The Brink of Death (TV story)

***The Brink of Death*** is a 1994 TV special airing as apart of Season 31 of BBC'S ***Doctor Who***, and was broadcast in March of 1994. This story acts as both a direct sequel to the previous story *the Dark Dimension*, a direct prequel to Season 24's *Time and the Rani*, and the final adventure for Colin Baker's Sixth Doctor.

## Synopsis

Following from the end of *The Dark Dimension*, the Sixth Doctor accidently stumbles in the Eighth's TARDIS with Bernice Summerfield still inside, and the TARDIS dematerializes after it senses him onboard. Six's companion, **Mel Bush**, is stuck on Zastros 9 and is attempting to contact the Doctor through her vehicle's communication device while being chased by giant flying lizards.

While the Doctor and Benny acquaint themselves the TARDIS picks up Mel and tries to grab her, but an unknown force interferes and prevents the TARDIS from rematerializing. Suddenly, the Sixth Doctor's TARDIS appears near Mel and a hand pops out of the door, beckoning her to come inside. She goes in, and address the "Doctor" on how their trip didn't go as planned, and **the Valeyard** reveals himself to Mel, with her completely believing him to be the Doctor. The Valeyard had stolen Six's TARDIS and is using a chameleon arch to disguise himself.

The Valeyard's plan is to infiltrate the Time Lord citadel and enter the Matrix and use it's connection to the TARDIS's symbiotic nuclei to gain complete and total influence over it, granting him infinite knowledge across all of time and space and essentially become a god. The Doctor figures out that the Valeyard is involved in preventing his TARDIS from landing, and decides to send a virus into his past TARDIS's defense systems as to let the present TARDIS land next to where it's past version is. The Doctor enters the TARDIS and enters the Matrix to confront the Valeyard.

After a long battle, the Valeyard is repelled from the Matrix but he is able to send an anonymous message to a nearby Time Lord to the Doctor's presence. The Doctor is able to revert the damage the Valeyard had done and send himself and Mel back to his TARDIS and the future TARDIS and Benny back to his future self. With the timelines back in synch, the Doctor begins to forget Benny as he is reunited with Mel but they come under attack from the Time Lord that was alerted to their presence, who happens to be the Rani.

The Rani has beams of focused radiation fired from the planet Lakertya at the TARDIS which seep into the console room, causing Mel to go unconscious and the Doctor to suffer fatal poisoning, falling onto the ground. As he begins to die, the Doctors hears the echoes of his next incarnation call out to him. He accepts his fate as his voice begins to change. The beginning of *Time and the Rani* is shown, with the Sixth Doctor regenerating into the Seventh Doctor.

## Cast

* Colin Baker as the Doctor
* Lisa Bowerman as Bernice Summerfield
* Bonnie Langford as **Mel Bush**
* Michael Jayston as **the Valeyard**
* David Troughton as the Doctor
* Sylvester McCoy as the Doctor

## Production

During the production of the Dark Dimension, Colin Baker showed dissatisfaction with his screen time and involvement in the special. After speaking with the producers, the idea of creating a one-off TV special starring the Sixth Doctor came up. New writer Nicholas Briggs pitched the script and Baker showed interest. This episode reused the Season 22-23 titles and the Dominic Glynn theme music, as to fit better with the Colin Baker era.