Stuart Hyde was the more junior of Professor Thascalos' assistants at the Newton Institute near Cambridge. He worked with Dr Ruth Ingram on the professor's TOMTIT device - Transmission Of Matter Through Interstitial Time. It was designed to transport objects from location to location via a type of time travel. Unbeknownst to Stuart and Ruth, Thascalos was actually the Master, and he intended to use TOMTIT to obtain a powerful crystal from ancient Atlantis, which would help him control a Chronovore - Kronos.
When the device was tested in front of a group of government observers, which included the Brigadier and Sergeant Benton of UNIT, something went wrong with the Master's calculations, and Stuart was rapidly aged.
He lived on site at the Institute and was taken to his rooms to rest whilst an ambulance was called. After the Master had worked out where he had gone wrong, and operated TOMTIT once again, it caused Stuart to be revert to his normal age.
He and Ruth attempted to operate the device later, after it had trapped the Brigadier and his men frozen in a time bubble. Benton was with them at the time. It didn't free the UNIT soldiers, but did have the effect of reducing Benton to babyhood.
Stuart and Ruth finally got the device to work, returning a now nappy-wearing Benton to normal.
Played by: Ian Collier. Appearances: The Time Monster (1972).
- Collier returned to the programme in 1983, to portray Omega in Arc of Infinity. He also voiced Omega on audio for Big Finish.
- The scripts clearly have the Master's alias as Thascalos, not Thascales. The Radio Times 10th Anniversary Special, and the 1973 Dicks / Hulke book The Making of Doctor Who had the wrong spelling, which was subsequently picked up by all the later guide books - and even the BBC's own online episode guide for this story. Thascalos is also the correct spelling for "Master" in Greek.
No comments:
Post a Comment