The Living Wax was the only short story in the 1977 Doctor Who Winter Special. Moreover, it was the only original narrative in the entire publication and the only one to use the Fourth Doctor and Leela — the team featured on the special's cover.
Summary
The Fourth Doctor and Leela arrive in Victorian era London near a waxwork museum. Inside, Leela is spooked by the wax dummies. Eventually she and the Doctor discover that the dummies are actually Linktons, a humanoid species made of wax. The Doctor explains that they can teleport vast, inter-galactic distances with their gold-powered technology. Leela attacks that technology with her knife. It sparks, starts a fire and melts the invading Linktons. Once again, Leela's warrior instincts prove unexpectedly useful to the Doctor.
Characters
References
to be added
Notes
- The story was apparently written to include elements from the photographs used to illustrate the story. In other words, it seems to have been set in Victorian London because most of the illustrations come from the television story The Talons of Weng-Chiang, and the references to a gold lion's mask are present because one of the illustrations is from the television story The Masque of Mandragora. One of the oddest ramifications of this policy is that the inclusion of a photograph of Li H'sen Chang seems to imply that he is a Linkton.
Continuity
to be added
