Sabalom Glitz

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Doctor Who universe character

Sabalom Glitz
Affiliated with	None
Race	Unknown
Home planet	Salostophus
Home era	2 million years in the future
First appearance	The Trial of a Time Lord: The Mysterious Planet
Last appearance	Dragonfire
Portrayed by	Tony Selby

Sabalom Glitz was a fictional character from the long-running British science fiction television series, Doctor Who. Glitz was a rogue from the planet Salostophus in the Andromeda Constellation. Glitz's first love was money, and he was often engaged in mercenary acts and profiteering. He was created by the writer Robert Holmes.

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

The Sixth Doctor and Peri Brown encountered Glitz and his fellow mercenary Dibber on the planet Ravolox (The Mysterious Planet). Glitz and Dibber were on Ravolox looking for secrets stolen by the Sleepers of Andromeda from the Matrix on Gallifrey. The secrets were guarded by an L-3 robot by the name of Drathro. Glitz planned to destroy the Black Light system which provided Drathro with energy and then steal the secrets. When Dibber destroyed the external collection aerial, the system became dangerously unstable, and only the Doctor's intervention prevented a potentially catastrophic explosion.

Nearing the end of the Doctor's trial, Glitz was summoned to the Gallifreyan space station by his business partner — the Master. The Master revealed that the events on Ravolox had been engineered by the Time Lords to cover up the theft of the secrets. As the trial dissolved into chaos, Glitz accompanied the Doctor into the fictional reality of the Matrix to fight the Valeyard. The Master bribed Glitz to betray the Doctor, but in turn was tricked by the Valeyard. Given what he thought were the true secrets of the Matrix, the Master tried to upload them into his TARDIS systems. They were in fact trapped, causing the Master and Glitz to be paralysed within the TARDIS. After the Doctor had finally defeated the Valeyard, he pleaded with the Time Lords to show leniency on Glitz.

The Doctor next ran into Glitz on Iceworld on the planet Svartos (Dragonfire). On this occasion, Glitz had become a mercenary for the power-mad Kane in order to pay his debts. After hearing about a fabulous treasure known as the Dragonfire, Glitz accompanied the Seventh Doctor, Ace and Melanie Bush in their search, hoping to keep it for himself. The Dragonfire turned out to be part of a large bio-mechanoid dragon, which in turn was revealed to be Kane's jailer on the planet Svartos. After the bio-mechanoid was destroyed, Kane used the Dragonfire to power the Iceworld systems intending to escape. He also had his mercenaries drive the occupants of Iceworld onto Glitz's ship, the Nosferatu, which he subsequently had destroyed. Eager for revenge, Glitz goes to find Kane, and meets The Doctor, Ace and Mel in the control room of Iceworld. The whole of Iceworld turns out to be a massive spaceship, in which Kane intends to make his escape and seek revenge on his home planet from which he was banished three thousand years earlier. However, with the systems now fully powered, The Doctor uses Iceworld's star charts to reveal to Kane that his homeworld had been destroyed when its sun went supernova a thousand years earlier. Kane then killed himself with unfiltered sunlight. Glitz then availed himself of the opportunity to steal Kane's ship, which he renamed Nosferatu II, in which he then departed. To the Doctor's surprise, Mel elected to leave the TARDIS and travel with Glitz.

The original outline by Ian Briggs for the Seventh Doctor serial The Curse of Fenric made a reference to Ace not being a virgin, but this was removed for the final production^[1]. Briggs, who had created the character of Ace, had stated in Ace's character outline for Dragonfire that she had slept with Glitz on Iceworld. The Paul Cornell-written New Adventures novel Love and War implies (and his later novel Happy Endings confirms) that Ace lost her virginity to Glitz.

[edit] Other appearances

Glitz also appears in the Past Doctor Adventures novel Mission: Impractical by David A. McIntee. The Sixth Doctor and Frobisher ran into Glitz and Dibber as they attempt to pull off the crime of the century on Vandor Prime.