Forum:Is Bernard Horsfall playing the same character in The War Games and The Deadly Assassin?

Index → Reference desk → Is Bernard Horsfall playing the same character in The War Games and The Deadly Assassin?

Spoilers are strongly policed here.
If this thread's title doesn't specify it's spoilery, don't bring any up.

At another thread, Tybort and I got into a tangent about whether Goth from The Deadly Assassin was the same person as "Time Lord 1" from The War Games (TV story). I suppose the fan assumption is that they are, because they're both played by Bernard Horsfall. But I'm damned if I can figure out a narrative source for that assumption. Does anyone know of any actual, hard evidence that the two are the same? Below is the conversation so far; feel free to post your comments below this "flashback".
czechout ☎ ✍  19:34: Fri 16 Nov 2012

Hmm, are you insinuating that Future Imperfect does not definitively connect Horsfall's Time Lord 1 (The War Games) with Goth or am I completely misreading that? Do references to Goth being the Time Lord at the tribunal need redoing as well? -- Tybort (talk page) 13:23, November 16, 2012 (UTC)

You mean the War Games episode 10 tribunal? If so, I think the answer is yes, but I'd have to check Legacy of the Daleks. All I'm saying at present is that Future Imperfect doesn't give us a solid connection between Goth and Time Lord 1 (The War Games).
czechout ☎ ✍  16:00: Fri 16 Nov 2012

There's nothing in LOTD that ties Goth to the Second Doctor's trial. I honestly don't know that there is an actual source. In fact, I think there's a source against the notion. The novelisatoin of RRR has it that the President in that story was the one who presided over the trial, indicating that Bernard Horsfall regenerated into Roy Purcell, and that Goth would therefore be an entirely different person from Time Lord 1.

Here's the passage:

The President looked at the Chancellor. 'I think we should indeed be grateful, my lord. Not to poor Omega, whose end to some extent atoned for his crimes, but to the Doctor, who saved us all from extinction.'

'What reward would you suggest?'

The President was silent for a moment. He was remembering a trial at which he himself had presided, remembering the sentence passed on the Doctor. A change of appearance, and exile to Earth for an indefinite period...

'I think we both know, my lord,' he said. 'There is only one reward that would mean anything to the Doctor.'

So that sets the cats amongst the pigeons, doesn't it?

Some other tidbits: Roy Purcell wasn't in The War Games, something you'd think that Terrance Dicks, author of the novelisation, would have known, since it was only 3 years before. And Dicks makes no attempt at connecting Goth to Time Lord 1 in Doctor Who and the Deadly Assassin. So at least according to the Dicks' view of things — and Dicks of course has his hands in all the televised stories potentially featuring Goth in some capacity — Goth is not Time Lord 1.

I'm at a total loss to explain where the connection comes from.
czechout ☎ ✍  16:30: Fri 16 Nov 2012

I suppose I should point out, too, that any crazy attempts to make Roy Purcell be Goth don't work, because the entire point of Deadly is that Goth is lusting after the power of the presidency. Purcell is already president, so Goth can't be the person we see as president in RRR. Nah, the deal, according to Dicks, is that ZZ Horsefall becomes Purcell, and later Goth simply looks like Horsefall in ZZ. Which actually gives us some nice continuity with Destiny of the Daleks and ZZ, because it shows us that Time Lords really can pick their appearance if they just try. Goth looks like Time Lord 1 in the same way that Romana II looks like Astra. No biggie.
czechout ☎ ✍  16:38: Fri 16 Nov 2012