The Deadly Assassin (TV story)

The Deadly Assassin was the third story of Season 14 of Doctor Who. It was the only televised story in the original run of Doctor Who not to feature a companion. Tom Baker had told Philip Hinchcliffe he could hold the show on his own. With this story already in place, it was seen as a pilot for such companion-less stories. However, it was deemed that a companion was a necessary feature of the show.

This serial saw the return of the Doctor's archnemesis, the Master, but in a heavily decayed state played by Peter Pratt. Roger Delgado had died in an automobile accident three years earlier, requiring a new actor to take his place. Afterward, the Master became subject to a change in appearance and other changes as needed when an actor replaced the role, much like the Doctor.

Narratively, this serial declared a finite limit on the amount of lives and regenerations a Time Lord is entitled to. They can regenerate twelve times and live through thirteen incarnations, and upon the end of their thirteenth life, they come to a final end. Later stories would introduce exceptions to the rule, such as when new regeneration cycles are granted. (TV: The Five Doctors)

Synopsis

Through the millennia, the Time Lords of Gallifrey led a life of peace and ordered calm, protected against all threats from lesser civilisations by their great power. But this was to change. Suddenly and terribly, the Time Lords faced the most dangerous crisis in their long history...

Plot

Part one

Having dropped former companion Sarah Jane Smith back home, the Fourth Doctor heads to Gallifrey in answer to the Time Lords' summons. On the way, he is struck by a premonition in which he seems to assassinate the Time Lord President from a gallery overlooking the Panopticon.

DA Doctors message — The Doctor's message to the Time Lords

The TARDIS lands in the security area of the Citadel. Commander Hilred immediately impounds it and orders the arrest of its owner. The Doctor leaves a note on the console warning of his premonition and sneaks out of the TARDIS into the Citadel. He is cornered by a guard, who is shot dead by an unknown assailant.

The arrival of an unregistered TARDIS in a high-security area raises the tension of an already tense day – the President is resigning and is about to name his successor. The Castellan Spandrell berates Hildred for his incompetence in letting the Doctor, a renegade who apparently is also a murderer, run loose in the capitol.

Hildred transducts the TARDIS into the capitol, unaware the Doctor has sneaked back and hidden himself on board. Meanwhile, his movements are being monitored by a dark, robed figure and an unknown associate.

The Doctor infiltrates the resignation announcement by stealing a Time Lord's ceremonial robes. While trying to remain incognito in the crowded floor he encounters an old classmate, Runcible, now a newscaster, preparing his broadcast from the Panopticon floor. Runcible greets him coolly while waiting for a signal from a camera operator in the gallery. The Doctor looks up and is horrified to see a staser rifle fixed to the railing near the unattended camera. He causes a commotion as he charges through the room.

As the President enters and stands at the dais, the Doctor grabs the staser rifle. He aims and fires. The President falls down dead.

Part two

The Doctor is quickly apprehended by security. The assassination has thrown Gallifrey into a constitutional crisis because the President had yet to name his successor. Chancellor Goth, thought to have been the most likely successor, calls for prompt elections and opts to stand as a candidate. Goth also urges the Doctor's swift trial and execution.

At the trial, Goth's prosecution moves swiftly. The Doctor, however, invokes Article 17 of the Gallifreyan Constitution, naming himself as a candidate for President. Under it, he cannot be denied the right to make his claim. Goth is outraged, but Chancellor Borusa (the Doctor's former teacher at the Academy) acknowledges that the article gives him protection. He is grudgingly given forty-eight hours to prove his innocence.

The robed figure is told by his associate of the Doctor's use of the constitutional loophole. He has anticipated this. The figure is shown as a horribly disfigured and decaying husk.

The Doctor attempts to convince Spandrell and Coordinator Engin of his innocence; his shot was intended for the actual assassin, who stood in the crowd on the Panopticon floor. Someone is going to great lengths to frame him. He notes that the sights had been fixed on the rifle to intentionally throw off his aim. Spandrell confirms this by aiming at a target himself. He begins to believe the Doctor. They find the Doctor's original blast mark on the wall. The Doctor realises the gallery camera would have recorded the actual assassin. Runcible screams with horror when he looks into the camera barrel.

