 Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart
was the Commanding Officer of the British branch of the United
Nations Intelligence Taskforce (UNIT). However, his first appearance
was as a Colonel during the Yeti's second invasion attempt in
the 1968 story "The Web of Fear". It was during this story,
while in the deserted London underground, that he met The Doctor
and they became good friends. Soon after this story he was promoted
to Brigadier and was given the command of the newly formed UNIT.
His next encounter with The Doctor was in
the 1968 story "The Invasion". He instantly involved The Doctor in helping him sort out the Cybermen's
attempt to invade Earth and during this story their friendship
is strengthened. As The Doctor was still in his second
incarnation it is not surprising that when they meet
again, after The Doctor was forced to regenerate, that he
did not recognise him. However, when he was finally convinced
that this stranger is The Doctor he was quick to persuade
him to become UNIT's scientific adviser, even though this
post had already been offered to Liz Shaw.
In exchange for The Doctor's continued assistance at UNIT
The Brigadier allowed him to use UNIT's resources in his
attempt to repair the TARDIS.
He even supplied The Doctor with an Edwardian roadster which
The Doctor named Bessie, and which he retained for The Doctor's
use even after The Doctor and he had retired from UNIT.
They made a good team mainly due to their mutual need for
each other despite The Brigadier doing things the military
way and The Doctor's forced exile.
It
was also during this period that he became heavily involved with
the renegade Timelord known as The
Master. The capture of The Master became one of The Brigadier's
crusades as he too was humiliated by The Master just as much as The Doctor was. The Brigadier was also involved with Autons, the Silurians, Omega,
an invasion of dinosaurs and of course the Daleks. Unfortunately,
these events resulted in the breakdown of his marriage to his wife
Fiona as he was unable to tell her the truth about his work with
UNIT, resulting in the two of them divorcing during The Doctor's
attempts to make peaceful contact to a newly-awoken group of Silurians
in "The
Scales of Injustice". The two never successfully reconciled,
although the Brigadier did go on to make peace with his daughter
Kate during the events of "Downtime";
he even learned that she had named her son after him.
The Brigadier appeared throughout the whole of the Third
Doctor's era and so became use to The Doctor's eccentricities.
However, nothing could have prepared him for the events
during the 1975 story "The Three Doctors". Not only did
he have to accept that he had actually travelled to an alien
world in the TARDIS, 'I am sure that's Cromer' he comments,
but was forced to accept the return of the Second Doctor
'Oh no! But you're not… Doctor what the blazes are
you doing? Why have you changed your appearance?' After
The Doctor's explanation he replied 'Yes well I'm sorry
I don't believe a word of it!', concluding that The Doctor
had simply been messing around with the TARDIS and caused
his body to revert back to its previous form. However, by
the time The Doctor regenerated again, and this time right
before his very eyes, he accepted this event easily. 'Here
we go again!' he muttered (Planet of the Spiders).
The Brigadier came from an old Scottish family with a
long military tradition and, as expected, he was always
neatly dressed in uniform and with his neatly trimmed moustache
he is the typical perception of a British Army officer.
He has a keen and flexible mind... which was fortunate considering
the many encounters with alien species and his close association
with The Doctor!
He was fiercely patriotic and his first response to any
alien attack was to shoot it or blow it up. A typical response
would be 'Jenkins. Chap with wings, there. Five rounds rapid'
(The Daemons). He however, did have a habit of shooting
first and asking questions latter and was a stickler for
military correctness. Despite a rather abrupt manner and
a clipped voice he would never ask his troops, or his fellow
officers under his command, to do something dangerous that
he was not be willing to do himself. This resulted in him
getting fully involved directly and he would often been
seen in the thick of a battle. 'I am not entirely desk bound
yet you know' he comments in "Terror of the Autons".
He was willing to do whatever was necessary despite knowing
that The Doctor would disagree with some of his actions.
As The Doctor comments in the story "Terror of the
Autons" 'I sometimes think that the term "Military
Intelligence" is a contradiction in terms'.
He remained a steadfast, though often bemused, friend
to The Doctor despite their many confrontations ('Pompous,
self-opinionated idiot, I think you said, Doctor!' he commented
in "Inferno" after The Doctor's attempt to leave
Earth, via the TARDIS console, failed). However, he mellowed
with age and his relationship with The Doctor became less
and less abrasive. When The Doctor's exile to Earth finally
came to an end The Brigadier was forced to get use to The Doctor wandering off more and more in the TARDIS. However,
in a real emergency he could still rely on calling The Doctor
for assistance and despite the many changes to The Doctor's
appearance and character their friendship stayed as strong
as ever.
