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"There's no point in being grown-up if you can't be childish sometimes"
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The Fourth Doctor's Early Adventures |
Companions and Allies: Sarah Jane, Harry Sullivan, Lethbridge-Stewart, Benton Major
Enemies: Wirrn, Sontarans, Davros, Daleks, Cybermen, Zygons
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Robot |
Location: England |
Date: April 1974 |
UNIT medical officer
Harry Sullivan is in charge of The Doctor's recovery. Someone's
stealing components for a disintegrator, and evidence suggests the
robber's not human. The Doctor slips out of bed and heads for the
TARDIS, but Sarah and the Brig convince him to stay and help. The
Doctor finds a crushed flower at the site of the latest theft, and
estimates the thief weighs a quarter ton. Sarah, with a pass from
the Brig, tours Think Tank, a research facility, with its director,
Hilda Winters, and her assistant, Arnold Jellicoe. She's told that
Professor Kettlewell, a robotics specialist, is no longer there, and
that his work's been abandoned, but she's suspicious and goes to see
Kettlewell, who tells her no one could carry on his work. Sarah
returns to Think Tank and is threatened by a robot. It's stopped by
Winters, who tells her it isn't dangerous, and orders it to destroy
her. The robot refuses, but Sarah's concerned about the distress it
felt. After comparing notes, The Doctor, Sarah, and the Brig visit
Kettlewell, who tells them the robot will go mad if its programming
is altered. The robot steals a set of missile launch codes. The Brig
learns that Winters and Jellicoe belong to the Scientific Reform
Society. The next morning, after The Doctor gives into temptation and makes a trip in
the TARDIS (see next entry), he and
the Brig visit Think Tank, where Winters claims the robot was
destroyed because Sarah introduced it to concepts it couldn't deal
with. As they leave, Jellicoe tells Winters there's a visitor from
the Ministry of Health, Dr. Sullivan, who's checking medical
records. Kettlewell calls The Doctor, who's knocked out by the robot
when he goes to the professor's lab. Sarah arrives and calms it
down, but it escapes. Kettlewell is taken to UNIT, where he tells
Sarah and Benton about another invention, a "metal virus" to rid the
world of metallic waste. He sees an SRS leaflet, tells them he was a
member, and agrees to sneak Sarah into that night's meeting. The
Doctor, appalled when he learns this, arranges a raid, but the
robot, Winters, Jellicoe, and Kettlewell (who, as The Doctor
realized, has programmed the robot) escape, and take Sarah. Harry
calls to say Think Tank's being abandoned, and that he heard mention of a bunker, but the call's cut
short. UNIT attacks the bunker, an old atomic shelter. As they
approach, Winters orders Kettlewell to use the launch codes. Sarah
and Harry, who've been taken to the bunker, rescue the professor,
who aborts the launch. Sarah and Kettlewell try to reason with the
robot, but it uses the disintegrator and the professor is killed.
The robot, in shock, drops the gun. Winters restarts the launch but
The Doctor aborts it. The robot captures Sarah, the only person who
showed it kindness. It restarts the countdown because it believes
this was Kettlewell's wish. Benton mentions the metal virus, and The
Doctor and Harry go to the professor's lab. The superpowers, alerted
by the Brig, stop the launch. The robot leaves the bunker with
Sarah, and the Brig uses the disintegrator on it. The gun causes the
robot to grow to gigantic size. The Doctor and Harry return, and The
Doctor uses the virus to destroy the robot. With the menace over,
The Doctor tempts Sarah with a trip in the TARDIS, and Harry also
enters the ship. They take off, leaving the Brig to explain to the
Queen that The Doctor will be "a little late" for his dinner at the
palace.
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Unrecorded Events |
Location: Unknown |
Date: Unknown |
During the previous adventure, The Doctor slips away from
UNIT HQ and makes a trip in the TARDIS, landing on a planet where a
Mordee spaceship crew is having computer trouble. The Doctor
apparently succeeds in repairing the computer by imprinting his own
personality on it. This journey, which the still-unstable Doctor
forgets, will later come back to haunt him (The Face of
Evil).
