Mawdryn Undead (TV story)

Mawdyrn Undead was the third story of Doctor Who's twentieth season. It was the first story in the "Black Guardian trilogy". It also marked the first appearance of Vislor Turlough.

Synopsis

A warp ellipse draws the TARDIS off course. The Fifth Doctor's companions are separated from him not in space, but in time, and he has to deal with a treacherous schoolboy named Turlough. But why does the Doctor's old friend the Brigadier not remember him at all?

Plot

Part one

In 1983, the former Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart teaches mathematics at Brendon Public School. A mischievous student, Turlough, convinces his classmate Ibbotson to join him in a joyride in the Brigadier's priceless antique car, which they accidentally veer off the road and crash. While unconscious, Turlough is contacted by the sinister Black Guardian. The Black Guardian knows that Turlough is actually from another planet, and offers Turlough transportation off Earth if he will kill his greatest enemy: The Doctor.

At the same time, the Doctor, Tegan and Nyssa have problems of their own. The Doctor's TARDIS is caught in a warp ellipse and materializes on board an apparently empty starliner locked in a perpetual orbit in time and space. Turlough, under the Black Guardian's instructions, transports himself onto the liner from Earth by means of a transmat capsule and encounters the TARDIS crew. The Doctor travels to Earth via transmat, taking Turlough with him, to get rid of the transmat interference that is trapping the TARDIS on the liner. The source of the interference is not far from the school grounds. As the Doctor is sorting out the device, Turlough, responding to the Black Guardian's exhortations, picks up a large rock and prepares to smash it down on the back of the Doctor's head...

Part two

The interference device explodes, knocking the Doctor backwards and forcing the rock out of Turlough's hands. The TARDIS materializes nearby, but vanishes shortly after, seemingly leaving the Doctor stranded. The Doctor meets the Brigadier at the Brendon school, but is puzzled when his old comrade-in-arms does not remember him. He eventually works around the apparent gap in the Brigadier's memory by mentioning Jo Grant, the Yeti, and other past adventures. Much to the Doctor's surprise, the Brigadier claims to remember Tegan, having met her shortly before his nervous breakdown in 1977. The Doctor realizes that the TARDIS hasn't disappeared; the destruction of the device knocked the TARDIS off a time track and sent it back six years.

In 1977, Tegan and Nyssa encounter the transmat capsule, but inside is an alien-looking humanoid whom they initially believe is the Doctor, horribly injured. Meeting the younger Brigadier, they bring him and the alien back to the starliner. Tegan, Nyssa and the Brigadier enter the TARDIS control room. The alien, who is a scientist called Mawdryn, now wearing the Doctor's old coat, turns to face them. The top of his skull is missing, revealing his pulsing brain. Nyssa screams in horror.

Part three

Under the pretense of being the Doctor, suffering a failed regeneration, Mawdryn convinces the others to bring the TARDIS to the ship, claiming it has restorative capabilities. Meanwhile, the Doctor, Turlough and the present-day Brigadier use a TARDIS homing device on the damaged Transmat to bring themselves to the ship, splitting up shortly after to search for Tegan and Nyssa. Under the Black Guardian's instruction, Turlough opens a secret room, revealing several humanoids suffering from the same malady as Mawdryn. Mawdryn fools the present-day Brigadier into using a stolen Time Lord device to stabilise his condition. Finding the TARDIS, the Doctor reunites with Tegan and Nyssa. When the Doctor finds out that there are two Brigadiers aboard, he has to try to keep the two apart lest the resulting energy discharge prove catastrophic.

The Doctor and Nyssa meet with the present-day Brigadier and Mawdryn. Mawdryn revealed that he and his fellow scientists tried to steal the secret of regeneration from the Time Lords, but instead caused perpetual mutations, leaving themselves practically immortal but in horrible agony. Tegan is then chased into the room by Mawdryn's mutated crewmates. The mutants take their places in the regeneration room and Mawdryn pleads with the Doctor to help them die by giving them his energy. The Doctor refuses, explaining to Tegan that if he did so it would mean the end of him as a Time Lord...

Part four

The Doctor explains that for each of the eight mutants to die would require the Doctor to sacrifice a regeneration, and having eight regenerations remaining, he'd have none left for himself.

Under the Black Guardian's orders, Turlough locates the 1977 Brigadier and locks him in a side room in order to keep the two Brigadiers from touching.

Trying to leave in the TARDIS, the Doctor discovers that Tegan and Nyssa have been infected by the same malady as Mawdryn and his compatriots. Attempted time travel accelerates their conditions, and reversing out of the warp ellipse only regresses Tegan and Nyssa into children. The only cure, it seems, is to do what Mawdryn demands: the Doctor must give up the energy from his remaining regenerations. Meanwhile, the past Brigadier manages to escape the room, and encounters Mawdryn and his crew. Fearing the time imbalance, they send him into the transmat. However, unbeknownst to them, the transmat cannot make the trip while the TARDIS is on the vessel, and the capsule returns to it's station seconds later.