As his job at UNIT progressed it became more politically
orientated and he had to spend more time in Geneva, the
main Headquarters of UNIT. Therefore apart for a few stories
during the early part of the Fourth
Doctor's era he is not seen in the next two UNIT orientated
stories. The Doctor and he still remained close, to the
extent that The Doctor actually preferred to try and help
find the kidnapped Brigadier than investigate a potential
threat to the universe (However, the two turned out to be
connected to each other, so it all worked out in the end).
Shortly after this, the Brigadier encountered the Seventh
Doctor, Ace and Bernice
Summerfield as The Doctor's old foes, the Meddling
Monk and the Vardans, attempted to conquer Earth, The Meddling Monk having attempted to turn UNIT against The Doctor by
implanting hypnotic suggestions in recently-supplied virtual
reality training equipment. Fortunately, the Brigadier's
Buddhist meditations - having converted to Buddhism inspired
by The Doctor's example - rendered him and Sergeant
Benton immune to the hypnosis, as he was able to recognise
and resist the subliminal messages in the VR equipment.
Despite The Doctor's best efforts, The Meddling Monk managed to get
himself appointed UNIT's new scientific advisor, allowing
the Vardans to attack Earth. The Doctor managed to drive
the Vardans away, but not before the Brigadier was shot
by one of The Meddling Monk's allies.
Fortunately, Ace was able to make contact with a Chronovore whom The Meddling Monk had been using to change history, and, having freed the
Chronovore, managed to change history so that the Brigadier
was saved. Knowing that the Brigadier's brand of soldiering
wouldn't work in the decade to come, The Doctor hypnotised
the Brigadier to retire from UNIT for his own good, also
making him forget their last adventure. After this encounter,
his next involvement with The Doctor is not until the 1983
story "Mawdryn Undead", when The Doctor has regenerated
into his fifth incarnation. It is then that we learnt that
The Brigadier had eventually retired from military life
and, in 1977, had gone to teach 'A' Level maths at a public
school. It is here that he met Tegan,
who was one of the Fifth
Doctors assistants, and found himself, along with Turlough,
one of the schoolboys, on an alien space ship. It is here
that not only did he meet the Fifth Doctor but his future
self from 1983, the result of which caused a discharge of
time and his apparent nervous breakdown and amnesia (Relating
to anything connected to his meetings with The Doctor in
UNIT) from 1977 to 1983.
He met The Doctor again the day before an annual UNIT reception
that he had been invited to attend. At first it is another unexpected
visit by the Second Doctor but he soon finds himself in the Death
Zone, on the Time Lords home plant Gallifrey. It is here that
he assisted four incarnations of The Doctor to defeat Borrusa,
a paranoid Time Lord and meets up with some of The Doctor's other
companions and the Master. Despite all of these events he has
now become conditioned to accept the strange situations that he
found himself in, easily accepting the presence of the multiple
Doctors, saying that they're "Splendid fellows... all of
you", and subsequently helping The Doctors take the Master
by surprise during the final confrontation in Rassilon's Tower
("The Five Doctors"). His final association with The Doctor was during the 1989 story "Battlefield" when
he eventually comes out of retirement, where he is enjoying life
in the country with his wife Doris, to help the Seventh Doctor
and Ace defeat Morgaine and her forces at Carbury. During the
final battle with 'The Destroyer', a demon that Morgraine had
awakened to destroy the world, he nearly got himself killed when
he sacrificed himself to save the Earth by shooting the Destroyer
with silver bullets, but survived, and went on to become an unofficial
consultant to UNIT. Subsequently rejoining UNIT as an advisor,
he helped UNIT make contact with the Fifth Doctor while investigating
terrorist bombings in Los Angeles in "The
King of Terror" in 1999, which turned out to be the work
of two alien races going to war around Earth. Shortly after these
events, the Brigadier was also involved in the events of "The Spectre of Lanyon Moor",
where he helped the Sixth Doctor and Evelyn Smythe avert the destruction
of Earth by a Tregannan ship operating on autopilot after the
death of the only person capable of operating it.
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The
Brigadier
(1968, 1970 - 1975, 1983 & 1989) |
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Nicholas
Courtney |
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Son of a diplomat Nicholas Courtney was born in Egypt
and grew up in various countries. At the age of 18
he was called up for National Service, as a private,
which lasted for 18 months. He then attended the Webber
Douglas Drama School for 2 years followed by a period
in repertory theatre. Appearances in television then
followed including the part of Mavic Chen in the 1965 Doctor
Who story "The Daleks' Master Plan". He was then
cast to play the part of Colonel Lethbridge-Stewart
in the 1967 story "The Web of Fear" and then, as The
Brigadier, in the 1968 story "The Invasion". He continued
to play this part throughout the whole of the Third
Doctor's era and then off and on until 1989. He has
also appeared on stage, in various films and on television
including The Avengers, Juliet Bravo, All
Creatures Great and Small and Sink or Swim.
