- You may be looking for his grandfather or the Brigadier from another reality.
Brigadier Sir Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart (often called the Brigadier, or sometimes the Brig or Lethbridge-Stewart or just Stewart) was one of the founders of UNIT and commander of its UK operations. The Doctor long considered the Brigadier one of his most trusted human allies and closest friends. He met and had significant adventures with an unusually large number of the Doctor's incarnations.
Biography
Early life and military career
An eight-year-old Alistair glooms over his Christmas present in 1938. (COMIC: The Warkeeper's Crown)
Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart was born in 1930 (PROSE: Blood Heat, No Future) of Scottish descent. (TV: Mawdryn Undead) An only child, he was raised in Simla, India. He was sent to an English prep school. His mother died after he left for England. (PROSE: Island of Death) He was strongly pressured by his namesake grandfather, Alistair Lethbridge-Stewart, to join the military. For Christmas 1938, his grandfather gave him a box of toy solders and then asked, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" (COMIC: The Warkeeper's Crown) He attended Holborough, where he first met Jeremy Fitzoliver. (AUDIO: The Paradise of Death)
Young Alistair was pressured to live up to the military traditions of the Lethbridge-Stewart family. (COMIC: The Warkeeper's Crown) He began his military career around 1953 and attended Sandhurst Military Academy with Major General Rutlidge. (TV: The Web of Fear, Mawdryn Undead) He had great ambitions even then. (PROSE: Who Killed Kennedy)
Shortly after the end of the Second World War, twenty-one-year-old Alistair was assigned to a Royal Navy mission to update British maps of the Greek Islands. He ended up in Albania on a mission against Stalinist rebels. This was his first encounter with the extra-normal. He ran into the Immortals and went on a quest into the Greek Underworld; his mind was wiped of these memories. (PROSE: Deadly Reunion)
He later joined the Scots Guards and was stationed for a time at Aldgate. (TV: The Green Death)
Relationships
Lethbridge-Stewart lost his virginity to a girl named Vera whilst drunk on the night of his passing out as a fully commissioned second lieutenant.
In Greece, he fell in love with the immortal Persephone. He entered the Underworld and fought against Hades for her. They spent two weeks together before she reluctantly wiped his memory. They met again in the 1970s, when his memory was restored. (PROSE: Deadly Reunion)
In Sierra Leone, Lethbridge-Stewart met Mariatu, the daughter of a chieftain, who bore him a son, Mariama. (PROSE: Transit)
Some time in the 1960s, eleven years before the spider invasion, he had a romantic encounter with Doris on Brighton Beach. (TV: Planet of the Spiders) Their relationship ended when Lethbridge-Stewart was dispatched overseas. (COMIC: The Warkeeper's Crown)
On returning to Britain, the Brigadier met and married Fiona. He and Fiona had one child, conceived after the London Event, whom they named Kate. (PROSE: The Scales of Injustice, Downtime)
Formation of UNIT
Colonel Lethbridge-Stewart meets the Doctor during his second incarnation. (TV: The Web of Fear)
Colonel Lethbridge-Stewart was the second commander of the British Army forces opposing the Great Intelligence's assault on London. He replaced the deceased Colonel Pemberton. He was the sole survivor of a Robot Yeti assault at Holborn before heading down to the London Underground to take command. It was at this time that Lethbridge-Stewart first met the Doctor, in his second incarnation. Lethbridge-Stewart showed a quick, decisive manner and a ready acceptance of events, even believing the story about the TARDIS from the start. (TV: The Web of Fear)
Soon after the London Event, Lethbridge-Stewart met with Air Vice-Marshal "Chunky" Gilmore and learned of the Shoreditch Incident from him. Hostile aliens had visited Earth in 1963. Gilmore himself had helped fight them off with the Seventh Doctor. He also learnt of evidence of alien visits to Earth that went back thousands of years. (PROSE: Downtime)
The Colonel went to the government and pitched the idea of a permanent military intelligence group with rapid-reaction capability to investigate alien and other unusual phenomena that threatened the nation. This was turned down. He risked his career by petitioning the United Nations to form such a group. (PROSE: Who Killed Kennedy) UNIT was organised, with Lethbridge-Stewart promoted to Brigadier and appointed head of the United Kingdom branch. (TV: The Invasion) This made him unpopular with many senior British officers. (PROSE: Who Killed Kennedy)