Hooking himself up to Mawdryn's apparatus, the Doctor is about to sacrifice himself when the two Brigadiers meet and touch hands, causing a discharge of temporal energy at precisely the right instant. Tegan and Nyssa are cured, the alien scientists succeed in ending their undead existence, and the Doctor remains a Time Lord. The younger Brigadier, however, will not remember his time with the Doctor until they meet again in 1983. The Doctor, Nyssa and Tegan deliver the 1977 and 1983 versions of the Brigadier back to the school. Turlough is in the TARDIS control room when they return. He asks if he can join them, and the Doctor comments that he already has. In space, Mawdryn's ship self-destructs.

Cast

The Doctor - Peter Davison
Tegan Jovanka - Janet Fielding
Nyssa - Sarah Sutton
Vislor Turlough – Mark Strickson
Brigadier Alistair Lethbridge-Stewart – Nicholas Courtney
The Black Guardian – Valentine Dyall
Headmaster Mr. Sellick– Angus MacKay
Ibbotson - Stephen Garlick
Dr Runciman - Roger Hammond
Matron - Sheila Gill
Mawdryn – David Collings
Mutants - Peter Walmsley, Brian Darnley

Crew

References

Anatomy and physiology

Tegan, Nyssa, and the Brigadier refer to seeing the Doctor regenerate.

Individuals

The Doctor lists off several people to try to jog the Brigadier's memory including: Harry Sullivan, Jo Grant, Sarah Jane Smith, Liz Shaw, Yeti and UNIT.
Sergeant Benton left the army in the 1970s and is now a used car salesman.
Harry Sullivan went to work with NATO on a project in Porton Down.

Races and species

Tegan is still wondering if she'll be free of the Mara.
During the series of flashbacks the Brigadier sees; The First Doctor, Second Doctor, Third Doctor, Fourth Doctor, a Yeti, a Cyberman, an Axon, a Dalek, K1 Robot and a Zygon.

TARDIS

The Zero Room is mentioned.

Technology

Mawdryn stole a metamorphic symbiosis regenerator, used by Time Lords in cases of acute regenerative crisis, but it induced a perpetual, deathless mutation.

Theories and concepts

The Doctor cites the Blinovitch Limitation Effect.
The Doctor talks about reversing the polarity of the neutron flow a catchphrase of his third incarnation.

Transport technology

Tegan knows a lot about transmats.
Tegan mentions the Mary Celeste.

Story notes

Every story during Season 20 had the Doctor face an enemy from each of his past incarnations. For this four-part story, the enemy was the Black Guardian, who last faced the fourth incarnation of the Doctor at the conclusion of the Key to Time saga in 1979.
David Collings, who played Mawdryn, also appeared in the Fourth Doctor stories DW: Revenge of the Cybermen as Vorus and DW: The Robots of Death as Poul, and would himself play an alternate Doctor in Big Finish Productions' Doctor Who Unbound audio drama, Full Fathom Five.
The original intent of the production team was for the character of Ian Chesterton, one of the original regulars from the series' first two seasons from 1963-65, to return for a guest appearance in this story, hence the school setting as Chesterton was a science teacher. However, actor William Russell proved to be unavailable. Some consideration was given to using instead the character of Harry Sullivan, who was a regular in the programme for a season in the mid-1970s, before the return of Lethbridge-Stewart was eventually decided upon.
Radio Times credits Nicholas Courtney as Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart in the combined cast for Parts One/Two, and as Brigadier in the combined cast for Parts Three/Four. All on-screen credits read The Brigadier.
Former producer Graham Williams, the creator of the Guardians, did not know about their return in this season and learned about it only years later during an on-stage interview at a Doctor Who convention.
Originally the slot that this story occupies would have been given to the long-delayed "The Song of the Space Whale" (or "Space Whale"), in which Turlough would have been one of a group of colonists, however this was once again cancelled and this story took its place.
Peter Grimwade's previous story, DW: Time-Flight, also takes place in two different times.

Ratings

Part 1 - 6.5 million viewers
Part 2 - 7.5 million viewers
Part 3 - 7.4 million viewers
Part 4 - 7.7 million viewers

Myths

to be added

Filming locations

Trent Park campus of Middlesex Polytechnic, Cockfosters, Enfield, Greater London
BBC Television Centre (Studio 6), Shepherd's Bush, London

Production errors

If you'd like to talk about narrative problems with this story — like plot holes and things that seem to contradict other stories — please go to this episode's discontinuity discussion.

to be added

Continuity

The "Black Guardian Trilogy" continues in the story DW: Terminus.
The Fourth Doctor last encountered the Black Guardian in DW: The Armageddon Factor, in which he also hinted that what he thought was the White Guardian in DW: The Ribos Operation may have been the Black Guardian posing as his counterpart.
At the story's opening, Tegan is still unsure if she is finally free of the Mara, a reference to the previous story, DW: Snakedance.
Mawdryn Undead also makes the first explicit statement in the series that the current Doctor is the fifth incarnation.
Another example of Time Lord technology being used to create perpetual regeneration was seen in DW: Underworld.
Turlough's origins are finally explained in DW: Planet of Fire.
Mawdryn finds in the TARDIS and wears the red coat worn by the Fourth Doctor.
There are a series of flashbacks as the Brigadier remembers including: