Prepare to take your mind out of the known universe & onto the astral plane once more as we set course for the Cthulhu Mythos! By now, following his battles with the Animus & the Celestial Toymaker, the Doctor's regenerated into his Second incarnation & is about to face yet another of the Old Ones having landed in Tibet- time to glimpse at first The Abominable Snowmen & their master, Yog-Sothoth/the Great Intelligence.
A meditative trip into his astral subconscious has had quite some consequence for Padmasambhava, the Abbot of the Det-Sen Monastery! While he was there Yog-Sothoth took control of his mind, as the Animus was able to do to the Zarbi in The Web Planet.
"Take this pyramid I have prepared. Take it to the caves. Then the Great Intelligence will focus upon this planet. Soon it will begin to grow and at last take on physical form. At last its wanderings in space will be at an end. My work will then be done."
The Abbot has lived for over three hundred years - well beyond his natural lifespan. That's also the work of the Intelligence, another show of its power as an Old One allowing it to grant its servants some measure of immortality! It seeks a physical form for itself after losing its own in the process of fleeing its own, seeing the Doctor as a perfect host.
In returning to give the Ghanta, a bell & holy relic of the Monastery, back to its rightful owners, the Time Lord has chance to catch up with his literally old friend, too!
PADMASAMBHAVA: Come in, Doctor. Good to look upon your face again. So many years.Of course, the Intelligence controls them...
DOCTOR: Padmasambhava. So it's true.
PADMASAMBHAVA: I have been kept alive so many years, but now our time left is very, very short. Listen carefully. Perhaps you can...
DOCTOR: Kept alive? I don't understand.
PADMASAMBHAVA: I didn't know. I didn't realise.
DOCTOR: What? Try to tell me.
PADMASAMBHAVA: Intelligence. Formless in space. I astral travelled.
DOCTOR: I see. You made mental contact with this intelligence?
PADMASAMBHAVA: It used my mind. It controls my body.
DOCTOR: But why?
PADMASAMBHAVA: Experiment. Wished material form. A voice, it said. I believed. Experiment. But now. Help. You must help me.
DOCTOR: Yes, of course I will help you. But first you must tell me things. Why are the monks being driven away? What is the purpose of these robots, the Yeti? Where is their control? Padmasambhava? Padmasambhava?
...though the Doctor is able to defeat it.
From its point of view it will next meet the Eleventh Doctor in The Snowmen...
...during which he accidentally gives it the plan it will put into action in The Web Of Fear!
SIMEON: You promised us something. Have you brought it?With that it's time to catch the Tube to Covent Garden. The TARDIS is there too, having been taken off its flight path by webbing- another power of the Old Ones which we've already seen the Animus demonstrate.
DOCTOR: Big fella here's been very quiet while you've been out. Which is only to be expected, considering who he really is. Do you know what this is, big fella?
SNOWMAN: I do not understand these markings.
DOCTOR: A map of the London Underground, 1967. Key strategic weakness in metropolitan living, if you ask me, but then I've never liked a tunnel.
SNOWMAN: Enough of this. We are powerful, but on this planet we are limited. We need to learn to take human form.
JAMIE: Nothing but stars. What does it mean?
DOCTOR: I don't know. Something strange has happened. We're suspended in space.
Then a little later, just to confirm the webbing-
JAMIE: What is that stuff, Doctor?So begins the second leg of the Second Doctor's dealings with the Great Intelligence! The Yeti serve as its servants once more, just as they had in The Abominable Snowmen. Jamie twigs this admirably quickly into the bargain.
DOCTOR: I don't know. But something or someone is holding us here.
"Don't you see it makes sense, Victoria. If the Yeti are in London, then the Intelligence is here too . Look, it must have been the Intelligence that got hold of us in space, and it must have brought us here."Indeed it did. But the Doctor is able to defeat it, at least until it sends itself directly into his personal timeline towards the end of his Eleventh incarnation! Here its speaks through the possessed Arnold:
ARNOLD: I must ensure your complete cooperation, Doctor. Should you prove at all unhelpful, your young friend's neck will be broken.
DOCTOR: You gave your word that no one would be harmed. I refuse to submit until you release Jamie!
ARNOLD: All right. Release the boy. But at the first sign of trouble from you...
DOCTOR: Don't worry. I will do what you say.
ARNOLD: Good. Into the machine, Doctor.
TRAVERS: What's he going to do?
COLONEL: What's happening?
ARNOLD: Soon your mind will be absorbed by the Great Intelligence. You should be very proud, Doctor. Your knowledge of the past will help to shape the future of this planet.
DOCTOR: Just get on with it, please.
ARNOLD: You seem very anxious suddenly.
DOCTOR: I just want it over and done with.
ARNOLD: Submission is essential. You must understand, Doctor, that without your complete cooperation this transference would be of no value. Should you offer any opposition, either physical or mental, I shall be forced to punish you, or rather your friends. Prepare for a great darkness to cloud your mind.
An attack by an early UNIT force disrupts the process, though the Doctor bemoans their method.
COLONEL: Get the Doctor out!Two selves later he'll encounter his next Old One - join us tomorrow for the Fendahl!
DOCTOR: No, you don't understand. You'll ruin everything! No!
JAMIE: Professor! Anne! Give us some help!
DOCTOR: No! No! No! Leave me be! You don't understand. I've got to stay here!
EVANS: Well, that's that then, innit?
DOCTOR: You blithering Welsh imbecile! Why can't you do what you're told!
JAMIE: Hey, now just a minute, Doctor. If we hadn't pulled you out of that, you'd have been a heap of dust by now.
DOCTOR: You're just as bad. I told you to leave it to me! Now you've gone and ruined everything.
JAMIE: Ruined everything? How can we? We we've won, haven't we?
DOCTOR: No!
TRAVERS: What do you mean, Doctor?
DOCTOR: Oh, why didn't they leave it to me? I had crossed those wires on that helmet thing. The Intelligence wouldn't have drained me, I would have drained the Intelligence! As it is, all we got was a crossed circuit.