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The Ark in Space |
Location: Nerva |
Date: Unknown |
The TARDIS lands on a
space station in the far future. The station's been converted into
an Ark, with the best of Earth's inhabitants in cryogenic storage,
but something has gotten into the machinery and delayed their
wake-up call. Harry finds the corpse of a large insectoid creature
in a cupboard. Sarah has accidentally been placed in suspension, and
The Doctor and Harry revive Vira, the chief medtech, who helps wake
her. A technician is missing, and Vira revives Noah, their leader,
who suspects the TARDIS crew is responsible. After linking with the
cerebral tissue of the dead alien, The Doctor learns the culprits
are the insectoids, called Wirrn, whose queen laid eggs in the
technician's body before she died, and who absorb the memories of
their victims before assimilating them. Noah is infected, but
retains enough humanity to place Vira in charge. With the help of
Vira and technician Rogin, The Doctor and his companions prevent the
Wirrn from taking over the Ark. Noah leads the Wirrn onto the Ark's
shuttle and takes off, after Rogin sacrifices his life to ensure the
ship's launch. The shuttle explodes, and Vira believes Noah has kept
enough of his own personality to save them. The Doctor, with Sarah
and Harry, transmats to Earth to repair the receivers there, and
Vira begins reviving her people.
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The Sontaran Experiment |
Location: England |
Date: Unknown |
As The Doctor fixes the transmat, Sarah and Harry
explore. Harry falls into a pit, and Sarah can't find The Doctor,
who's been captured by colonists who've returned to Earth. Harry
escapes from the pit, and Sarah meets Roth, who tells her about a
robot which has been capturing his friends. He says they're being
taken to an alien in the rocks, who's already captured and released
their leader, Vural. With Roth's help, Sarah rescues The Doctor, and
they look for Harry. The Doctor falls into the pit, and Sarah and
Roth are captured by the robot, which takes them to the alien, a
Sontaran named Styre, whom Sarah initially mistakes for Linx (The
Time Warrior). Styre is testing to see if humans offer a threat
to his people, and uses Sarah to test the human response to fear.
Vural and his crew are captured by the robot. The Doctor gets out of
the pit and releases Sarah, but is shot by Styre. He survives
because a piece of the shuttle locking mechanism in his pocket
absorbs the blast. Vural, who'd helped Styre, is tested with the
others. The Doctor uses the sonic screwdriver to destroy the robot,
and, after briefing Harry, challenges Styre to single combat. Sarah
and Harry release the crew, and Harry goes to Styre's ship and
removes part of its hardware. The Doctor is losing to Styre, but is
saved when Vural distracts the alien, at the cost of his own life.
Styre, who's exhausted his energy reserves, goes to his ship to
recharge, but a part which The Doctor had Harry remove controls this
process, and the ship feeds on Styre instead. The Doctor uses
Styre's comlink to inform the Sontarans that Styre is dead, and
their Marshal admits the invasion can't proceed without Styre's
report. The Doctor and friends use the transmat to return to the
Ark, leaving the others to await the arrival of its people.
