Tuesday, May 7, 2013

Matrix Databank (Part 4): The 4th Doctor


The 4th Doctor: Bohemian, irresistsable grin, Zoanon, the original mad man, the Scarf God, the iconic one. His debut came in prematurely at first, but the timing was right once he regenerated at UNIT HQ before the very eyes of Sarah Jane Smith and Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart. Recoperated from delirium while in the care of medical officer Lt. Harry Sullivan, the Doctor tried to take off in the ship after trying him up and putting him in the cabinet. He was talked out of it by the Brigadier when he asked for his assistance on the investigation of Think Tank and Professor Kettlewell's K1 robot that eventually ran amuck. This incarnation wore a brown fedora, a very long multi-colored scarf and a red corduroy jacket; later a variety of coats. With the robot destoryed, the Doctor and Sarah took off in the TARDIS with Harry along for the ride.

On the first trip, the new TARDIS trio arrived inside Space Station Nerva where colonists were in suspended animation until Earth recovered from the solar flares. They encounted the Wirrn who sought to use the humans for food and incubators for their needs. Upon saving the ark, the Doctor, Sarah Jane and Harry went to Earth to fix the trasmat reley; leaving the TARDIS in the space station. While there's the three encountered a Sontaran called Styre who was on the plant to experiment on humans to set up an invasion. Styre's plan was foiled and Earth's resettlement was resumed. The trio were heading back to the Space Station until the Time Lords chose the Doctor to go on a mission to Skaro to prevent the Daleks creation. There, he met the scientist Davros who was responsible for the Daleks' existance. Amidst the chaos, the Doctor came close to ridding the universe of the Daleks but hesitated and instead tricked them into setting off an explosion destroying the embryos in the process. The three travelers escaped Skaro via Time Ring; returning to the Nerva. However, they arrived at an earlier period as the TARDIS traveled back for them. At this time, the Doctor stopped the Cybermen's attack on the gold planet of Voga.


With the ship finally back, the trio resumed their travels which included 24th Century Prague, the planets, Peugross, Aquatica, and Diamedes. The TARDIS returned to Earth where they and UNIT took on the Zygons who plot to use the Loch Ness Monster and their scheme. It was immediately after this event that Harry decided to stay behind leaving only the Doctor and Sarah Jane to go on. Harry would eventually see the Doctor again (albeit 23 years later) when he encountered the Voracians on two occasions and before then the Kraals

As time went on, the Doctor and Sarah Jane encounter aditional being along the way. Among them, a planet
with anti-matter monsters, the Osirian god Sutekh, the infamous Morbius (plus the Sisterhood of Karn), the Pescatons, the Krynoids, and the Mandragora Helix. In one account, the Doctor and Sarah Jane encounter Iris Wildthyme in England, 1764. When the TARDIS landed in a quarry, Sarah Jane was nearly caught in a explosion when she found a petrified hand and was posessed by Eldrad. Under Eldrad's influence, Sarah Jane took the hand to a nuclear station where it regenerated into a woman. Granting Eldrad's request, the Doctor took her/him back to Kastria to be restored to his male form. Upon finding out he was responsible for the planets's demise, Eldrad was tripped into a pit; falling to his doom. Aggravated by all the times she was nearly injured, hypnotized and the lot, Sarah Jane announced to the Doctor that she wantes to go home. At the same time, the Doctor recieved a message from the Time Lords to return to Gallifrey and leave her behind. He dropped Sarah Jane off only to be revealed by her decades later that he actually dropped her off at Aberdeen rather than South Croyden.

