Omega is a
fictional character
In fiction, a character (or speaker, in poetry) is a person or other being in a narrative (such as a novel, play, radio or television series, music, film, or video game). The character may be entirely fictional or based on a real-life person, ...
created by
Bob Baker and
Dave Martin for the British
science fiction television
Science fiction first appeared in television programming in the late 1930s, during what is called the Golden Age of Science Fiction. Special effects and other production techniques allow creators to present a living visual image of an imaginary ...
series, ''
Doctor Who
''Doctor Who'' is a British science fiction television series broadcast by the BBC since 1963. The series depicts the adventures of a Time Lord called the Doctor, an extraterrestrial being who appears to be human. The Doctor explores the u ...
''. In the context of the series, Omega is known as one of the founders of the
Time Lord
The Time Lords are a fictional ancient race of extraterrestrial life, extraterrestrial people in the British science fiction television series ''Doctor Who'', of which the series' main protagonist, The Doctor (Doctor Who), the Doctor, is a memb ...
s of the planet
Gallifrey
Gallifrey () is a fictional planet in the long-running British science fiction on television, science fiction television series ''Doctor Who''. It is the original home world of the Time Lords, the civilisation to which the protagonist, The Doct ...
, and is a revered figure in Time Lord history together with the equally legendary
Rassilon
Rassilon is a fictional character in the British science fiction television series '' Doctor Who''. In the backstory of the programme, he was the founder of Time Lord society on the planet Gallifrey and its first leader, as Lord High President. ...
; the
Third Doctor
The Third Doctor is an incarnation of the Doctor, the protagonist of the BBC science fiction television series ''Doctor Who''. He was portrayed by actor Jon Pertwee. Within the series' narrative, the Doctor is a centuries-old alien Time Lord fro ...
refers to him as the Time Lords' "greatest hero". Omega first appeared in the 10th anniversary story, ''
The Three Doctors''.
The character was portrayed in ''The Three Doctors'' by
Stephen Thorne
Stephen John Thorne (2 March 1935 – 26 May 2019) was a British actor of radio, film, stage, and television. He was best known for his regular BBC Radio 4 work and audiobook recordings, and for his portrayals of several ''Doctor Who'' villains ...
and in ''
Arc of Infinity
''Arc of Infinity'' is the first serial of the 20th season of the British science fiction television series ''Doctor Who'', which was first broadcast in four twice-weekly parts on BBC1 from 3 to 12 January 1983.
The serial is set in Amsterdam a ...
'' by both
Ian Collier
Ian Gordon Arthur Collier (25 January 1943 – 1 October 2008) was a British actor.
He appeared on stage in Tony Richardson's production of "Hamlet" in 1969 at London's Roundhouse, and at the Lunt-Fontanne theater in New York City. Other repe ...
and
Fifth Doctor
The Fifth Doctor is an incarnation of the Doctor, the protagonist of the BBC science fiction television series ''Doctor Who''. He is portrayed by Peter Davison.
Within the series' narrative, the Doctor is a centuries-old alien Time Lord from t ...
actor
Peter Davison
Peter Malcolm Gordon Moffett (born 13 April 1951), known professionally as Peter Davison, is an English actor with many credits in television dramas and sitcoms. He made his television acting debut in 1975 and became famous in 1978 as Tristan ...
.
Character history
Omega was a stellar engineer and a member of the High Council on Gallifrey who developed the
Hand of Omega
''Remembrance of the Daleks'' is the first serial of the 25th season of the British science fiction television series '' Doctor Who''. The serial was first broadcast in four weekly episodes from 5 to 26 October 1988. It was written by Ben Aaronov ...
, a remote stellar manipulator which could be used to control the reactions within a star.
Using the Hand, Omega performed adjustments on a star near Gallifrey's in an attempt to provide a power source for the
time travel
Time travel is the concept of movement between certain points in time, analogous to movement between different points in space by an object or a person, typically with the use of a hypothetical device known as a time machine. Time travel is a w ...
experiments he conducted with Rassilon. However, Omega was thought to have been killed in the resulting
supernova
A supernova is a powerful and luminous explosion of a star. It has the plural form supernovae or supernovas, and is abbreviated SN or SNe. This transient astronomical event occurs during the last evolutionary stages of a massive star or when ...
