Douglas Cavendish

Douglas Cavendish
Species:	Human
Affiliated with:	UNIT
Place of origin:	Earth
First appearance:	Downtime
Appearances:	see list
Main actor:	Miles Richardson

Captain Douglas Cavendish was a member of the Virtual Ordnance Group at UNIT. He was a self-satisfied rising officer in the 1990s, only to suffer mentally after possession by the Great Intelligence and went off the grid.

Biography

Lieutenant Cavendish was in the British Army in 1990. He was a guard at the Vault when it took delivery of a dormant alien. When the alien attacked, Cavendish helped Sergeant Benton defeat it and decided to transfer to UNIT. Cavendish had been self-assured before and after the attack but quite shaken during it, and Benton thought he might not be mentally suited for UNIT work. (PROSE: Wartime)

Cavendish would work for UNIT and become part of the Virtual Ordinance Group. He was sent to investigate the explosion at the Det-Sen Monastery, where he came in contact with some web made by the Great Intelligence and came under its influence.(PROSE: Downtime) Once back in England, he was promoted to Captain.

When the Great Intelligence was ready to make its move in 1995, Cavendish arranged a meeting with the retired Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart under the pretence of his files being hacked, hoping to capture him and learn he had any "souvenirs" from his service relating to the Intelligence. They met in a hotel bar, where Cavendish was passive-aggressive about Lethbridge-Stewart's time and received a barb about "jumped-up officers with tuppeny-hapenny commissions." The Brigadier grew suspicious of the line of questioning, spotted Cavendih's backup coming, and, realising Cavendish was compromised, held him at gunpoint while he escaped. Cavendish ordered the Chillys after him. (HOMEVID: Downtime) Cavendish later stole the pre-UNIT Ministry of Defence report of the initial Yeti encounter, which existed only on hard copy. (PROSE: Downtime) The mind-controlled Cavendish assisted the Intelligence and its Yeti hordes in the fight at New World University, where he almost caused Kate Lethbridge-Stewart to be possessed. (HOMEVID: Downtime)

After being freed from the Great Intelligence, Cavendish suffered from trauma and resulting substance abuse. His once promising career stalled. Paranoid and disgruntled, he begun already been pilfering items as a "retirement fund" from the Warehouse. He did maintain some contact with Kate, feeling they had a connection. Eventually, he was sacked from UNIT and isolated himself in a rural cottage, alone and vulnerable and believing UNIT to be an uncaring organisation if you weren't of use to it.

In October 2003, Kate received a message from Cavendish, asking her to visit him at his cottage, where he felt he was being stalked by a statue of a demon-like creature, as well as encountering a ghost-like figure in the house. It transpired that Cavendish was being influenced to summon a Dæmon named Mastho by forces from the future trying to affect the past, but he and Kate managed to stop them. (HOMEVID: Dæmos Rising)

Cavendish encountered the Lethbridge-Stewarts again in 2004. (PROSE: Downtime: Child of the New World)

Behind the scenes

• He was originally going to be a character in Auton when that was intended as a Lethbridge-Stewart vehicle. Years later, plans were made for a Daemos sequel, The Face of the Fendahl, with Cavendish back again.
• In 2018, Reeltime announced another movie, Anomaly, would feature Cavendish: he would be lending Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart alien technology to work with. A year later, it was announced as coming out in 2020 but this was disrupted by COVID-19; as of 2022, has yet to enter production.