Black Guardian - Overview

Overview

The White Guardian gave the Fourth Doctor the task of finding the scattered six segments of the Key at the beginning of The Ribos Operation. Once the Doctor had assembled the Key, the Black Guardian disguised himself as the White and attempted to trick the Doctor into handing it over. The Doctor saw through the deception after the Guardian appeared indifferent to the fact that the sixth segment — Princess Astra of Atrios — had ceased her independent existence by becoming part of the Key. The Doctor then dispersed the Key, earning the Black Guardian's eternal enmity and forcing the Doctor, for a period, to attach a randomiser to his TARDIS to avoid being tracked through time and space.

He briefly appears at the end of Logopolis, in the montage of past enemies taunting the Doctor. The next appearance of the Black Guardian was in the 1983 serial Mawdryn Undead, the first of three linked serials known as the Black Guardian Trilogy. He enlisted a young public school student named Vislor Turlough, offering the young man (who was really an alien exiled on Earth) passage home if he killed the Doctor (then in his fifth incarnation), and death if he failed. Turlough joined the TARDIS crew, struggling with the dilemma and eventually chose loyalty to the Doctor in Enlightenment, the last serial of the trilogy. Although extremely powerful, the Guardians apparently cannot be seen to act directly, which is why they can only affect things through agents such as Turlough and the Doctor. Other agents of the Black Guardian include Cessair of Diplos in The Stones of Blood, The Shadow in The Armageddon Factor and Captain Wrack in Enlightenment.

Turlough's choice and the use of the Enlightenment crystal apparently banished the Black Guardian – he is seen to burst into flames and appear in negative again, before disappearing. The White Guardian warned, though, that he would return – angrier now that the Doctor had thwarted him twice. However, the character has yet to make a return appearance in the television series.