Terrible Zodin
- For the species, see Zodin.
The Terrible Zodin was encountered by and reminisced about by the Doctor on a number of occasions. He first met her some time prior to or during his second incarnation. Sarah Jane Smith and Iris Wildthyme also claimed to have met her.
Biography
Adventures
Zodin was involved in an adventure in which the Doctor interacted with multiple incarnations of himself. After this she erased their memories of the incident using "mind rubbers", preventing the later Doctors involved from remembering having experienced the events before. (PROSE: Cold Fusion)
This did not prevent the Doctor from remembering enough of the affair to frequently bore people to sleep with long-winded accounts of it, although he was incapable of recalling whether she was assisted in her schemes by mutant kangaroos or by giant grasshoppers. (PROSE: Legacy)
Jamie (PROSE: The Colony of Lies) and Mel both experienced the incident (PROSE: Millennial Rites).
When the Doctor's second incarnation visited a UNIT reunion in the early-mid 1980s, he described Zodin to Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart and indicated the Brigadier would have his own encounter with Zodin alongside the Doctor in his personal future. (TV: The Five Doctors) The Brigadier, however, may have assisted Iris Wildthyme against Zodin in a different matter on the planet Mars. [source needed]
The Third Doctor disputed that ever took place, (PROSE: Verdigris) although he conceded that accounts of his own conflict with Zodin might not be entirely accurate when confronted with the implausibility of her motives and of grasshoppers jumping eighteen-storey buildings (PROSE: Legacy).
The Eighth Doctor mentioned having the autograph of the Terrible Zodin. (COMIC: The Glorious Dead)
The Tenth Doctor and Martha Jones at some point met the Terrible Zodin. (WEB: Martha Jones's Myspace blog)
Sarah Jane Smith mentioned having encountered the Terrible Zodin when reminiscing about her past adventures to Luke Smith and Clyde Langer. (TV: The Mad Woman in the Attic)
Personality
The Seventh Doctor once described Zodin as a celebrated sword-swallower at the Grand Festival of Zymymys Midamor and by no means any kind of actual villain,. She did an impressive trick with a scimitar (PROSE: Lungbarrow), although the Doctor thought she had egomaniacal and megalomaniac tendencies. (PROSE: Millennial Rites) She had claws, or talons. (PROSE: The Colony of Lies) The Doctor considered her a villain of rare guile and cunning. He said they didn't make villains like her anymore. At one point his unstable memory caused him to call Peri Zodin. (TV: Attack of the Cybermen)
Behind the scenes
- The first reference to the Terrible Zodin occurs in a scene in The Five Doctors when the Second Doctor mentions her to the Brigadier. Because several variant cuts of The Five Doctors exist and because Patrick Troughton apparently elaborated on the script, the amount of details on her and the details themselves vary from version to version.
- The Terrible Zodin has become something of a running joke in Doctor Who. She is always discussed, but so far has never actually appeared on screen or in print.