He has also played the part of The Brigadier in the
Reeltime Pictures video production Downtime in
1995 and also in the Children in Need charity special "Dimensions
in Time". He also provided the linking material in
the video release of "The Invasion" and has also returned
to the role of The Brigadier in two radio plays, along
with Jon
Pertwee and Elisabeth
Sladen, and also in the Big Finish Production's
audio story "The
Spectre of Lanyon Moor" and "Minuet in Hell".
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Nicholas Courtney has the unique distinction of being
the only actor to have appeared with all of the first
eight Doctors. He was with The
First Doctor in "The Daleks' Master Plan" (as
Mavic Chen), "Dimensions in Time" with Colin Baker
and he also met The
Eighth Doctor in the Big Finish
Audio play "Minuet
in Hell" and again in "Zagreus".
Whether the Brigadier will have any encounters with
the Tenth Doctor remains
to be seen.
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Two years later, after seeing a recording of imp-like
creatures that were invisible to the naked eye, he contacted
the Sixth Doctor for assistance, and ended up helping The Doctor
deal with a Fourth Reich led by the secret son of Adolf Hitler,
although this mission tragically resulted in the death of new
companion Claire Aldwych. Some time after this, the Brigadier
- who had apparently recently helped create a new Scottish Parliament
- was sent to America to oversee the joining of new state Malebolgia,
created by the Hellfire Club and overseen by Brigham Elisha
Dashwood, a television evangelist who believed that he had made
contact with demons, including Lucifer himself ("Minuet
in Hell"). While touring Dashwood's institute for the
insane, the Brigadier discovered an amnesic Eighth
Doctor, whose
memories had become fractured between lunatic Zebediah Doe and
journalist Gideon Crane; both of them remembered different aspects
of The Doctor's life, but neither could be certain which one
was the real Doctor. As Dashwood selected Charley to
become his Queen in the Hell he was intending to bring to Earth,
Zebediah realised that he was the real Doctor, and, having restored
his full memories, worked with Gideon Crane and the Brigadier
to expose Dashwood's plans on live television before he was
banished to the dimension of the creatures he'd been trying
to summon.
Some time
after this, during the events of "Happy
Endings", the Brigadier, now dying of old age,
was invited to the wedding of the Seventh Doctor's companion
Benny, where The Doctor restored his old friend's memories
of his confrontation with The Meddling Monk, and promised to care
for the Brigadier's family after he was gone. During an
attack by the Master, who was attempting to create a new
body for himself, the Brigadier was killed while saving
the life of one of the guests, but thanks to the aid of
the former Timewyrm,
he was brought back to life in a younger body. Shortly after
this, however, in "The
Shadows of Avalon ", the Brigadier's life was changed
forever when his wife, Doris, died in a boating accident,
leaving him in a funk that continued until he, the Eighth
Doctor, Fitz Kreiner and Compassion were accidentally pulled
into the dream world of Avalon - inhabited by a Celtic people
who had been relocated by the Time Lords in the past. With
the TARDIS destroyed in the transfer, the Brigadier remained
distant from The Doctor, not even telling his old friend
about the loss of his wife, but, in the end, during the
war between the humans and the Silurians of that world-
sparked off by Time Lord agents seeking to trigger Compassion's
transformation into a Type 102 TARDIS - the Brigadier finally
accepted that life was only what it was because nothing
lasted forever, and, even if he could keep Doris alive forever,
it wouldn't be really living if he wasn't able
to properly treasure the good times they spent together.
As the tear between the two worlds closed, The Doctor and
Fitz departed in the transformed Compassion, while the Brigadier
remained in Avalon with its ruler, Queen Mab, who he'd developed
feelings for during his time there.
Throughout
The Doctor's life, the Brigadier remained The Doctor's oldest
non-Time Lord friend, and his friendship has long been one
of the few constants The Doctor can rely on in any time,
regardless of whatever situation it is they face. His influence
was so powerful that, when the TARDIS created a holographic
avatar during the "Zagreus" crisis,
it chose the Brigadier's physical form to represent its
own body (Admittedly, this was a TARDIS that had been corrupted
by the energies of anti-time, but it was freed of that influence
eventually, and it still says a great deal about how much
the Brigadier meant to The Doctor).
To date,
the Brigadier has yet to appear in the new series with the
Ninth and Tenth Doctors, either in the novels or in the television
show. However, in "The
Sontaran Stratagem/The Poison Sky",
while working with UNIT against the Sontarans,
the Tenth Doctor briefly expressed a wish that the Brigadier
was present,
with Colonel Mace - the current commander of UNIT - assuring
The Doctor that he agreed with The Doctor’s assessment
of ‘Sir Alistair’s’ character, but that
he was currently isolated in Peru for reasons unknown. Whether
this means that the Brigadier himself will appear at some
future date remains to be seen.
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