A Biography of the Doctor

The Third Doctor

Season Seven

SPEARHEAD FROM SPACE

The TARDIS, containing the freshly regenerated Doctor, materialises on Earth in the 20^th Century. He passes out when he leaves the TARDIS, and is found by UNIT troops looking for strange meteorites. He is taken to a nearby cottage hospital, where it is discovered that he has an inhuman blood type and two hearts. Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart and his new scientific advisor, Professor Elizabeth Shaw (Liz), investigate and the Doctor recognises his old friend, but is alarmed by how much he has changed. The Doctor escapes from the hospital, and arrives at UNIT HQ, where the TARDIS has been taken. He agrees to help UNIT deal with a possible alien invasion in return for his TARDIS key. However, he discovers that his TARDIS is not working. The Doctor then examines one of the "meteorites", which is plastic, and contained part of a group intelligence. Further investigation reveals that these are part of the Nestene Consciousness, a group intelligence. The Nestene have created plastic beings called the Autons , hidden around the country as shop dummies. They have also created plastic replicas of key government figures, disguised as a "waxworks" in Madame Tussaud's. UNIT are too late to prevent the beginning of the invasion attempt, but send a team to the plastics factory in which the Nestene are based. The Doctor and Liz are able to defeat the Nestene by using a device the Doctor has created. The Doctor agrees to help UNIT in return for clothes, a car, help from Liz, and help in repairing the TARDIS. The Doctor then claims that his name is Doctor John Smith.

THE SILURIANS

The Brigadier asks the Doctor and Liz to investigate problems at the Wenley Moor research station. The Doctor discovers that the problems have been caused by beings dubbed "Silurians". These reptilian Silurians were the, intelligent, humanoid, rulers of Earth millions of years ago. They went into suspended animation when a small planet threatened to crash into Earth. The planet became the moon, and went into orbit, preventing them from waking up. The Doctor tries to arrange for a peace between the two species, but many Silurians do not want this to happen. This faction murders the Silurian leader, and releases a deadly virus into the human population. The Doctor finds a cure, but is kidnapped by the Silurians before he can pass it on. Liz, however, realises what the Doctor has discovered and arranges for the cure to be produced and distributed. The Silurians then decide to destroy the Van Allan radiation belt, and wipe out humanity that way. The Doctor foils this plan, and convinces the Silurians to retreat into their shelter as the research plant's reactor has overloaded. The Doctor manages to prevent catastrophe, and plans to revive the Silurians one by one and reason with them. However, this does not happen because the Brigadier blows up the base - possibly leading to the death of the Silurians.

DECALOG: THE STRAW THAT BROKE THE CAMEL'S BACK
(Placement value 3)

The Doctor discovers an alien stranded on Earth. He attempts to help the alien without letting UNIT know. Eventually, the Brigadier sends UNIT troops to investigate the area. The alien accidentally kills people by trying to telepathically communicate with them, and the Doctor is forced to kill it when it tries the same with the UNIT troops.

(This features the Third Doctor, UNIT, and Liz. The Doctor is still very upset at the events of The Silurians.)

THE AMBASSADORS OF DEATH

UNIT become involved with the British Space Centre, who have lost contact with the manned Mars Probe 7. The probe lands on Earth, but its occupants leave before the Doctor can meet them - and the inside of the recovery craft is highly radioactive. The Doctor pilots Recovery 7 into space in order to find out what happened to the original crew. He discovers that they have been replaced by three alien ambassadors, who have been kidnapped. The Doctor tracks down the aliens and UNIT rescues them before the kidnappers can use them to begin a war between Earth and the aliens.

(The Doctor is still bitter after the events of The Silurians.)

INFERNO

UNIT is called in following an incident at the Inferno project. This project aims to tunnel into the Earth's core. Several of the staff on the project begin to transform into beasts. The Doctor experiments with his TARDIS console, and ends up in a parallel universe. Here, Earth is ruled by a fascist-style regime and the Inferno project is two days more advanced. The Doctor discovers that the Inferno project will destroy the world. Unfortunately, he is unable to prevent the alternate versions of UNIT and Inferno personnel from destroying their world but does, eventually, return to his universe. When there, he manages to stop Inferno before catastrophe happens.

THE EYE OF THE GIANT
(Placement value 5)

UNIT UK receives a piece of a battered alien spacecraft. In order to analyse it, the Doctor uses his space-time visualiser to track its origins. The spacecraft was last in one piece on a pacific island in 1934. The Doctor transforms the visualiser into a space bridge, and travels across to investigate. He discovers a group from Hollywood, who are filming an adventure film with the gigantic animals on the island. He also discovers an alien, frozen as a giant statue, and some aquatic aliens, who briefly attack. Meanwhile, the Brigadier begins receiving reports of mass sightings of ghosts, and discovers that the island is due to be destroyed by a volcano very soon after the time the Doctor is in, and warns him. The Doctor discovers that the giant, Brokk, stole some biological agents from the Semquess, crashed on the planet, and accidentally released one onto the island, causing the giganticism. The Doctor helps the humans escape, whilst Brokk is tracked down by the Semquess, who destroy his ship, causing the volcano to destroy the island. Returning to the 1970s, the Doctor discovers that his trip has altered history, as one of the actresses has gained the giant's powers and the Semquess drugs. She has used them to reshape the world in her own image. As the remnants of the real universe fade, the Doctor travels back to 1934, and is able to arrange for the defeat of this new menace, and the return of history to normal.

