Tag: Vislor Turlough

With the Mara once again forcefully asserting its dominance over Tegan’s personality, the Doctor tries to go into his companion’s mind to excise the evil influence once and for all. But the Doctor’s best intentions have even worse results: the Mara takes over his mind instead. The Doctor, under the Mara’s influence, pilots the TARDIS to Manussa, the homeworld of the Mara’s empire… over a century before that empire will come into being. While Tegan is found to be free of the Mara’s influence, the possessed Doctor is working behind the scenes to ensure that the Mara will hold thrall over the entire planet, using Manussa’s mass media as the vehicle for the Mara’s message. Slowly gathering allies and power, the Mara prepares to take over the minds of the Manussans, even if it rewrites history by bringing the Sumaran Empire about too early. In the meantime, Nyssa, Tegan and Turlough watch helplessly as the Doctor becomes an agent of evil, leaving it to them to save Manussa.

written by Stephen Cole
directed by Barnaby Edwards
music by Richard Fox & Lauren Yason

Cast: Peter Davison (The Doctor), Janet Fielding (Tegan Jovanka), Sarah Sutton (Nyssa), Mark Strickson (Turlough), Dan Stevens (Rick ausGarten), Hugh Fraser (Dr. Hanri Kerrem), Madeleine Potter (Yoanna Rayluss), Vernon Dobtcheff (Dada Desaka), Toby Sawyer (Baalaka)

Timeline: for the Doctor, Tegan and Turlough: between Enlightenment and The King’s Demons; for Nyssa: 50 years after Terminus. This story takes place after The Whispering Forest and before Heroes Of Sontar.

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

The Doctor and his entourage arrive in 1983 and join an expedition into a network of man-made (but abandoned) subterranean tunnels teeming with rats, but they’re no ordinary rats: these rats show signs of intelligence, and the ability to communicate. Furthermore, they have plans for conquest, including a plan to release a plague capable of wiping out the human race. The Doctor must try to broker some sort of peace with the rats, a task made harder by the presence of Dr. Wallace, the scientist who initially experimented on the rats to augment their intelligence. Unwilling to compromise, the rats intend to destroy humanity and take over the world. Wallace, who was declared dead when his entire research project lost communication with the outside world in the 1960s, feels it’s his duty to deal with the threat, regardless of the cost, even after discovering that one member of the expedition into the tunnels is the daughter he left behind.

written by Tony Lee
directed by Ken Bentley
music by Andy Hardwick

Cast: Peter Davison (The Doctor), Janet Fielding (Tegan Jovanka), Mark Strickson (Turlough), Sarah Sutton (Nyssa), John Banks (Clifford Andrews), Alison Thea-Skot (Sally Lucas), Terry Molloy (Dr. Wallace), David Seymour (Kevin), Andrew Dickens (Matthew / Major Harris), Charlie Norfolk (Caitlin Jones)

Timeline: for the Doctor, Tegan and Turlough: between Enlightenment and The King’s Demons; for Nyssa: 50 years after Terminus. This story takes place after Heroes Of Sontar and before Rat Trap.

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

The Doctor brings his friends to Calcutta, India to sit back and watch a cricket match, but things almost immediately take an unexpected turn when a fellow spectator shows signs of being infected with rabies. As Nyssa tries to tend to the man, a British soldier steps forward and ends the man’s suffering with a gunshot to the gut – but not before the rabid man has bitten Nyssa. Appalled, the Doctor and Turlough confront the shooter, Major Haggard, only to find he has no pity for the victim (or, indeed, for anyone else). Tegan, sent to the TARDIS to get a medical kit, returns to the Doctor with the alarming news that the TARDIS has been removed from where it landed. The TARDIS is spotted on a train, and Turlough and Tegan manage to climb aboard the train as it leaves the station, while the Doctor and a still-unconscious Nyssa must find other transport, getting help from Professor Narayan. Aboard the train with Tegan and Turlough are Major Haggard and an enormous tiger, which seems to have a telepathic and empathic link with Nyssa. Haggard thinks he’s trying to track down a treasure, but the Doctor soon learns that the real treasure is an alien life force deposited on ancient Earth by a meteorite impact. That life force’s new inheritor, Nyssa, may never be the same.

