The Spectre of Lanyon Moor

The Doctor and Evelyn return to present-day Earth and encounter an amateur archaeological dig on the moors. The moors are an old place, supposedly haunted by a vile spectre, small and evil, but the legends are enough to have attracted the attention of UNIT, and one Brigadier Lethbridge Stewart (semi-retired) is on site to keep an eye on developments. The Doctor realizes that the powers gathering on the moor are not so much ancient as they are alien, and an evil presence abandoned centuries ago is about to awake and exact its revenge.

There's a certain formula to adventures like this: local legend, lingering powers from aliens who visited a long time ago, annoyed locals, opinionated scientists, people making deals with the darkness to gain power. Yeah, it sounds a lot like The Daemons doesn't it? Yes, they were even aware of that when they wrote the script, with the Doctor and the Brigadier making reference to knowing all about buried spaceships.

Oh right, it's the first time the sixth Doctor meets the Brigadier. The reunion is quick, the Brigadier has seen new Doctors so often he's always on the lookout for the newest face, or the newest companion. As far as chronology goes, The Spectre of Lanyon Moor would be a bit farther into the future, after the seventh Doctor episode Battlefield but probably prior to the fifth Doctor novel The King of Terror. Seeing as the Brigadier was never on screen during the sixth Doctor's short tenure, there has always been this mad clambering to write the official first encounter between them, which has resulted in this episode plus two novels: The Shadow in the Glass and Business Unusual. For my own purposes here I am going to accept Spectre as the real tale of their first encounter, totally ignore Shadow and deal with Business a little later, as it serves a dual purpose.

Is our Spectre scary? He is. A creature capabale of manipulating a psionic field in his sleep can't be a good thing. And it's pissed at being left behind on Earth by its brother. The locals mostly fear it and keep away, aside from the few it makes its deals with - most notedly a local busybody with her pack of dogs. By now of course we all know these deals are never what they seem, and we just get to watch as characters slide down the slope to their own demise. Or in this case, listen.

Interesting observation: Colin Baker obviously had a cold when he recorded this, a fact that is so obvious that it gets written into the script rather than glossed over or ignored (like Jon Pertwee's tattoos).

That's all.

NEXT EPISODE : THE APOCALYPSE ELEMENT