The Deadly Assassin (TV story)

The Deadly Assassin
Doctor:	[[doctor::Fourth Doctor]]
Main enemy:	The Master Goth
Main setting:	Gallifrey: Rassilon Era
Key crew
Writer:	Robert Holmes
Director:	David Maloney
Producer:	Philip Hinchcliffe
Release details
Story number:	88
Release number:	Season 14
Premiere broadcast:	30th October - 20th November 1976
Format:	4 25-minute episodes
Production code:	4P

Synopsis

"Through the millennia, the Time Lords of Gallifrey led a life of peace and ordered calm, protected against all threats from lesser civilisations by their great power. But this was to change. Suddenly and terribly, the Time Lords faced the most dangerous crisis in their long history…"

Plot

Part One

En route to Gallifrey in answer to the Time Lords' summons, the Doctor is struck with a premonition in which he appears to assassinate the Time Lord President from a gallery overlooking the Panopticon.

As soon as the TARDIS materialises within the Citadel, it is surrounded by the Chancellry Guard. Their leader, Commander Hildred, reports to Castellan Spandrell. Both note that the TARDIS is a Type 40, which is no longer in service. Since the arrival is unauthorised, the soldiers are ordered to impound the TARDIS and arrest the occupant. The Doctor overhears this, and realises that the Time Lords did not summon him.

Spandrell goes to see Coordinator Engin in the Archives Section, leaving Hildred in charge. Hildred and his troops enter the TARDIS, but the Doctor manages to sneak out and make his way to a service lift that leads to the main tower. A soldier is present, and threatens to place the Doctor under arrest. However, the soldier is quickly killed by a phantom-like figure who disappears before the Doctor can identify him. The Doctor sends the lift on its way, in an attempt to fool the soldiers into thinking he has gone into the tower. All of this has been observed by the Doctor's old adversary, the Master, who is wearing a black hood that conceals his features. "Predictable as ever, Doctor," he mutters, before returning to the shadows.

Chancellor Goth arrives outside the TARDIS to see the situation for himself. Inside the TARDIS, the Doctor is watching a news broadcast by a reporter he recognises as Runcible (whom the Doctor nicknames "the Fatuous"), a classmate from his days at the Academy. It is revealed that the President is set to retire, and he is to name a successor. Runcible is talking to Cardinal Borusa, one of the Doctor's former teachers. He asks Borusa who the Presidential successor will be, but Borusa brushes him off.

The TARDIS is transducted to the museum within the Capitol, and the Doctor takes the opportunity to borrow a set of traditional Gallifreyan robes in order to maintain anonymity. At the same time several floors beneath the archive tower, the Master, severely emaciated as a result of a failed regeneration confers with an unseen accomplice. He says that the trap has been set, and they must make sure the Doctor dies quickly.

At the Panopticon, a Gallifreyan quasi-ceremonial chamber, the disguised Doctor briefly converses with Runcible before the outgoing President appears. The Doctor scans the area and notes a camera stationed on an unguarded catwalk. He also spots a sniper rifle next to the camera. The Doctor fights his way to the catwalk, warning that the President is about to be killed. Unbeknownst to the Doctor the assassin is actually among the delegates. He pulls out a pistol when the Doctor reaches the camera level and shoots the President dead...

Part Two

The Doctor is quickly apprehended by security. The assassination has thrown Gallifrey into a Constitutional crisis, as the President had yet to name his successor. Chancellor Goth, thought to have been the most likely successor, calls for prompt elections and opts to stand as a candidate. Goth also urges the Doctor's swift trial and execution.

At the trial, Goth's prosecution moves swiftly. The Doctor, however, invokes Article Seventeen of the Gallifreyan Constitution, naming himself as a candidate for President who thereby cannot be denied the right to make his claim. Goth is outraged, but Chancellor Borusa (the Doctor's former teacher at the Academy) acknowledges that the Article does give him protection. He is grudgingly given twenty-four hours to prove his innocence.

The robed figure is informed of the Doctor's use of the constitutional loophole by his associate. He had anticipated this. We see that the figure is a horribly disfigured and decaying husk.

