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.

L is for... Larvae Guns

Used as living weapons by the Zarbi on the planet Vortis. The Larvae Guns fired a scorching blast from their snouts. They resembled giant lice, with multiple legs and a hard carapace. They were the larval form of the giant ant-like Zarbi themselves, who had fallen under the malign influence of the alien Animus.

After the Animus had been defeated, the Larvae Guns were able to secrete a fluid which would help regenerate the soil so that plants might grow again.

Appearances: The Web Planet (1965). 

• In the novelisation of this story by its original writer, Bill Strutton, the Larvae Guns are called Venom Grubs. Creatures with this name were mentioned in Boom Town.
• The creatures were realised either by having an extra crawling around on all fours, or by putting them on a trolley which was pulled across the studio floor when speed was required. (You can hear the wheels rolling in some scenes when this happens).

L is for... Langer, Paul

 

Paul was the absentee father of Clyde Langer, Sarah Jane Smith's young friend. He had run off with his wife's sister several years ago. He turned up at the family home one day, wanting to spend some time with his son. His girlfriend was going to have a baby. Wanting to impress him, Clyde told Paul about his adventures with aliens, and took him to see Sarah's attic as proof. She wasn't at home, and Paul picked up a pendant before leaving. This was really an alien artefact, one which caused its wearer to transform into a warrior Berserker. It gave Paul special hypnotic powers, so that he was able to make Clyde forget about his friends and mother. He also used it to obtain goods like a sports car. As the effect of the pendant grew stronger, Luke and Rani were able to track Paul and Clyde down with the help of Maria Jackson and her father, working remotely with them from the States.

Sarah returned in time to break the mental possession - reminding Paul of who he really was.

Clyde told Paul he didn't want to see him again, and insisted that he look after his new family better than he did his first.

Played by: Gary Beadle. Appearances: SJA 2.4: The Mark of the Berserker (2008).

L is for... Langer, Clyde

 

Clyde Langer was a pupil at Park Vale Comprehensive in Ealing, West London. This was the school attended by Maria Jackson - friend and neighbour of journalist Sarah Jane Smith - and Luke Smith, Sarah's adopted son. He lived with his mother Carla, his father Paul having run off with Carla's sister some years ago.

On Luke's first day at the school, he and Maria dragged Clyde into an encounter with the alien Slitheen family. They had infiltrated a number of schools across the planet as part of a plot to avenge the members of their clan who had perished in the destruction of Downing Street. Clyde discovered Sarah's secret activities, and was invited into her circle.

He was the class joker, and decided to help teach Luke how to think and act like a normal teenager.

The pair were transported to an alien spaceship after taking part in a live action laser-fire game, and were almost transported to fight in an alien war in another galaxy.

When a family claimed Luke as their lost son, Clyde refused to believe it. When he sought help from Sarah's computer - Mr Smith - he found that it was behind the plot to exploit Luke's mental powers. Clyde found himself turned into computer data within Mr Smith, but was able to use this to seek help.

After Maria left Bannerman Road, budding journalist Rani Chandra moved in to her old house and soon became a friend of Clyde, Luke and Sarah. 

She was immediately thrust into an encounter with an alien force which manifested itself as a clown which fed on fear, and Clyde helped defeat it by using his terrible jokes against it.

Later, Clyde was reunited with his absentee father, who became possessed by an alien talisman. He made Clyde forget his mother and friends.

 An encounter with a Judoon captain led to Clyde and Rani being grounded - unable to leave the Earth.

One repercussion of this was when they discovered that the world's population had vanished one morning. A pair of alien robots had removed everyone whilst searching for their lost prince, who they were to transport home to rule. As Clyde and Rani had been grounded by the Judoon, they were left behind.

Clyde struck up a friendship with K9 Mark IV, which Sarah owned. On one occasion he smuggled it into school to help cheat on an exam. He also took it to Sarah's wedding, with a man named Peter Dalton. Clyde was suspicious about him, and it turned out that he was an unwitting ally of the Trickster, who had been plaguing Sarah for some time. On this occasion, Clyde got to meet the Doctor, in his Tenth incarnation. He had come to warn Sarah of the Trickster's trap. Clyde was dosed with Artron energy on touching the TARDIS just as it dematerialised.

Clyde had a real talent for art, and was surprised to learn that he had won a contest - Luke and Rani having submitted his work without his knowledge. The prize was for his class to visit the Mona Lisa, on loan to a London gallery. Sarah was upset to discover that Clyde had copied real Sontaran weaponry for his painting - especially when it and the Mona Lisa came to life. Clyde drew K9, knowing it would also come to life and so appear in the gallery to help them.

When Sarah was informed of the Doctor's death, Clyde accompanied her and Rani to their base in Snowdonia - Luke by this time having left for university. Clyde noticed that the Artron energy in his body was becoming active, and suddenly found himself transported to a distant planet. He had swapped places with the Doctor, now in his Eleventh incarnation. who had been trapped on the planet by the Shansheeth - intergalactic funeral directors. They and a corrupt UNIT major were planning to steal the TARDIS. The Doctor was able to bring him back to Earth and help defeat the Shansheeth plan.

A mysterious shopkeeper sent Sarah, Clyde and Rani back to different periods of Earth's history in search of a dangerous time-sensitive mineral. Clyde found himself on the south coast of England during WWII, where he and a young evacuee named George helped foil a Nazi invasion attempt.

