims of these incidents provided Solon with the raw materials he needed for his work. 

The one thing he lacked was a suitable head, and so developed an experimental artificial brain case. 

It was only a partial success, as static electricity tended to build up within the dome. Solon's quest seemed to finally come to an end when the Doctor was diverted to Karn by the Time Lords.

Failing to get his head, Morbius was alarmed to learn that a Time Lord had visited - fearing that his survival had been discovered. He forced Solon to employ the artificial cranium so that he would not be found defenceless. 

His new body comprised one human arm - taken from Solon's servant Condo - with a second limb ending in a massive crab-like claw. The rest of the body was a mixture of different species, including the lungs of a Birostrop with a methane filter.

Mentally unbalanced, Morbius went on the rampage, killing Condo and one of the Sisterhood. He was shot by Solon with a tranquiliser dart, and the Doctor ordered the surgeon to dismantle him and destroy the brain. Instead, he corrected the mental imbalance but was killed when the Doctor flooded his laboratory with toxic gas.  With his Birostrop lungs, Morbius was unaffected.

The Doctor challenged him to a mental duel which the former President lost when his brain case malfunctioned - causing him to go on the rampage once again. The Sisterhood drove him over the edge of a great precipice, and he fell to his death.

Played by: Michael Spice (voice), Stuart Fell (body). Appearances: The Brain of Morbius (1976).

• The Brain of Morbius is an adaptation of the Frankenstein story. Originally Terrance Dicks intended that a robot servant, with no sense of aesthetics, had made a monstrous body for its master. When the producer decided against a robot, whilst Dicks was on holiday, Robert Holmes rewrote the story to produce the version as broadcast - one which Dicks wanted his name taken off pf as it no longer matched his work.
• One of Dicks' complaints was why would such a great surgeon as Solon create a monstrous hotch-potch body? Our biggest question - why did Solon not simply transplant the brain into the Doctor's complete body?
• Stuart Fell tumbled awkwardly in his death scene as the weight of the dome (worn above his head like a hat) unbalanced him.
• Michael Spice later appeared as Magnus Greel in The Talons of Weng-Chiang.
• Morbius at the Doctor Who Experience in 2017:

• And at the Worlds of Wonder exhibition in 2023:

M is for... Morax

The Morax were an ancient war-like race who were imprisoned on Earth in ancient times. They were a parasitic species which took over other beings by infecting them. They could lie dormant in the environment, in plants and mud.

A corpse buried in the ground could be reanimated by their possession - as happened at the village of Bilehurst Cragg, near Pendle Hill in Lancashire. This was during the early years of the 17th Century, during the reign of King James I. It was assumed that this was the work of witches, and the widow of the local squire, Becka Savage, was relentlessly persecuting the inhabitants to stamp this out.

The Doctor discovered that the Morax had been sentenced to imprisonment for war crimes, and were buried under the Hill. 

Recently, Becka Savage had cut down a tree atop the hill which spoiled her view - little realising that it acted as a key to lock in the Morax. Her actions had freed them. She in turn was possessed by the Morax, becoming their queen. They aimed to make the visiting James their own king by infecting him.

The creatures were still susceptible to wood from the tree, however. The Doctor used her Sonic to reactivate the lock, trapping the Morax once again. Their queen refused to surrender and was killed by the monarch when he used a burning torch against her, made from wood from the tree.

Played by: Siobhan Finneran (Becka / Morax Queen), Marina Stroimenova, Tricia Kelly. Appearances: The Witchfinders (2018).

• Finneran is best known for her long-running role as Janice Garvey in ITV comedy series Benidorm.
• She first came to fame in the movie Rita, Sue and Bob Too (1987), in which she played Rita.
• Other recent roles include Downton Abbey and Happy Valley, and she has previously appeared in soaps Emmerdale and Coronation Street.

M is for... Moorhouse, Professor

Professor Emile Moorhouse was an expert in alien mythology who was lured onto the space-going Orient Express. One of his specialisms was the study of the entity known as the Foretold. It would appear within the vicinity of an ancient tattered pennant, striking its victims dead within 66 seconds of them first observing it. It was invisible to everyone else.

Moorhouse and other experts, including the Doctor, were brought on to the Orient Express - a recreation of the luxurious Euro-Asian train - by a secretive organisation which sought to capture the Foretold and study it, in the hope of weaponising its technology.

Moorhouse himself saw the Foretold - which appeared to be a corpse-like mummy - and was able to describe it to the Doctor before dying.

It turned out that the creature's choice of victims depended on the state of their health. A warrior, it was programmed by alien tech to seek out the weakest members of a group first. Moorhouse had suffered from mental health problems following a serious road accident.

Played by: Christopher Villiers. Appearances: Mummy on the Orient Express (2014).

• Villiers had previously played the headstrong Hugh Fitzwilliam in 1983's The King's Demons.

M is for... Moore, Mrs

A member of the Preachers - a group led by Ricky Smith which sought to expose the dangers of John Lumic and his global business empire. She acted as their driver and technical expert.

This was on a parallel Earth.

As Angela Price, she had once worked for Lumic's Cybus Industries but had come across files which she was not supposed to have seen. She suddenly found herself threatened by Cybus security, forced to go on the run. She left behind a family, and was resigned for her husband to think her dead if it protected them.

She encountered the Doctor when investigating a firm named International Electromatics, which proved to be a front for Cybus. They were behind the disappearance of thousands of people, globally.

It transpired that these people were being converted into Cybermen.

She and the Doctor attempted to break into Lumic's Battersea headquarters through subterranean cooling tunnels, but they accidentally activated some dormant Cybermen - one of which killed Mrs Moore with a lethal electric shock.

Played by: Helen Griffin. Appearances: Rise of the Cybermen / The Age of Steel (2006).

M is for... Moon, Dr

A mysterious medical man who was called in to look after a girl named Cal, who lived alone with her father. His expertise lay in the field of psychiatry. Cal was a troubled, nervous child. His soothing words seemed to calm her, even though these invariably simply had him tell her to ignore her worries.

Cal was actually CAL - the uploaded mind of the daughter of Felman Lux, who founded the Library. This book repository covered an entire planet. On her death, her memories and personality were uploaded to the Library's mainframe, so that she could have a continued existence through its books. To maintain the Library complex, protection software was installed to oversee CAL, and this was established on the planet's moon.

'Dr Moon' was a personification of this function within Cal's artificial reality.

When Donna Noble was uploaded into the computer, it was Dr Moon who helped her adjust to the artificial reality - appearing to run a clinic where she first arrived, before frequent monitoring visits to her new home. 

Played by: Colin Salmon. Appearances: Silence in the Library / Forest of the Dead (2008).

• A regular during the Brosnan Bond era, Salmon is now appearing in EastEnders.
• Genre appearances include Arrow, General Zod in the TV prequel series Krypton, and AVP: Alien v. Predator.

Episode 100: Escape Switch

Synopsis:

In the treasure vault of the Great Pyramid, Sara sees a bandaged figure struggling from a sarcophagus...

This proves to be the Monk, who explains that he was attacked by the Doctor, bound in wrappings, and shut in the tomb.

He attempts to trick Steven and Sara into opening the TARDIS for him, hoping to steal it and flee - but Steven explains that only the Doctor has a key.

Grudgingly, the Monk accompanies them outside as they go in search of the Doctor.

Instead, he encounters Mavic Chen and the Daleks. Thinking on his feet, he declares that he has delivered hostages to the Daleks, in the shape of Steven and Sara.

All three are taken to the Dalek time machine, where the Space Security agent makes no attempt to disguise her contempt for her former leader.

Chen is instructed to broadcast a message to the Doctor, notifying him of his friends' capture and offering an exchange - their lives for the Core.

The Doctor hears this - as do Tuthmos and Khepren, who believe this to be the voice of the gods.

On arriving at the Dalek time machine the Doctor agrees to a handover, but only on his terms. Chen must bring all three of his hostages to the west side of the Great Pyramid, accompanied by a single Dalek.

Guard captain Hyksos returns with reinforcements, and announces to Tuthmos and Khepren that a trap will be laid  at the meeting point. The strangers and their war machines will be destroyed.

At the appointed time and place, Chen arrives with Steven, Sara and the Monk, but accompanied by a pair of Daleks. He explains to the Doctor that he has no command over them. The hostages are allowed to flee as the Doctor hands the Core over to Chen, at a point where he can make a rapid exit.

Before the Daleks can pursue him they come under attack by the Egyptian warriors. Hyksos and his men are slaughtered.

The Doctor is reunited with Steven and Sara in the tomb and enter the TARDIS. The Monk is surprised to see his ship looking like a Police Box, but finds the Daleks closing in - thinking it to be the Doctor's TARDIS. He departs, as Chen informs the Dalek patrols that their mission has been a success. They can return with the Core to Kembel.

In the TARDIS, the Doctor explains to his companions that they must do the same if they want to stop the Dalek master plan. He reveals the Monk's directional unit, and tells them that it will either take them where they want to go - or wreck the ship and prevent them going anywhere.

The Monk emerges from his TARDIS to discover that he is not where he was meant to be. He has arrived in the middle of a frozen wasteland, his ship taking on the form of a huge block of ice. Checking his controls, he realises what the Doctor has done. He will have to wander as aimlessly as his old enemy.

The Doctor instals the stolen unit and operates the controls. The TARDIS is rocked by an explosion...