The Doctor attempts to convince Spandrell and Coordinator Engin of his innocence; his shot was intended for the actual assassin standing in the crowd on the Panopticon floor, and someone is going through great lengths to frame him. He notes that the sights had been fixed on the rifle to intentionally throw off his aim. Spandrell confirms this by aiming at a target himself, and begins to believe the Doctor. They find the Doctor's original blast mark on the wall. The Doctor realizes that the gallery camera would have recorded the actual assassin. Runcible goes to fetch the recording disc from the camera, but screams with horror when he looks into the camera barrel, and is murdered by an unseen person. Running up to the gallery, they find the camera barrel empty except for the miniaturized corpse of the cameraman. The Doctor recognizes this as the work of his arch enemy, the Master, and reasons that he brought him to Gallifrey for a final showdown.

Spandrell and Engin cannot comprehend why there is no bio data extract for the Master in the APC Net (aka the Matrix), a network of past and present Time Lord minds that acts as an enormous database and future forecaster. The Doctor decides that there must be an unauthorized second access point into the Matrix, and that the Master had used this to forecast the assassination into his mind, and then wipe all trace from the Matrix. He reasons that either the Master or the assassin working with him must be inside the Matrix, so despite the stern warning from Spandrell, he interfaces with the Matrix to find him.

The Doctor finds himself in a vast, rapidly shifting terrain, the domain of the assassin. The two engage in a pitched battle of wills, the assassin possessing the definite advantage of having created the virtual reality world inside the Matrix. Suddenly, the Doctor's foot is caught in some railway tracks as the points change. He struggles desperately to free himself as a train rushes towards him...

Part Three

The train disappears before hitting the Doctor and he works his foot free. The Doctor realizes that his surroundings are but an illusion and tries to deny their existence, but passes out from the strain. Recovering consciousness he becomes aware of the two large black eyes of his unknown adversary in the side of a cliff, telling him that he is the creator of this world and that there is no escape. The Doctor, dehydrated and thirsty, hears the sound of running water, but when he attempts to dig into the ground to locate its source he is greeted by a red-nosed clown peering through a window, laughing manically. He is then strafed by machine gun fire by a masked pilot in a biplane, eventually receiving a bullet wound in the leg. The Doctor tries to deny the existence of the wound, and it disappears. However, the disembodied voice of the assassin reminds him that this is his reality, and his rules, and the wound reappears. The Doctor declares that he will then fight the assassin in his reality. In the real world, Engin tells Spandrell that the Doctor’s adversary is using a lot of energy to maintain the virtual environment, so the Doctor can defeat him if he provides an adequate distraction. Inside the Matrix, the dry barren virtual environment merges into a thick, sticky jungle, and the assassin soon appears dressed as a big game hunter, a mesh veil obscuring his face. The assassin concludes that the Doctor will need water, and, leaving his backpack behind him, goes off to contaminate the local supply with poison from a small bottle. The Doctor finds the assassin's backpack and takes a grenade and some twine, setting up a makeshift booby trap. The assassin returns and trips it, setting off an explosion which wounds him in the abdomen. Fearing that his protégé might lose, the Master sends a hypnotised guard to kill the Doctor's physical form. Back inside the Matrix, the Doctor continues to be hunted through the virtual jungle. Coming to the pool of water, he finds dead floating fish and an empty bottle and realises that the water has been poisoned. He finds a small amount of uncontaminated water and drinks it through a reed, then uses the reed and some thorns off of a nearby tree to make a blowgun, dipping the ends of the darts into the remnants of the poison from the bottle. The Doctor climbs up into a tree and shoots the assassin in the leg with a dart. The assassin fires his rifle and hits the Doctor in the arm, causing him to fall out of the tree. Ripping his pants leg open to reveal a potentially fatal wound, the assassin injects himself with an antidote while the Doctor again escapes. In the real world, the hypnotised guard makes his way to the Matrix chamber, but Spandrell manages to shoot him before he can sabotage the Matrix link. Back in the Matrix, the Doctor has made it to a gas-filled marsh, where the assassin reveals his true identity: Chancellor Goth. Goth tries to shoot the Doctor but ignites the marsh gas, setting himself on fire. Goth falls into the water to extinguish the spreading flames. The Doctor comes out of hiding to confront him, but is caught by surprise by Goth and tackled. Intense hand-to-hand combat ensues, with Goth seeming to gain the upper hand. He attempts to drown the Doctor...

