The Ood Cast

Metal monsters in human form?  Self-programmed, semi-sentient and (more importantly) evil robotic life forms, evolved into a planet-conquering,galaxy-ravaging, warmongering race?  Yep, that’s the Cybermen.

Cold, logical, unfeeling and ruthless, their mission is almost always to capture and colonise a planet – and to convert the inhabitants into Cybermen themselves.  Conversion seems not to be a pleasant experience.  However, if you’re a woman, they replace your underwear first to preserve your dignity.  Don’t believe us?  Torchwood’ll tell you…

There are reasons for their Cyber villainy.  Not that you’d know it from the walking Kenneth Williams statues that John Lumic built.  But those ones are from an alternative dimension I suppose.  Sticking with this one, it’s sort of important to remember they were the unfortunate victims when the earth’s twin planet, Mondas (the home world of these Cyber-chaps), left its regular orbit around the sun and froze.

As the planet became less hospitable, they started trying to colonise other worlds.  Like Telos, where they built tombs where they could hang out in suspended animation until salvation came in the form of well-meaning human idiots; and Voga, where they were beaten by a group of frail, beardy fellas who happened to have some gold dust.

Having quite obviously watched too many re-runs of Top Gear on Dave while swigging far too many cans of Castrol GTX, the Cyber lads decided to hook up a propulsion system to Mondas and drive it round the universe looking for a 24-hour service station.

They were beaten by the Doctor on several occasions, but also at times with the help of others – for example, most fondly in the mind of a certain Ood Cast member, when someone in a lycra suit and crash helmet threw arrows at them in a quarry.  Other notable battles took place with Nazis and Elizabethan women (at the same time – who says metal men can’t multi-task, eh?) and with a group of Daleks – who rather unfairly pulled out a special box that produced more Daleks – in the Battle of Canary Wharf.

In the alternative universe – a place where dirigible flight was the best they could do while advertising had already reached the magical Daily Prophet level - John Lumic had “invented” the next stage in human evolution.  It would not end well.  They were beaten when the Doctor essentially confused them.  They then reappeared in Victorian Britain, using child labour and offcuts of shagpile carpet to build a Cyber King.  This, also, did not end well.  And was daft.

Essentials

First appearance: The Tenth Planet (1966)

Best story: Tomb of the Cybermen (1967).

Worst, but funniest story: Silver Nemesis (1988).

Most pointless and incompetent appearance: The Five Doctors (1983)

Weaknesses: Gold things – from gold teeth to dust.  Oh, and confusion.  So maybe a good defence might be to show them a photo of say, David Guest and ask them why he’s famous.  If they tell you, please let us know.  It’s one of life’s enduring mysteries…

Surely the greatest of all the Doctor’s foes.  Best-known horrors in the universe.   The first villainous creature from Who to get itself snapped by Lord Snowdon for a postage stamp, get its own movie deal, get voted as better than both Godzilla and Gollum in the same poll and to have a small, wheeled library stool named after it.  Also, of course, the first Doctor Who characters to find a regular position both on a condiments tray and in a plumber’s van.

Created by Davros to be the final and greatest weapon of the brutal Skaro civil war, the Daleks soon grew a little too big for their shiny metallic boots and disobeyed their creator.  Essentially weapon-wielding toddlers in over-sized walking frames constantly throwing paddies, they are mutated Kaleds (one of the humanoid native races of Skaro), which – depending on which particular part of the mythos you catch – are a sort of green-ish gooey blob with several legs, a kind of glass vial with something crammed into it or even an one-eyed leggy octopus in a sheltered motorised scooter.

But these tin squid cases have been an all-conquering, ruthless force in interplanetary warfare for more generations than you’ve had cups of tea (which, incidentally, they’re pretty nifty at serving to military leaders).  Devoid of emotions other than hatred, Daleks are efficient, authoritarian and determined to achieve complete conformity – by wiping out every non-dalek lifeform, race and species.    But occasionally they show some fear – and although that used to be when they came across a spiral staircase, later it happened when they were confronted by an angry, gun-toting female.

