Mawdryn Undead
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| 126 - Mawdryn Undead | |
| Doctor | Peter Davison (Fifth Doctor) |
|---|---|
| Writer | Peter Grimwade |
| Director | Peter Moffatt |
| Script Editor | Eric Saward |
| Producer | John Nathan-Turner |
| Executive producer(s) | None |
| Production code | 6F |
| Series | Season 20 |
| Length | 4 episodes, 25 mins each |
| Transmission date | February 1–February 9, 1983 |
| Preceded by | Snakedance |
| Followed by | Terminus |
Mawdryn Undead is a serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was originally broadcast in four twice-weekly parts from February 1 to February 9, 1983. The serial was the first of three loosely connected serials known as the Black Guardian Trilogy, and introduced Mark Strickson as a new companion, Vislor Turlough, as well as reintroducing Nicholas Courtney as Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart.
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[edit] 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?
[edit] Plot
In 1983, the former Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart teaches mathematics at Brendon Public School, where Turlough is a student. In the aftermath of a car accident, Turlough is contacted by the sinister Black Guardian, whom the Doctor thwarted during the quest for the Key to Time. Seeking revenge, the Black Guardian offers Turlough transportation off Earth if he will kill the Doctor.
Meanwhile, the Fifth Doctor, Tegan and Nyssa have problems of their own. The TARDIS is caught in a warp ellipse and materializes on board a 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. Unfortunately, when the TARDIS tries to materialize on Earth, it vanishes. The Doctor meets the Brigadier at the Brendon school, but is puzzled when his old comrade-in-arms does not remember their time together at first. When the Doctor says he has to find Tegan and his TARDIS, the Brigadier remembers meeting her in 1977. The Doctor realizes that the TARDIS is right there - just six years earlier - and tries to get the Brigadier to remember the events that led to his nervous breakdown in 1977.
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, which is actually the prison of a group of alien scientists who had been trying to discover the Time Lord secret of regeneration. As Mawdryn, the leader of the group explains, they only succeeded in trapping themselves in a cycle of perpetual mutation and regeneration and now long for death. 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.
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. The only cure, it seems, is to do what Mawdryn demands: the Doctor must give up the energy from his remaining regenerations. 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...
After returning the Brigadiers to their respective time zones, Turlough asks if he can join the Doctor in his travels. The Doctor agrees, apparently not realizing he is taking an assassin into the fold.
[edit] Cast
- The Doctor — Peter Davison
- Nyssa — Sarah Sutton
- Tegan Jovanka — Janet Fielding
- Turlough — Mark Strickson
- The Brigadier — Nicholas Courtney
- Mawdryn — David Collings
- Black Guardian — Valentine Dyall
- Headmaster — Angus MacKay
- Ibbotson — Stephen Garlick
- Dr Runciman — Roger Hammond
- Matron — Sheila Gill
- Mutants — Peter Walmsley, Brian Darnley
[edit] Cast notes
- 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, and the Brigadier's being issued with another TARDIS homing device. 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.
- David Collings, who played Mawdryn, also appeared in the Fourth Doctor serials Revenge of the Cybermen as Vorus and The Robots of Death as Poul, and would himself play an alternate Doctor in Big Finish Productions' Doctor Who Unbound audio play, Full Fathom Five.
[edit] Trivia
- Every story during Season 20 featured an enemy from the Doctor's past. For this trilogy, 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 The Armageddon Factor (1979).
- Mawdryn Undead has the unfortunate distinction of contributing to one of the biggest and most widely discussed contradictions in the Doctor Who universe: the "UNIT dating controversy".
- Mawdryn Undead also makes the first explicit statement in the series that the current Doctor is the fifth incarnation.
- The Doctor cites the "Blinovitch Limitation Effect" (first mentioned in the Third Doctor serial, Day of the Daleks) as the reason for the temporal energy discharge resulting from the meeting of the two Brigadiers. However, the Effect must not apply to Time Lords, or at least can be mitigated, as the Doctor has met his prior incarnations on several occasions.
- The Black Guardian Trilogy continues in the serial Terminus.
- A novelisation of this serial, written by Peter Grimwade, was published by Target Books in August 1983.
- During the Brigadier’s flashback he sees Yeti (The Web of Fear), Cybermen (The Invasion), the Second Doctor, a Krynoid (The Seeds of Doom), Daleks, the Third Doctor (Spearhead from Space), the First Doctor (The Three Doctors), the K1 Robot from (Robot), a Zygon (Terror of the Zygons), and the Fourth Doctor. The excerpts from the colour serials were shown in black and white to match the older ones.
[edit] External links
- Mawdryn Undead episode guide on the BBC website
- Mawdryn Undead at Doctor Who: A Brief History Of Time (Travel)
- Mawdryn Undead at the Doctor Who Reference Guide
[edit] Reviews
- Mawdryn Undead reviews at Outpost Gallifrey
- Mawdryn Undead reviews at The Doctor Who Ratings Guide