, which then collapsed into a
black hole
A black hole is a region of spacetime where gravitation, gravity is so strong that nothing, including light or other Electromagnetic radiation, electromagnetic waves, has enough energy to escape it. The theory of general relativity predicts t ...
.
Rassilon subsequently captured the
nucleus
Nucleus ( : nuclei) is a Latin word for the seed inside a fruit. It most often refers to:
*Atomic nucleus, the very dense central region of an atom
*Cell nucleus, a central organelle of a eukaryotic cell, containing most of the cell's DNA
Nucle ...
of the black hole and used its power to perfect time travel technology. Rassilon then took control of Gallifrey as Lord President. The nucleus eventually became known as the Eye of Harmony,
and Omega's name passed into heroic legend.
Millennia later, during the events of the ''Doctor Who'' serial ''
The Three Doctors'', it was revealed that Omega had not died, but had rather been sent through the
event horizon
In astrophysics, an event horizon is a boundary beyond which events cannot affect an observer. Wolfgang Rindler coined the term in the 1950s.
In 1784, John Michell proposed that gravity can be strong enough in the vicinity of massive compact obj ...
into an
antimatter
In modern physics, antimatter is defined as matter composed of the antiparticles (or "partners") of the corresponding particles in "ordinary" matter. Antimatter occurs in natural processes like cosmic ray collisions and some types of radioac ...
universe and had been trapped there since then; although he was able to shape that universe according to his will, it meant that he could not leave that universe. His exile and solitude turned him quite insane, and he sought revenge on the Time Lords for "abandoning" him. Despite the Third Doctor's assurances that he was revered among the Time Lords and still remembered fondly, Omega still sought retribution.
He made two attempts in the television series to re-enter the positive matter universe: in ''The Three Doctors'' where he attempted to force the Doctor to take his place in the antimatter universe so that he could depart it, and in the serial ''
Arc of Infinity
''Arc of Infinity'' is the first serial of the 20th season of the British science fiction television series ''Doctor Who'', which was first broadcast in four twice-weekly parts on BBC1 from 3 to 12 January 1983.
The serial is set in Amsterdam a ...
'' where he attempted to create a new body for himself using the Doctor's biological data.
Both attempts were thwarted by the Doctor, with his universe being destroyed in ''The Three Doctors'' when he was tricked into touching the
Second Doctor
The Second Doctor is an incarnation of the Doctor, the protagonist of the BBC science fiction television series ''Doctor Who''. He was portrayed by actor Patrick Troughton. While the Troughton era of ''Doctor Who'' is well-remembered by fans an ...
's
recorder
Recorder or The Recorder may refer to:
Newspapers
* ''Indianapolis Recorder'', a weekly newspaper
* ''The Recorder'' (Massachusetts newspaper), a daily newspaper published in Greenfield, Massachusetts, US
* ''The Recorder'' (Port Pirie), a news ...
—which had remained matter when the others were converted into antimatter—and his new body was seemingly destroyed in ''Arc of Infinity'' before it could convert back to antimatter and destroy Earth.
Other appearances
Omega appears as a nemesis to the
Sixth Doctor
The Sixth Doctor is an incarnation of the Doctor, the protagonist of the BBC science fiction television series ''Doctor Who''. He is portrayed by Colin Baker. Although his televisual time on the series was comparatively brief and turbulent, Ba ...
in the 1986 book ''
Search for the Doctor
Lists of books based on ''Doctor Who'' cover different types of book in the ''Doctor Who'' media franchise.
These include novels, audiobooks, and short story anthologies. The lists are organized by publisher and imprint.
''Doctor Who'' novelis ...
'' (written by his co-creator
Dave Martin), which was part of the ''
Make your own adventure with Doctor Who'' book series (''Find Your Fate'' in the United States) . In this book, the reader must make the right choices in order to rescue the Sixth Doctor from Omega. Dave Martin's 1982 juvenile novel ''K9 and the Time Trap'' featured a character called Omegon, whose back story and role in Time Lord history is very similar to that of Omega and who also claims to have previously met the Doctor.
In the ''
New Adventures
New Adventures is a British dance-theatre company. Founded by choreographer Matthew Bourne in 2001, the company developed from an earlier company Adventures in Motion Pictures, now dissolved.
History
Adventures in Motion Pictures (AMP) was es ...
