V. R. Henderson

Dr V. R. Henderson (PROSE: Lourdwater Cottage Hospital case summary ^[+]Loading...["Lourdwater Cottage Hospital case summary (short story)"]) was a medical doctor who worked at Ashbridge Cottage Hospital.

Biography[[edit] | [edit source]]

Henderson took care of the Third Doctor during his stay at the hospital and was astounded by the Doctor's test results. He noted that the Doctor had a binary vascular system and an unidentifiable blood type.

When first seeing the Doctor's X-ray film, Henderson angrily assumed that someone in the radiography lab had created it as a prank on him. The tables were turned minutes later when Dr. Lomax paged Henderson from the pathology department, and on the telephone similarly accused Henderson of playing a practical joke by sending him non-human blood.

He was later knocked out by Channing who kidnapped the Doctor. When the Doctor was returned by Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart in a coma, Henderson told the Brigadier that the Doctor was in the deepest coma he'd ever scene. He later met with Dr. Beavis, who intended to examine the Doctor, only to find the Doctor was gone. (TV: Spearhead from Space ^[+]Loading...["Spearhead from Space (TV story)"])

The Brigadier occasionally contacted Dr. Henderson for advice on specialist medical matters, and did so during the early events of the Inferno Earth infiltration.

Henderson later contacted UNIT H.Q. to let Ian Chesterton know that an autopsy on a woman's body thought to be Ian's wife Barbara, who had actually been taken hostage by George Boucher's Inferno Earth counterpart, revealed that it was actually a woman reported missing from a homeless shelter. However, the Master intercepted the information — impersonating Ian on the telephone — and kept this information from Ian to keep him focused on the task in hand. (PROSE: The Face of the Enemy ^[+]Loading...["The Face of the Enemy (novel)"])

Behind the scenes[[edit] | [edit source]]

• Dr. Henderson is never identified with a first name in either Spearhead from Space or The Face of the Enemy, but his case summary on the Doctor as featured in Piccolo Books' The Making of Doctor Who — titled "A Doctor's Report on the Doctor" on the contents page — identifies him as "Dr. V.R. Henderson".