Upon his arrival on Gallifrey, the Doctor was unsuccessful in preventing the Lord President's assassination, automatically making him a murder suspect. He was able to stay his execution by announcing his candidacy while looking for the real culprit. The culprit turned out to be the now degenerated Master. It was this adventure that reignited his bemusement of Time Lord decadance. It was revealed later that he was still eligable to become Lord President as he was the last candidate standing. After leaving Gallifrey, the Doctor resumed his travels alone. While on a unknown planet, the Doctor encountered a colony ship computer called Xoanon. Upon repairing the computer, he accidentally left an imprint of his mind into it triggering multiple personalities and the results that followed many years later. When he returned to the planet, the Sevateem (descendants of the Mordee expedition's survey team) viewed him as their evil god. With the aid of the female Sevateem tribal named Leela, the computer was cured and upon leaving she hopped into the TARDIS; much to the Doctor's shock and bemusement. The two made their first trip to a 23rd Century sandminer from Kaldor City where they stumbled upon a multiple murders caused by one of the ship's crewmembers who want the sandminer robots to revolt. In his quest to educate his new savage friend, the Doctor took her to various location in Earth's history. The first was in Victorian England where they encountered Li H'sen Chang and his master, the mysterious Weng Chang (who in reality was the 51st century criminal Magnus Greel). Aiding the duo in stopping Greel's malfunctioned time machine from destroying reality was Palace Theatre owner Henry Gordon Jago and pathologist George Litefoot; the two men would go on to become amatuer sleuths solving mysteries of the paranormal and/or alien phenomena.


The Doctor continued to educate Leela further in the adventures. Among them was the Space Station Nerva, Moravanian Museum on Moravania Minor, Roman Britain 60 AD, 2015 (where the Daleks were present), going up against the Master and the Kraals and Mt. McKerry, St Alban where the duo encounter the wild Stormcrow. While in a lighthouse in the 20th Century, the Doctor and Leela discover a Rutan who was using the planet as a strategic placement in the species war against the Sontarans. After destroying the alien via explosives (destroying the Lighthouse in the process), Leela's eyes changed from brown to blue when watching the explosion. The duo traveled to the Bi-Al Foundation in the year 5000 where the host of the Nucleus took hold of the Doctor's body as well as others. With the aid of Leela, Professor Marinus and his robotic dog K9, the Doctor defeated the Swarm and their host. Marinus gave K9 to the duo as a gift; they both became very fond of the tin dog. Their later adventures involved the Fendal, Pluto (and their tax collectors),  and the Oracle. When he returned to Gallifrey, the Doctor became power-mad and insane when he gained the Lord Presidency from Borusa while dealing with the Vardans and the Sontarans; the behavior change was later revealed to be part his plan. During the course of the plan, he banished Leela from the Citadel where she'd formed a resistance force and met the Gallifreyan guard Andred. After this event, Leela stayed behind on Gallifrey with K9 remaining with her. Despite his sadness over losing his two companions, the Doctor pulled out a crate while in the TARDIS containing the K9 Mk II.



Before he put the new tin dog together, the Doctor continues his travels; he briefly traveled with a young man named Oliver Day. After seeing Oliver off, the Doctor took up residence in Sussex 2009 in a cottage dubbed Nest Cottage. During this period battling the Hornet Queen, he met Fenella Wibbsey in 1932 Cromer; under his protection, Mrs. Wibbsey became his housekeeper and set up psychic blocks to prevent the Hornets from taking control again. The Doctor
also put an ad in magazine to include Mike Yates into his Hornet investigation.  It was revealed that the Hornet Queen possessed Yates during the course of the event. Once shrinking the hornets and their queen into a microuniverse inside a stuffed zebra and sent to another universe, the Doctor, Yates, and Mrs. Wibbsey celebrated Christmas. The following Christmas, the Hornets returned for revenge leaving five clues and five traps for the Doctor. They were eventually destroyed along with Atlas and the Sepulchre. After defeating the Hornets once more, the Doctor, Yates and Wibbsey tried to celebrate the holiday only to be cut short by another adventure involving the Robotov Empire, the Skishtari egg, and the Doctor's scarf morphing into a snake! Months after the Doctor left Nest Cottage, Wibbsey was greated by what appeared to be the Doctor's second incarnation who was later reveled to be a clone setting up the invasion organized by the orginal owners of the egg. The real Doctor (Wibbey's Doctor!) arrived to thwart the invasion and took off once more.