The UNIT years
Four years after the Yeti invasion, UNIT investigated the mysterious activities of electronics industrialist Tobias Vaughn. Vaughn was allied with the Cybermen in their attempt to conquer Earth. With the help of the Second Doctor, the Brigadier and his men thwarted them. (TV: The Invasion)
Having found the Doctor's help to have been invaluable, the Brigadier set out to recruit a full-time scientific advisor to UNIT. He approached Dr. Elizabeth Shaw, who was initially sceptical of both the offer and the idea of aliens. At the same time, he re-encountered the Doctor, who had been forced to regenerate into his third incarnation and exiled to 20th century Earth by the Time Lords. The Brigadier took on the new Doctor as UK UNIT's scientific advisor, with Liz Shaw acting as his assistant. (TV: Spearhead from Space)
The Brigadier leads from the front (TV: The Ambassadors of Death)
He and the new Doctor lacked the easy rapport they had enjoyed during the Doctor's previous incarnation. Their relationship was further strained when Lethbridge-Stewart set off explosive charges around the Wenley Moor Silurian colony, after promising the Doctor he had no hostile intentions towards them. The Doctor considered this murder, if not genocide. (TV: Doctor Who and the Silurians)
It was shortly after this incident that the Brigadier answered a call for help from an old friend and colleague Kolonel Heinrich Konrad, UNIT commander at Kriedskind Castle. Discovering that Konrad had authorised and taken part in an experiment with an extract from an alien plant, which caused previous occupants of the Castle to manifest themselves, the Brigadier called the Doctor for assistance. After what happened on Wenley Moor, he was not sure the Doctor would come — but he arrived in time, and set up a jamming device that kept the temporal attackers at bay just long enough for the UNIT troops to get away from the Castle before it was destroyed. (AUDIO: Old Soldiers)
About the time of the second encounter with the Silurians, the Brigadier's marriage to Fiona began to fail. (PROSE: The Scales of Injustice) Fiona and the Brigadier later divorced. When their daughter Kate, was older, she became estranged from both her parents, but contacted her father again when she felt threatened by the students from the New World University, and from then on they enjoyed a good relationship. (PROSE: Downtime)
The Brigadier, Sergeant Benton and Captain Yates watching a hostage situation. (TV: Terror of the Autons)
After Liz Shaw left UNIT to resume her research at Cambridge, the Brigadier employed Jo Grant as the Doctor's new assistant. Along with Captain Mike Yates, they were immediately plunged into another Nestene invasion where the Brigadier met the Master for the first time. (TV: Terror of the Autons)
When a wave of violence swept across Britain, the Brigadier met Persephone again and his memory was restored. The Brigadier also found himself against Hades and so he and the Doctor had to make an alliance with the Master. (PROSE: Deadly Reunion)
The Brigadier goes undercover as a delivery van driver to infiltrate Stangmoor Prison. (TV: The Mind of Evil)
Lethbridge-Stewart oversaw UNIT when it provided security for a World Peace Conference, while the Doctor investigated an unusual machine at Stangmoor Prison. However, both their jobs coincided, as the Master had devised an elaborate plan to disrupt the conference — first through an assassination attempt and then through a hostage situation at the prison. With the Doctor trapped inside, the Brigadier and UNIT infiltrated Stangmoor to retake control and rescue the hostages. However, the Master's allies within the prison hijacked a missile as well. Due to some careful bargaining by the Doctor, the Master was distracted enough for UNIT to destroy the Machine and the missile, although the Master managed to escape. (TV: The Mind of Evil)
UNIT troops took charge of a crashed spaceship near the Nuton Power Complex in south east England. The Brigadier accompanied the Doctor, Jo, Government Minister Horatio Chinn and some scientists in gaining access to the ship and encountering the, seemingly benign, Axons. They then presented their new material Axonite which could do many wondrous things but it was Chinn who gained possession of the Axonite before any negotiations could be started. It became clear that the Master was helping the Axons to invade the Earth and UNIT troops fought many battles against the now hideously tenticled beings. They were only stopped when the Doctor managed to put a time loop around their ship. (TV: The Claws of Axos)