written by Barnaby Edwards
directed by Barnaby Edwards
music by Howard Carter

Cast: Peter Davison (The Doctor), Janet Fielding (Tegan Jovanka), Mark Strickson (Turlough), Sarah Sutton (Nyssa), Cherie Lunghi (Lady Adela), Sam Dastor (Professor Narayan), Vincent Ebrahim (Shardul Khan), Neil Stacy (Major Haggard), Vineeta Rishi (Dawon), Gwilym Lee (Djahn / Lord Edgar), Trevor Cooper (Colonel Creighton / Kimball)

Timeline: for the Doctor, Tegan and Turlough: between Enlightenment and The King’s Demons; for Nyssa: 50 years after Terminus. This story takes place after Rat Trap and before The Jupiter Conjunction.

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

The TARDIS lands on a comet which has been hollowed out and set up as a long-haul freighter making precisely-timed supply runs through the solar system. A life support system allows a community of humans to live and work within the comet, though much of their time is simply spent waiting and cultivating non-work-related pursuits. But someone has been stealing supplies from the comet’s cargo holds, and the newly arrived time travelers are obvious suspects. Nyssa and Tegan befriend a woman who is on the run from the security team, and meet her accomplice just before he dies in the vacuum of space. Turlough offers “testimony” against the Doctor, claiming that they have been stealing the comet’s supplies, to buy time and divert the attention of the security guards. Somewhere on the comet, a gaseous life form from Jupiter lurks, and some of the humans aboard the comet are making their own plans to spark a war between Earth and the Jovian life forms that Earth has yet to discover. Future history records a peaceful outcome, and the Doctor has to risk the lives of his traveling companions to ensure that it happens.

written by Eddie Robson
directed by Ken Bentley
music by Richard Fox & Lauren Yason

Cast: Peter Davison (The Doctor), Janet Fielding (Tegan Jovanka), Mark Strickson (Turlough), Sarah Sutton (Nyssa), Rebecca Front (Patricia Walton), John Cummins (Anton Falcao), Ellie Burrow (Chica St. Jude), Zoe Lister (Violet Silvaner), Ben Porter (Major Nash), Simon Blake (Manny), Philip Pope (Jovians)

Timeline: for the Doctor, Tegan and Turlough: between Enlightenment and The King’s Demons; for Nyssa: 50 years after Terminus. This story takes place after The Emerald Tiger and before The Butcher Of Brisbane.

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

Once again, the Doctor is trying to take Tegan to Brisbane, but not to leave the TARDIS; this time she wants to show off her home town to her friends. But interference in the time vortex nearly tears the TARDIS apart; the time machine is thrown off course, and Turlough and Nyssa vanish completely. The Doctor tries to follow them through time, but instead arrives in 51st century Brisbane. Tegan is horrified to see that Earth has become polluted, and the Doctor immediately suspects that the TARDIS has been thrown off-course by the time experiments conducted by Magnus Greel, a time-traveling serial killer he dealt with in his fourth incarnation. Nyssa and Turlough end up spending three years as part of the resistance trying to expose Greel’s corruption before they see the Doctor again, while Tegan and the Doctor arrive in time to see Greel at the height of his corruption and madness. They’re horrified to see that Nyssa is now posing as Greel’s fiancee (and Turlough as her personal assistant), and that Greel’s scientific advisor, an alien named Findecker, is continuing experiments with time travel that permanently disfigure the user and force him to drain life energy from others. At every turn, someone wants the Doctor to make sure Greel dies for his crimes – but the Doctor, knowing that Greel will die in another place and time, can’t keep that promise and can’t explain why.

written by Marc Platt
directed by Ken Bentley
music by Fool Circle Productions

Cast: Peter Davison (The Doctor), Janet Fielding (Tegan Jovanka), Mark Strickson (Turlough), Sarah Sutton (Nyssa), Angus Wright (Magnus Greel), Rupert Frazer (Dr. Sa Yy Findecker), Felicity Duncan (Ingrid Bjarnsdottir), Daniel Weyman (Ragan Crezzen), Daisy Ashford (Sasha Dialfa), John Banks (Eugene Duplessis / Chops)

Notes: The Doctor claims to be a Time Agent (The Talons Of Weng-Chiang, The Empty Child) to conceal his true identity. Findecker was established in – of all things – a Brief Encounters short story by Warren Ellis in a 1991 issue of Doctor Who Magazine; that story did not mention Findecker’s species or origins, only his surname, leaving Butcher Of Brisbane writer Marc Platt plenty of room to create a character. At the end of the story, Greel uses his time cabinet to escape (with Mr. Sin in tow), and his next stop is foggy Victorian London, where he will once again meet the Doctor (this time in his fourth incarnation, who has yet to experience this adventure), this time working with the formidable team of Jago & Litefoot, in The Talons Of Weng-Chiang.