Several short trips (and a fully built K9 and another made for Sarah Jane as a gift) later, the Doctor was summoned by the White Guardian who gave him the task to find the all six segments of Key to Time in order to assemble it bring the entire universe to balance. The Doctor and K9 wouldn't be alone, however. The White Guardian gave him a new companion; the Time Lady, Romanadvoratrelundar (or Romana for short). Their early grievences towards each other aside, the two Time Lords made their way to find the first five segments located on Ribos, Zanak, Boscombe Moor, Tara, and  Delta III. However there were a few dead ends during the course of the quest: one of which was in Shanghi, the Tomb of Valdemar and a avatar universe contained the Doctor's incarnation and his companions. The TARDIS crew landed on the war-torn Atrios in search for the final segment. Upon dealing with the Shadow (the Black Guardian's agent) and bumping into another Time Lord called Drax, the Doctor and Romana discoverd the sixth segement was in the form of Princess Astra. The situation proved difficult once all they segement was in place as the Black Guardian (under the guise of his white counterpart) appeared in the scanner to get the Key to Time. Unfortunately for the Black Guardian, the Doctor disperse all six segments back to their respective locations. Preventing the Black Guardian from going after them, the Doctor installed the Randomizer onto the TARDIS console, so neither him nor Romana would no where they're going. Immediately after the quest, the Doctor and Romana were in Hampshire, 1929 when they found themselves investigating (albeit seperately) the disapperances of young women caused by a young man's prickly aunt who was releavled to be part of a race of aliens who were killed off by a spaceborn virus. Their later travels saw the Doctor, Romana, and K9 encountering the Conglomerate and they devilish CEO Cuthbert; once regarding the Laan, the other with the Daleks. They also traveled to the end of the 19th Century where the Doctor would reunite with Jago and Litefoot while investigating the mysterious Pugilist. Several adventures later, Romana regenerated; her second incarnation was the resemblance of Princess Astra.




The Doctor and the newly regenerated Romana wound up on Skaro where the Daleks forced their slaves to clear out the Kaled Base in their quest to revive Davros during their conflict with the Movellans. . Upon persuading the rival force, the Doctor defeated the Daleks and Movallans put Davros in stasis to await trial. The Doctor and Romana's later adventures included Paris 1979, Grey Space, Chloris, a space liner called the Empress, London 1930, Pavonis IV, The Rock of Judgement, and the planet Skonnos. Overtime, the two Time Lords were very fond of each other. Landing in Cambridge 1979, the duo went punting followed by visiting Professor Chronotis; they also encounter Skagra and his Kraags. The adventure was altered due to a future incarnation of Borusa time scooping the Doctor and Romana, only to end up in stasis; unable to arrive at the Death Zone on Gallifrey along with his previous and future incarnations. Sometime later, the Doctor dropped Romana off at an unknown location while he and K9 went on their way. During this time, the Doctor met a young girl named Sharon Davies who helped him in protecting and later turning in Beep the Meep over to the Wrath Warriors. With this adventure, Sharon joined the Doctor in his travels for a brief time before staying behind in Blackcastle. By this time his, attitude about running away began to change with his usual attire in a more burgundy fashion complete with two question marks on the shirt collar.