Running to the gallery, they find the camera barrel empty except for the miniaturised corpse of the cameraman. The Doctor recognises this as the work of his arch enemy, the Master, and reasons that he has returned to Gallifrey for a final showdown. Runcible goes to fetch the recordings, but when he returns, he falls with a knife protruding from his back.

Spandrell and Engin cannot comprehend why there is no bio data extract for the Master in the APC Net (aka the Matrix). This is a network of past and present Time Lord minds that acts as an enormous database and future forecaster. The Doctor decides there must be an unauthorised second access point into the Matrix. The Master used this to forecast the assassination into his mind and then wipe all trace from the Matrix. He reasons that either the Master or the assassin working with him must be inside the Matrix. Despite the stern warning from Engin, he interfaces with the Matrix to find him.

The Doctor finds himself in a vast, rapidly shifting terrain, the domain of the assassin. The two engage in a pitched battle of wills. The assassin has the definite advantage of having created the virtual reality world inside the Matrix.

Part three

The Doctor evades the many pitfalls laid for him inside the Matrix. These include being strafed by a biplane and tracked by the assassin. His physical body (still in the APC room) is enduring a terrible and potentially lethal strain. Meanwhile, the assassin is finding the battle of wills extremely taxing as well. The Master increases the power, despite the assassin's plea it will kill him. The Doctor begins to turn the tables on his assailant, first by booby trapping the hunter's equipment, then by avoiding the water poisoned by the assassin. He improvises a blowpipe and shoots a poisoned dart at the assassin, but is wounded himself.

DA Goth drown — The Doctor, slipping below the water; drowning within the Matrix.

As the Doctor comes closer to winning the conflict, the Master sends one of the chancellor's guards now under his power to the APC room to kill the Doctor. Engin spots the guard, Solis, tampering with the controls. Spandrell shoots Solis to protect the Doctor.

In the Matrix, the Doctor gains the upper hand against the assassin, who reveals himself as Goth. The Doctor tricks Goth into firing his rifle while in a cloud of swamp gas. As the world around them erupts in chaos and flames, Goth seizes the Doctor and holds his head underwater, about to drown him.

Part four

The Doctor throws him off and escapes from the Matrix. He revives in Spandrell's office. He informs the shocked Castellan of the assassin's identity. They trace the location of their lair, where they find the Master's lifeless body – he seems to have taken his own life. Goth, himself near death, admits he was power-hungry and bitter on learning he wasn't to be the President's successor. He had found the dying Master on planet Tersurus, his body at the end of his regeneration cycle, and brought him to Gallifrey to help him fulfil his scheme. Goth dies before he can reveal just what the Master's plan was.

Cleared of all charges, the Doctor still has lingering doubts. He wants to know the Master's plan. He doubts the Master would accept death so easily. He reasons that the solution lies in the ceremonial relics given to the President on induction, the Sash and Rod of Rassilon, and researches their links to ancient Gallifreyan mythology.

The Doctor's suspicions are confirmed. The Master has faked his own death. He steals the Sash and Rod, which are the keys to the Eye of Harmony, the heart of a black hole captured by ancient Time Lord Rassilon. It is the source of Time Lord power. The Master seeks the power of the Eye to restart his regeneration cycle, even though Gallifrey would be destroyed by doing so. He uses the Rod to unlock the Eye of Harmony, hidden below the Panopticon floor. This begins to release its energy, which would be channelled through the Sash to rejuvenate him.

DA Master face in clock — The Master as he departs Gallifrey in his TARDIS.

The Doctor wrestles with him. The ground shakes around them. Before the Master can uncouple the last cable from the Eye, the Doctor pulls him away and he falls through a fissure in the floor. The Doctor reconnects the cables, bringing the crisis to an end.