(The Doctor is still trying to work out what happened to the TARDIS console in Inferno. This is the first time that Sergeant Mike Yates has met the Doctor.)

THE SCALES OF INJUSTICE
(Placement value 5)

The Doctor puts the TARDIS console back into the TARDIS and reconnects the stabilizing dio-nodes and the transceiving telo-circuits. He believes that all he needs to do is feed in the directional memory wafers and weld the dematerialisation casing back into the artron filaments before doing a few months of steady-state micro-welding before the TARDIS works again. Just after this, the Doctor and Liz are given a report which clearly indicates 'Silurian' activity in Kent. The Doctor goes to investigate and Liz agrees to keep the details from the Brigadier in case he tries to blow them up again. The Doctor is followed to Kent by an assassin, but makes contact with the Earth Reptiles before the assassin can get him. He has brief video contact with members of the Silurian Triad, and discovers that the members of this shelter are interbred between two castes, and have severe genetic problems. He attempts to help negotiate peace. Meanwhile, Liz is informed of corruption within C-19 by an anonymous source and led to the channel Island of L'Ithe - right above the Earth Reptile shelter. She is accompanied by an agent of this conspiracy, disguised as a journalist. This agent starts shooting, ruining all hope of peace. The Doctor persuades one Silurian to take him and a human captive back to the mainland. However, the three are captured by agents of the rogue C-19 group, and taken to a secret establishment called the Vault, where they have been experimenting with much of the fall-out from alien invasions and mad scientists. Liz agrees to work with the Silurians to cure their genetic problems, some of the Silurians attack Smallmarshes, but are defeated by UNIT forces, and UNIT eventually discover the Vault and shut it down - but not before some of its key players escape. Following these events, Liz decides that she is tired of UNIT and wants to leave to help the Earth Reptiles.

(This happens soon after The Eye of the Giant. There are several UNIT promotions in, or immediately after, this story. In particular, Yates is promoted from Sergeant to Captain, and Tom Osgood is promoted from Corporal to Sergeant. In addition, the Brigadier's wife, Fiona, leaves him during this story. Liz is depicted as leaving UNIT, but her final exit is clearly a bit later than this. The Doctor is completely ignorant of Liz's friends and family.)

Following these events, Liz takes a leave of absence from UNIT, determined to find a cure for these Earth Reptiles' genetic disorder. However, she then returns to UNIT.

(The leave of absence is mentioned in Face of the Enemy on page 31. It must be assumed that her leaving here was a leave of absence rather than properly leaving as in The Devil Goblins from Neptune the Doctor and UNIT staff meet some of her friends and Mike Yates is a Sergeant.)

THE DEVIL GOBLINS FROM NEPTUNE
(Placement value 5)

The Doctor is on his way to investigate a radar station, which he upgraded, because its results don't tally with any of the others when some Russians attempt to kidnap him. They fail, and try again the next day, when he is visiting the Progressive Club in Mayfair. The Doctor escapes, and UNIT capture the kidnappers on the third kidnapping attempt. The perpetrators turn out to be from Soviet UNIT, who have been denied access to the Doctor's expertise. The Doctor and Liz agree to help Soviet UNIT investigate an alien presence in Siberia. They discover that the aliens in question are the crazed Waro, from one of Neptune's moons. They also discover that the Waro presence in Siberia is a distraction. They return to the UK - discovering the Waro ship hiding in the Solent, before travelling to the US, where the Waro are in pursuit of Cobalt-60 for their plan to destroy humanity. Meanwhile, the Brigadier has been investigating a conspiracy in UNIT Geneva. He is kidnapped, and taken to Ranch 51 in the US, where the Cobalt-60 is stored. He meets the Nedenah, peaceful aliens imprisoned by the CIA, and helps them escape. When the Waro attack en masse, the CIA, US army, and US air force don't stand a chance, but the Nedenah, eventually helped by the small UNIT group infiltrating from the UK, beat them. The Nedenah leave Earth, whilst UNIT realises that it is going to have continuing problems with the CIA trying to undermine them.

(Yates is a Captain by this time, and Liz is still with UNIT. This appears to contradict The Scales of Injustice. However, Face of the Enemy provided a way out of this problem, as detailed above.)

DECALOG: PRISONERS OF THE SUN
(Placement value 4)

In an alternate future, Liz uses the Doctor's knowledge to set up a ruling scientific elite. In this timeline, the Doctor is placed in suspended animation. The Time Lords send the real Doctor into this future, to retrieve a message capsule for his Liz. He discovers that this future contains Solarians, survivors of a race destroyed by the Hand of Omega's first use. They planned to make humanity into an army to invade Gallifrey. The Doctor is able to avert this future by delivering the message capsule to Liz. The capsule contains the future Liz's thoughts, which dissuade her from following this course.

(This story is after Liz has left UNIT, though the Doctor appears to have not met Yates yet.)

SHORT TRIPS COMPANIONS: THE TIP OF THE MIND
(Placement value 3)

The Time Lords send the Doctor to a space station several years after he met Zoe. He believes that it is a chance to obtain the dematerialisation codes to the TARDIS, however, the Time Lords have unintentionally left some of Zoe's memories of her time on the TARDIS, and calculate that the sight of the TARDIS will remove them, preventing any undue influence on history. They are right, and the Doctor returns to his exile on Earth.

(This is clearly during the Doctor's exile, though he is alone, so it's impossible to date the story any further. It is at least 3 years since Zoe was returned to her own time.)