Romana was picked up and their adventures resumed leading to their trip to Brighton. Of course, they arrived at the wrong season and the water damaged K9's circuits. As an alternative destination, the Doctor and Romana went to The Leisure Hive on Argolis. While there, the Doctor thwarted Pangol's (a genetically created Argolin) plan to clone an army in his image with the rejuvenation machine; during this event, the machine aged the Doctor up hundreds of years before it was reversed. Upon repairing the machine, the Doctor sacrificed the Randomizer; having enough of running away. While reparing K9, the TARDIS landed on Tigella where he was accused of stealing their Dodecahedron only to find the real culprit in the sole surviving Zolfa-Thuran known as Meglos. The creature was destroyed once the Doctor redirected the Dodecahedron's laser at him. Near the end of this adventure, the Doctor recieved a message from the High Council requesting that Romana to be brought back to Gallifrey much to her bemusement. The matter put a strain on the two Time Lords: Romana refusing to go back and the Doctor choosing to obey the order. Before the TARDIS could ever get to Gallifrey,  they were sucked into a CVE (Charged Vaccum Emboitment) drifting into the pocket universe of E-
Space. Despite the coordinates being set for Gallifrey, the TARDIS landed on the planet Alzarius where some of the imhabitants were repairing their ship. During the couse of this, the Doctor and Romana encountered Marshmen and a group of young teens called the Outlers; among them, their leader Varsh and his younger brother Adric. After teaching the inhabitants how to fly their starliner and making an antidote for the Marshmen, the Doctor and Romana left Alzarius. Unknown to them, however, the young Alzarian Adric snuck on board upon curiousity; thus a stowaway. The Doctor and Romana next arrived on
an unknown planet where they came across the Vampire King and the Three Who Rule. It was this adventure that let to the two finding out about Adric with the Doctor vowing to take the young back to his homeworld (until he assumed Gallifrey was a better idea for the boy). After they left Ballustra, the Doctor found the gateway between their universe and E-Space. While at the gateway, the Doctor, Romana, and Adric came across a Tharil who wanted his people free from the deranged Rorvik (who also wanted out of E-Space). After Rorvik and his crew were killed, the Tharils were saved and much to the Doctor's surprise, Romana decided to remain in E-Space. The Doctor didn't object and decided to give her K9 as her parting gift. And with that, the Doctor, with Adric by his side returned to N-Space.

Upon their arrival back in N-Space, the Doctor and Adric were greated by the Keeper of Traken who called for his help in protecting the Traken Union fron a greater evil. With the help of the Consul Tremas and his only
daughter Nyssa, the Doctor and Adric stopped the Master (with his TARDIS disguised as Melkur) from ceasing control of the Source. Immediately after the TARDIS left Traken, the Master, surviving the exploded ship, took hold of Tremas; merging with his body, destroying his soul in the process. The Doctor and Adric had several adventures before he decided to take the TARDIS to Logopolis for a formula required in reparing the TARDIS' Chameleon Circuit. While there, he met an air stewardess named Tegan Jovanka who mistook the ship for an actual police box when her aunt's car broke down. Also on the planet was Tremas' daughter Nyssa, who was brought there by the mysterious Watcher. During the course of this event, the TARDIS (with the Doctor inside) shrank due to the Master's interference before it and him was restored to regular size. But it proved to late as the Master closed off the CVEs stopping the Logopolians from they duties and created a widespread of entropy in the process. As Logopolis vanished, the Doctor raced to the Pharos telescope to reopen all of the CVEs while Adric and Nyssa were taken out of the universe; only to find the entropy claimed her homeworld and her people). The Doctor succeeded in reopening the CVEs but not before he end up confronting the Master one more time. In the process, he hanged on to the the satelite dish before finally letting go and falling to his death. Horrified, Adric, Nyssa, and Tegan gathered around him just in time for him and the Watcher to merge; triggering a regeneration. Before their very eyes, the curly, toothy Doctor regenerated into a young, blonde man....







Saturday, May 4, 2013

Matrix Databank (Part 3): The 3rd Doctor



The 3rd Doctor. The dandy, Scientific Advisor, Exiled and Mr. Venusian Aikido. His arrival comes right off the heals of being sentenced to exile by the Time Lords. Once he clapsed from outside the TARDIS, the face we see is not of the flute playing cosmic hobo, but that of a tall, aristrocratic, gentleman. He was found and taken to hospital by soldiers of the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce (UNIT) upon the orders of Brigadier Lethbridge Stewart. Around the same time, mysterious spores began to turn up on earth from the disembowled creature known as the Nestine consciousness. It along with their aid sought to take over the planet. Fully recovered (and with stolen clothes), the Doctor assisted UNIT and Cambridge scientist Elizabeth Shaw in putting a stop to the Nestine and their Autons. Exiled and with the TARDIS inactive, the Doctor had to make due with his new surroundings and his newfound role as UNIT's Scientific Advisor.



