The Ood Cast

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Erroneously named* and similar in many ways, these two ancient subterranean species are often referred to as “cousins”, so the guide will treat them as one. The Silurians having once ruled the planet with their Sea Devil relations acting as the foot soldiers (presumably to keep dinosaurs in check…

Reptilian humanoid creatures with ancient origins and had the run of the place long before the humans appeared on the surface, these usually peaceful creatures are only really inclined to attack in self defence. It’s just that their idea of self defence appears to be creeping onto sea forts and murdering defenceless crewmen one by one. Or creating a remote control cyborg sea dragon to attack undersea bases.

The pattern of their appearances are clear – they are sleeping or hibernating, and are woken up by the activity of the people up above. Like a grumpy tenant in a block of flats, but one that resents being suddenly awake so much that they go on a bit of a violent spree. So far, they’ve been woken by nuclear research plants, the British Navy adapting a sea fort into a SONAR testing station, the presence of a Sea Base on the ocean floor and a whacking great drill almost caving in their homes – but not, strangely, by their alarm clocks…

Sea Devils and Silurians can be easily told apart in a similar way to African and Indian elephants: the Sea Devils are the ones with large ears… but also in their weaponry: Sea Devils have to carry sonic guns, while Silurians have enough dangerous bits of the body to control a large crowd. In some cases, it is their third eye at the top of their head which emits rays and does the damage – and later on they possessed a flicky forked tongue which injects poison into their target.

Defeating them has always proved difficult – as they use their well-developed intellect to their advantage. But the fall back option of blowing them up did the trick on their first two appearances. But on the last two occasions, the Fifth Doctor resorted to gassing the creatures (having already killed the Myrka with a sort of portable sunbed) and when the Eleventh Doctor met them Marvin out of off of the Hitchhiker’s Guide decided to gas his own rebellious subjects…

* Just to prove I do sometimes pay attention to my own blather, I did point this out in series 2, episode 12 of the Ood Cast.

The Essentials

First Appearance: The Silurians (1970)/ The Sea Devils (1972)

Most unprepared appearance: Warriors of the Deep (1984)

Weaknesses: Pretty much as in human life – poisonous gas and bombs. Oh, and as their third eye can also act as a telepathic link, keeping secrets is a nightmare.

Leather jacketed baked potatoes with a general disposition to violence and long-lasting warfare, often quoted as being short, stocky and unbelievably powerful due to the extreme gravitational pressure on their home world: Sontar. Their chief impulse is to die with honour in battle, and therefore frequently try to construct reasons to fight anything that steps in their way.

These warriors are a neat little combination of the genetic integrity of a GM tomato and the tactical awareness of a lemming, and their frequent wars often resulted in huge losses to their number. Their solution was simply to clone waves upon waves of warriors to battle their perpetual enemies, the Rutans (incidentally, large green light-up jellyfish).

Over the course of the Doctor’s many travels, the Sontarans have cropped up a number of times – usually on earth, which they seem to view as a marvellous little maternity ward for their baby Maris Pipers.

Their first appearance being memorable because the Sontaran causing havoc in late-medieval England wasn’t beaten by the Doctor at all, but by a quick-witted archer who managed to hit the one point of weakness on the Sontaran body: the probic vent (a small aperture at the back of the “neck”).

Since then, they have been discovered performing nasty experiments on humans (imagine Mr Potato Head swapping your limbs around), using a group of Vardans as a smokescreen for their attempted invasion of Gallifrey, a brief but baffling visit to a Spanish villa (with a captive Second Doctor and a small troupe of savage Androgums) and most recently when Mike from the Young Ones improbably joined forces with an obnoxious teenage genius to gas the world using sat-navs.

One lone Sontaran was discovered trying to destroy some nuclear power stations and was sent packing by Sarah Jane Smith and her school-age friends using some high heels and a little persuasion. She probably used her lipstick. I mean, why not?

The Essentials

First appearance: The Time Warrior (1973/4)

Most baffling appearance: The Two Doctors (1985)

Known weaknesses: Probic Vent in the back of their “neck”. Also known to get nervous at the sight of coleslaw or butter. In fact, any popular jacket potato dressing.

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Prop building & additional inspiration by Laura Simpson

“What happens if you cut off his legs? If you bisect the Doctor, do you get two Doctors?”

In this fortnight’s episood, we get mildly heated over regenerative issues, dissect some classic British comedy TV, find out what a Splish is, create some memorable nicknames for former Doctors and tackle both Madness and The Beatles (no, it’s not about ‘Turn Left’).