With the Doctor and Jo investigating an archaeological dig in the village of Devil's End they discovered the Master masquerading as the local vicar. With them and other members of UNIT in the village the Brigadier was unable to access Devil's End by a heat barrier which had been generated by the Master. However he did manage to gain entry in time to deal with the animated gargoyle Bok. He and UNIT also managed to arrest the Master and take him away to stand trial for his many crimes. (TV: The Daemons)
While in talks over an international incident, the Brigadier arranged an investigation about the "ghost" that delegate Sir Reginald Styles had apparently met at Auderly House before the delegates arrived for the World Peace Conference. After the Doctor drove off in the Brigadier's Land Rover to follow some 22nd century guerilla fighters, the Brigadier took part in the Conference. When the Doctor returned from the 22nd century, the Brigadier and UNIT helped repel a Dalek attack. The Brigadier evacuated Auderly House, as Shura's dalekanium bomb would have killed all the delegates inside, sparking off World War III. (TV: Day of the Daleks)
The Brigadier and the rest of UNIT began to find it difficult to remember the Master, during an invasion by silver crabs along the British coastline the Doctor deduced these were Sild and they were causing everyone to forget the Master by what he called "time fade". The Doctor decided he had to spring the Master from his prison at Durlsdon Heath before the Sild got to him but his time ran out and the Brigadier had to have the RAF blow up the prison. In the aftermath the Doctor seemingly disappeared which caused Lethbridge-Stewart and the rest of the UNIT team much sadness at the loss of their friend. However, some time later the Doctor turned up again, without the Master, but having dealt with the "time fade". Then the Master also showed up to gloat but once again UNIT were able to successfully arrest him and take him away. (PROSE: Harvest of Time)
After the Doctor and Jo left for Peladon, (TV: The Curse of Peladon) the Brigadier and UNIT found themselves attacked by a fascist version of Earth. The Brigadier first employed Ian and Barbara Chesterton and, reluctantly, the Master to help combat the infiltration. (PROSE: The Face of the Enemy) The Brigadier was never aware that an alternate version of him once existed there. (TV: Inferno)
"Greyhound to Trap One." (TV: Invasion of the Dinosaurs)
Although the Brigadier and the Third Doctor's relationship improved to a close friendship over time, the Doctor's formal ties with UNIT began to gradually fade when his exile ended. (TV: The Three Doctors) When Jo Grant left UNIT to get married, the Doctor lost another tie to the organisation. (TV: The Green Death)
Sometime afterwards, the Brig and the Doctor met journalist Sarah Jane Smith, who became the Doctor's new de facto assistant. (TV: The Time Warrior) Investigating a new theme park run by the Parakon Corporation, the Doctor persuaded the Brigadier to try out the new Experienced Reality Grid and found it manipulated the wearer. Revealing themselves to be aliens, Tragan and Freeth, the heads of the corporation, captured Sarah and took off in their rocket disguised within the theme park. The Doctor, the Brig and Jeremy Fitzoliver gave chase in the TARDIS and eventually arrived on the planet Parakon. However, they ran into Tragan and Freeth again and escaping into the mountains outside the main city, the Brigadier led the Kimonya tribe on an attack of the city using dozens of giant bats to save the day. (AUDIO: The Paradise of Death)
During the spring (AUDIO: Council of War) dinosaurs started appearing in London and the Brigadier and UNIT had several skirmishes with various dinosaurs. It soon became clear that Captain Yates was working with the people making the dinosaurs appear. These were a group of scientists and politicians called Operation Golden Age who wanted to take humanity back in time to prehistoric earth and start again. At another point the Brigadier was relieved of command by General Finch (another of the conspirators), but, having regained command of UNIT and the Doctor having stopped the Golden Age project from going ahead, Lethbridge-Stewart arranged for Yates an "extended sick leave and a chance to resign quietly". (TV: Invasion of the Dinosaurs)
In 1974, the Brigadier was attacked and possessed by a Remoraxian, a species that wanted to flood the Earth so they could live in it. As the world began to be flooded, he acted more erratically, giving orders to reassign UNIT troops "in a haphazard, unpredictable manner". Liz, who had been brought back to UNIT to investigate the flooding, summoned the Doctor and Sarah to look into this.