Over the millennia, Dalek life has been beset and divided by civil wars – initially between the Thal and Kaleds (or was that the Dals and the Thals), Imperial Daleks and Renegade Daleks, and later on with the Dalek version of Scientology – the Cult of Skaro…  But most recently we saw a new generation being created when Dalek DNA was accidently mixed with a packet of Smarties.

They have been defeated by the Doctor on numerous occasions, using various methods – including turning pacifist Thals into genocidal bludlusting Dalek killers, but much more commonly, using something to blow them up… volcanic explosions, self-destruct devices, straightforward bombs and the Hand of Omega have all been used the destroy dalek ships, and on at least one occasion, the building they were in was blown up to stop their attempts at conquest.

There’s little to distinguish between Daleks – they share speech patterns, tones and voices as well as thought processes and instincts… and not one has thought to embellish the catchphrase they first uttered on screen in 1963: “Exterminate”.  That’s a little lazy, right?

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Essentials:

First appearance: “The Daleks” [AKA “The Mutants”/ “The Survivors”] (1963)

Best story: Genesis of the Daleks (1976).  Or maybe “The Daleks” (1963)

Most inexplicable appearance: The Five Doctors (1983)

Favourite invention: Escalators

Weaknesses: Eyes on rather easy to snap off/cover up stalks.  Other than that, a bomb clearly seems to do the trick.

So, where was I…?  Oh yeah – somewhere, the 8th Doctor regenerated – as I said before, possibly during (or as a consequence of) the events of the Time War. But as we have no proof, however vague, let’s assume he was just bored to death by the advent of Big Brother in his absence from the screen and had to regenerate. Perhaps a foolish mistake for an experienced Time Traveller, but maybe a small gesture towards the dungheap of Reality TV… We’ll never know for sure. But just when Star Trek fans had started to think they could claim the longest-running series title… here’s the Oodcast Guide to what happened next: Doctors 9, 10 and 11.

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Ninth Doctor

Emerging from the swirling mists of time and onto a North London housing estate to pick up a cockney sparra and whisk her off around the universe, the Ninth incarnation of the Doctor looked for all the world like he’d just wandered out of the bookies after he backed a winner at 100/1 odds. His northern accent did nothing to move away from the stereotype. He was also hairless – a new image for the TARDIS’ designated driver.

In terms of companion, there was the cockney shop-girl, the unemployed Coronation Street actor/dull milksop character… oh, and the omnisexual, immortal cabaret performer.

But this ninth chap was energetic, fun-loving and naturally rather nosey – and although intelligent, quick-witted and very knowledgeable when it came to technological workings, he preferred to stick with the sonic screwdriver and a well-chosen pun in the face of danger. A little like the fourth Doctor, he was often jolly and cheerful when in company or confronting trouble, but melancholy and serious when alone.

During his time, he beat back a fresh invasion attempt by shop window dummies, discovered and then half-defeated the last remaining Dalek, Victorian ghosts, Rose’s should-be-dead dad and a Reaper who wants to make him dead again, children in gas masks, the bloke from Spaced and his hungry ceiling, and (if you were in any doubt as to whether it had anything for the kids) the green aliens distinguishable from other green aliens because they make that funny farting noise a lot… the Slitheen…

A brave and loyal friend, particularly to Rose, he regenerated having kissed her – not as a punishment, but because in doing so, he inhaled the Time Vortex’s energy – and re-emerged younger, skinnier, and in his Sunday best…

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Tenth Doctor

The Doctor’s ninth regeneration was a traumatic one, with the poor lamb needing a sleep once it was complete. And while he slept, the world nearly fell to an invasion by the family from the children’s classic Funny Bones. Happily, he woke up in time to beat the Big Skeleton using just a sword and a Satsuma.

