The laboratory of UNIT HQ was used extensively by the Third Doctor during his association with UNIT. During the Doctor's exile on Earth, the Doctor continually worked on trying to fix his TARDIS in the lab.
The Third Doctor had other laboratories away from UNIT HQ, including one in a Welsh barn (COMIC: Gemini Plan) and one in his cottage which was much better equipped than the UNIT lab. (PROSE: Verdigris)
The laboratory had the smell of scorched and burning circuitry. (AUDIO: Find and Replace)
Appearance[]
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Due to either refurbishment (PROSE: Country of the Blind) or UNIT HQ being relocated to a different building, (PROSE: Where the Heart Is, The Scales of Injustice) the appearance of the laboratory changed. (TV: The Ambassadors of Death, Terror of the Autons)
The Doctor's TARDIS was kept in the same location in a corner of the room. (TV: Terror of the Autons et al)
The laboratory had green lights which were visible from outside the building where the lab was located. (PROSE: Out of the Green Mist)
One window had a view of a river. (TV: Terror of the Autons)
There were two entrances to the laboratory — both had pairs of swinging doors. (TV: The Three Doctors) The wall which one of the pair of doors was a part of had a line of semi-transparent glass windows, (TV: The Three Doctors) these doors had a sign reading LABORATORY above them on the outside of the room. (COMIC: The Heralds of Destruction)
The laboratory had a black spiral staircase. (TV: Terror of the Autons, PROSE: Country of the Blind)
History[]
During the Third Doctor's exile[]
When the Third Doctor became UNIT's scientific advisor, he did so on the condition that he would receive a variety of cutting-edge technology with which to repair his TARDIS. (COMIC: The Arkwood Experiment) The Doctor stored some of this technology in the UNIT HQ laboratory. (COMIC: The Metal Eaters, TV: The Ambassadors of Death et al)
Liz Shaw watches the Third Doctor try to repair his TARDIS control console. (TV: The Ambassadors of Death)
During early attempts to fix the TARDIS, the Doctor took the TARDIS control console outside of the ship and into his lab. The Doctor had the television on when he was trying to fix the Time Vector Generator; through this he and Liz Shaw learnt of the loss of contact with the crew of Mars Probe 7. (TV: The Ambassadors of Death)
When a meteorite with sentient iron landed near the West Barton Airfield, the Brigadier disturbed the Doctor from an experiment in the laboratory in order to tell him to examine the meteorite. (COMIC: The Metal Eaters)
Accounts differ as to what the Doctor did with the laboratory during the first Christmas of his exile. One account indicates that the Doctor hooked up an interstitial vortex in the lab to prevent a derelict Bathesdan spaceship from crashing into Earth. (PROSE: UNIT Christmas Parties: First Christmas) Another account indicates that the Doctor tried to cook Christmas dinner using the scientific equipment in his lab. While trying to make cranberry sauce, the Doctor accidentally damaged his dimensional stabiliser, creating a hole in reality leading from the Doctor's lab to the sky above a field outside UNIT HQ. (AUDIO: The Christmas Dimension)
The Monk once landed his TARDIS in the UNIT lab and took the Doctor and Liz on a trip through time and space. (AUDIO: The Blame Game)
The Master and Liz Shaw in the Doctor's laboratory. (PROSE: Reconnaissance)
The Master visited the UNIT HQ laboratory when he first came to Earth and the Doctor was away. Liz was there at the time and the Master hypnotised her to tell him about all the adventures the Doctor had had while working with UNIT. The Master was inspired by Liz's talk of the Nestene Consciousness, the telephone in the corner of the lab, and the bunch of daffodils on a windowsill. The Master implanted the idea of leaving UNIT in Liz's mind and made her forget he was ever there. (PROSE: Reconnaissance)
Liz Shaw tries to tell the Third Doctor that she's leaving UNIT. (PROSE: Country of the Blind)
Around the time that Liz left UNIT and Mike Yates joined, the Brigadier had the laboratory redecorated and repainted to improve morale. Liz tried to tell the Doctor that she was going to be leaving UNIT, but he was distracted by the painters and Liz chose to leave the room rather than continue to try to get the Doctor's attention. (PROSE: Country of the Blind)