Part Four

The Doctor throws him off and barely manages to escape from the Matrix. He revives in Spandrell's office, and informs the shocked Castellan of the assassin's identity. They trace the location of their lair, where they find the Master's lifeless body - he appears to have taken his own life. Goth, himself near death, reveals that he was bitter and power-hungry on learning he wasn't to be the President's successor. He had found the dying Master on planet Tersurus, his body at the end of his regeneration cycle, and brought him to Gallifrey to help him fulfill his scheme. However, Goth dies before he can reveal just what the Master's plan was.

Cleared of all charges, the Doctor still has lingering doubts. He wants to know the Master's plan, and doubts that he would accept death so easily. He reasons that the solution lies in the ceremonial relics given to the President upon induction, the Sash and Rod of Rassilon, and researches their links with ancient Gallifreyan mythology.

The Doctor's suspicions are confirmed when the Master is discovered to have faked his death. He steals the Sash and Rod, which are the keys to the Eye of Harmony, the heart of a black hole captured by ancient Time Lord Rassilon and source of Time Lord power. The Master seeks the power of the Eye to restart his regeneration cycle, even though Gallifrey would be destroyed. He uses the Rod to unlock the Eye of Harmony, hidden below the Panopticon floor, and begins to release its energy, which would be channeled through the Sash to rejuvenate him. The Doctor wrestles with him as the ground shakes around them. Before the Master can uncouple the last cable from the Eye, the Doctor pulls him away and he falls through a giant hole in the floor. The Doctor reconnects the various cables, bringing the crisis to an end.

Borusa is appalled at the damage; half the capitol city lies in ruins, and countless lives are lost, but he accepts Spandrell's claim that the Doctor's actions prevented further catastrophe. Acknowledging their past relationship as teacher and student, Borusa gives him a grade of 9 out of 10. The Doctor departs in the TARDIS, but Spandrell discovers that the Master has survived and escaped in his own TARDIS.

Cast

• The Doctor - Tom Baker
• The Master - Peter Pratt
• Cardinal Borusa - Angus MacKay
• Castellan Spandrell - George Pravda
• Chancellor Goth - Bernard Horsfall
• Commander Hilred - Derek Seaton
• Commentator Runcible - Hugh Walters
• Co-ordinator Engin - Erik Chitty
• Gold Usher - Maurice Quick
• Solis - Peter Mayock
• The President - Llewellyn Rees
• Time Lord 1 - John Dawson
• Time Lord 2 - Michael Bilton
• Computer Voice - Helen Blatch

Crew

• Assistant Floor Manager - Linda Graeme
• Costumes - James Acheson, Joan Ellacott
• Designer - Roger Murray-Leach
• Fight Arranger - Terry Walsh
• Film Cameraman - Fred Hamilton
• Film Editor - Ian McKendrick
• Incidental Music - Dudley Simpson
• Make-Up - Jean Williams
• Producer - Philip Hinchcliffe
• Production Assistant - Nicholas John
• Production Unit Manager - Chris D'Oyly-John
• Script Editor - Robert Holmes
• Special Sounds - Dick Mills
• Studio Lighting - Brian Clemett
• Studio Sound - Clive Gifford
• Theme Arrangement - Delia Derbyshire
• Title Music - Ron Grainer
• Visual Effects - Len Hutton, Peter Day

References

Books

• The Book of the Old Time is mentioned.

The Doctor

• According to Coordinator Engin the Doctor " must have a phenomenal amount of Artron energy".

Galaxies

• The term Mutter's Spiral is used for the first time as a Time Lord reference for the location of Earth (presumed to refer to the Milky Way Galaxy).

Gallifrey

• Shobogans are hooligans on Gallifrey.

Gallifreyan artefacts

• The APC Net is part of (or possibly separate from) The Matrix.
• The Eye of Harmony sits below the Citadel on Gallifrey, and Rassilon was one of the creators of it.