And so began the era of the heartthrob Doctor. Good looking, eccentrically suave, sometimes cheeky and with a good mopey face when required, this Doctor was a sort of mixture of the third and fifth incarnations – with the former’s all-action style and enthusiasm for running about; and the youthful wisdom, naivety and touch of sadness like the latter.

Persuading companions to join him was simple (if they were female), and he travelled with the cockney shop girl, a cockney Doctor, and just for a change, a cockney temp… But he also encountered old friends in Sarah and the little tin doggy, was reunited with the Cabaret star and kept a civil face on for the shop-girl’s family and friends.

As for adventures, there were plenty… From cat nurses, werewolves and spiky queens to clockwork Frenchmen, deadly stone angels, interplanetary witches, small girls who could teach animators a thing or two about bringing things to life, northern comedians, robot Santas with Tuba guns, literally huge demons, face-stealing televisions, scarecrows, hungry shadows, fish people (who are all halfway through eating a glass), Aliens hidden under Roman volcanoes, walking diet pills, giant wasps, antsy headmasters and some older foes in a returning Davros, Cybermen, Daleks, Sontarans, Macra and the Master.

He should, of course, be best remembered for meeting the Ood. Without whom we would not have a podcast…

This Doctor’s end was long, drawn out, and I’m not really sure what did for him in the end. Perhaps it was the numbing inevitability. Nope, I remember. He regenerated having absorbed far more radiation than he should have) in order to save Bernard Cribbins so he could carry on with his plan to narrate a new series of the Wombles – at least, that’s what Bernard should be doing. A noble deed either way.

His reluctant firework display over, he went back to his childhood… Isn’t 903 too old for a mid-life crisis?

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Eleventh Doctor

Whether you see him as an old head on young shoulders, or simply a bent shoe coincidentally on the same coat hanger as a tweed jacket, the Eleventh incarnation is an exhilarating bundle of energy and floppy fringes. The Time Lord equivalent of Hugh Grant crossed with a Rugrat.

Old school in many ways, he is quick-tempered yet compassionate and bears more than a passing resemblance in manner to the second doctor. He’s the first to deploy sweeping the hair out of his eyes as a method of charming enemies, the second to pull off the bowtie and braces combination (it’s a classy man who can pull off the “Bobby Ball”), and the third to raid a hospital changing room for clothes.

Just a few months in, he’s already faced the threats of Daleks, Silurians, even deadlier deadly stone angels, a space snake with huge teeth, Star Whales, Smilers and gun-toting monarchs, vampirical fish women, a Dream Lord, a pilotless spaceship, a small stone prison and a paradox… Oh, and of course he faced an alien turkey in the crypt of a French church while visiting Vincent Van Gogh.

He also appears to be quite good at football, but I don’t think we need to go into that.

So, after a holiday and everything that surrounds a small Time Lord starting school (he’s doing fine, by the way), The Ood Cast Guide returns with the second of three instalments on our intrepid hero…

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Fifth Doctor

The Fifth incarnation came into being with rather a lot of difficulty, having to be carried around in what remained of the Zero Room to help his recovery from Post-regeneration trauma. No other Doctor suffered from this as badly (unless you count the 10th Doctor’s insistence that he needed bed rest…). And on top of this, he was also a few inches shorter and looked daft in such a big scarf.

Despite being dressed as an Edwardian cricketing gent, this Doctor was younger. While noble and wise with a strong compassionate streak, he was youthful in his wonder, enthusiasm and bravery, but also in his naivety and clumsiness.

He is particularly memorable for rarely being seen with less than three companions at any one time, and being the only Doctor to watch one of them die. His time also saw the destruction of the Sonic Screwdriver, and consequently the adoption of a sort of MacGuyver approach to Time Lord-ing…

In the 3 years he spent stumbling from battle to battle, he faced the threats of Daleks, Terileptils, the Master, Silurians and Sea Devils (along with their – ahem – glistening Myrka), demonic faces in the walls of 17th Century churches, Cybermen, a plot by the Black Guardian to kill him using a companion, the Mara and a deformed explorer who liked dressing up for parties.

