Doctor Who/Trial of a Time Lord: The Ultimate Foe

Trial of a Time Lord: The Ultimate Foe
Season 23, Serial 4
Airdate	November 29, 1986
Production Number	7C-2
Written by	Robert Holmes (Part Thirteen) Pip and Jane Baker (Part Fourteen)
Directed by	Chris Clough
← 23x03 Trial of a Time Lord: Terror of the Vervoids	24x01 → Time and the Rani
Doctor Who — Season Twenty-Three

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Trial of a Time Lord: The Ultimate Foe is the fourth serial of the twenty-third season of Doctor Who, and the one hundred forty-seventh serial overall.

Part Thirteen: Colin Baker (The Doctor), Bonnie Langford (Melanie), Michael Jayston (The Valeyard), Lynda Bellingham (The Inquisitor), Anthony Ainley (The Master), Tony Selby (Glitz), Geoffrey Hughes (Popplewick), James Bree (Keeper of the Matrix)

Part Fourteen: Colin Baker (The Doctor), Bonnie Langford (Melanie), Michael Jayston (The Valeyard), Lynda Bellingham (The Inquisitor), Anthony Ainley (The Master), Tony Selby (Glitz), Geoffrey Hughes (Popplewick), James Bree (Keeper of the Matrix)

Uncredited: Nicola Bryant (Peri) (archive footage), Brian Blessed (Yrcanos) (archive footage)

Plot Overview

The Valeyard's true identity is revealed and the trial aborted, but the Doctor and Mel must pursue his new enemy into the Matrix itself, where nothing is quite what it seems. Mel realises that the Valeyard has created a weapon within the Matrix that will destroy the Time Lords, and the Doctor is forced to rely on the Master for help.

Trivia

The Show

• Like with other serials in this arc, the title The Ultimate Foe is not used on screen. Instead the episodes are given as parts thirteen and fourteen of The Trial of a Time Lord.

• Despite his significant role as an antagonist and the final reveal that he was still alive, the Valeyard never returned in any later TV serial, nor any episode to date.

Behind the Scenes

• This wound up being Colin Baker's last appearance as the Doctor, despite the Sixth Doctor making a brief appearance in the first episode of the next serial. Baker was fired, but invited back for a final four-part serial, which would have ended in the Doctor's regeneration. Baker declined as he did not want to miss out on finding other work in the meantime, but did offer to do the entirety of Season 24, which was rejected. Baker later admitted regretting not filming the four episodes.

• Robert Holmes was to have written both episodes, but had fallen ill and died before he could write the second. Script editor Eric Saward finished the second episode from Holmes's notes, but the original plan to end the story on a cliffhanger where the battle between the Doctor and the Valeyard was unresolved was rejected by John Nathan-Turner. This led to a falling-out between the two wherein Saward resigned as script editor and Nathan-Turner commissioned Pip and Jane Baker on short notice to compose the last episode without any access to the original script and without bearing on how the story was intended to end.