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Turlough
(1983 - 1984) |
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| Mark Strickson |
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Mark Strickson
was born in 1959 in Stratford-Upon-Avon in Warwickshire.
His father was a professional musician
and Mark Strickson had learned to play several instruments
by the time he
went
to grammar
school, where he continued his musical training. After finishing
school, Mark Strickson went to RADA, where he studied music
and acting. His first
acting job was as part of the Mikron Theatre Company, who
travelled the canals of Britain on a narrow boat performing
up and down the country.
His first television apperances were in 1982 – in an episode of Strangers,
5 episodes of the BBC hospital series Angels, and Juliet
Bravo before being auditioned for the role of Turlough.
In 1984, after leaving Doctor Who, Mark Strickson played the young Scrooge
in a remake of Dickens' A Christmas Carol as well as an episode of Bergerac (in
1985) and Casualty (in 1988). Then in 1988 he emigrated to Australia
with his wife, actress Julie Brennan, where he took a break from acting to study
for a degree in zoology. He returned to UK in 1995, and in 1996 he produced a
number of wildlife films for television.
Mark Strickson has returned to the role of Turlough on a number of occasions.
He appeared in the 1998 Doctor Who direct to video spin-off "Lust
in Space" and has appeared in a number of Big Finish Productions Doctor
Who audio stories. In 2010 he was reunited with former co-companions Tegan
Jovanka (played by Janet Fielding) and Nyssa (played
by Sarah Sutton) in a mini- trilogy of Fith
Doctor audio plays.
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 In many ways, Turlough was the companion with
the most in common with The Doctor in the beginning, as, although
he was morally ‘inferior’ to The Doctor - being
willing to kill another for his own benefit -, his first appearance
provided no real information about his past beyond the fact
that he was clearly an alien living on Earth for reasons unknown.
Initially appearing to be nothing more than a student at a boarding
school - the most distinctive thing about him being the fact
that his maths teacher was The Doctor’s old friend The
Brigadier -, it was swiftly revealed that there was more
to him than appeared when he was visited by The Doctor’s
old enemy The
Black Guardian - the personification of chaos
- while unconscious after a car accident, The Black Guardian
offering to return Turlough ‘home’ if he killed
the ‘evil’ Doctor ("Mawdryn
Undead"),
subsequently displaying a surprising knowledge of alien technology
when he became involved in The Doctor’s investigation
of a strange alien ship. Although Turlough swiftly recognised
that The Doctor was not evil - The Black Guardian only describing
him as evil from his perspective -, he nevertheless
appeared to be committed to his mission, requesting to join
the TARDIS crew
after The Doctor had dealt with the crew of the alien ship.
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| Mawdryn Undead |
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For his first few journeys in the TARDIS, Turlough
continued to find himself incapable of fulfilling the orders
of The Black Guardian, although this was generally portrayed
as being the result of his own cowardice rather than any
actual nobility; even when actually on board the ship, Turlough’s
attempts to kill The Doctor consisted of such attempts as
forcing the TARDIS to materialise or attempting to take control
of the TARDIS while The Doctor was otherwise occupied outside
the ship ("Terminus"), constantly avoiding putting
himself in a position where he would need to stand up to
The Doctor directly. Despite his apparent cowardice, however,
when the TARDIS crew found themselves involved in a race
among the Eternals - powerful beings from the higher dimensions
who relied on the thoughts of lower beings like humans for
inspiration - ("Enlightenment"), when faced with
a choice between accepting a massive diamond and control
of the TARDIS in exchange for handing The Doctor over to
The Black Guardian, Turlough rejected the offer, freeing
him from his deal with the Guardian at long last. Although
Turlough initially asked The Doctor to take him home, he
swiftly seemed to change his mind ("Warriors
of the Deep"), being content with travelling through time with
The Doctor and Tegan wherever the TARDIS went.
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| Terminus |
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Although The Doctor trusted Turlough despite the circumstances of his arrival - once saying that he actually admired Turlough having been sent to kill him ("The
King of Terror") -, his relationship with his fellow companions was generally awkward. While Turlough had a civil enough relationship with fellow companion Tegan
Jovanka after she had time to get over her initial hostility towards his allegiance to the Black Guardian ("Cobwebs") - Tegan once sharing some stories about her childhood with him during a trip to Los Angeles ("The King of Terror") -, in general the two simply cooperated rather than actually being friends. Turlough also made it clear more than once that he didn’t trust their third companion Kamelion, a shape-shifting android previously under the control of The
Master ("The
King's Demons") - apparently unconcerned about the hypocrisy of that belief given the conditions under which he joined the TARDIS himself -, although he did bond slightly with Kamelion after he saved The Doctor and Turlough from suffocating on the Moon after the destruction of an ancient alien hunting park ("Imperial
Moon"). He initially only had limited opportunities to bond with Nyssa before she left the TARDIS on his first trip in the ship ("Terminus"), but after she rejoined them ("Cobwebs"), they formed a closer bond over time due to their similar status as alien exiles - Turlough by choice and Nyssa by her homeworld’s loss ("Logopolis") -, particularly when the two spent three years together investigating the malevolent Magnus Greel ("The
Butcher of Brisbane"), with Turlough posing as Nyssa’s secretary to give him a reason to be by her side. The end of his dealings with The Black Guardian did not mark the end of Turlough’s difficult confrontations with alien enemies. During The Doctor’s investigation of the InterCom corporation with UNIT, Turlough was briefly captured by a race called the Jex in the belief that they could study his alien DNA to engineer humanity into a slave race capable of surviving on Earth after they altered its atmosphere for their own purposes ("The
King of Terror"). On another occasion, Turlough was briefly contaminated by two competing Kastrians - one seeking to destroy The Doctor’s old enemy Eldrad ("The
Hand of Fear") and the other Eldrad himself trying to arrange for his resurrection -, forcing him to serve both of them by trapping him in hallucinations of his past, Turlough actually being broken enough to accept their authority before Tegan helped him reassert himself in time to destroy Eldard’s control ring ("Eldrad
Must Die!"). A particularly personal adventure for Turlough was his encounter with the monstrous Tractators, which saw Turlough briefly regress into a catatonic state due to his people having had a traumatic encounter with the Tractators in their past that left them with powerful racial memories of the damage they had done, although Turlough was later able to use these memories to help The Doctor devise a means of defeating the Tractators ("Frontios").
