The One Second Hour (short story)

The One Second Hour
Doctor:	Third Doctor
Companion(s):	The Brigadier, Yates
Main enemy:	Sir Norman Ormsby
Main setting:	London, 1970s
Release details
Printed in:	TV Comic Holiday 1973
Release date:	1 July 1973
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The One Second Hour was a short story printed in TV Comic Holiday 1973. It featured the Third Doctor and the Brigadier.

Summary

The Doctor is working on a drug called "Time-shrinker", which speeds up a being's metabolism so the world around the is perceived to move at a much slower pace. As he tests the drug on himself with the help of Mike Yates, the end of the experiment is witnessed by the Brigadier and Sir Norman Ormsby of the Civil Service. At the speed he is moving, the Doctor briefly disappears from everyone's vision and captures submachine gun bullets fired at him with ease.

As the Doctor explains his invention - intended as a way to help UNIT better counter the Master - Ormsby steals the drug and uses in on himself. With superhuman speed, he goes mad with power and dreams up ways of taking over the country. However, he neglects to listen to the Doctor's warnings about the side effects, namely an accelerated ageing rate and extremely high friction. He explodes in a fireball outside a village like a meteor strike.

The Doctor guesses Ormsby aged to about 200 years in the few minutes he was under the effects. He shelves the experiment and intends to find another way to face the Master.

Characters

• Third Doctor
• Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart
• Captain Mike Yates
• Sir Norman Ormsby

References

• A couple of drops of Time-shrinker speeds up a being's metabolism to the point where every second in the surrounding world would be experienced by them as one hour.

Notes

• The Doctor claims that old age is not deadly to both him and the Master. However, his advanced age contributed to the demise of his first incarnation. (TV: The Tenth Planet) The Master would much later accelerate the Tenth Doctor's physical age forward centuries in an instant, greatly sapping his strength. (TV: The Sound of Drums/Last of the Time Lords)

Continuity

to be added