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: