The Deadly Assassin (TV story)

Synopsis

Plot

"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…"

Whilst at the controls of the TARDIS, the Doctor has a premonition of the assassination of the President of the Time Lords within the Panopticon on Gallifrey. And the assassin appears to be...the Doctor himself. Shocked, he staggers around the console room and collapses to the floor. The Doctor arrives on Gallifrey, where he is accused of the assassination of the Time Lord President. Investigating with the aid of Co-ordinator Engin and Castellan Spandrell, he discovers that this is part of a plot hatched by his old adversary the Master.

Having used up all twelve of his regenerations, the Master is now a wizened husk. He is seeking to control the presidency in order to obtain the official regalia, the Sash and Rod of Rassilon, which are really keys to the Eye of Harmony, the source of all the Time Lords' power.

The Doctor links his mind to the Amplified Panatropic Computer Net, containing the accumulated wisdom of the Time Lords, in the hope of tracking the Master down. In the virtual reality of the Matrix, he finds himself in a life-or-death struggle with a hooded opponent. The Doctor proves the stronger and his opponent is revealed as Chancellor Goth, the leading presidential candidate, whom the Master has been using as a puppet. Following his defeat, Goth dies.

The Master meanwhile seizes the Sash and Rod of Rassilon and starts to access the Eye of Harmony, located beneath the floor of the Panopticon meeting hall, in the hope of drawing off enough energy to enable himself to regenerate. The Doctor manages to stop him before Gallifrey is destroyed, and the Master falls down one of the fissures that have opened up in the floor.

The Doctor then departs in the TARDIS, unaware that the Master has survived his fall and escaped to fight another day.

File:Vlcsnap-72841.jpg

Castellan Spandrell (George Pravda)

Cast

Crew

References

The Doctor's TARDIS is a type 40 protected by a 'double curtain trimonic barrier' which requires a cypher indent key.
Goth met the Master on Tersurus.
The number of regenerations (12) is established here.
Artron energy is mentioned.
Borusa has recently become a Cardinal.

Gallifrey

The Doctor arrives on Presidential Resignation Day.
The Doctor invokes Article 17 of the Constitution.
References are made to The Book of the Old Time and the Old Times.
Shabogans 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, 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 wear green.
Patrexes wear heliotrope

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.
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 used 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. As of the 2008 episode The Next Doctor, the Doctor is travelling alone, but is expected to continue working with one-off companions. All that said, The Deadly Assassin remains unique as the only televised Doctor Who adventure to date in which there is no companion or companion-surrogate at all.
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...

Tom Baker angrily argued that Doctor Who could carry, and no companion was required.

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

to be added

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

Tom Baker angrily argued with producers that the show could go on, and no companion was required.

Discontinuity, Plot Holes, Errors

If the Time Lords summoned the Doctor back to Gallifrey, why does no one know who he is? They didn't. The Master and Goth did.
Why don't the time lords who the Master kills regenerate? The Staser weapons used by the Time Lords are designed to inhibit regeneration.

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 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 TV Movie.
This story establishes that Time Lords do use proper names in on their homeworld (previous uses have either been aliases, or of ambiguous origin such as Morbius; and rank-and-file Time Lords seen 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.

DVD and Video Releases

VHS

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.

DVD

The dvd will be released on 4th May 2009.

Novelisation

Main article: Doctor Who and the Deadly Assassin

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

External Links

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