Doctor's Regeneration Week: Castrovalva

Howdy all and welcome back to Day 3 of Doctor’s Regeneration Week and once again we will bounce through the years in a completely different direction as we take a look at the end of the 8 years of Tom Baker’s standing as the Doctor.  So let’s take a glance at Dr. Who: Castrovalva.

Hmm not as much fun as the how to book claimed it to be.

The Doctor: I am the Doctor or rather I will be if this spoiler works out.

After averting all entropy of the known universe and jumpstarting existence with the equivalent of the big bang, thwarting the Master’s plans and plummeting almost 600 feet to the ground all looked lost for the Doctor (Tom Baker of Doctor Who, The Hound of the Baskervilles, Black-Adder II, The Silver Chair, Selling Hitler, Cluedo, Medics and Dungeons & Dragons) when his on growing crew of the TARDIS comes to his aid, finding it is over for him in this life and regenerates in front of their eyes and they are astounded as this particular capability was not mentioned to them. 

Performance over the top?? There is NO SUCH THING!

The young lad Adric (Matthew Waterhouse of To Serve Them All My Days, Doctor Who and The Killing Edge) a mathematical genius hailing from the planet Alazarius in a parallel univers of E-Space.  Tegan (Janet Fielding of Hammer House of Horror, Shelley, Minder, Doctor Who and Hold the Back Page) an aspiring flight attendant of Air Australia and lastly Nyssa (Sarah Sutton of Alice Through the Looking Glass, Late Call, The Moon Stallion, The Crucible, Doctor Who and Unnatural Pursuits) daughter of the consul of the Traken Union whose father’s life force was abducted by the Master as a means to regenerate himself.

In his act of rebelling over his previous life the Doctor (Peter Davison of The Tomorrow People, Love for Lydia, The Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy, At Home with the Braithwaites, Distant Shores, and Law & Order: UK) ransacks the old wardrobe closet for something appropriate to match the new him.  Mentally he needs time to cope with his new parameters that is his body.   After a near stroke from previous lives, insurmountable information on technology, cultures and languages, the Doctor feels it best to relax his mind in the Zero Room a healing chamber allowing him recovery time while all three of the companions attempt to pilot the TARDIS but find that they are travelling at a rapid rate to a time and destination known only as Event One.

 Trapped by the diabolical Master in what will be the Big Bang, Tegan and Nyssa scoop up the Doctor from his healing trance in order to get the TARDIS operating at a normal speed through time and space.  The usage of the word normal in that sentence was one previously uncharted.   Unfortunately in his haste to make the TARDIS transverse normally he had to eject   ¼ of the TARDIS to reduce mass and speed and regrettably the Zero Room was in that ¼ ejected. 

  

Honestly though, 15 corridors just to get to the bathroom.

Tegan goes through the star charts to find a subtle planet for the Doctor to rest on and they make their way to the Dwellings of Simplicity on Castrovalva.   But the girls realize that Adric has been missing for some time, the world they have landed on is straight out of a M.C. Esher and they may all be in great danger.

Doctor Who Week: Jon Pertwee

Welcome boys and girls to Day 3 of Doctor Who Week as we leave Patrick Troughton as the Doctor was last seen in War Games alongside his companions Zoe (Wendy Padbury of Charlie Bubbles, The Blood on Satan’s Claw, Freewheelers and Emmerdale) and Jamie (Frazer Hines of Peril for the Guy, Go Kart Go, Emmerdale and Out of Sight) as the Doctor and rogue Timelord know as Warlord were being held for trial by the Timelords, they felt Troughton had misbehaved, blatantly ignoring the rule of non-interference and stealing the TARDIS the Timelords forced a regeneration on the Doctor, wiping all memory of the TARDIS operation and sent him into exile to Earth.  Enough of that twaddle.  Let’s get to the heart of the matter and introduce you to the Third Doctor Jon Pertwee.   So grab your best running shoes, learn to hide behind a boulder and avoid extermination.  This is Doctor Who: Terror of the Autons

I'm hardly a dandy.

Spoiler is a complete jackanapes! All he ever does is cause trouble.

Starting with episode 1 of Season 8 and this particular show has a myriad of firsts. the Doctor (Jon Pertwee of Carry on Cowboy, Carry on Screaming!, The Avengers and Jackanory) is aware of who he is and what has occurred and promises to behave himself in exile.  Rejoining UNIT (UNinfied Intelligence Taskforce) and baffling the hell out of his superior Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart (Nicholas Courtney of Endless Night, Watch This Space, Sink or Swim and To Catch a King) he proceeds to conduct his various experiments as his former companion Liz Shaw has left the Brigadier has hired a new assistant for the Doctor, Jo Grant (Katy Manning of Don’t Just Lie There, Say Something!, Eskimo Nell, Whodunnit? And Target). Prior to this bit of chitter chat, a rogue Timelord called the Master (Roger Delgado of Pursuit of the Graf Spee, First Man Into Space, The Road to Hong Kong and Aquarius) visits Earth in a TARDIS of his own, hypnotizes one of the locals to do his bidding and proceeds to steal a vital component called the Nestene Energy.

You are getting very sleepy.

His plan is simple enough; to create living plastic entities that follow his bidding and start taking over the universe.  You have to give it to the man, he never thinks small.  So with this in mind the Doctor, Brigadier and Jo are off to the carnival where all this started.

And now I have a bit of background on the origin of the Master and some observations thereafter.

The creative team that conceived the Master felt the Doctor would benefit from a reoccurring villain.  He was deemed the Professor Moriarty to the Doctor’s Sherlock Holmes if you will. Like the Doctor, his title is purely an academic degree and the Timelords would refer him as Lord Master. 

LINE!

The irony is his disdain for Pertwee could not be further from the truth as they were dear friends prior to working on Doctor Who.   The creation of the Nestene appeared in 1970 Spearhead from Space a hive mind sentient living plastic was deemed a bit daffy and was not among the Doctor Who Rogues gallery until 2005 when it was reintroduced in the Ninth Doctor’s intro story titled “Rose”.    Tomorrow we regenerate to Tom Baker.  Stay tuned!