Gallifreyan Chapters

• Prydonians, the 'notoriously devious' sect to whom the Doctor belongs, colour-coded scarlet and orange.
• Arcalians, who wear green.
• Patrexes, who wear heliotrope

Gallifreyan culture

• The Doctor arrives on Presidential Resignation Day.
• The Doctor invokes Article 17 of the Constitution, offering himself as a Presidential Candidate to avoid execution.
• The Doctor's trial is dated 309906.

Gallifreyan history

• References are made to Old Times.
• Rassilon is mentioned in the recording the Doctor listens to.

Gallifreyan organisations

• The CIA are mentioned.

Individual Gallifreyans

• Borusa has recently become a Cardinal.

Planets

• Goth met the Master on Tersurus.

Time Lords

• The Time Lords possess a complete biographical history of the Doctor, and all Time Lords.
• The Time Lords who the Master kills don't regenerate.
• The number of regenerations (12) for Time Lords is stated.

TARDISes

• The Doctor's TARDIS is a type 40 protected by a 'double curtain trimonic barrier' which requires a cypher indent key.

Story notes

• Bernard Horsfall previously played Guilliver in The Mind Robber, one of the Time Lords in The War Games and a Thal Taron in Planet of the Daleks. These were also directed by David Maloney
• Roger Murray-Leach reused his symbol from Revenge of the Cybermen as the Seal of Rassilon.
• Mary Whitehouse complained particularly about the end of Part 3, with the Doctor being drowned, so much so the BBC edited their master tape (the episode was preserved albeit in lower quality in international copies).
• The story had a working title of The Dangerous Assassin.
• The title is a tautology - an assassin is, by definition, deadly. This redundancy was parodied in the spoof The Curse of Fatal Death.
• This is the first TV story to feature the Doctor without a companion, and the only one to occur during the 1963-89 original series. The 1996 telefilm and revival series would feature the Doctor on occasion collaborating with "one-off" companions (such as Donna Noble in The Runaway Bride), and in Midnight, the Doctor has an adventure by himself, away from his companion. All that said, The Deadly Assassin remains unique as the only televised Doctor Who adventure to date in which the Doctor appears but there is no companion or companion-surrogate at all.
• This story features an exclusively male cast, except for a female computer voice.
• This is the first story set entirely on Gallifrey.
• This is the only story where every character is of the same race (Gallifreyan).
• This story featured the first use of narration, by Tom Baker which began at the beginning of the first episode;

Through the millennia, the Time Lords of Gallifrey led a life of peace and ordered calm, protected against all threats from lesser civilisations by their great power. But this was to change. Suddenly, and terribly, the Time Lords faced the most dangerous crisis in their long history...

• In Episode 1 Runcible appears to use the term "facelift" as slang for "Regeneration".

Ratings

• Part 1 - 11.8 million viewers
• Part 2 - 12.1 million viewers
• Part 3 - 13.0 million viewers
• Part 4 - 11.8 million viewers

Myths

• This is the only story to reference the fact that Time Lords get 12 regenerations and 13 lives. Recent interviews with the production team behind the 2005-present revival (including David Tennant in Doctor Who Magazine #415) have made it appear as if the allocation of 13 lives in this story is a piece of minutae unique to this story. In fact, the 13-life limit has been a major plot element of at least two other stories, both of which involve villains attempting to steal the Doctor's remaining regenerations: DW: Mawdryn Undead and the 1996 TV movie. Both productions also reference the 13-life limit in dialogue. A more subtle reference to this occurs in DW: The Next Doctor.

Filming locations

• Betchworth Quarry, Pebblehill Road, Betchworth, Surrey
• Wycombe Air Park, Clay Lane, High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire
• Royal Alexander and Albert School, Rocky Lane, Merstham, Surrey
• BBC Television Centre (TC3 and TC8), Shepherd's Bush, London

Production errors

• When the president is assassinated, the Time Lord who the Doctor swapped robes with is in front of the president but when the Doctor sees the assassination in the TARDIS the Time Lord is not present.
• Having established, through Runcible's newscast, that the livery for the Prydonian chapter is the scarlet / orange combination, the costume department takes the curious move of clothing a major Prydonian character - Cardinal Borusa - in the purple robes (which are supposed to belong to the Patrex chapter).
• Just before the "train attack" in the APC Net, the Doctor's enemy is seen within three different trains, all of which are of too wide a gauge to even fit on the tracks. Indeed, the train that actually runs the Doctor down turns out to be a far smaller vehicle than any of those three, making their (lack of) purpose in the plot very obscure.
• The guard the Master kills in episode one is seen alive and well in episode two.