''
tie-in
A tie-in work is a work of fiction or other product based on a media property such as a film, video game, television series, board game, web site, role-playing game or literary property. Tie-ins are authorized by the owners of the original prope ...
Doctor Who novels published in the 1990s, the partnership of Rassilon and Omega in Time Lord history is rounded off by the shadowy figure of the
Other
Other often refers to:
* Other (philosophy), a concept in psychology and philosophy
Other or The Other may also refer to:
Film and television
* ''The Other'' (1913 film), a German silent film directed by Max Mack
* ''The Other'' (1930 film), a ...
, in accordance with the storyline set up in the final years of the TV series by
Andrew Cartmel
Andrew J. Cartmel (born 6 April 1958) is a British author and journalist. He was the script editor of '' Doctor Who'' during the Sylvester McCoy era of the show between 1987 and 1989. He has also worked as a script editor on other television ser ...
. Some accounts suggest that Rassilon misled Omega into believing that he would survive the stellar experiment. The ''
Doctor Who Monthly'' comic strip ''Star Death'' by
Alan Moore
Alan Moore (born 18 November 1953) is an English author known primarily for his work in comic books including ''Watchmen'', ''V for Vendetta'', ''The Ballad of Halo Jones'', ''Swamp Thing'', ''Batman:'' ''The Killing Joke'', and ''From Hell' ...
(DWM #47) attributed the supernova to an attack by the Order of the Black Sun, an enemy of the Time Lords from 30,000 years in their future, the first strike (from the Time Lords' point of view) of a
time war. The same story also identified the star as Qqaba.
Omega also appears in the 1998
BBC Books
BBC Books (also formerly known as BBC Publishing) is an imprint majority-owned and managed by Penguin Random House through its Ebury Publishing division. The minority shareholder is BBC Studios, the commercial subsidiary of the British Broadcasti ...
''Doctor Who'' novel ''
The Infinity Doctors
''The Infinity Doctors'' is a BBC Books original novel written by Lance Parkin and based on the long-running British science fiction on television, science fiction television series ''Doctor Who''. The book was released to commemorate the 35th a ...
'' by
Lance Parkin
Lance Parkin is a British author. He is best known for writing fiction and reference books for television series, in particular '' Doctor Who'' (and spin-offs including the Virgin New Adventures and Faction Paradox) and as a storyliner on ''Emmerd ...
(which also mentioned Qqaba), although as it is never quite specified if the novel takes place in the actual ''Doctor Who'' universe or an
alternate reality, whether this was the "real" Omega or an alternative version is unclear. The novel reprises various events from both television appearances, although it creates an original story from them. In this story Omega exists behind a locked door inside the light-year-long space station, the Needle, which sticks out of a black hole at the end of the universe. The Needle was formed from the remains of a TARDIS originally owned by the Time Lord Savar, who had been trying to rescue Omega from the anti-matter universe. However, once Savar arrived, Omega offered him his heart's desire. Savar panicked and tried to leave, but his TARDIS could not escape. Savar abandoned it in an escape unit. From the Needle, Omega learns how to create and control "the effect", a space-time anomaly that allows him to rewrite history. The novel also established the existence of Omega's wife, who after his accident became the Doctor's wife and the mother of his thirteen children. After she was shot in the matter universe (in Parkin's
Virgin Missing Adventures
The ''Virgin Missing Adventures'' were a series of novels from Virgin Publishing based on the British science-fiction television series ''Doctor Who'', which had been cancelled in 1989, featuring stories set between televised episodes of the pro ...
novel ''
Cold Fusion
Cold fusion is a hypothesized type of nuclear reaction that would occur at, or near, room temperature. It would contrast starkly with the "hot" fusion that is known to take place naturally within stars and artificially in hydrogen bombs and p ...
''), Omega rescued her and brought her to his universe.
The 2003 audio play
''Omega'' featured Omega as a central character
and revealed that Omega's real name was Peylix, ''Omega'' being the grade he received at the Time Lord Academy for writing a theory about time in his exam paper that his examiner disagreed with—the lowest possible grade—which stuck to him as a cruel
nickname
A nickname is a substitute for the proper name of a familiar person, place or thing. Commonly used to express affection, a form of endearment, and sometimes amusement, it can also be used to express defamation of character. As a concept, it is ...