Throughout the first of his three Earth years in exile, the Doctor, Liz and the UNIT crew (plus their new newly promoted Capt. Mike Yates) found themselves thwarting alien incursions: Cave monsters who were the original inhabitants of Earth, the Mim, Mars Probe 7's missing astronauts, WOTAN's remains (with help from Liz's mother), Cybermen, and the Devil Goblins of Neptune. At one point, while repairing the TARDIS, the Doctor found himself traveling into a parallel version of Earth and his familars where the world near nuclear destruction. By year's end and one violent end after another, it all proved to be too much for Liz as she left UNIT. However, she would see the Doctor again a year later only to end up dealing with New Dawn and their sentinals. After Liz's departure, the Doctor would be assigned a new young assistant in Josephine Grant. At first he didn't warm to her but did eventually. At this time, another time capsule entered the planet in the form of a trailers and in it was another exile, a deadly Time Lord who called himself The Master...

Throughout the year, the Doctor and the Master crossed paths. One account regarding the Keller Machine; near the end of the event the Time Lords lifted the rouge from exile leaving his opponent all the more aggravated. More encounters ensued including the Axons, and a colony in the 25th century. It was that event, that the Time Lords temporaily lifted the Doctor (accompanied by Jo) out of exile in order to recover the Doomsday Weapon from him. The last confrontation between the two renegade Time Lords came to ahead at Devil's End where the Master sought to bring for Azal and his minions. This event proved to be the Master's undoing as the Doctor defeated Azal and the Daemons and he ended up captured by UNIT. Outside of the Master related adventures, the Doctor, Jo and the UNIT crew dealt with a temporal anomaly via a Toy hospital and a street magicial who cause many a death at Hype Park via cold weather in the middle of July. Despite his bemusement of being stuck on Earth, the Doctor got well adjusted to his UNIT "family" particularly Jo Grant.

During the third and final year in exile, the Doctor and the UNIT crew found themselves dealing with the Daleks, their ape-like associates the Ogrons, and a hostile guerrilla group from an sent to assassinate Sir Reginald Styles in order to prevent their dark future from coming to fruition. The Time Lords would have the Doctor perform two more missions despite his earlier assumption that the TARDIS was fixed. The first involved Peladon and its entry into the Galactic Federation with the dandy gent mistaken for a human dignitary. The other mission saw the Doctor delivering an unknown object to the planet Solos where humans transformed into mutants. Sometime later on Earth, the Doctor found himself dealing with the Master once again while ecounter another race of Earth reptilia, the amphibious Sea Devils. It was this event that let to his old foe escaping prison. Following from the encounter, the two crossed paths again when the Master aided a mind parasite that fed off the energy of its host. In the midst of it all, the Doctor fell to his death triggering a premature regeneration which proved difficult for the creature leading to it's demise and the regeneration undone. It was the first time Jo saw a future incarnation of the Doctor; one who she described as "teeth & curls"...






Another Master encounter involved the device known as TOMTIT used to revive the Chronovore called Kronos leading the Doctor and Jo to travel to Atlantis to prevent the second attempt. The Atlanteans managed to summon Kronos triggering
Atlantis' destruction; the Doctor, Jo and the Master escaped unharmed. Sometime later, the Doctor and Jo encounter the self-professed Time Lady/Clockwork Iris Wildthyme and
her companion Tom while dealing with robotic sheep and an alien creature dubbed Vertigris. A later encounter with Iris saw the Doctor acquiring the aid of a novelizer from Verbatim Six known as Huxley in erasing both her and Jo (circa Christmas 2009) memories of him. The two women were very upset with the Doctor upon him telling the truth; future Jo even more outraged as she never want her memories of her time with him undone and retconned. Before taking off with Iris, the Doctor assured future Jo that he'll one day see her again once free from exile; She eventually did see him again; this time in his eleventh incarnation. By year's end, the Doctor would be lifted from exile for good when the Time Lords enlisted his first and second incarnation in stopping an unusual energy blog from a universe of anti-matter sent by the deranged Omega, co-founder of Time Lord society.