Borusa is appalled at the damage; half the capitol city lies in ruins and countless lives are lost. Even so, he accepts Spandrell's claim that the Doctor's actions prevented further catastrophe. Recalling their old relationship as teacher and student, Borusa gives the Doctor a grade of 9 out of 10. The Doctor departs in the TARDIS. Afterwards, Spandrell discovers that the Master has survived and escaped in his own TARDIS, disguised as a grandfather clock. He expresses confidence that the Doctor and the Master will cross paths again.

Cast

Crew

Assistant Floor Manager - Linda Graeme
Costumes - James Acheson, Joan Ellacott
Designer - Roger Murray-Leach
Fight Arranger - Terry Walsh
Film Cameraman - Fred Hamilton
Film Editor - Ian McKendrick
Incidental Music - Dudley Simpson
Make-Up - Jean Williams
Producer - Philip Hinchcliffe
Production Assistant - Nicholas John
Production Unit Manager - Chris D'Oyly-John
Script Editor - Robert Holmes
Special Sounds - Dick Mills
Studio Lighting - Brian Clemett
Studio Sound - Clive Gifford
Theme Arrangement - Delia Derbyshire
Title Music - Ron Grainer
Visual Effects - Len Hutton, Peter Day

References

Books

The Book of the Old Time is mentioned.

The Doctor

According to Coordinator Engin, the Doctor "must have a phenomenal amount of Artron energy".
According to the Doctor, his hair curls when it is going to rain or he is having an intuition.

Galaxies

The term Mutter's Spiral is used for the first time as a Time Lord reference for the location of Earth (presumed to refer to the Milky Way Galaxy).

Gallifrey

The Capitol is the city of the Time Lords. The Panopticon is a room of the Capitol.
Shobogans are hooligans on Gallifrey.

Gallifreyan technology

The APC Net is part of (or possibly separate from) the Matrix.
The Eye of Harmony sits below the Citadel on Gallifrey, and Rassilon was one of the creators of it.
Time Lords use a teleportation technology called transduct. The Doctor complains about this kind of travel.
Applied excitonics is the science used to create the excitonic circuitry the biodata bank of the Time Lords is made of. It is near impossible to hack such a circuitry.
Stasers are weapons in the equipment of the Chancellery Guards. They can be set to be stunning or lethal. Apparently they have the power to kill a Time Lord, preventing regeneration, and can make unrecognisable the corpse as a posthumous effect.

Gallifreyan Chapters

Prydonians, the "notoriously devious" sect to whom the Doctor belongs, are colour-coded scarlet and orange.
Arcalians wear green.
Patrexes wear heliotrope.
Runcible refers to other "lesser" Chapters.

Gallifreyan culture

The Doctor arrives on Presidential Resignation Day.
The Doctor invokes Article 17 of the Constitution, offering himself as a presidential candidate to avoid execution.
The Doctor's trial is dated 309906.
Runcible appears to use the term "facelift" as slang for "regeneration".
Accused of the assassination of the Lord President, the Doctor faces the possibility of being sentenced to death in a vaporisation chamber.
According to Engin, precognition is impossible.

Gallifreyan history

References are made to Old Times.
Rassilon is mentioned in the recording the Doctor listens to.

Gallifreyan organisations

Security in the Capitol is a duty of the Chancellery Guard.
The Celestial Intervention Agency (aka "CIA") are mentioned.

Individual Gallifreyans

Borusa has recently become a Cardinal.
Borusa was a teacher to the First Doctor at the Time Lord Academy. In that age, according to the Doctor, he had stated that truth can be found only in mathematics.
The Master is said to be at the end of his regenerative cycle.

Places

The Doctor bought a hookah in a "cash and carry" in Constantinople.

Planets

Goth met the Master on Tersurus.

Time Lords

The Time Lords possess a complete biographical history of the Doctor and all Time Lords.
The Time Lords whom the Master kills are not seen to regenerate.
The number of regenerations which a Time Lord may have is stated as twelve.

TARDIS

The Doctor's TARDIS is a type 40 protected by a 'double curtain trimonic barrier' which requires a cypher indent key.
Type 40 is an obsolete model of TARDIS. Only 305 were created.