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| Resurrection of the Daleks |
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As he continued his time with The Doctor - particularly
after Tegan left the ship ("Resurrection
of the Daleks")
-, Turlough began to go through a significant period of
self-analysis, his own naturally selfish behaviour conflicting
with his desire to help The Doctor when he could, demonstrating
a strong dedication to his friend on more than one occasion
. This was particularly evident when the two of them participated
in the British Imperial Spacefleet’s trip to the
Moon in 1878 ("Imperial Moon"); during a confrontation
with a group of mutineers on one of the expedition ships
after they had apparently killed The Doctor, Turlough was
strongly reluctant to work with them simply because they
had killed The Doctor where he once would have been willing
to put that aside in favour of his own survival, later
admitting that he had never known anyone like the Time
Lord (Although The Doctor actually survived thanks to a
Victorian space suit and with Kamelion’s aid). While
reading the diary of expedition leader Captain Richard
Halliwell, Halliwell’s selfless nobility and dedication
to his fellow prisoner Emily Boyes-Dennison - the daughter
of the professor who invented the engine that powered the
fleet’s rockets - gave Turlough an uncomfortable
look at his own personality, encouraging him to do better
in future.
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| Planet of Fire |
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During this time, Turlough also demonstrated a
capable mind able to handle problems by himself if the
need arose, such as when he correctly deduced the artificial
nature of an asteroid orbiting a planet ("Lords
of the Storm"). However, this attitude sometimes
led him into trouble, as shown when his attempt to investigate
the mysterious Valentine on a trip to 1702 resulted in
him nearly being killed by Valentine before The Doctor
managed to trick him into being targeted by his own weapon
("Phantasmagoria"), or when a
group of werewolves played on his arrogance by forcing
him to face his own inner darkness ("Loups-Garoux").
Turlough’s relationship with The Doctor also became
more relaxed, to the extent that he once teased The Doctor
when a scantily-clad female dancer tried to seduce his
friend into a dance while they attended Carnival in Rio
de Janeiro in 2084, The Doctor later asking Turlough for
relationship advice when Illena, a female werewolf seeking
aid to defeat the oldest werewolf in the world, developed
feelings for The Doctor.
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| Turlough and the Earthlink
Dilemma (Tony Attwood) |
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Turlough and The Doctor eventually parted company
after a trip to the volcanic planet Sarn ("Planet
of Fire"), revealed to be a former colony planet for
Turlough’s homeworld Trion. Turlough’s family
had been on the losing side of a civil war against the
hereditary ruling families of his world, his family and
others fleeing to Sarn after the conflict while Turlough
was exiled to Earth; he even realised that one of the natives
on Sarn was none other than his brother Malkon, although
their father had died in the crash. As the volcanoes on
Sarn came ever closer to an imminent eruption, Turlough
was forced to contact Trion for help, but learned, much
to his relief, that all political prisoners had been given
a blanket amnesty by the new government, clearing them
of all charges and allowing Turlough, his brother and their
political allies to return home. Although The Doctor had
taught Turlough a great deal, he recognised that his place
was with his people and returned to Trion, bidding The
Doctor and his new companion Peri farewell.
Further information about his life before and after
The Doctor was revealed in the later novel "Turlough
and the Earthlink Dilemma", where it was revealed
that the civil war that had exiled Turlough had been led
by the insane dictator Rehctaht, Turlough choosing exile
rather than remain and work for her. Once back on Trion,
Turlough was able to use information gathered from his
time with The Doctor to develop a time machine, only for
matters to be complicated when he learned that the supposedly-deceased
Rehctaht had survived by transferring her brain patterns
into the body of Turlough’s old friend Juras, and
now sought to use the Unified Field Theory of the universe
to achieve god-like power. With the aid of a Time Lord
known as the Magician, after being forced to kill Juras
to stop Rehctaht in the present Turlough was able to undo
Rehctaht’s quest for power by tricking her into possessing
him in the last days of her regime, allowing him to expel
her from his mind. As a reward for his work, the Magician
subsequently took Turlough into an alternate timeline where
his other self had perished and Juras was still alive,
allowing Turlough to introduce his time machine to his
people.
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