When the Brigadier ordered the Tower of London to be sealed off and flooded, Liz finally decided he was unfit for duty and gave him a check up. The Doctor found the Remoraxian inside the Brigadier and built a de-remorator to remove it.
The Brigadier fights Remoraxian minions. (COMIC: Prisoners of Time)
The Doctor, Sarah, Liz and the Brigadier went to the nearby UNIT seabase along with Agent Paul of the CIA. There, the Remoraxian Prime was orchestrating its plot to flood the world. Discovering that the American government authorised the nuclear bombing of Great Britain to stop the threat, the Doctor was given 29 minutes to negotiate with the Remoraxians. After the Brigadier persuaded the Remoraxian Prime that the Americans would follow through with the attack, the Remoraxians left Earth, ending the storms, and Agent Paul called off the bombing.
A mysterious cloaked figure abducted Liz, Sarah and the Brigadier, leaving the Doctor a single message: "Say goodbye, Doctor." (COMIC: Prisoners of Time)
The Brig and Sarah Jane witness the Third Doctor's regeneration. (TV: Planet of the Spiders)
Sarah and the Brigadier witnessed the Doctor regenerate into his fourth incarnation after battling the Eight Legs on Metebelis III. (TV: Planet of the Spiders)
Eager to leave Earth for further travels, the newly-regenerate Doctor did help UNIT defeat the K1 Robot before taking off in the TARDIS with Sarah and Lt Harry Sullivan. (TV: Robot) Not completely having abandoned the Brigadier, the Doctor had left him a space-time telegraph to contact him in case of emergency. (TV: Revenge of the Cybermen) Even so, the Doctor was openly resentful when the Brigadier used it to summon him back to Earth for the destruction of an oil rig, which he initially considered a trivial matter. After defeating the Zygons, who had been behind the attack, the Doctor and Sarah again left in the TARDIS, effectively marking the end of the Doctor's adventures with the Brigadier for quite some time. (TV: Terror of the Zygons)
During the Kraals' second attempted invasion of Earth, the Brigadier was in Canada investigating sentient electricity pylons. (AUDIO: The Oseidon Adventure)
Shortly before he left UNIT, Lethbridge-Stewart was made a Commander of the British Empire. (PROSE: Downtime)
- Position: Head of the British division of UNIT
- Years: Formation - 1976
- Succeeded by: Charles Crichton
After UNIT
The Brigadier and the Fifth Doctor. (TV: Mawdryn Undead)
Late 1970s, and 1980s
Lethbridge-Stewart retired from UNIT and the army. He took a post as an A-level maths teacher at Brendon Public School. In 1977, the Brigadier saw and touched hands with his own future self from 1983. The time differential shorted out, causing an energy discharge. The Brigadier fell unconscious and spent the next six years in a state of partial amnesia, having forgotten ever meeting the Doctor. In 1983, when his pupils included the humanoid alien Vislor Turlough, the Brigadier encountered the Fifth Doctor, whom he did not recognise, and met his past self from 1977. This completed the temporal paradox. (TV: Mawdryn Undead)
The Second Doctor and the Brigadier (TV: The Five Doctors)
The Brigadier was attending an anniversary reunion of UNIT when, along with the Second Doctor, he was captured and transported to the Death Zone on Gallifrey. (TV: The Five Doctors)
At some point after, the Brigadier met both the Second and Fourth Doctors; the Fourth Doctor was involved in a search for the Key to Time. (PROSE: Heart of TARDIS)
In 1984, the Brigadier sent Major Whitaker to Reykjavik to investigate an unnatural increase in volcanic and seismic activity. (COMIC: The Fires Down Below)
In 1989, Lethbridge-Stewart conducted an investigation of the dealings of SenéNet and was captured. He was rescued by the Sixth Doctor, who uncovered and stopped yet another invasion attempt by the Nestene Consciousness. (PROSE: Business Unusual)
1990s
