The Playthings of Fo (short story)

The Playthings of Fo
Doctor:	First Doctor
Companion(s):	Jack, Dot, Harroll, Shelly, Chertzog, Hill
Main enemy:	Fo
Main setting:	Rhoos
Release details
Part of:	The Dr Who Annual 1967
Release date:	September 1966
Doctor Who annual
← Previous	The Devil-Birds of Corbo
Next →	Justice of the Glacians

The Playthings of Fo was a short story published in Doctor Who Annual 1967. It featured the First Doctor.

Summary

After rescuing the failed inter-galactic mission sent out by the Council of Earth and Mars, Tardis brings Doctor Who and his friends to the planet Rhoos. They materialise on a weird plain that turns out to be the hand of the evil Cyclops, Fo. He has been sleeping through all this, but now wakes and departs, taking Tardis with him. As the Doctor and three of his companions (Hill, Shelley and Chertzog) fly around in their contra-gravity suits on a recce, they are captured by a mysterious spaceship.

It belongs to the natives of Rhoos, the Kaarks, who resemble humanoid chickens. The giant Fo has been terrorising them, attacking their cities and stealing their scientists. They have retreated into an underground base. After meeting with the Kaark Supremo, the Doctor agrees to lead a mission into Fo's lair. He is accompanied by the leader of the ship that rescued him, Ff'ni.

There, they find Tardis amongst a menagerie of animals Fo has collected. These he makes fight the captured Kaark scientists, as Hill notes, "just like the martyrs in the Colosseum". They flee to the ship, chased by a giant leopard.

Yet the Doctor cannot leave without freeing the Kaarks from Fo. Batting aside the leopard with his walking stick, he opens a black box. There is blue flash and a smell of ozone, and Fo falls down dead. The Doctor and his friends bid Ff'ni a quick good-bye; they are eager to return to Earth.

Characters

• First Doctor
• Hill
• Shelly
• Chertzog
• Harroll Strong
• Dot Strong
• Jack Strong
• Fo
• Ff'ni
• Kaark Supremo
• The Kaarks

Worldbuilding

• The planet Rhoos is the eighth planet in the P'Tuu System.
• Rhoos is described as "third of a GO-star, eighty million miles from primary, less axial inclination than Terra."
• Fo is from a race of one-eyed giants in the distant Black Galaxy.
• The Doctor uses a black box to slay Fo.
• According to an illustration, animals in Fo's zoo include a giraffe and what might be a leopard (or possibly a tiger) and a gorilla.

Notes

• While Harroll Strong and his children Dot and Jack had been major parts of the previous story, the Doctor's other three companions are only named in this story. In The Devil-Birds of Corbo, they appear only as part of a description of the group of humans, and in illustration.
• This story is notable for being the first to offer an explanation as to how the occupants of the TARDIS are able to understand every language, everywhere they go. In this story, it is explained by Shelly, despite the fact he'd only just met the Doctor, that it is a result of the "automatic mental adjustor" in the TARDIS.

Continuity

• The Doctor is taking the humans who had been stranded on Corbo home. (PROSE: The Devil-Birds of Corbo)
• The TARDIS' abrupt departure from Corbo (PROSE: The Devil-Birds of Corbo) has damaged the space-time locator mechanism. (PROSE: Peril in Mechanistria)