Next episode: The Abandoned Planet

Data:

Written by: Dennis Spooner

Recorded: Friday 31st December 1965 - Television Centre Studio TC3 

First broadcast: 5:50pm, Saturday 15th January 1966

Ratings: 9.5 million / AI 50

Designer: Barry Newbery

Director: Douglas Camfield

Critique:

Since 2005 significant dates in the series' history have been marked in some way on screen, be it the Crusader-50 vehicle for the 50th episode of the revived series, or the No.200 service London bus to mark the 200th story overall.

Back in October 1963, Eileen Way had wagered with William Hartnell that the series wouldn't last a year, whilst he was telling journalists it could last five times that long, which was how long he himself hoped to be in the role.

The series' 100th episode fell towards the end of The Daleks' Master Plan, half way through Season 3, and few seemed to be paying attention as the landmark was little acknowledged. Some photographs were taken of Hartnell having his wig fitted by Sonia Markham, by way of publicity.

It's surprising that Hartnell should have gone along with this, as it would have broken the illusion for younger fans. He very much thought of the series as a children's programme, even if it wasn't being produced by that BBC department.

It is nice to know that we still have this episode to enjoy today - it being the last of the three surviving instalments of this story.

Like Counter Plot, a 16mm film print of Escape Switch was found in the basement of a Mormon church in South London in July 1983.

In its earliest form, this episode would have seen the Doctor, Steven and Vicki return to the planet Varga to find it deserted except for Chen and his fellow Galactic Councillors who were locked up in a cell by the Daleks - action which was later moved to the eleventh instalment.

As mentioned last week, we see a Dalek being immobilised with stones during the fight sequence with the Egyptian warriors. In the rehearsal script this was expanded upon to have the locals continue to build around the Dalek to create a monument to their victory, one that would "stand as a guardian to the tomb".

Tuesday 5th October saw the filming at Ealing of the battle sequence between the Daleks and the Egyptian warriors. Work on these sets for the previous episode had begun the previous day, with Douglas Camfield unhappy with the way his extras performed, despite the best efforts of David Anderson who arranged the fight work, or Derek Ware who was actually appearing in the two Egyptian episodes, playing Tuthmos.

Cast and crew had enjoyed a week's holiday for Christmas, so reconvened for rehearsals for this episode on Monday 27th December. This allowed Hartnell to get over the cold which affected his voice on Golden Death.

It was during rehearsals that a lot of the comedic behaviour of the Monk was added, to lighten up the character again.

The cast then spent their New Year's Eve in studio recording the episode. That day John Wiles had to address a complaint from his boss, Gerald Savory, about the episode Volcano. Savory argued that Steven, as a contemporary Earthman, ought to have known what cricket was. Wiles had to explain that he actually came from the future, though this wasn't always obvious from the way the character was written and performed - and if you couldn't recall the events of The Planet of Decision.

The explosion of the TARDIS console was achieved using a camera flash-bulb.

The episode underran - coming in at 23' 37". Camfield explained this as due to one of the cast omitting a block of dialogue. However, when compared to the camera script this appears not to have been the case. It is not the shortest instalment of the story - the first and last episodes are shorter, with The Nightmare Begins running under 23 minutes.

This was the last time the Monk appeared on screen. Peter Butterworth would go on to specialise in comedy roles, particularly as a regular in the Carry On... film series. He would be there right at the end of that series, as well as featuring in stage and TV spin-offs. The character has subsequently been resurrected in comic strips (joining forces with the Ice Warriors), novels and audios.

The character gets a good send-off, with some lovely comedy moments - such as his whispered "calls" for the Doctor, or efforts to inveigle his way into the TARDIS.

A lovely cinematic touch often commented upon is Camfield's shot of the blazing Egyptian sun, dissolving into the glare of a spotlight on the dome of a Dalek.

Trivia:

• Just for a change these days, the ratings remain fairly stable from the previous week. A small rise in viewers, with a slight drop in the appreciation figure.
• With Spooner writing, the Monk's TARDIS is once again said to be a Mark 4 model. This is the first time that we discover that, though similar in design, not all TARDIS components are compatible between different models. We'll see this again when the Third Doctor attempts to use the Master's dematerialisation circuit.
• It was around this time that David Whitaker resubmitted one of his 1964 stories - "The New Armada". It would later be rejected by Donald Tosh's successor Gerry Davis.
• One of the publicity shots of Hartnell and Sonia Markham, taken to mark the 100th episode:

Inspirations: The Pandorica Opens / The Big Bang

Steven Moffat's first series finale. I'm sure one of the things he first thought about on taking over was: how does you go one better than RTD...?

When the series returned in 2005, RTD was very much following the model of US drama series, which featured mainly stand-alone stories but with an arc running through it. This would be introduced in the opening instalment, then reappear once or twice mid-season before taking over for the finale, which was nearly always a two-parter. The most obvious examples are Buffy The Vampire Slayer (of which RTD was a self-confessed obsessive) and The X-Files. The various Star Trek series didn't always feature mid-season arc instalments.

After reintroducing the Daleks by way of a lone example, RTD opted to deliver a vast army of them for his first finale. The second brought about the long anticipated coming together of Daleks and Cybermen.

The third reintroduced the Master, and the fourth Davros.

The last 2009 Special brought back the Time Lords and gave us a glimpse of the Time War.

In each of these finales, contemporary Earth faced global annihilation.

Another big invasion of Earth (usually represented by London) simply wouldn't do for a fifth year running. Not only would it be a bit samey, but Moffat had his own idiosyncratic way of crafting stories.

For a start, this finale goes nowhere near the present day. The Earth isn't at risk from aliens. Indeed, they think it - and everywhere else in the Universe - is at risk from the Doctor.

It isn't a conventional two-parter. The second half goes off on a weird tangent, with many elements from the first part simply passed over. (Matt Smith will never get a conventional two-part finale. No invasions of Earth for him).

After the Daleks and Cybermen squaring up to each other in Doomsday, Moffat decided to have them join forces against the Doctor. He then threw a lot of other aliens into the Pandorica Alliance.

The Pandorica was first mentioned by Prisoner Zero in The Eleventh Hour, and then again by River Song in Flesh and Stone.

She is back, still a captive at the Stormcage facility. When we first see her she is posing as Cleopatra, despite that Egyptian queen having been dead for decades before the opening scenes are set.

(The Fourth Doctor mentioned getting fencing lessons from her guard captain, so may well have met the real thing).

We see again Vincent Van Gogh (Vincent and the Doctor), Liz 10 (The Beast Below), Winston Churchill and Prof. Bracewell (Victory of the Daleks) from earlier in the series, as River pursues Vincent's painting of the exploding TARDIS through history.

The Doctor discovered that the TARDIS will blow apart at some point in Cold Blood, not long after Rory was removed from time by the crooked smile crack.

By the end of this story, most of the Series 5 episodes will have been revisited (literally in some cases).

At Stonehenge we encounter an armless, decapitated Cyberman of the Cybus design - last seen in The Next Doctor. The Daleks are the recently introduced New Paradigm flavour from Victory of the Daleks. 

Never seen, but mentioned to be in the skies above what will one day be Wiltshire are Drahvins, Terileptils, Judoon, Draconians and Zygons.

The ones we actually see are clearly the ones they have costumes easily accessible - so we get z-list creatures such as the Hoix, Uvodni (Sarah Jane Adventures), Sycorax and Blowfish. Also from Torchwood there are Weevils, who are supposed to be little more than savage animals.

From the Virgin New Adventures we hear that the fleet contains Chelonians (warmongering turtle people).

A-listers we do see are the Autons, Sontarans and Silurians (though of the inferior new type).

A nice touch is bringing Chris Ryan back to play the Sontaran commander, having played Staal in The Sontaran Stratagem two-parter.

There are familiar spaceships in the sky, including Cyberships based on the design we saw way back in The Invasion.

Rory is brought back as a Nestene Auton, though he will be rendered human again after the Doctor reboots the universe in The Big Bang.

This reset is supposed to explain why Amy does not recall the events of The Stolen Earth, as well as incidents such as the Cyber-King stomping over Victorian London. 

Moffat explained this as an attempt to avoid continuity questions - just blame everything on Big Bang 2 - but it simply creates new problems as the same event can be both recalled and forgotten, depending on who's writing. Russell T Davies has certainly ignored this.

The first episode ends with the Doctor in an impossible to escape prison, the titular Pandorica. However, the second episode begins with the Alliance reduced to dust whilst the writer simply cheats his way out of the predicament using his trademark "Timey-wimey"-ness. All the impregnable Pandorica needs to open it is the Sonic, which the Doctor gives to Rory to use after he has used it to free the Doctor so that he can give it to him to use to free him...

Moffat has been writing this time-twisting stuff since the 1990's, whilst a 2005 short story of his provided the springboard for Blink, in which the "Timey-wimey" thing first reared its head.

The story nears its conclusion with the Doctor seemingly being erased from time, and we see him travel backwards through his most recent experiences.

Flesh and Stone had seen what many fans thought had been a continuity gaffe - the Doctor appearing wearing his jacket when he had only just lost it to the Weeping Angels. This turned out to be a deliberate scene, as its the future Doctor revisiting Amy.

Young Amelia Pond features in the second half prominently.

Very few loose ends are tied up by the end. We'll have to wait another two years for some of them.

Next time: The Doctor has the Dickens of a time during a steampunk Christmas, whilst Amy and Rory look like they don't stand the ghost of a chance on a crashing spaceship...