. This story also gives one of many accounts of Omega's entrapment in the antimatter universe; he uses the amputated hand of Vandekirian, a colleague opposed to Omega's plans as the system he is targeting for destruction contains sentient life, to launch his stellar manipulator. The result is an impurity in the fusion reactor which causes Omega's ship to explode, consigning him to his anti-matter prison. However, in addition to issues concerning the
canonicity
The adjective canonical is applied in many contexts to mean "according to the canon" the standard, rule or primary source that is accepted as authoritative for the body of knowledge or literature in that context. In mathematics, "canonical example ...
of the spin-off media and the fact that in most media, Time Lord society was founded after the supposed death of Omega, the story is largely told from the point of view of an insane Omega with confused memories. This makes the accuracy of this information uncertain.
In
Chris Roberson's short story "Annus Mirabilis" from the second volume of ''
Tales of the Shadowmen
''Tales of the Shadowmen'' is an American anthology of short fiction edited by Jean-Marc Lofficier and Randy Lofficier and published by Black Coat Press. The stories share the conceit of taking place in a fictional world where all of the character ...
'' in 2005, it is strongly indicated that the
French science fiction
French science fiction is a substantial genre of French literature. It remains an active and productive genre which has evolved in conjunction with anglophone science fiction and other French and international literature.
History
Proto science ...
character
Doctor Omega
''Doctor Omega'' (French: ''Le Docteur Oméga'') is a 1906 science fiction novel by French writer Arnould Galopin. Inspired by H. G. Wells's novels ''The War of the Worlds'' and ''The First Men in the Moon'', it follows the adventures of the epo ...
is the
First Doctor
The First Doctor is an incarnation of the Doctor, the protagonist of the BBC science fiction television series ''Doctor Who''. He was portrayed by actor William Hartnell.
Within the series' narrative, the Doctor is a centuries-old alien Time L ...
, with him assuming the name Omega as a reference to Omega the Time Lord.
In the 50th Anniversary Special, the location of "The Moment", a powerful weapon, is stored on Gallifrey in the Omega Arsenal which was created by Omega himself.
In February 2015, Omega returned in audio play
Gallifrey
Gallifrey () is a fictional planet in the long-running British science fiction on television, science fiction television series ''Doctor Who''. It is the original home world of the Time Lords, the civilisation to which the protagonist, The Doct ...
: Intervention Earth, played once again by Stephen Thorne. Here, he manipulates the Adherents of Ohm, a cult that worshipped him as a god, into ensuring his return. He possesses one of their members, Taurus, played by Daniel Brocklebank, and returns to Gallifrey. The follow up release, Enemy Lines, does not feature Omega, but does reveal his return heralded a devastating war, which is erased by these events.
On 24 October 2015, Bob Baker and Paul Tams announced the film ''K9: TimeQuake''; this was planned for release in cinemas in 2017 to feature
K-9 facing off against Omega in deep space. However, as of 2020 this movie remains in development.
In 2021 the
limited series Limited series may refer to:
*Limited series, individual storylines within an anthology series
*Limited series, a particular run of collectables, usually individually numbered
*Limited series (comics), a comics series with a predetermined number of ...
comic book
A comic book, also called comicbook, comic magazine or (in the United Kingdom and Ireland) simply comic, is a publication that consists of comics art in the form of sequential juxtaposed panels that represent individual scenes. Panels are of ...
''Omega'' debuted, which depicted the character in a story that acts as a
prequel
A prequel is a literary, dramatic or cinematic work whose story precedes that of a previous work, by focusing on events that occur before the original narrative. A prequel is a work that forms part of a backstory to the preceding work.
The term " ...
to ''The Three Doctors'' and ''Underworld'', two of the ''Doctor Who'' serials written by Bob Baker and Dave Martin.
List of appearances
References
External links
{{Doctor Who villains
Television characters introduced in 1972
Time Lords
Omega
Omega (; capital: Ω, lowercase: ω; Ancient Greek ὦ, later ὦ μέγα, Modern Greek ωμέγα) is the twenty-fourth and final letter in the Greek alphabet. In the Greek numeric system/isopsephy (gematria), it has a value of 800. The wo ...
Doctor Who audio characters
Extraterrestrial supervillains
Male characters in television