Friday 16 September 2022

L is for... Lasky, Professor


The Doctor encountered the arrogant thremmatologist Professor Sarah Lasky on the spaceship Hyperion III. It had just left the planet Mogar on its voyage to Earth. Lasky and her assistants, Doland and Bruchner, had taken over the hydroponics section of the hold and were transporting a number of large vegetable pods under tight security.
Someone sabotaged the electrified fence around the pods, and direct light was able to shine on them. This caused them to germinate and burst open, and creatures called Vervoids emerged. Lasky and her colleagues had created these as a form of cheap labour. However, they regarded all creatures which preyed on vegetable life as their enemies. The Vervoids began to kill everyone on the ship, using the bodies to build a compost heap.
As their creator, Lasky attempted to reason with them, but they knew of her plans to exploit them and killed her with their toxic stings.

Played by: Honor Blackman. Appearances: Terror of the Vervoids - Trial of a Time Lord Parts 9 - 12 (1986).
  • Blackman came to fame thanks to her role as Cathy Gale in The Avengers - a role which then won her the female lead in the Bond film Goldfinger. (In one of the early Mrs Peel episodes, Steed receives a Christmas card from Mrs Gale, with a picture of Fort Knox on it, and he wonders what she's doing there... Diana Rigg would also be headhunted from The Avengers for the Bond franchise three films later).
  • She had previously been offered the role of Vivien Fay in The Stones of Blood, but declined as she knew that Beatrix Lehmann would get all the best lines. She was also considered for the role of Thalia in Arc of Infinity.

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