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The Dr Smith shelf, sometimes known as simply the Shelf or (jokingly) as Dr Smith, was a special shelf in P.R.O.B.E. HQ, where P.R.O.B.E. kept some of their most important alien items and documents.
Description
Nature
The items on the shelf, which were not to be removed from it by anyone except in the case of a triple-Z-class emergency, were generally objects which had been given to P.R.O.B.E. by "nonhumans... time-active ones". Many had no apparent purpose, but P.R.O.B.E. believed that they would become useful at a specific future date, as part of various time travel gambits. (PROSE: Out of the Box [+]Loading...["Out of the Box (short story)"]) The shelf was named after an old associate of Liz's, "Doctor John Smith", (HOMEVID: When to Die [+]Loading...["When to Die (home video)"]) an alias used by the Third Doctor during his time working with Liz at UNIT. (TV: Spearhead from Space [+]Loading...["Spearhead from Space (TV story)"], etc.) The name was a mystery to later members of the P.R.O.B.E. team, who knew that no "Doctor Smith" had ever worked for P.R.O.B.E.; they came to the joking conclusion that "Dr Smith" was the name of the shelf itself. (PROSE: Out of the Box [+]Loading...["Out of the Box (short story)"])
Contents
Shortly after an inactive Box was gifted to her, Liz placed her on the Dr Smith shelf because she wasn't working properly. Giles found her there in 2014 and took her off the shelf, successfully repairing and activating her, but after being broken by the exploding Paul Reynish, (HOMEVID: When to Die [+]Loading...["When to Die (home video)"]) Giles placed the broken Box back on the shelf once again, where she remained until 2019, with brief interludes when she was removed so that Giles or someone else could take yet another shot at repairing her.
Other items on the shelf by 2019 included a longsword (PROSE: Out of the Box) belonging to the ghostly Sir Bedevere, (PROSE: Preternatural Nights [+]Loading...["Preternatural Nights (short story)"]) a teddy bear, a jar of sealing wax which a post-it note claimed would become useful in 2076, a Gonzie data-masticator, a "bootleg quantum communicator", and a sentient Sun Builder weapon called the Greater Key, (PROSE: Out of the Box [+]Loading...["Out of the Box (short story)"]) a relic of the War in Heaven. (PROSE: A Farewell to Arms [+]Loading...["A Farewell to Arms (short story)"])
The shelf was also home to a number of documents and books. They included Beyond a Boundary: The Incomplete History of Cricket in the British Isles by Robert L. C. James, A Memoir on the Martian Invasion of Earth by H. G. Wells, B. S. Ghast's Compendium on Ghost Physics, a complete collection of Noddy books which a note marked out as "very important", and also a number of reports typed up by Giles himself. One of these was a report on "the dangers Chronon Fleas presented for archives", which was itself "gnawed at" by Chronon Fleas. (PROSE: Out of the Box [+]Loading...["Out of the Box (short story)"] Until it was stolen in late November 2020, the shelf also held a Nolvox control node. (WC: Doctor X [+]Loading...["Doctor X (webcast)"])
The Dr Smith shelf appeared in Giles's video case files on two occasions, being seen to a Cyberon head, a vial of Cyberon, and Box. (WC: Varunastra [+]Loading...["Varunastra (webcast)"], P.R.O.B.E. CASE FILES - TRAILER [+]Loading...["P.R.O.B.E. CASE FILES - TRAILER (webcast)"]) A later Case File's visual of the shelf included these items as well as the teddy bear, a blue sphere, an irregularly-shaped object with a red glow, a stack of VHS tapes, and what appeared to be the bones of a dinosaur. (HOMEVID: Ex-President [+]Loading...["Ex-President (home video)"])
History
In 2014, when Giles first looked through the contents of the Dr Smith shelf, it was located in one of P.R.O.B.E. HQ's out-of-the-way storage areas. He took Box from the shelf, where Liz had placed her many years earlier, and successfully reactivated her, though she was soon broken again, (HOMEVID: When to Die [+]Loading...["When to Die (home video)"]) after which Giles returned her to the shelf. (WC: Varunastra [+]Loading...["Varunastra (webcast)"], PROSE: Out of the Box [+]Loading...["Out of the Box (short story)"])
By 2019, under Giles's leadership, the Dr Smith shelf had been moved to Giles's office within P.R.O.B.E. HQ. (PROSE: Preternatural Days [+]Loading...["Preternatural Days (short story)"]) It became a subject of much gossip among the new members of the team. (PROSE: Out of the Box [+]Loading...["Out of the Box (short story)"])
In June 2019, he considered placing Varunastra there for easy access in case of an emergency, but ultimately decided the water-weapon was too dangerous and put it in a sealed container in the P.R.O.B.E. Archive instead. (WC: Varunastra [+]Loading...["Varunastra (webcast)"])
Eventually, Maxie spotted that Box was not quite inactive, and got Giles's authorisation to take her off the shelf to attempt to repair her, with Maxie eventually succeeding. (PROSE: Out of the Box [+]Loading...["Out of the Box (short story)"]) However, she was still returned to the shelf in-between missions. (PROSE: Preternatural Nights [+]Loading...["Preternatural Nights (short story)"])
In November 2020, a mysterious individual using the user handle "Magister1971" enacted a scheme to rob P.R.O.B.E. HQ to steal the Nolvox control node which had been placed on the shelf by Liz. After tricking Giles into purchasing a cursed DVD which blew out all the electronics within the HQ when he opened the box, the thief allowed the team to believe that they had tracked his coordinates in Bedfordshire, leading them to go all go there save for Maxie, who stayed to work on fixing everything; by the time they returned to HQ on 25 November, the place had been ransacked, with the villain locking Maxie in her office, and the Nolvox control node was gone. (WC: Doctor X [+]Loading...["Doctor X (webcast)"])