Jo Grant met the Doctor while he was working in his laboratory. During Jo's first adventure with the Doctor, the Master hypnotised her into bringing a bomb into the laboratory. The Doctor disposed of the bomb by throwing it outside and into the river, where it exploded harmlessly. Later, the Master came into the lab disguised as a telephone engineer and replaced the Doctor's telephone cord with a longer, plastic one which could be controlled by the Nestene Consciousness. The Master tried to have the cord strangle the Doctor when he used the phone, but the Doctor was saved from the cord by the Brigadier. (TV: Terror of the Autons)
While the Doctor was working in the laboratory to make a device to track down the Master; Iris Wildthyme, Jo Jones and Huxley met with him and sorted out that everything Huxley was trying to convince Jo was a lie. (AUDIO: Find and Replace)
When the Master hid a series of miniature listening devices and cameras throughout UNIT HQ one Christmas, the Doctor found them all with his sonic screwdriver and dismantled them in the laboratory. (PROSE: UNIT Christmas Parties: Christmas Truce) However, on a separate occasion the Master hypnotised the UNIT tea lady into planting monitoring devices throughout the Doctor's laboratory which went unnoticed by the Doctor for "quite some time". (COMIC: The Heralds of Destruction)
Joyce Brunner sometimes had hot cocoa with the Doctor in his laboratory. (PROSE: Relative Dementias)
The Doctor once took a Triolite teleportation unit into the lab to examine it. (PROSE: Saucer of Fate)
While the Doctor and Jo were away on Peladon, the Master used the lab during a conflict with the Conclave of Inferno Earth. (PROSE: The Face of the Enemy)
Shortly after escaping from Fortress Island, the Master landed his TARDIS in the UNIT lab disguised as a grandfather clock. The Eighth Doctor - at the time suffering a bout of amnesia caused by a trap laid by a future version of the Master - landed outside UNIT HQ and wandered into the laboratory, where he was found by the Brigadier. The Master came out of his TARDIS when the Third Doctor entered the lab, but quickly departed after discovering that there were two Doctors in the room. (PROSE: The Eight Doctors)
Mrs Prentice rests in the UNIT laboratory. (PROSE: Listen - The Stars)
While cleaning the UNIT laboratory, Mrs Prentice accidentally hit her head against an ionic vibrator and had her mind taken over by Zex. The Doctor made an astro modulator in the lab and used it to banish Zex from Prentice's mind. (PROSE: Listen - The Stars)
Following an encounter with a peculiar temporal phenomenon in Sussex, the Doctor and Jo discussed the details of their adventure in the UNIT HQ lab. (AUDIO: Time Tunnel)
The Second Doctor and John Benton observe an anti-matter organism in the UNIT HQ laboratory. (TV: The Three Doctors)
Dr Tyler visited the Doctor's laboratory for consultation after he picked up some strange cosmic rays, accidentally bringing an anti-matter organism to the lab. The Doctor, Jo, and John Benton hid in the TARDIS after seeing the organism and were unable to stop it sending almost the entire contents of the lab to the anti-matter universe, with the TARDIS being protected by its force field. After the organism began sending parts of the laboratories' walls to the anti-matter universe, the Third Doctor and Jo left the TARDIS and got sent to the anti-matter universe. The Second Doctor and Benton safely exited the TARDIS and met up with the Brigadier. The organism later sent the rest of the laboratory to the anti-matter universe along with the rest of UNIT HQ. After the Doctors defeated Omega in the anti-matter universe, UNIT HQ and everything inside it was returned to just as it was before the anti-matter organism got inside. (TV: The Three Doctors)
However, as a result of the event, the building remained supercharged with vortex energy, becoming a space-time Waypoint. It drew the Thirteenth Doctor's TARDIS off-course and she landed in the laboratory with Yaz. Due to a wider temporal disturbance that was affecting all of the Doctor's incarnations, she did not remember the place at all. (GAME: Lost in Time)
Continued use by the Doctor after his exile[]
The Third Doctor would sometimes park his TARDIS in the laboratory when he visited Earth. (COMIC: The Heralds of Destruction, PROSE: The Piper et al)