Story notes

Roger Murray-Leach reused his symbol from Revenge of the Cybermen as the Seal of Rassilon.
Mary Whitehouse complained particularly about the end of part three, with the Doctor being drowned, so much so the BBC edited the master 625 line PAL colour videotape for the repeat screening of the story the following year. (The episode was preserved unedited, albeit in lower quality, in international copies.)
The story had a working title of The Dangerous Assassin.
The title is generally considered a tautology — an assassin is, by definition, deadly. This redundancy was parodied in the spoof The Curse of Fatal Death. However, Robert Holmes denied that the title was tautological, saying, "There are plenty of incompetent assassins." (INFO: The Deadly Assassin)
This is the first TV story to feature the Doctor without a companion and the only one during the 1963-89 original series. The 1996 telefilm and revival series would feature the Doctor on occasion collaborating with "one-off" companions (such as Donna Noble in The Runaway Bride) and in Midnight the Doctor has an adventure by himself, away from his companion. All that said, The Deadly Assassin remains unique as the only televised Doctor Who adventure to date in which the Doctor appears but there is no companion or companion-surrogate at all.
This story features an exclusively male cast, except for the female computer voice provided by Helen Blatch.
Helen Blatch (Voice) is uncredited on-screen for part one, but is credited in Radio Times.
This is the first story set entirely on Gallifrey.
This is the only story where every character is of the same race (Gallifreyan) and is the first televised story in which no human characters appear.
This story featured the first use of narration, performed by Tom Baker at the beginning of the first episode:

Through the millennia, the Time Lords of Gallifrey led a life of peace and ordered calm, protected against all threats from lesser civilisations by their great power. But this was to change. Suddenly, and terribly, the Time Lords faced the most dangerous crisis in their long history...

This text was also shown as a roller caption, superimposed over the Cloisters set.

The biplane used in the Matrix sequences in episode 3 is a 1949 Stampe SV.4C. The plane used in filming, registration G-AWXZ, was also used in the films Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and The Mummy. (INFO: The Deadly Assassin)
The Doctor is without companions at the end of the story, making the period between this story and the next one of the few plausible spots during the show's run which allows for placement of any number of additional Doctor Who stories in literature, audio, or comics. This allows the inclusion of companions that are exclusive to these adventures. A similar instance would occur between The Invasion of Time and The Ribos Operation, that one allowing for the inclusion of later canonical developments such as K-9.
Artistic elements introduced in this story, particularly the Time Lord collars and the Seal of Rassilon, appear on multiple later occasions in stories featuring Time Lords.
This story establishes that Time Lords do sometimes use proper names on their homeworld (previous uses have either been aliases, or of ambiguous origin such as Morbius; rank-and-file Time Lords seen in stories like TV: The War Games and The Three Doctors had gone unnamed).
This story introduces the iconic character Rassilon, who would be referenced often. Rassilon would be seen via a form of projection in The Five Doctors and in person in The End of Time. It also greatly expands on the Time Lord society and mythology hinted at in The Three Doctors and only briefly glimpsed in The War Games.
PROSE: Last of the Gaderene and PROSE: Legacy of the Daleks explain how the Master became how he appears. However, in terms of televised adventures, there is no indication whether or not the Master seen here is necessarily the same incarnation of the Master as last seen portrayed by Roger Delgado in TV: Frontier in Space.

Ratings

Part one - 11.8 million viewers
Part two - 12.1 million viewers
Part three - 13.0 million viewers
Part four - 11.8 million viewers

Myths

This is the only story to reference the fact that Time Lords get 12 regenerations and 13 lives. Early interviews with the production team behind the 2005 revival (including David Tennant in Doctor Who Magazine #415) had made it appear as if the allocation of 13 lives in this story is a piece of minutia unique to this story. In fact, the 13-life limit has been a major plot element of at least three other stories, both of which involve villains attempting to steal the Doctor's remaining regenerations: TV: The Keeper of Traken, Mawdryn Undead and the 1996 TV movie. All of these stories referenced the 13th life limit in dialogue. Other Time Lords have been encountered since The Deadly Assassin in later stories who have reached their 13th and final incarnation, namely Azmael and Salyavin.