When a woman named Ruby White began investigating alien incursions in the same way that Sarah had, and the latter decided it might be time to retire as she was feeling ill, Clyde became suspicious. To stop him interfering Ruby had him transported to the prison she had just escaped from - a small capsule orbiting the Earth.

A visit to a museum saw Clyde get a splinter in his finger from a totem pole. The next thing he knew, all of his friends and family started to turn against him. He soon found himself homeless. The totem pole was possessed by an ancient alien presence. Fortunately, he was able to break the curse.

He and Rani then posed as a couple to infiltrate a computer tech firm. A growing romantic friendship had now developed between them.

In one of two alternative realities, Clyde never knew Sarah or her friends as she had died in 1964, replaced by her school friend Andrea Yates.

In the other, Clyde had been with Sarah and Maria when the Royal Hope Hospital had been transported to the Moon by the Judoon, where they all perished through lack of oxygen.

Played by: Daniel Anthony. Appearances: The Sarah Jane Adventures Series 1 - 5 (2007 - 2011).

• Anthony was brought in to replace the female character of Kelsey, who had appeared in the pilot. This was to balance the gender profile of the cast of the cast (though Kelsey had also been hugely unpopular).
• Anthony was one of those actors often called upon to play younger than he really was. He turned 20 when the series began.

L is for... Lang, Hugo

Lieutenant Hugo Lang was a starfighter pilot with Earth's Interplanetary Pursuit force. When the mathematically-gifted twins Romulus and Remus - sons of Professor Sylvest - were abducted by an unknown alien, a suspicious spacecraft was discovered in the area. This was an old freighter previously reported lost. Lang's squadron was ordered to intercept the craft which possessed technology it shouldn't have had. They tracked it to the orbit of an obscure planetoid called Titan III, where they were attacked by a mysterious force. All the ships crashed, and Lang was the sole survivor. He was found by the newly regenerated Doctor and his companion Peri.

At first Lang believed they were responsible for the abduction of the twins and the deaths of his comrades, but later learned that the abductor was an old man named Edgeworth - really the Time Lord Azmael - and the force which destroyed his squadron was the psychic power of the Gastropod ruler Mestor, who had conquered Azmael's adopted world of Joconda.

Lang accompanied the Doctor and Peri to the planet and helped fight the Gastropods and free the twins. Azmael died in the act of destroying Mestor. Lang decided to remain on Joconda and assume the mastership vacated by the elderly Time Lord.

Played by: Kevin McNally. Appearances: The Twin Dilemma (1984).

• McNally recently returned to the series as Professor Jericho in three instalments of Flux.
• He gained international renown through his role as First Mate Joshamee Gibbs in the Pirates of the Caribbean movie franchise.
• He played Arthur Lowe - playing Captain Mainwaring - in the remake of lost Dad's Army episodes, and he has played Tony Hancock in the Missing Hancocks radio series, one of which was filmed and shown on BBC Four in 2016.

L is for... Lang, Adam

 

Adam Lang was a British astronaut with the European Space Agency, whose spacecraft crashed into the Pacific Ocean after he fell ill. He was abducted by hazard-suited men who transported him to Hong Kong for experiments. He was able to send a message to his husband, police detective Jake Willis, of his whereabouts. Jake arrived in Hong Kong and met the Doctor's companions Graham and Yaz who were investigating a series of incidents across the globe. They found and rescued Adam.

The illness afflicting him was of alien origin - Praxeus - and it had been brought to Earth deliberately as it was transmitted via plastic, and the Earth was full of plastics. The aliens responsible wanted to use the planet as a laboratory to find a cure. The Doctor managed to come up with one and Adam was saved.

He and Jake decided to go travelling for a while with a travel-blogger named Gabriela, who had also assisted the Doctor after her friend had been killed by Praxeus.

Played by: Matthew McNulty. Appearances: Praxeus (2020).

L is for... Landlord

The owner of a large house in Bristol, which was rented by Bill Potts and her friends. They were surprised that the property was so cheap. The landlord specified only that a tower room was out of bounds as unsafe.

On the first evening they moved in they discovered the landlord had entered the building, supposedly in response to their repair concerns, though no-one had called him.

The Doctor was spending the evening at the house and his suspicions led him to the basement where he discovered stored belongings of various groups of young people, dated roughly 20 years apart going back to 1957.

Odd creaking sounds coming from the woodwork proved to be caused by large woodlouse creatures, which attacked Bill's friends and sucked them into the fabric of the building. The Doctor called these Dryads, after the wood nymphs of Greek mythology. The landlord appeared to be facilitating this.

The reason for his actions was revealed when the Doctor and Bill gained access to the tower room and found a woman there, apparently made of wood. Her name was Eliza.

It transpired that her young son, John, had brought some Dryads into the house in the 1930's as she lay dying in the tower. The creatures had saved her life by turning her into wood. Ever since, John - now the landlord - had been luring young people to the house to feed the creatures so that they might sustain his mother.

Eliza eventually decided to end her existence - unhappy at the lives lost to keep her alive - and allowed the Dryads to consume her, and John joined her. The building then collapsed into rubble after freeing Bill's friends unharmed.

Played by: David Suchet. Appearances: Knock Knock (2017).

• Suchet will forever be associated with his signature role - that of Belgian sleuth Hercules Poirot. He played the part in ITV adaptations of every one of Agatha Christie's stories about the detective over a 24 year period.