In 1995, the Brigadier worked with UNIT again during yet another attempt by the Great Intelligence to conquer Earth, together with two of the Doctor's former companions, Victoria Waterfield and Sarah Jane Smith. He reunited with his estranged daughter, Kate, and for the first time, met his grandson, Gordon. At this time, the Brigadier was still working and living at Brendon Public School, and hadn't yet appeared to be married to Doris. However, he was already in the process of retiring from teaching during this incident. (HOMEVID: Downtime / PROSE: Downtime)
By the 1990s, Lethbridge-Stewart had married his second wife, Doris, with whom he had a memorable holiday years before. (TV: Battlefield) The Seventh Doctor changed time slightly so that he could attend the wedding, even though originally he had missed it because he had not known of it. (PROSE: A Romantic Evening)
Alistair threatens Morgaine. (TV: Battlefield)
The Brigadier came out of retirement briefly to help UNIT and its new commander, Brigadier Winifred Bambera, deal with an invasion from a parallel universe by the sorceress Morgaine. Once again, he met the Doctor, now in his seventh incarnation. Together they defeated Morgaine. Lethbridge-Stewart distinguished himself during these events, singlehandedly taking on the Destroyer and dispatching him, armed only with a revolver loaded with silver bullets. (TV: Battlefield)
Aged "over seventy", and at some point in the early years of his retirement, the Brigadier rescued Susan Foreman from drowning in the lake on which his house with Doris was situated. The First Doctor came to collect Susan, and stayed a while to chat with the Brigadier, keeping the fact that he knew who he was quiet. (PROSE: The Gift)
In 1997, the Brigadier collaborated with the Doctor's eighth incarnation and Bernice Summerfield during an interplanetary crisis between the United Kingdom and Mars. At the end of this crisis, Lethbridge-Stewart was promoted to General, although he still preferred to be called "Brigadier." (PROSE: The Dying Days) He later had a role in Scotland's devolution. (AUDIO: Minuet in Hell)
In 1999, he enlisted the help of the Fifth Doctor and his companions Tegan and Turlough to stop an invasion of Earth by the Jex. (PROSE: The King of Terror)
2000s
The Brigadier and the Eighth Doctor. (COMIC: Minuet in Hell)
When his former colleague, Captain Palmer, showed him a tape of seemingly invisible imps around a deserted village in April 2001, the Brigadier called the Doctor for assistance, subsequently working with the Sixth Doctor and journalist Claire Aldwych to uncover a conspiracy that stretched back to the Second World War and involved the secret son of Adolf Hitler. Although Claire was killed during a trip to 1945, the Doctor and the Brigadier defeated the Fourth Reich. (PROSE: The Shadow in the Glass)
In 2003, Lethbridge-Stewart served as an undercover operative for the United Nations, while officially using his experience in devolution to advise the newly-formed state of Malebolgia. In the USA, he secretly investigated the use of a medical device that was used to alter human minds. He encountered the Eighth Doctor again. (AUDIO: Minuet in Hell)
While teaching at Sandhurst Military School, the Brigadier met the Tenth Doctor. (COMIC: The Warkeeper's Crown)
At some point after being knighted, Lethbridge-Stewart continued his association with UNIT and with Sarah Jane Smith. He formally announced the true purpose of UNIT at a press conference without first telling anyone he would do so. (AUDIO: The Coup)
He ended up assisting UNIT and its agent, Colonel Emily Chaudhry, against their attempted replacements, ICIS, first by undermining their reasons for replacing UNIT in front of the media (AUDIO: Time Heals) and eventually with direct military action. (AUDIO: The Wasting)
The Brigadier with the Bane Major Kilburne. (TV: Enemy of the Bane)
