Tom Osgood

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Tom Osgood
Species:	Human
Job:	Soldier
Affiliated with:	UNIT
Place of origin:	Earth
Partner:	Becky
First appearance:	The Dæmons
Appearances:	see list
Main TV actor:	Alec Linstead

Tom Osgood was a UNIT technical officer who served under Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart.

Biography

Early life

Tom Osgood (PROSE: The Eye of the Giant) was born in the 1940s or early 1950s. (PROSE: The Shadow in the Glass) He studied the sciences in university and went on to join the British Army, rising to the rank of corporal before joining UNIT. (PROSE: The Eye of the Giant)

UNIT career

Corporal Osgood joined UNIT shortly after the Third Doctor's arrival. Whilst he was the most technically proficient soldier, he found himself out of his depth where the Doctor and Liz Shaw were concerned. He managed to repair the time bridge for Mike Yates to use to locate and recover the Doctor and Liz and, following their return, worked with Liz in an attempt to defeat the monster that the Nancy Norton/Brokk/Constitution III hybrid^{[statement unclear]}. (PROSE: The Eye of the Giant)

After he was promoted to sergeant, (PROSE: The Scales of Injustice) he was called in to assist in the rescue of the Doctor, Jo Grant, Sergeant Benton and Captain Yates from the heat barrier that surrounded Devil's End. With the Doctor's help, he devised a way to penetrate the heat barrier. (TV: The Dæmons) Soon after, he became engaged to a woman named Becky, whom he met at a folk festival. (PROSE: Dancing the Code)

Retirement

Sergeant Osgood retired from UNIT shortly after the Devil's End incident. (AUDIO: The Scream of Ghosts) In October 1983 Osgood attended the UNIT reunion with Lethbridge-Stewart. By that time Osgood and Mike Yates had set up tiny tea-rooms just outside Reading. (PROSE: Business Unusual)

Osgood returns after retrieving a comic for the Ninth Doctor. (COMIC: Official Secrets)

By 2001, Osgood was a civilian in his fifties and was brought in to help UNIT and the Sixth Doctor with an alien incursion. (PROSE: The Shadow in the Glass) He was invited by the Eighth Doctor to have Christmas dinner at the Brigadier's house (PROSE: Faithful Friends: Part 3) and, in 2010, Yates gave the Brigadier honey that he and Tom had made and gave him Tom's regards. (PROSE: Happy Endings)

Personality

Maisie Hawke described Osgood as a popular man and a technical wizard who could sometimes be eccentric whilst Mike Yates was less positive, thinking of him as well-meaning but "a bit of an egg-head". He always carried a spiral-bound notebook with him. (PROSE: The Scales of Injustice)

Behind the scenes

Tom uses an inhaler, clearly meant as a reference to his 21st century counterpart. (COMIC: The Heralds of Destruction)

• Osgood's first name was never given on-screen, only in the novels The Eye of the Giant and The Scales of Injustice, as well as in the comic story Official Secrets.
  • In the non-narrative source UNIT Publications, one in-universe book is attributed to an A.O. Osgood; this character may have been intended to be Osgood, but no further information was given barring the name.
• Osgood shares the same surname as the UNIT scientist Petronella Osgood. Both also sport similar thick rimmed glasses. In DWM 484, Steven Moffat admitted his intention when writing was for Osgood to be the daughter of Tom Osgood. However, he did not want to state this definitively in the script as to not confuse or annoy some viewers. In the audio story Power Cell, Osgood responds to the suggestion that she had an "uncle who used to run around shooting aliens" by saying "Something like that". In the short story For the Girl Who Has Everything, Osgood's father is named Frank, though this confirmation does not negate the possibility of Tom Osgood still being related to Petronella.
• Due to the popularity of Petronella Osgood, Tom has seen more use in Titan comic stories published in the 2010s as part of the UNIT family of the Jon Pertwee era. He has often been illustrated with some similar characteristics -- such as the use of an inhaler.