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Genesis of the Daleks |
Location: Skaro |
Date: Unknown |
The transmat
beam is diverted by the Time Lords, whose emissary tells The Doctor
that they want him to deal with the menace of the Daleks by aborting
their creation, or altering it so the Daleks will be less of a
threat. The Doctor agrees, and is given a time ring which will
return him and his companions to Nerva when their mission is
completed. The Doctor, Sarah, and Harry are on Skaro, which has been
ravaged by a thousand-year war and whose people are mutating
because of radiation. The Doctor and Harry are captured by Kaled
troops, while Sarah is taken prisoner by their enemy, the Thals. The
Kaleds (later mistranslated as Dals: The
Daleks), have a Nazi-like military government, though the
real power lies with their chief scientist, Davros, who is
accelerating the mutations and developing a travel machine in
which the mutants can survive. The Doctor recognizes the machine as
a primitive Dalek and tries to convince Kaled dissidents to halt
this work, but Davros is so obsessed he helps the Thals against his
own people. After the Thals destroy the Kaled city, Davros sends his
Daleks to attack them. Sarah has escaped from the Thals and is
reunited with Harry and The Doctor. They're captured by Davros and
his aide, Nyder. Davros, who believes The Doctor's claim that he is
from the future, threatens to kill Sarah and Harry unless The Doctor
reveals the future of the Daleks, which Davros intends to change by
altering their programming to prevent their defeats. After he has
done so, they are locked up, but escape with help from the
dissidents, and The Doctor goes to the Dalek incubation chamber to
destroy the mutants. He questions whether he, or the Time Lords,
have the right to do this, and remembers that species which would
otherwise have attacked each other will instead unite to oppose the
Daleks. He is apparently spared the decision when Gharman, a
dissident leader, arrives to tell him that Davros has agreed to halt
his work until a vote can be taken on whether to continue. This,
unfortunately, is a ruse devised by Davros to discover who opposes
him, and the dissidents are exterminated by the Daleks. The Doctor
has recovered the time ring, which the Kaleds had seized, and
destroys the tape recording of the Daleks' future history. As he
returns to the incubation chamber to complete his mission, the Kaled
bunker is attacked by Thal forces. The Doctor is nearly killed by a
Dalek, which inadvertently sets off the explosives he has placed in
the incubation room. The Thals have set bombs to seal up the bunker
and The Doctor barely escapes in time. He and the others watch a
monitor screen, and see the Daleks, who've taken charge of their own
destiny, turn on Davros and his followers and exterminate them
(although Davros, who seems always to have a backup plan, survives:
Destiny of the Daleks). The Daleks are sealed in the bunker,
delaying their development, and as The Doctor and his friends use
the time ring to leave, he tells them he believes that a greater
good will eventually come from the evil of the Daleks.
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Revenge of the Cybermen |
Locations: Nerva, Voga |
Date: 30th Century |
The time ring returns the travelers to Nerva, at
a point when the Ark is serving as a navigational beacon. The Doctor
tells Sarah and Harry that the TARDIS will drift back in time to
meet them, and they explore the station. They find several bodies
with strange markings, and are captured by the crew, whose
commander, Stevenson, holds them responsible for this "virus", which
has killed most of his people. One of the crew, Kellman, is working
for the Cybermen, and has used Cybermats to transmit the disease.
The beacon picks up a signal from Voga, the legendary "planet of gold", which played a major role in the Cybermen's last defeat
(Cybermen can be killed by gold dust, which shuts down their
breathing apparatus). Sarah is attacked by a Cybermat, and after The
Doctor repairs the transmat, which Kellman sabotaged, uses it to
send Sarah and Harry to Voga. The transmat filters out the virus,
but Sarah and Harry are captured by Vogans. The Cybermen arrive, and
take The Doctor and the crew captive. They plant bombs on them and
transmat them to Voga. Kellman is beamed down to investigate a
malfunction in the transmat on Voga, and Harry learns that he's a
double agent, who's been working with a dissident faction of Vogans
to lure the Cybermen to the beacon, which will then be destroyed by
a missile. Kellman tells them about the bombs, and he and Harry try
to locate The Doctor and the others. Kellman is killed in a cave-in,
which also knocks out The Doctor. After Harry nearly explodes the
bomb by tampering with it, The Doctor frees himself and defuses the
other bombs. Sarah, who doesn't know The Doctor's on Voga, has
returned to Nerva, and The Doctor persuades the Vogans to delay the
missile while he rescues her. The Cybermen, who have discovered that
their first plan has failed, have transferred more bombs to Nerva,
and intend to crash it into the planet. They leave The Doctor and
Sarah tied up on the bridge, and depart. The Doctor gets free,
prevents the crash, and tells Stevenson how to divert the missile,
which destroys the Cybermen's ship. The TARDIS arrives, and The
Doctor finds a message from the Brigadier, who's used the space-time
telegraph The Doctor left behind to summon him back to Earth.