His end came about in typically noble fashion, giving his companion all the vaccine for Spectrox Toximia while he regenerated into a bubble-permed bit part actor…

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Sixth Doctor

Nostalgia is not often kind to this incarnation. Tempestuous at the best of times, the sixth doctor was a rampaging torrent of blonde curly fury one moment, and a slightly shouty BFG the next – and in the rest of the time a little bit petulant and egotistical… starting from his first moments crammed into the cricketing blazer, when he tried to strangle Peri before recovering his senses (although let’s be honest, if you only heard the voice…).

And even with the temporal-boundary-defying (and headache inducing) fashion sense he displayed, this Doctor had to deal with far more earth politics than other doctors, as well as a full enough roster of aliens: from giant money-obsessed grubs, daleks and Gastropods (no, not a new range of poncey pubs) to Sontarans, a Gallifreyan take on the Femme Fatale, Audrey from the Little Shop of Horrors and in a slightly incomprehensible instance, the Cybermen…

All of which he coped with using his trademark mixture of grumpiness and annoyance, with the help of the vocal stylings of two female companions – a barely clothed American girl and the annoying little girl from Just William who “thcweamed and thwceamed until the wath thick” whenever something looked remotely threatening.

Understandably, he then went mental and let himself be tried on Gallifrey by a possible future incarnation of himself who wanted to steal his remaining lives.

Not sure how the end came about for this doctor, but I’m sure it was dignified.

What? What’s wrong with that?!

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Seventh Doctor

After a regeneration which had no bad side effects other than the appearance of an appalling wig and the deduction of several inches from his height, the seventh incarnation begun life as a sort of comical time-travelling gnome who seemed to choose a manic toothy grin as the best way to ignore the high-pitched wailing of his inherited companion.

However, despite the dodgy first steps, this was a doctor who went on much more of a progressive journey than many of his previous selves, and his next companion, Ace, would be the making of him – revealing both a darker, more determined and mysterious side to him.

A staunch pacifist, abhorring any kind of violence, he had a curious side as wide as the berth the production team ought to have given to that question mark tank-top, and his nosiness eventually outweighed the whimsical one. This Doctor was a skilful manipulator… his natural showmanship and ability to play the buffoon convincingly become the only weapon he liked using. It frequently meant he could slip in and out of places without being detected (although Lord knows how with that punctuation rash).

During his time in the TARDIS, he battled a number of familiar faces and some worrying new ones in strange places… such as space bounty hunters in Welsh holiday camps, Arthurian planet-wasting monsters next to a UNIT nuclear transport convoy, evils from the dawn of time in a Second World War military base, Daleks in 1960s London, an evolution-manipulating alien intent on assassinating a monarch in a Victorian Manor house, and cat-people (and the Master) in Perivale. Oh, and that’s not even mentioning the Cybermen, Nazis and Elizabethan strangers on the building site that became the Millennium Dome.

The end came when the Doctor was asked to transport the Master’s remains to Gallifrey after he was executed by the Daleks on Skaro. The Master managed to take control of the TARDIS and make it land in San Francisco. On emerging from the doors, he was predictably shot. Perhaps the most depressing of all Time Lord endings?

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Eighth Doctor

The briefest of all incarnations, this Doctor was a romantic soul who had no clue what was going on for most of the time. Half human and probably coping with the trauma of coming round in a body-store in a San Francisco morgue, he eventually showed himself to be a remarkable, enthusiastic and energetic incarnation with a fascination for people and the world around him.

His one outing contained a perilous (and seemingly endless) battle with the Master, some far too exciting car chases and the discovery that this doctor could walk through glass windows without breaking them first…

He dressed like a romantic poet, and enjoyed freaking people out by giving them small visions of their own future to encourage them to make good decisions.

It is thought that this doctor was the one involved in the Time War, regenerating into the 9th Doctor not long before he returned to the screens in 2005, but there’s nothing firm about this, and we still wait to find out how this incarnation regenerated… So hop to it, Mr Moffatt!