During the Sontaran invasion of Earth in 2009, the Tenth Doctor wished that the Brigadier were present. Colonel Mace mentioned that Sir Alistair had been stranded in Peru during a mission, but took no offence to the Doctor wishing for him instead of Mace, saying that Lethbridge-Stewart was a good man. (TV: The Poison Sky) Shortly after returning to England, Sarah Jane sought out his help to break into the Black Archive, a UNIT base which housed artefacts of great danger and power. He did so but was interrupted in his brief with Major Cal Kilburne. He helped Sarah Jane and Rani Chandra smuggle themselves into the Black Archive to get the Tunguska Scroll for the Bane called Mrs Wormwood, who claimed she wanted it for honourable purposes. As he escaped with Sarah Jane he was chased by UNIT officers. He killed Major Kilburne, who was actually a Bane himself. Sir Alistair's wife, referred to only as Lady Lethbridge-Stewart, was out of the house when Major Kilbourne visited. (TV: Enemy of the Bane) He would have attended Sarah Jane's aborted wedding to Peter Dalton, but he was back in Peru at the time. (TV: The Wedding of Sarah Jane Smith) At some point during his prolonged regeneration, the Tenth Doctor visited the Brigadier. As of late 2010, Lethbridge-Stewart was still on assignment in Peru and could not attend the Eleventh Doctor's staged funeral. (TV: Death of the Doctor)
2010s
In 2010, along with Doris, Mike Yates and Benton, he attended the wedding of the Doctor's former companion, Bernice Summerfield, to Jason Kane in Cheldon Bonniface. By this time he knew of his terminal illness. He had only weeks to live. As ever, danger and adventure followed in the Doctor's footsteps and he had his youth restored to him and the disease rid from his system. (PROSE: Happy Endings)
During a boat outing with Doris, Lethbridge-Stewart's boat capsized and Doris was drowned. This haunted him for years. In 2012, the Brigadier met the Doctor's eighth incarnation in Avalon where they got caught up in struggles between that realm's ruler, Queen Mab, and the Unseelie Court. The Brigadier remained behind in Avalon once the struggles were resolved. (PROSE: The Shadows of Avalon)
One account showed the Brigadier and Doris meeting the Eighth Doctor in Cheldon Bonniface on Christmas Day 2017. (PROSE: Not in My Back Yard)
Later life
His daughter, Kate, dropped Lethbridge from her name when she joined UNIT in an effort to avoid favouritism. He mentored her until his death. Among the positions he instilled in her was "science leads", something he learned from "an old friend". She took his teaching to heart and, by the time she was posted as UNIT's Head of Scientific Research, troops were subordinated to her office. (TV: The Power of Three)
The Brigadier returned to Earth from Avalon in 2032, after taking a bride in the dimension. (PROSE: The King of Terror)
When the Brigadier was much older and Doris was long dead, the Eighth Doctor came to visit and brought many of his old friends to see him for Christmas. (PROSE: Faithful Friends: Part 3)
Death
Lethbridge-Stewart died sometime before 2020. (TV: The Power of Three) Towards the end of his life, Lethbridge-Stewart was living in a nursing home. He enjoyed telling stories about the Doctor and still hoped to see him one last time; (TV: The Wedding of River Song) his daughter, Kate said that he spoke of the Doctor "even to the end". (TV: The Power of Three) Sir Alistair passed away peacefully in his bed, always asking that the nurses pour an extra brandy in case the Doctor came to visit. A few months after his passing, a nurse informed the Eleventh Doctor via telephone of his recent death. (TV: The Wedding of River Song)
Another account suggested that Lethbridge-Stewart found his life extended and lived considerably past the normal span for humans of his era, into the 2050s. (PROSE: The King of Terror)
Although the Eleventh Doctor received confirmation of the Brigadier's death, he was aware of the circumstances — or, at least, that the Brigadier was destined to die in bed — as early as his seventh incarnation. (TV: Battlefield) However, all incarnations of the Doctor attended his funeral, suggesting the Doctor was aware of this earlier. (PROSE: The Gift) Several of the Doctor's companions were also present during the Brigadier's funeral, including John Benton, Liz Shaw, Mike Yates, and Jo Grant. (PROSE: Shroud of Sorrow)