Timeline: for the Doctor, Tegan and Turlough: between Enlightenment and The King’s Demons; for Nyssa: 50 years after Terminus. This story takes place after The Jupiter Conjunction and before Eldrad Must Die!.

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

The TARDIS arrives near a beach, where Tegan hopes to show Nyssa and Turlough a thing or two about Earth recreation, but the beach proves to be hazardous – growths on local birds and fish seem to be forcing quartz crystals through their skin, and even the sand beneath the water is full of sharp crystal shards. An old school friend of Turlough’s is nearby, and though they are now separated by decades of age, he appears to have big plans for Turlough. Turlough falls under the thrall of the living crystal slowly encroaching on the beach, which fills his mind with a singular new purpose: he must kill Eldrad. Others exposed to the living crystal feel differently: Eldrad must live. The Doctor comes to a terrible realization: the planet Kastria is still nothing but dust, and a clash of titans between Eldrad and an executioner appointed by his people has been relocated to Earth.

written by Marc Platt
directed by Ken Bentley
music by Wilfredo Acosta

Cast: Peter Davison (The Doctor), Janet Fielding (Tegan Jovanka), Mark Strickson (Turlough), Sarah Sutton (Nyssa), Stephen Thorne (Eldrad), Nancy Carroll (Mulkris), Pip Torrens (Charlie Gibbs), Jessica Claire (Kate Sherrin), Brian Protheroe (Bob Gell), Mark Field (Jim)

Notes: The fourth Doctor encountered Eldrad when it briefly took over the body of Sarah Jane Smith in The Hand Of Fear (1976). Turlough’s background at Brendan School was part of his introductory television adventure, Mawdryn Undead (1983); references are also made to Deela (Kiss Of Death, 2009).

Timeline: for the Doctor, Tegan and Turlough: between Enlightenment and The King’s Demons; for Nyssa: 50 years after Terminus. This story takes place after The Jupiter Conjunction and before Eldrad Must Die!.

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

The Doctor lands the TARDIS near the University of Frodsham in 1983, just in time to attend a historical conference – and, perhaps, track down some indications of primitive time travel taking place here. By posing as “Dr. Jovanka” from Wollongong (and entourage), the Doctor gets to take part. Tegan experiences a strange sensation while looking at a prized sword said to have belonged to the 10th century warrior queen Æthelfrid, and later sees the college’s history professor stealing the sword. He takes it to a campus science lab where his wife has constructed a primitive time machine, which then propels Tegan and the professor back to the 10th century; their meeting with the real Æthelfrid doesn’t exactly go well, and the time travelers are accused of sorcery. Worse yet, the time machine reactivates, send Æthelfrid’s warrior princess daughter back to 1983. The Doctor promises to take Ælfwynn back to the 10th century in the TARDIS in exchange for her not killing anyone, but even that plan goes awry, landing them behind enemy lines. When Æthelfrid offers to spare the time travelers’ lives in exchange for Tegan assuming her daughter’s identity, it seems that history is almost destined never to be the same again.

written by Paul Magrs
directed by Ken Bentley
music by Steve Foxon

Cast: Peter Davison (The Doctor), Janet Fielding (Tegan), Mark Strickson (Turlough), Sarah Sutton (Nyssa), Anthony Howell (Professor John Bleak), Abigail Thaw (Dr. Philippa Stone), Rachel Atkins (Queen Æthelfrid), Catherine Grose (Princess Ælfwynn), Kieran Bew (Arthur Kettleson), Stephen Critchlow (Earl of Wessex)

Timeline: for the Doctor, Tegan and Turlough: between Enlightenment and The King’s Demons; for Nyssa: 50 years after Terminus. This story takes place after Eldrad Must Die! and before Prisoners Of Fate.

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green