Join us for a packed episode- and find the answer to the riddle – ‘Why did the Timelord jump out of the tree?’

There might even be a special guest or ten …

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 34:06 — 31.4MB)

Just as in any species, there is light and shade in Gallifreyan society.  Here’s a little list of naughty Time Lords (and Ladies).  It’s not exhaustive but all of them even appear in some of the classic series: the Rani, Morbius, the Monk, the War Chief… You could also say Borusa and Rassillon were “bad apples”.  And of course there’s also Salyavin.

But the renegade the Doctor encountered most often was the Master.  Here at the Ood Cast, we think there are 4 distinct stages in the many lives of this shady figure: childhood; suave villainy; ridiculous re-birth as an A-Lister’s brother and finally the positively chilling Tony Blair impression (yes, even the bit where he went properly mental and leapt about eating people).

Sardonic, often beardy, always charming, the Master was the epitome of cool villainy in earlier stages of the Doctor’s lives, delighting in chaos and mostly using others to carry out his evil work for him rather like a well-dressed Simon Cowell.  But he was not always so maladjusted.

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Childhood

He grew up with the Doctor, but was taken (as Gallifreyans chosen to be Time Lords are) at 8 for training and forced to look into the Untempered Schism.  Some say this sent him mad, which might explain a fair bit.  This event later came back to haunt the Master’s every waking hour in the form of a constant drumming sound in his head.

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Suave Villainy

When the Doctor fled from Gallifrey, it is thought the Master was charged with pursuing and capturing him, following him to earth during his period of exile in order to defeat him.  But because the Doctor had made friends in military circles, it was never so simple a battle.  UNIT even managed to imprison him once – until he hypnotised the prison governor…

These inept soldiers (always happy to fire a gun but rarely hitting anything that posed any real danger) were always on hand to help send the Master off with his tail between his legs – even when he’d teamed up with Sea Devils, circus impresarios, Autons, convicts, and ancient demons to name a few.  Not even his possession of WMDs or his renowned shrinking weapon could gain him enough of an edge to beat his compatriot.

He reappeared variously across the next few incarnations – including memorably using a professorial alias to conduct an experiment called TOMTIT (Brilliant – never mind the benefit cheats, it’s the psychotic aliens nicking taxpayers’ university science funding we need to deal with)… and stealing the body of the father of someone who would soon be a companion of his old enemy.  And then there was the whole living with cat people on an exploding planet thing.

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Ridiculous Re-birth

He was eventually tried and executed by the Daleks for being just as mean as they are (don’t tread on their skirting boards), and was being transported back to Gallifrey by the Seventh Doctor – as that had been his final wish.  He forced the TARDIS to land on earth, took the body of Julia Roberts’ less-famous brother and almost had the Doctor defeated… until he fell into the Eye of Harmony.

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Frightening Blair Impressionist

The Time Lords somehow resurrected him (because every civilisation needs a Bruce) to help fight the Time War, only to see him desert them as soon as it got a bit hairy, disguising himself as an elderly professor until the Doctor got him to check the time and his memory came back…  He regenerated into the Prime Minister of Great Britain, took the Doctor prisoner (making him elderly and tiny but refusing him winter fuel allowance) and conquered the earth with some floating footballs and a “Paradox Machine”.  He was then shot by his own wife and refused to regenerate… and died.

A sinister cult worshipped him and eventually brought him back using a Potion of Life – a process jeopardised when his wife turned up with a Potion of Death… but he was then simply kidnapped to work on an Immortality Gate, which he fixed to turn every human into another one of himself.  He then brought the Time Lords back too, although Rassilon undid his GM work.  He disappeared back into the Time War with Rassilon and the other Time Lords when the Doctor broke their link with the earth by destroying the White Point Star diamond.

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You know, summing that up just sort of clarifies for me how much more ridiculous the “nu-Who” Master stories have been…

“Steven Moffat? He’s a squat, wiry haired, plump, plum-eared genius …”

Theatrical nudity, sycophantic grovelling and an Ice Warrior with a grudge.

The Ood Cast is back with more unflattering descriptions of the leading lights of our televisual lives. Find out what happened when Sigma met the Moff, listen to the Ood’s first script collaboration, get an update on the operating status of the Littlest Doctor and *spoiler alert* find out key locations for the Christmas Special …

Also, win a drink on us, and listen in horror as we jump the (space) shark.

Ah, it’s good to be back!

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 41:42 — 38.3MB)