 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, having been a key played in persuading the
UN to form an organisation to deal with threats like the Yeti
after their last attack.
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| The Web of Fear |
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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’s decision to resort to a military
solution causing conflict with each other at times, although
The Doctor came to accept that his friend only resorted
to such methods when he was sure that there was no other
choice.
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 - this encounter causing particular
damage to his relationship with The Doctor as he destroyed the Silurian
base despite The Doctor’s belief that the two sides could work
together -, 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.
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| The Invasion |
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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 - to the extent that he
was initially convinced they had arrived in Cromer -, but
was forced to accept the return of the Second Doctor, initially
assuming 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!
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| Spearhead From Space |
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He was fiercely patriotic and his first initial 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
Dæmons"), reflecting
his habit of shooting first and asking questions later,
as well as being 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, most notably in his dealings
with the Silurians. As The Doctor comments in the story "Terror
of the Autons" 'I sometimes think that the term "Military
Intelligence" is a contradiction in terms'.
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| Inferno |
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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, The Brigadier regularly demonstrating
a willingness to accept The Doctor’s recommendations
even when faced with contradicting orders from his superior
officers. 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, although he always
had faith that The Doctor would be available in a real emergency,
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 - during which he helped
The Doctor choose his new outfit, his initial costumes including
a Viking warrior and a clown before he settled on his trademark
scarf and coat - 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 (Although both situations were resolved
when it was revealed that the two were connected ("Heart
of TARDIS")). 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.
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| The Claws of Axos |
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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
Jovanka, who was one of the Fifth
Doctor's 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.
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| The Dæmons |
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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 Borusa,
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 Morgraine 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 stories "The
Spectre of Lanyon Moor" and "Minuet in Hell" as
well as the UNIT range of audio stories.
In 2008 he reprised his role as The Brigadier in the
Doctor Who spin-off show The
Sarah Jane Adventures.
Unfortunately Nicholas Courtney died, after a short illness,
in February 2011 at
the age of 81.
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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 Bret Vyon), "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".
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| Day of the Daleks |
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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 ("The
Shadow in the Glass").
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.
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| The Three Doctors |
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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 (Although he eventually returned to Earth to die of
old age in 2050s ("The King of Terror")).
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| The Five Doctors |
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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 communicate with The Doctor
and his current companion Charley
Pollard, reasoning that
The Brigadier was someone who had been important to both
of them (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).
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The Sarah Jane Adventures
"Enemy of the Bane" |
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The Brigadier
has not appeared 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.
The Brigadier
himself later appeared during The
Sarah Jane Adventures,
helping his old colleague and fellow past companion Sarah
Jane Smith break into UNIT archives to steal a scroll that was
being sought by an alien race called the Bane, who had kidnapped
Sarah’s genetically-engineered adopted son Luke (Sarah
didn’t want to go through official channels as she
feared the consequences of drawing attention to Luke’s
existence). Once again, The Brigadier made it clear that
he was still a capable soldier regardless of his age, shooting
one of the Bane disguised as a UNIT soldier with a gun concealed
in his cane and expressing a strong dislike for UNIT’s
current methods.
When he received news of his death ("Let's Kill Hitler"), the Eleventh Doctor decided to spend his
last hours looking in on his old friends, but when he called
the Brigadier’s home to check if he could visit, he
learned that his oldest friend had passed away peacefully
some months ago. Although the Brigadier’s nurses assured
The Doctor that he had always spoken warmly of the Time
Lord, even leaving a second glass of brandy out each night
in case The Doctor decided to visit, The Doctor was clearly
deeply affected by this news, recognising how time could
catch up even with him as old friends ceased to be there
any longer ("The Wedding of River Song").
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