Personality
A man of action, Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart preferred to settle problems by fighting rather than talking. This led to some initial difficulty in his relationship with the Doctor. As time went on, however, they became very close friends; indeed, the Brigadier met more of the Doctor's incarnations than any other companion apart from Clara Oswald and River Song. The fact that all of the Doctor's incarnations went to his funeral (including the First) further shows how close they were. (PROSE: The Gift) The Brigadier was charming but professional and serious, being unwilling to take nonsense from others although sometimes displaying an acerbic wit of his own. He was frequently exasperated by the Fourth Doctor's rather childish personality, and often argued with his predecessor due to the Third Doctor's preference of solving problems with science rather than weapons.
The Third Doctor once called the Brigadier a "pompous, self-opinionated idiot", although he apologised later. (TV: Inferno) The Brigadier could be ruthless and in one of his earlier adventures with the Doctor he committed an act that the Doctor considered to be murder or even genocide. Furthermore the Brigadier had lied to the Doctor about having no intention of harming the Silurians. At this time however, he had merely been obeying orders rather than genuinely having any malicious intent towards the Silurians. (TV: Doctor Who and the Silurians)
The Brigadier was a natural sceptic in his early years and was disbelieving of the TARDIS and the Doctor's regeneration ability but as he grew older and his understanding of the Doctor and the Universe grew, he became less sceptical. Loyal and determined, the Brigadier was dedicated to protecting the earth, but under the Doctor's influence he learned that violence wasn't always the best solution, and became more willing to negotiate with his enemies, although he still wouldn't hesitate to open fire on them if the situation demanded it. He passed this belief onto his daughter, who eventually turned UNIT into a largely non-violent organisation. (TV: The Power of Three)
The Brigadier was a natural leader and easily capable of taking charge, as shown by his rank as well as his actions. Even in his later years, he remained a formidable presence although he did possess a more sentimental side. He was willing to sacrifice himself to save the Doctor and even knocked out his Seventh incarnation to protect him while he stood up to the Destroyer saying the words "Get off my world!" (TV: Battlefield). The Brigadier's last wish was to meet the Doctor one last time. Tragically he passed away in his sleep but not before he told many stories of his old friend and asked the nurses to always pour an extra brandy in case he came to visit. (TV: The Wedding of River Song)
Alternate Brigadiers
The Brigadier's alter-ego was the Brigade Leader. (TV: Inferno)
A parallel Earth had its own version of the Brigadier, known as the Brigade Leader. Loyal to the fascist leader who governed his version of Britain, the Brigade Leader was the antithesis of the Brigadier. He was shot and killed by his lieutenant, Section Leader Elizabeth Shaw, while trying to force the Doctor at gunpoint to help him escape his doomed Earth. Unlike Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, Brigade Leader Lethbridge-Stewart lacked both a moustache and his left eye. (TV: Inferno)
In another timeline, the Brigadier and the Third Doctor died saving humanity from a hostile Silurian faction during the Wenley Moor incident. Humans and Silurians made peace and the fact it continued after their deaths was a tribute to their skill and force of character. (COMIC: Final Genesis)
In another reality, the Doctor died at Wenley Moor and the Silurians took over Earth in a hostile fashion, leaving the Brigadier and the remnants of UNIT to fight them for thirty years. The Seventh Doctor and his companions arrived in that universe and assisted in a reconciliation between the species. (PROSE: Blood Heat)