"The Brigadier" and the "Second Doctor" observe the Third Doctor and Jo Grant struggling against the micro machines. (COMIC: The Heralds of Destruction)
Shortly after the incident involving the three Doctors, Ramón Salamander came to the UNIT HQ laboratory disguised as the Second Doctor and scanned the interior of the Doctor's newly-working TARDIS. When the Doctor and Jo came to the lab, Salamander distracted them by infecting Jo with his micro machines. With the Doctor going into a trance state to repel the micro machines from Jo's mind, Salamander was able to record enough data from the TARDIS to recreate Time Lord technology at Electronicon Ltd. While the Doctor and Jo were still mentally fighting the micro machines, the Master entered the laboratory disguised as the Brigadier and hid the real Brigadier in a cupboard. The Doctor was able to instantly see through the Master's disguise when he woke up from his trance. The Doctor and the Master then united to stop Salamander from interfering with history. (COMIC: The Heralds of Destruction)
On one occasion, the Seventh Doctor took the Third Doctor's place while the Third Doctor was in the laboratory and proceeded to have an adventure on Delphin Isle which the Third Doctor would have had in the original timeline. (AUDIO: The Defectors)
The Brigadier, Herbert Clegg and the Doctor in the UNIT laboratory. (TV: Planet of the Spiders)
On another occasion, the Doctor was working on something in his lab with the television on when he noticed a broadcast of The Scorchies Show. The Doctor then decided to investigate the Scorchies' studio. (AUDIO: The Scorchies)
While investigating a Cyberman trying to convert the patients of a hospital, the Doctor and Jo left the hospital and drove all the way to the UNIT lab just so they could get in the TARDIS and travel to the Cyberman's hideout directly beneath the hospital. (PROSE: The Piper)
The newly-regenerated Fourth Doctor on the floor of the laboratory. (TV: Robot)
After the Doctor was fatally wounded on Metebelis III, he piloted his TARDIS to the UNIT HQ laboratory. There — with the help of K'anpo Rimpoche — the Third Doctor regenerated into the Fourth Doctor. (TV: Planet of the Spiders)
After the Doctor[]
After the Fourth Doctor dropped his close ties to UNIT, the laboratory saw a period of disuse. Several weeks after the Doctor left, John Benton visited the laboratory and found underneath a bench the jacket that the Doctor had worn while regenerating into his fourth incarnation. At this time there were plans to empty the lab and convert it into a computer room. (PROSE: An Overture Too Early)
When Katharine Delbane broke into UNIT HQ, the laboratory was covered in a film of dust. It reminded Katharine of the "untouched, shrine-like way in which some of the people in Belfast kept the rooms of loved ones who had been roughly deleted from their lives". (PROSE: Heart of TARDIS)
Other realities[]
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The Master is cyber-converted in the UNIT lab. (COMIC: Prologue: The Third Doctor)
When the Cybermen allied with Rassilon to rewrite all of history, (COMIC: Supremacy of the Cybermen) the laboratory was hit by a time distortion during a conflict between the Third Doctor and the Master and a cyber-conversion unit was added to the room. (COMIC: Prologue: The Third Doctor)
Behind the scenes[]
- The 1973 Doctor Who Annual had an image of the Doctor in the UNIT HQ lab on its cover.
- On Thursday 23 May 1974, Blue Peter presented from the studio set of Robot due to a strike by BBC scenery shifters.[1] In the opening moments of this episode included on the DVD release of Robot, the show opens with the Doctor Who theme music replacing the usual Blue Peter signature tune, and is primarily presented with the three hosts sitting at a table on the set of the UNIT HQ laboratory. Peter Purves enters the lab set from the TARDIS prop on the laboratory set, accompanied by the Blue Peter dogs Petra and Shep. As the presenters assemble on the lab set, where Jason, the Blue Peter cat, has already made himself at home on a side lab bench, John Noakes comments "Well, no doubt you're a bit surprised to see us in the world of Doctor Who. Well, we're a bit surprised too, I'll tell you." Purves then explains "As I'm sure you've realized, we didn't actually come here in the TARDIS. We can't use our Blue Peter studio today, so we've had to borrow this one."
