Downtime (home video)

Downtime is a 1995 direct-to-video production featuring elements from the Doctor Who universe, but not the Doctor. Reeltime Pictures did not have a licence from the BBC to use the character and were not even allowed to refer to him directly. The video was directed by long-time Doctor Who director Christopher Barry.

Some time after Victoria parted company with the Doctor on Earth in the 20th century (at the end of Fury from the Deep), she was lured back to the Det-Sen Monastery in Tibet (from The Abominable Snowmen) by a dream telling her she would be reunited with her late father there. Instead, she found she had been contacted by the Great Intelligence, which still possessed the mind of Professor Travers (last seen in The Web of Fear).

Nearly fifteen years later, in the present day, Victoria is now the vice chancellor of New World University. New World is an institution that claims to offer spiritual guidance to distraught youth. In reality New World is the centre of operations for the Intelligence's plan to conquer the Earth by infecting the global network of computers. Both the administration and students await the coming of a "new world" that will be heralded by the arrival of the chancellor, the Intelligence-possessed Travers.

Victoria's motives are well-meaning but misguided, having been manipulated with a promise of the "light of truth". The students themselves have been brainwashed through their computer courses and are slaves of the Intelligence. Outsiders refer to them as "Chillys".


FIND THE LOCUS appears repeatedly on a computer monitor at New World University.

The Intelligence needs a final missing Locus to attain its goal. It believes it is in the possession of the Brigadier, but it is actually with his daughter Kate and grandson Gordon on their narrowboat.

New World attempts to gather information on the Brigadier by requesting an investigation by Sarah Jane Smith. Sarah lies about her knowledge of the Brigadier and later warns both him and UNIT. The Intelligence then arranges a meeting between the Brigadier and a corrupt UNIT captain named Cavendish.

Throughout the story the Brigadier is aided by a New World student named Daniel Hinton, a former student of his from Brendon Public School. The Intelligence's conditioning failed on Hinton, though at times he is still under its influence and at one point becomes a Yeti. He can communicate with the Brigadier through the bardo or astral plane.

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