In The Time of the Doctor, the Eleventh Doctor acknowledged this limit as well, and revealed that he was actually in his thirteenth and (presumably) final incarnation. He was able to regenerate again at the end of this story only due to being granted a new cycle of regenerations by the Time Lords.

Filming locations

Betchworth Quarry, Pebblehill Road, Betchworth, Surrey
Wycombe Air Park, Clay Lane, High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire
Royal Alexander and Albert School, Rocky Lane, Merstham, Surrey
BBC Television Centre (TC3 and TC8), Shepherd's Bush, London

Production errors

If you'd like to talk about narrative problems with this story — like plot holes and things that seem to contradict other stories — please go to this episode's discontinuity discussion.

The guard the Master kills in part one is seen again, alive and well, in part two.
The corpse of the technician is clearly seen to be a Palitoy Action Man figure.
Near the end of part four, when the Master chases the Doctor up the Panopticon stairway, the Sash of Rassilon is over his shoulder. Before he puts it back down his front you can clearly see the brown cardboard backing.

Continuity

The Doctor returns to Gallifrey due to a summons he received, prompting him to return Sarah Jane Smith home. (TV: The Hand of Fear)
In his next encounter with the Doctor, the Master is ultimately able to secure a new body on Traken, which he uses for some time. (TV: The Keeper of Traken onwards)

Later, the Master agrees to do the bidding of the High Council when they offer him a new cycle of regenerations. (TV: The Five Doctors)
He again takes over another non-Time Lord body temporarily after he is executed by the Daleks, in which he unsuccessfully attempts to use the Eye of Harmony to steal the Doctor's remaining regenerations. (TV: Doctor Who)
During the Time War, he is eventually resurrected and given additional regenerations. (TV: Utopia, The Sound of Drums)

Goth's brother Rath appears in PROSE: Blood Harvest.
Engin reappears in PROSE: The Eight Doctors.
Time Lords are allotted twelve regenerations (for a total of thirteen lives). (TV: The Keeper of Traken, Mawdryn Undead, The Twin Dilemma, The Trial of a Time Lord, Doctor Who, The Time of the Doctor) The Doctor himself encounters this issue in his eleventh incarnation before the Time Lords grant him a new cycle.
The Master again uses matter condensation to kill. (TV: Terror of the Autons)
The Doctor states that Time Lords are telephatic. (cfr. TV: The Sensorites et. al.)
Omega was said to have used the creation of a black hole to give the Time Lords the power of time travel. (TV: The Three Doctors)

Home video and audio releases

DVD releases

The DVD was released on 11 May 2009 in the UK.

Special Features include:

Commentary by Tom Baker, Bernard Horsfall and Philip Hinchcliffe
The Matrix Revisited — Cast, crew and critics look back at the making of this story, featuring director David Maloney, designer Roger Murray-Leach and the founder of the National Viewers and Listeners Association, Mary Whitehouse
The Gallifreyan Candidate — A look at Richard Condon’s novel The Manchurian Candidate, a major influence on the plot of The Deadly Assassin
The Frighten Factor — What exactly is Doctor Who's "Frighten Factor"? A diverse panel of experts try to answer the question.
Radio Times Billings — Listings for this story presented in a PDF file [DVD-ROM – PC/Mac]
Photo Gallery
Coming Soon Trailer
Production Information Subtitles
Easter Egg - Original BBC teaser for the serial. To access this hidden feature, press left at 'Photo Gallery' on the Special Features menu.

Editing for the DVD release was completed by the Doctor Who Restoration Team.

VHS releases

It was released in episodic format in the UK in October 1991. It was also re-released and digitally remastered for the W H Smith exclusive The Time Lord Collection in 2002, with a better quality freeze frame cliffhanger for part three.
This story was released in the US in March 1989 in edited omnibus format, two years before the UK release in episodic format. The US release was issued in a printed cardboard slipcase as opposed to a plastic video case.

Tardis