The Mind Extractors was a short story published in Doctor Who Annual 1971. It featured the Third Doctor, Liz Shaw and the Brigadier.
Summary[]
On a clear night in Buley, bus driver Fred Thirket notices a strange looking passenger with a cigarette as he stops his bus beside an allotment. Seconds later, a cloud from the cigarette envelops the entire bus. PC Voskins patrols the local area around the allotment, and discovers a dead fox and burn marks on the ground. When he radios this to his Sergeant, he suddenly experiences a wave of fear.
Meanwhile Liz Shaw travels in a Taxi along the same road. When a man appears at the edge of the road, the driver pulls over to help him, and Liz notes the man's strange facial features; puffy lips, plastic looking skin and dull eyes with a faint light in the centre. The same smoke enters the taxi.
The next morning, the passengers, drivers and Liz are discovered with missing memories, assumed to be collective amnesia. The Police Surgeon reveals that the Fox found was physically unharmed, yet dead.
The amnesiacs are taken to the local mental hospital, where Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart watches over them. To add to the drama, The Doctor is missing. A Sergeant appears and informs the Brigadier that Voskins reported seeing a Yellow Car when radioing in.
The Brigadier locates Bessie, and finds the Doctor hanging around nearby. The Doctor blames the Brigadier's new car parts for Bessie's breaking down, and explains that he had phoned Liz to come and meet him the night before. Whilst waiting, he had encountered a strange man.
The Doctor reveals that last night he had picked up transmissions from a Russian Cosmonaut mission. During the mission, the relayed pictures from the craft had shown five men on board, enveloped in smoke. When they had arrived back on Earth, only four were present, all with amnesia.
The Doctor visits Liz in hospital, and finds that she does not recognise him. He takes her to the place where she was found, and discovers the lifeless form of the cigarette man decomposing some distance away.
Spending the rest of the day in his laboratory working on the decomposing body, and returning Liz to the hospital, the Doctor returns to UNIT to find the cigarette man rejuvenated and sitting in his lab chair.
The cigarette man, now revealed to be The Extractor, and having been rejuvenated by energies from the lab equipment, tells that he was attracted to the Doctor's car, as he suspected it "contained something special". He reveals he wants the Doctors knowledge, as it is easier to take the knowledge of the population rather than learning everything from scratch. He will then beam that knowledge up to his spacecraft. The cigarette grows from his mouth, and starts producing smoke.
The Doctor enters the hospital, mind seemingly wiped. As the Brigadier begins to worry, the Doctor calms him by telling him that he has merely bumped his head escaping from The Extractor, and that it has been locked in the UNIT laboratory, and will decompose again.
Characters[]
- Third Doctor
- Liz Shaw
- The Brigadier
- Fred Thirket
- P.C. Voskins
- Sister Jones
- The Extractor
Worldbuilding[]
Notes[]
to be added
Continuity[]
The Doctor's Car Bessie is still tempremental after the Doctor's tinkering in Doctor Who and the Silurians