Continuity

• DW: The Keeper of Traken, Logopolis, and Castrovalva follow the Master's continuing quest for a new body, whilst The Five Doctors continues on this idea, as does the 1996 telefilm.
• PDA: Last of the Gaderene and EDA: Legacy of the Daleks explain how the Master became how he appears. However, in terms of televised adventures, there is no indication that the Master seen here is necessarily the same incarnation of the Master as last seen portrayed by Roger Delgado in DW: Frontier in Space.
• Goth's brother Rath appears in NA: Blood Harvest.
• Engin reappears in EDA: The Eight Doctors.
• DW: The Sound of Drums recalls some artistic elements of this story, particuarly the Time Lord collars introduced in this story as well as the Seal of Rassilon.
• This story features the first voice over at the beginning of the episode, the second occurrence is DW: Doctor Who. The third is DW: The End of Time.
• This story establishes that Time Lords do use proper names on their homeworld (previous uses have either been aliases, or of ambiguous origin such as Morbius; and rank-and-file Time Lords seen in stories like DW: The War Games and The Three Doctors had gone unnamed).
• Also established in this story is the fact that Time Lords are allotted twelve regenerations and thirteen lives, which becomes a major plot element hereafter, referenced in stories such as DW: Mawdryn Undead and the 1996 TV movie. It also serves as the first on-screen contradiction of the "mystery Doctors" allegedly seen in DW: The Brain of Morbius.
• This story introduces the iconic character of Rassilon who would be referred to constantly but unseen in person until possibly the 2009 serial The End of Time. It also greatly expands on the Time Lord society and mythology that was hinted at in The Three Doctors and only briefly glanced in The War Games.

Timeline

For the Doctor:

• This story occurs after: DW: The Hand of Fear
• This story occurs before: TN: Ghost Ship

For the Master:

• This story occurs after: EDA: Legacy of the Daleks
• This story occurs before: DW: The Keeper of Traken

Home video and audio releases

DVD releases

• The DVD was released on 11th May 2009 in the UK.

Special Features include;

• Commentary by Tom Baker, Bernard Horsfall and Philip Hinchcliffe
• The Matrix Revisited Cast, crew and critics look back at the making of this story, featuring director David Maloney, designer Roger Murray-Leach and the founder of the National Viewers and Listeners Association, Mary Whitehouse
• The Gallifreyan Candidate A look at Richard Condon’s novel The Manchurian Candidate, a major influence on the plot of The Deadly Assassin
• The Frighten Factor What exactly is Doctor Who's "Frighten Factor"? A diverse panel of experts try to answer the question
• Radio Times Billings Listings for this story presented in a PDF file [DVD-ROM – PC/Mac]
• Photo Gallery
• Coming Soon Trailer
• Production Information Subtitles
• Easter Egg

• Editing for DVD release completed by Doctor Who Restoration Team.

• 

  DVD Region 2 UK cover

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  DVD Region 4 Australian cover

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  DVD Region 1 US cover

VHS releases

• It was released in episodic format in the UK in October 1991. It was also re-released & remastered for the W H Smith exclusive Time Lord Collection in 2002 with a better quality freeze frame cliffhanger for Episode 3.
• This story was released in the US March 1989 in edited omnibus format.

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  VHS US cover

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  VHS UK cover

• 

  VHS Australian cover

Novelisation and its audiobook

Main article: Doctor Who and the Deadly Assassin

• Novelised as Doctor Who and the Deadly Assassin by Terrance Dicks in 1977

External links

• The Deadly Assassin at the BBC's official site
• The Deadly Assassin at the Doctor Who Reference Guide
• The Deadly Assassin at Shannon Sullivan's A Brief History of Time (Travel)
• The Deadly Assassin at The Locations Guide