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episode guide

trial of a time lord (the mysterious planet)

story 144 : season 23 : serial 7A : 4 episodes

Producer: John Nathan-Turner
Director: Nicholas Mallett
Writer: Robert Holmes
Script Editor: Eric Saward
Designer: John Anderson

cast information

Colin Baker (The Doctor); Nicola Bryant (Peri Brown); Lynda Bellingham (The Inquisitor); Michael Jayston (The Valeyard); Joan Sims (Katryca); Tony Selby (Glitz); Glen Murphy (Dibber); Tom Chadbon (Merdeen); Roger Brierley (Drathro); David Rodigan (Broken Tooth); Adam Blackwood (Balazar); Timothy Walker (Grell); Billy McColl (Humker); Sion Tuder Owen (Tandrell);

crew information

Stephen Jeffrey-Poulter (Assistant Floor Manager); Sally Newman (Assistant Floor Manager); Ken Trew (Costumes); Dominic Glynn (Incidental Music); Denise Baron (Make-Up); Joy Sinclair (Production Assistant); Angela Smith (Production Associate); Dick Mills (Special Sounds); Mike Jefferies (Studio Lighting); Brian Clark (Studio Sound); Dominic Glynn (Theme Arrangement); Ron Grainer (Title Music); Mike Kelt (Visual Effects);

episode information

  Title First UK Transmission Duration Ratings Archive Status
1 Part One (Part One) 6 September 1986 at 17:45 24'57" 4.9mil PAL 1 inch colour videotape
2 Part Two (Part Two) 13 September 1986 at 17:45 24'44" 4.9mil PAL 1 inch colour videotape
3 Part Three (Part Three) 20 September 1986 at 17:45 24'18" 3.9mil PAL 1 inch colour videotape
4 Part Four (Part Four) 27 September 1986 at 17:45 24'20" 3.7mil PAL 1 inch colour videotape
  1. Part One (Part One)
    » Always held by the FVTL
    » A 71-edit exists also
  2. Part Two (Part Two)
    » Always held by the FVTL
    » A 71-edit exists also
  3. Part Three (Part Three)
    » Always held by the FVTL
    » A 71-edit exists also
  4. Part Four (Part Four)
    » Always held by the FVTL
    » A 71-edit exists also

release information

In Print:
Novelised as: Doctor Who -- The Mysterious Planet
Written by: Terrance Dicks
Number 127 in the Target Doctor Who Library

Versions
1988 Published by W. H. Allen, UK in hardback
With cover artwork by: Tony Masero
ISBN: 0 491 03096 7
21 April 1988 Published by W. H. Allen, UK in paperback
With cover artwork by: Tony Masero
ISBN: 0 426 20319 4

plot synopsis

Taken out of time, the TARDIS is brought to a vast space station, where the Doctor faces a trial by the Time Lords for crimes of interference. The Inquisitor is effectively the Judge, whilst the Valeyard is the Prosecutor. The Doctor can only watch, with his memory of the immediate past prior to his arrival gone for the moment, as the Valeyard uses an incident from his past as the first part of his evidence, projected before the jury by the Matrix data bank... On the planet Ravolox, the Doctor and Peri encounter Drathro, a huge robot, whose mission is to guard Time Lord secrets stolen by invaders from the Andromedan Galaxy years before, which have been placed in his care. A race of servile humans tend to the tunnels surrounding his base, and a group of primitives on the surface of the planet try to attack it every so often, but with little success. Two con men, Glitz and Dibber, arrive planning to steal the secrets, but Drathro is prepared to destroy everything to protect them, so the Doctor has to intervene.

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