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episode guide

the deadly assassin

story 88 : season 14 : serial 4P : 4 episodes

Producer: Philip Hinchcliffe
Director: David Maloney
Writer: Robert Holmes
Script Editor: Robert Holmes
Designer: Roger Murray-Leach

cast information

Tom Baker (Doctor Who); Peter Pratt (The Master); Llewellyn Rees (The President); Angus Mackay (Cardinal Borusa); Bernard Horsfall (Chancellor Goth); George Pravda (Castellan Spandrell); Hugh Walters (Commentator Runcible); Erik Chitty (Co-ordinator Engin); Derek Seaton (Commander Hilred); Maurice Quick (Gold Usher); John Dawson (Time Lord); Michael Bilton (Time Lord); Peter Mayock (Solis); Helen Blatch (Voice);

crew information

Linda Graeme (Assistant Floor Manager); James Acheson (Costumes); Joan Ellacott (Costumes); Terry Walsh (Fight Arranger); Fred Hamilton (Film Cameraman); Ian McKendrick (Film Editor); Dudley Simpson (Incidental Music); Jean Williams (Make-Up); Nicholas John (Production Assistant); Chris D'Oyly-John (Production Unit Manager); Dick Mills (Special Sounds); Brian Clemett (Studio Lighting); Clive Gifford (Studio Sound); Delia Derbyshire (Theme Arrangement); Ron Grainer (Title Music); Len Hutton (Visual Effects); Peter Day (Visual Effects);

episode information

  Title First UK Transmission Duration Ratings Archive Status
1 Part One 30 October 1976 at 18:05 21'13" 11.8mil PAL 2 inch colour videotape
2 Part Two 6 November 1976 at 18:05 24'44" 12.1mil PAL 2 inch colour videotape
3 Part Three 13 November 1976 at 18:05 24'20" 13.0mil PAL 2 inch colour videotape
PAL U-Matic (colour)
4 Part Four 20 November 1976 at 18:05 24'30" 11.8mil PAL 2 inch colour videotape
  1. Part One
    » Held by the FVTL when audited in 1978
  2. Part Two
    » Held by the FVTL when audited in 1978
  3. Part Three
    » Held by the FVTL when audited in 1978
    » Original tape edited to remove freeze-frame ending
    » U-Matic recording (complete with original ending) is held in the U-Matic Library at TVC
  4. Part Four
    » Held by the FVTL when audited in 1978

release information

In Print:
Novelised as: Doctor Who and the Deadly Assassin
Written by: Terrance Dicks
Number 019 in the Target Doctor Who Library

Versions
1977 Published by Allan Wingate Ltd, UK in hardback
With cover artwork by: Mike Little
20 October 1977 Published by Wyndham Publications, UK in paperback
With cover artwork by: Mike Little
ISBN: 0 426 11965 7
15 February 1979 Published by W. H. Allen, UK in paperback
With cover artwork by: Mike Little
ISBN: 0 426 11965 7

plot synopsis

The Doctor has a premonition that someone is about to assassinate the President on Gallifrey, so he tries to find the murderer before he can carry out his plan. The assassination, however, goes ahead and the Doctor is framed so that he is caught with the gun in his hand. The Doctor buys time before his inevitable execution for the crime, by declaring himself as a candidate for Presidential election, and then finds that the Master is behind the whole set-up. The Doctor has to stop the Master from absorbing a new cycle of bodily regenerations from the Eye of Harmony, and stop him from destroying Gallifrey

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