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Terror of the Zygons |
Locations: Scotland, London |
Date: 1975 |
The TARDIS arrives near
Loch Ness, and The Doctor and friends hitch a lift to the village of
Tulloch with the Duke of Forgill. The Brig has recalled The Doctor
because of attacks on North Sea oil rigs. During their
investigation, Harry is shot and taken to the hospital. He's
kidnapped by an alien creature, which locks Sarah and The Doctor
into a decompression chamber. The Doctor hypnotizes Sarah, and uses
his yoga training, to conserve oxygen, and they are rescued by
Benton. Harry is taken to the spacecraft of the aliens, a race of
shape-shifters called Zygons, who've used the area as a base while
awaiting the arrival of a fleet which will make Earth suitable for
their species. They've stayed hidden for centuries, but the recent
increase in oil drilling has threatened their safety, and they've
used their cyborg, an amphibious creature called the Skarasen, to
attack the rigs. The Doctor learns that a homing device found in the
wreckage of one of the rigs still works, and heads across Tulloch
Moor with it while UNIT tries to track the signal. He's pursued by
the Skarasen, but is saved when Harry disrupts the Zygon control
panel and makes them lose contact with the cyborg. The Doctor, Sarah
and the Brig visit the Duke to get permission to use depth charges
against the creature. He dismisses their stories of the monster, but
lets Sarah use his library to research it. She accidentally
activates a hidden panel, and follows a passage which leads to the
Zygon ship. She rescues Harry, and when they tell The Doctor what
they've learned, he enters the ship. He's captured by Broton, the
Zygon leader, who's impersonated the Duke, and the ship takes off
despite UNIT's efforts to stop it. The Doctor risks his life to send
a signal to UNIT, and activates the ship's self-destruct mechanism.
He, the real Duke, and other captives escape from the ship just
before it's destroyed, and all the Zygons except Broton are killed.
Broton, as the Duke, has gone to London, where he intends to use the
Skarasen to attack an international conference on energy. The Doctor
and the others arrive at the conference site, and Broton is killed
by the Brig. The Doctor finds a homing device which Broton has put
in his pocket, and destroys it. The Skarasen returns to Loch Ness,
the only home it's ever known. Back in Scotland, Harry declines The
Doctor's offer of further adventures, but Sarah agrees to accompany
him in the TARDIS, provided they head straight back to London.
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Planet of Evil |
Location: Zeta Minor |
Date: 372nd Century |
The TARDIS picks up a distress signal, and The
Doctor diverts the ship to investigate. He and Sarah arrive on Zeta
Minor, which is being explored by a survey team led by Professor
Sorensen. All but Sorensen have been killed, but their signal has
been picked up by a Morestran Probe ship commanded by Controller
Salamar and first officer Vishinsky. The Doctor learns the team has
found a gateway to an anti-matter dimension, and have taken samples.
The deaths have been caused by an anti-matter being which is trying
to recover the material. Sorensen, who's convinced that he's found a
major new energy source for his people, refuses to give up the
samples, but the being won't let the ship leave. The Doctor
convinces the Morestrans to give the material back, and the ship
takes off, but is pulled back because Sorensen has kept a sample.
It's infected him, and he mutates into an anti-matter being, which
splits into duplicates after Sorensen is shot with a neutron
accelerator by Salamar, who's cracked under the strain. With help
from Vishinsky and Sarah, The Doctor overcomes Sorensen and takes
him back to Zeta Minor in the TARDIS. The anti-matter creature cures
Sorensen, and The Doctor suggests he try an alternative energy
source, the kinetic motion of planets, to solve the Morestrans' problems.
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Unrecorded Events |
Locations: London, Cambridge |
Dates: 1975, 1955, 1980 |
Sarah, whose journalism career has been neglected as a
result of her association with The Doctor, takes a break when they
return from Zeta Minor. The Doctor
visits Professor Chronotis at Cambridge in 1955 (Shada), and
pays his first visit to Logopolis, where he declines The Monitor's
offer to fix the TARDIS's chameleon circuit (Logopolis).
He returns for Sarah,
arriving in 1980, and they resume their travels.
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