Armageddon, Apocalypse, and Annihilation Quiz

Answer: The Cybermen

The four-episode serial that culminated in the Doctor regenerating into a younger body was entitled "The Tenth Planet". The Cybermen's planet Mondas was actually Earth's twin, within our solar system. The Doctor, with the help of his companions Ben and Polly, prevented the use of a dangerous Z-bomb from destroying Mondas and consequently showering Earth with deadly radiation. They then had to prevent the Cybermen from using the same bomb to destroy Earth (before too much energy was transferred). In the end, Mondas was overloaded with energy from Earth, exploding and disabling the remaining Cybermen. Then the Doctor regenerated.

"The Tenth Planet" was the first appearance of the Cybermen, who would return many times in the long run of the series as one of the Doctor's primary foes.

Answer: The War Chief

"The War Games" was the 10-part serial that ended Patrick Troughton's run as the second Doctor. It was also the 50th storyline to air in the six seasons that had run to that point. The War Chief was a renegade Time Lord who had been aiding the alien leader (called the War Lord) in his evil plan. When it was discovered that the War Chief was planning to betray them, the War Lord had him executed.

The Doctor managed to break the conditioning of the abducted human warriors and foil the aliens' plot, yet in the end he found that he was unable to return all of the humans to their own times. He called upon the other Time Lords to help, knowing that he would have to face trial for his past actions.

Being found guilty of stealing the TARDIS and of breaking the rule of non-interference, the Doctor's potential sentence was lessened in recognition of the services he had performed in saving the universe multiple times. He was marooned in Earth's 20th century, had the TARDIS taken, as well as his memories of it, and then forced into a regeneration (essentially, killed). The Doctor's two companions (Zoe Heriot and Jamie McCrimmon) also had their memories wiped and were returned to their homes.

This storyline was the first time that the name of the Doctor's race (Time Lords) was mentioned in the series.

Answer: Radiation poisoning

The spiders on Metebelis had developed their psychic abilities through the effects of special blue crystals in the Blue Mountains region of the planet. Both the spiders and the humans on the planet (subjects of the ruling spiders) came their as the result of a space ship from Earth that had crashed their hundreds of years previously.

The Great One (the Queen of the spiders) was seeking a crystal that was missing from a latticework that when complete will give her even greater mental abilities and power. At the end of the six-episode serial, the Doctor returned the missing crystal (he had been the one who had removed it in the first place), but the power that was unleashed was too great. The Queen and many other spiders were killed as a deadly radiation filled the cavern. The Doctor left in the TARDIS, only to return to his laboratory in time to collapse and 'die', beginning the regeneration process.

Answer: The Master

A couple of different longer-arc storylines intersected in this serial. It was the middle in a series of serials featuring the Master, the first being "The Keeper of Traken" (1981) and the third being "Castrovalva" (1982) with the fifth Doctor. The actor who played the Master was Anthony Ainley.

The other story arc that came to an end with the Doctor's end was the idea of entropy. The concept began in the previous (17th) season, and in "Logopolis", the destruction of the planet Logopolis due to entropy (and the Master's actions) also took out a sizable chunk of the universe in the process, killing billions upon billions.

Answer: Spectrox

Both the Doctor and his companion Peri encountered the pure unrefined drug in its most potent form, which caused them to experience the beginning effects of lethal spectrox toxemia. The Doctor managed to find the rare and difficult-to-acquire anti-toxin, but spilled some when bringing it back to Peri.

He gave the remaining anti-toxin to save Peri, letting his body perish and regenerate into the sixth Doctor.

Answer: A renegade Time Lady

The 24th season of "Doctor Who" began with a bang as the TARDIS was attacked right off the hop, subsequently crashing onto the planet Lakertya. Immediately after his regeneration, the Doctor's confused state was manipulated by the Time Lady Rani, who tricked him into helping her build a giant time manipulator. Thankfully, the Doctor regained his wits in time to foil her dastardly plan.

Rani had been seen before, in the 22nd season serial "The Mark of the Rani" (with Colin Baker). At the time, she was trapped in her TARDIS with the Master and a quickly-growing Tyrannosaurus Rex.

Sylvester McCoy carried the "Doctor Who" franchise through three seasons before its cancellation at the end of its 26th season in 1989.

Answer: A botched heart surgery

Even though the Master had been executed, his remains mixed with the matrix of the TARDIS after a tremor caused it to shatter. From this sentient ooze, the Master was able to take over the body of a human, and subsequently (once again) endanger the world by tricking a young human named Chang Lee to open the 'Eye of Harmony' (an artificial black hole), which the Doctor had on the TARDIS.

After his emergency landing, the Doctor was shot as he stepped out of the TARDIS by a gang of thugs chasing down a young man by the name of Chang Lee. The Doctor was rushed to surgery at a hospital, but they did not realize that the Doctor had two hearts, and botched the surgery, 'killing' the Doctor (they thought the x-ray image showing two hearts was a double exposure).

Paul McGann, the new eighth Doctor, managed to close the Eye with the help of Dr. Holloway (the surgeon who inadvertently killed him in surgery at the beginning of the film), but too much damage had been done. The only way to save the world was to revert time to before the Eye had been opened, and the Doctor managed to accomplish this by pushing the Master into the Eye itself, ostensibly killing him.

With the world saved, the Doctor left to carry on his adventures.

Answer: He crashed onto the planet Karn and drank a potion to choose a new incarnation

Until 2013, the only time that Paul McGann was seen in the role of the Doctor was in the 1996 "Doctor Who" movie. At the end of that, he simply left in his TARDIS for further adventures. With the previous series having ended in 1989, the film had been an effort to revitalize the franchise, specifically attempting to draw the North American market by filming it in Canada. Suffice to say, it didn't work.

The series was not be revived until 2005 with Chris Eccleston in the role. Nothing was mentioned in the new series about how this new incarnation came to be (until 2013).

In the fall of 2013, as a lead up to the 50th Anniversary Special, a short (6 minute) video was released on the BBC website called "The Night of the Doctor" that showed Paul McGann regenerate into the 'War Doctor' (played by John Hurt).

Answer: He absorbed the time vortex

The 'Delta Wave' was the only way that the Doctor could defeat the Dalek fleet, but the Doctor could not do it, as it would also have destroyed the Earth in the process. He sent Rose (his companion) back in time to the 'present' to save her from death, but Rose didn't stay there. She absorbed the time vortex from the heart of the TARDIS, then went back to when the Doctor was (on Station Five in the 201st millenium).

Using the power of the time vortex, Rose destroyed the entire Dalek fleet. In order to save her from the power of the time vortex, the Doctor took the energy into himself, then returned it to the TARDIS, but the process left residual energy within him that caused his 'death' and regeneration.

Answer: The Master

Unknown to the Master, played by John Simm, he was being used by the Lord President of the Time Lords (Timothy Dalton). They had implanted a signal of the sound of drums that had haunted the Master throughout his life, but which became the link through which the Time Lords planned to return to normal time and escape the Time Lock that the Doctor had trapped them and the Daleks within.

The Doctor destroyed the whitepoint star, which had intensified the connection between the Time Lords and the now-cloned planet of Masters and was drawing Gallifrey itself through a hole in space and time. After reversing the Master's cloning process, the Doctor found Wilfred (his companion Donna's grandfather) trapped and about to die. The Doctor took his spot and also took the lethal dose of radiation that would have killed Wilfred.