William Tell
William Tell was a notorious heroic marksman who was known to the Doctor; the Fourth Doctor, who deemed him a "charming man", claimed to have been tutored by him in Switzerland, (TV: The Face of Evil) while another account showed that William Tell was a storybook character, whom the Doctor had met — and helped — while visiting Storyland in his first incarnation. (COMIC: Nostalgia Corner)
History[[edit] | [edit source]]
Meeting the Doctor[[edit] | [edit source]]
As a famous fictional character, William Tell was one of the residents of Storyland. Dr Who, in his first incarnation, encountered him alongside his companions and grandchildren John and Gillian, walking on the famous scene of Tell being forced to shoot an apple off his son's head with a crossbow by the Governor.
The Doctor chose to help Tell, convincing the Governor to switch the apple for a grape which the Doctor provided; though the Doctor had feigned to partake in the same sadistic game as the Governor by suggesting a smaller target, the grape was a magnetic facsimile he had invented, and attracted Tell's arrow, making sure it hit the grape and not the boy. (COMIC: Nostalgia Corner)
The Fourth Doctor attributed his skill with a crossbow to Tell's tutoring in Switzerland, having fired a bolt that prevented him being lowered into a pit of Horda. (TV: The Face of Evil)
Legacy[[edit] | [edit source]]
The Seventh Doctor once told his companion Ace that he had met Tell, though she believed that he may have been joking. (AUDIO: The Settling)
Tell, and the story of how he had succeeded in the cruel trial forced upon him the Governor, was recorded in a storybook which John Who had read long before meeting Tell in the flesh. (COMIC: Nostalgia Corner)
Gioachino Rossini's William Tell Overture was named after him. (AUDIO: Enemy Aliens)