Free from exile, the Doctor took to the stars once again in his TARDIS with Jo by his side. Upon their first trip, they took Liz Shaw (in her first time ever inside the ship) with them to December 1916 where they met Gregori Rasputin. One travel led to the Doctor returning to Earth where he'd find a spaceship hovering over UNIT HQ and a suspicous individual casting alternate scenarios; particularly Jo dying over four hundred and twelve times. Following on was fiendish alien puppet show known as the Scorchies. Having came to him as an idea, the Doctor sought out to take Jo to Metebelis 3. There were several attempts to get there, however: the two travelers found themselve inside a miniscope originally obtained by a showman and his assistant. Plus, tackling extreme temporal anomalies on the planet Caresh. Whilst, the in the middle of growing political tension between Earth and Draconia, the Master provoked both parties into war under Dalek orders. The event ended with the barely conscious Doctor helped back to the TARDIS by Jo before sending a message to the Time Lords to follow the Daleks to their new base on Spiridon.

On several occassion Capt. Mike Yates joined in on the travels including to the planet Nooma. However, he would forget that he ever stepped into the TARDIS four decades later when the Hornet Queen possessed him during his stay in Hexford. After several attempts, the Doctor finally managed to go to Metebelis 3 where he took a blue crystal. Upon returning to Earth,  he joined Jo and UNIT in the investigation of a dead minor who's skin was green. It was revealed that the computer BOSS was responsible for the polution triggering the effects and giant maggots. With the use of the blue crystal, the Doctor broke BOSS' influence on the Global Chemical staff and was the computer was destroyed. During this event, Jo met and fell in love with the scientist Cliff Jones; they later announced they were getting married and going to the amazon in search of rar fungus. The Doctor offered his blessing and as a gift, he gave Jo the blue crystal. He left the celebration discreetly in sadness.

For quite sometime the Doctor traveled alone for many a short trip. That would change in the form of a young journalist by the name of Sarah Jane Smith (who posed as her aunt Lavinia in order to gain access to a research centre. The Doctor and UNIT investigated the disappearance of top scientists; only to learn that they were kidnapped and taken to the medieval England by the Sontaran known as Lynx. Following defeating the lone Sontaran and destoying all of his weapons, the Doctor and Sarah Jane began travelling together. On one adventure, the new duo and UNIT investigated a death at Space World amusement park ran by an alien race known as the Naglons. Upon returning to Earth after a short trip, the Doctor and Sarah Jane found that all of London was evacuated due to dinosaur sightings caused by two scientists who sought to send set the planet back to pre-tech level. The TARDIS duo were heading to the planet Florana until the ship crashed on the planet Exxilon where the Daleks were marooned along with a Marine Space Corps. Shortly after, they made another attempt to get to Florana. Though they ended up on Cerulean (which would one day be known as Neptune) where the planet was attacked by missiles from Sedna. The duo finally got to their intended destination in the midst of a peace treaty between humans and the Chelonian Empire. Fifty years after his previous visit, the Doctor returned to Peladon where it was in turmoil between Pel nobles and the minor; The Galactic Federation in need of the planet mineral in its war with Galaxy 5 with special aid from the Ice Warriors.

Several adventures later, the Doctor (with UNIT and ex-Capt. Yates) looked into some mysterious events at a meditation retreat ran by Tibetan monks; they were linked to the very planet he once obtained the blue crystal. In order to stop the spiders from destroying the cosmos, the Doctor sacrificed himself to the Great One; the spiders' leader while exposed to radiation in the process. Upon the defeat of the Great One, the Doctor wandered in the time vortex for nearly a decade (for Sarah Jane, five weeks) with the radiation slowly killing him. Once landing back in UNIT HQ, the Doctor calapsed out of the ship and died in front of Sarah Jane and the Brigadier. Arriving just in time, his former mentor K'anpo Rimpoche helped him to regenerate into his fourth incarnation; the very image Jo saw briefly: teeth & curls.