Other information
Nicknames
He was often referred to simply as the Brigadier and on rare occasions as "the Brig." During his second and third incarnations, the Doctor sometimes called him by his surname, while in his third and fourth incarnations, the Doctor at least twice addressed him as Alistair. (TV: Planet of the Spiders, Terror of the Zygons) In his fifth incarnation, he at least once addressed him by his full name. (TV: Mawdryn Undead)
Other references
A version of the Brigadier appeared in a "hellscape" dream the Eleventh Doctor created while the mind parasite Mr Waites fed off the worst thing Doctor could imagine. In the dream, the Doctor worked in the Mediation Sector of the Department of Commonality. He turned away the Brigadier when his army pension was cancelled, telling him he was unable to help. (COMIC: John Smith and the Common Men)
Behind the scenes
Creation
Colonel Alistair Lethbridge-Stewart was originally to appear only in The Web of Fear as a supporting character. He was the creation of writers Mervyn Haisman and Henry Lincoln, to whom royalties had to be paid whenever the character was used. Like Nyssa and K9, he is a rare example of a series regular to whom the BBC does not hold sole copyright. Unlike Nyssa, however, the copyright situation is not so favourable to the writers. While Haisman and Lincoln do own the basic character, they own nothing of the copyright to UNIT, which is an almost indivisible part of his essential character. The writing pair's part ownership was acknowledged in Enemy of the Bane, the Series 2 season finale of The Sarah Jane Adventures.
Appearances
In televised episodes, the Brigadier appeared and interacted with all of the first seven Doctors — though his encounter with the Sixth Doctor in Dimensions in Time is not counted as part of the Doctor Who universe.
Nevertheless his most continuous period of interaction with the Doctor was during the Time Lord's second, third and fourth incarnations. There were unsurprisingly numerous comic, audio and prose stories which centred on the Brigadier's adventures with those three Doctors.
More unusual were the number of stories in other media which described interactions with other Doctors. A short story once posited he met the First Doctor before the Doctor and Susan settled on Totter's Lane. (PROSE: The Gift) The Sixth Doctor's first encounter with the Brig was described in the audio story The Spectre of Lanyon Moor, quite irrespective of Dimensions in Time. Likewise, the audio story Minuet in Hell and the novel The Dying Days cast him alongside the Eighth Doctor. Meanwhile, the comic story The Warkeeper's Crown had him as a temporary companion of the Tenth Doctor. The Tenth Doctor also presumably (though not explicitly) visited the Brigadier off-screen during the time of the closing scenes of The End of Time, as the Eleventh Doctor later told Jo in The Sarah Jane Adventures story Death of the Doctor that he had visited everyone who ever travelled with him. As of 2014 there have yet to be officially licensed stories in which the Brigadier encounters the War, Ninth and Eleventh Doctors.
Finally, he made guest appearances in some of the Doctor-less audio stories from Big Finish Productions, including the UNIT audio series and the (mostly Doctor-less) audio serial, The Three Companions.
Nicholas Courtney's long tenure on Doctor Who led to some interesting trivia. Along with Carole Ann Ford, Jon Pertwee and Patrick Troughton, he was one of only four actors to work with both William Hartnell and Richard Hurndall's interpretations of the First Doctor. Apart from Peter Purves, he was the only regular cast member on Doctor Who to have played two different roles in episodes featuring Hartnell.
The characters of both the Brigadier and Benton appeared in the X-Men comic book Uncanny X-men 218. (DWM 390)
The reference to the Brigadier's death in The Wedding of River Song was a last-minute addition to the episode in tribute to the recently-deceased Nicholas Courtney.
Footnotes
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