The Deadly Assassin (TV story)

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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

Whilst at the controls of the TARDIS, the Doctor has a premonition of the assassination of the Lord 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 by the Doctor, 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.

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.
  • The Time Lords possess a complete biographical history of the Doctor, and all Time Lords.
  • Rassilon is referenced for the first time.
  • In order to delay his trial, the Doctor places himself in the running for President. (His resulting ascension to the Presidency is touched upon several times in future adventures.)
  • 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).
  • The CIA are first referenced here.
  • The Doctor's trial is dated 309906.

Gallifrey

Gallifreyan artefacts

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

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 features an exclusively male cast.
  • 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...


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

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.
  • Surely the high-ranking Time Lords are already aware of the Master since the high-council have both warned the Doctor regarding (See Terror of the Autons), and sent the Doctor after (See Colony in Space) him in previous stories. In fact Borusa should know him personally since he must have encountered him while teaching the Doctor, with whom he was also at school. Having used all of his regeneration cycle they may have possibly incorrectly presumed he was dead. (The Master's biographical data had been purged, he was in control of the Matrix, and he had the Chancellor working on his side. Removing most official records of his existence would not have been difficult. Some individual members of the High Council may or may not have known of him, but it's doubtful that the Castellan would have questioned all of them in the time allotted.)
  • The technology on Gallifrey seems somewhat low-tech for such a powerful race. The capitol has comparable surveillance, security and forensic facilities to Earth in the 1970's. The Time Lord's policy of isolationism has led to some forms of technological stagnation. Even the Doctor remarks, when discussing the APC, that it would be disregarded as 'junk' in some parts of the universe.
  • It is not explained how the Master discovered the truth about the real uses of the Rod & Sash of Rassilon, etc. when no-one else seems to know. (He did have access to the forgotten depths of the Matrix records when he was stealing the plans for the doomsday weapon. (See Colony in Space).)
  • How could all the power of the Time Lords devolve from the Eye of Harmony, and none of them be aware of it? When the Doctor said that, he didn't mean that Gallifrey is still powered by the Eye, only that it had been the initial source of power the first Time Lords had used and had since been forgotten.
  • It's quite obvious that the graphics used to go in the matrix are modified from the title sequence.

Continuity

Timeline

For the Doctor:

For the Master:

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 was released on 11th May 2009 in the UK.
  • Special Features include;
  • Commentary by Tom Baker The Doctor, Bernard Horsfall Goth and Philip Hinchcliffe Producer
  • 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

Notes:

Novelisation

Deadly Assassin novel.jpg
Main article: Doctor Who and the Deadly Assassin

External Links


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According to one account, the Master had the appearance of Roger Delgado while on Gallifrey. According to another, he had Anthony Ainley's likeness. According to another one, the one with James Dreyfus's appearance was the incarnation who ran away from Gallifrey.

Divided Loyalties, A Brief History of Time Lords and The Legions of Death feature, or otherwise acknowledge, the War Chief, but in the process contradicted the notion put forward by other stories that he was an incarnation of the Master.

One account suggests that the incarnation portrayed by Roger Delgado may be the same as the one portrayed by Peter Pratt while some others distinguish them.

According to one account, the incarnation portrayed by Gordon Tipple is the one portrayed by Anthony Ainley, while some others state that the Ainley one was already lost by then.

While fighting to extend his life at the end of his regeneration cycle, many bodies were possessed by the Beevers incarnation, but all kept somehow reverting to his real being until he finally regenerated into the MacQueen one. Hence, these sections cannot be strictly chronological
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