General Cutler was the hard-nosed commander of the Snowcap space tracking station, which had been established at the South Pole. He demanded hard work and loyalty from the men who served under him - a mix of military personnel and civilian scientists. He was deeply suspicious when the Doctor and his companions Ben and Polly turned up outside the base, just after the latest space mission, Zeus IV, had begun to experience problems. Soon after, a new planet was seen to drift into the solar system close to the Earth. The Doctor tried to warn the General of the consequences of this, but he failed to heed his advice. The base was attacked and taken over by Cybermen from the new planet - Mondas.
After the initial assault had been overcome, Cutler discovered that his son had just been sent up in Zeus V to investigate Mondas and to try to help the earlier mission. Cutler began to lose his reason, becoming determined to save his son at any cost. He wanted to deploy the Z-Bomb which was housed at Snowcap, even though his scientists warned that this could devastate the Earth as well. When refused permission to use it, he went ahead anyway. Ben was able to sabotage the missile before it could be launched. Cutler would have turned on him and his friends had the Cybermen not broken back into the base and killed the General.
Played by: Robert Beatty. Appearances: The Tenth Planet (1966).
- Beatty was Canadian, but he cornered the market in American characters in TV and film in Britain for more than three decades. Based in London during WWII, he broadcast radio reports about the Blitz to listeners in the US and Canada. He played the fictional US President in the fourth Christopher Reeve Superman movie, and portrayed two real Presidents - Truman and Reagan.
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