Doctor Who over the years: Episode quotes
Trial Of A Time Lord Part 1: The Mysterious Planet – Part 1
(A darkened room. A figure sits in a pew.) The Valeyard: At last, Doctor.
The Doctor: Am I late for something?
The Valeyard: I was beginning to fear you had lost yourself. Sit down.
(The Doctor moves to where the Valeyard indicates, to discover a chair. The Valeyard then turns on the lights and we see that the chair is in a dock.) The Doctor: Well, even I would find it hard to lose myself in a corridor. Especially, when propelled by the mental energy of so many distinguished Time Lords.
(The Doctor waves at a group of shadowy figures in the formal Time Lord costume sitting in two raised rows of pews by the wall to his left.) The Valeyard: Oh, I don't know. You seem to have a great talent for straying from the straight and narrow.
(Citadel guards enter and the lights come up to full as a woman in white robe with a red scarf is escorted to a separate chair and table below the rows of Time Lords.) The Doctor: Would it be too much to ask what all this is about?
The Inquisitor: The accused will remain silent until invited to speak.
The Doctor: The accused? Do you mean me?
The Inquisitor: I call upon the Valeyard to open the case.
The Valeyard: By order of the High Council, this is an impartial enquiry into the behaviour of the accused person, known as the Doctor, who is charged that he, on diverse occasions has been guilty of conduct unbecoming a Time Lord.
The Doctor: Not guilty!
The Valeyard: He is also charged with, on diverse occasions, transgressing the First Law. It is my unpleasant task, Madam Inquisitor, to prove to the enquiry that the Doctor is an incorrigible meddler in the affairs of other peoples and planets.
The Inquisitor: Yes. I see, Valeyard, that it is on record that the Doctor has faced trial already for offences of this nature.
The Valeyard: That is so, my lady, and I shall contend that the High Council showed too great a leniency on that occasion.
The Inquisitor: Very well. Doctor, you've heard the charges. Do you wish to say anything before the enquiry proceeds?
The Doctor: Only that this whole thing is a farce. I am Lord President of Gallifrey. You can't put me on trial.
The Inquisitor: Doctor, since you willfully neglected the responsibility of your great office, you were deposed.
The Doctor: Oh. Is that legal?
The Inquisitor: Perfectly. But we won't hold it against you. Quite the contrary in fact. And to see that your interests are fully protected, I propose to appoint a court defender to represent you.
The Doctor: Ah, oh, er, thank you, but no thank you. I have been through several such inquiries before. I think it would be easier if I speak for myself.
The Inquisitor: The court notes the Doctor refuses the services of a court defender. Proceed, Valeyard.
The Valeyard: Inquisitor, I am not proposing to waste the time of the court by dwelling in detail on the activities of the accused.
The Doctor: Good.
The Valeyard: Instead, I intend to adumbrate two typical instances from separate epistopic interfaces of the spectrum. These examples of the criminal behaviour of the accused are fully recorded in the Matrix, the repository of all knowledge.
The Doctor: Objection.
The Inquisitor: I hear the accused. What is this objection?
The Doctor: The Matrix does not contain all knowledge. It merely contains all Time Lord knowledge.
The Inquisitor: It has long been accepted that the Matrix is the repository of all knowledge.
The Doctor: Well, that only shows the insular complacency of this society. How do you know that there isn't knowledge that you don't possess?
The Inquisitor: All that is known is within the Matrix.
The Doctor: Oh, a micro-organism in a drop of water might think it knows the universe. All it knows is that drop of water.
The Valeyard: I think this is merely a semantic point, my lady.
The Inquisitor: I agree. I find the objection of the accused to be not valid. Please continue.
The Valeyard: Thank you, my lady.
(Everyone in the court turns to a screen high on the wall above the ranks of Time Lords.) I should like to begin with the Doctor's involvement in the affairs of Ravalox, a planet within the Stellian galaxy.
Trial Of A Time Lord Part 2: The Mysterious Planet – Part 2
(Glitz, Peri and Dibber are watching the villagers put wood round the bottom of a stake.) Dibber: What a terrible waste.
Glitz: You're telling me.
Dibber: No, I meant the wood. Now, if I was handling this execution I'd go to a bullet in the back of the head. Much more economical.
Peri: He has a point.
Glitz: Of all the sniveling screeves to be stuck with in my moment of need, I have to get you two.
Dibber: I know. Depressing, isn't it.
Trial Of A Time Lord Part 3: The Mysterious Planet – Part 3
Glitz: You got the guns, then.
Dibber: Well, it looks like it, Mister Glitz.
Glitz: I'll tell you something funny, Dibber. We was wrong about the Doctor. He's bunked off.
Dibber: He hasn't bunked off. He's gone down there.
Glitz: What?
Dibber: I saw them as I came up. He had Peri with him.
Glitz: So, he is after what we are.
Dibber: Well, could be.
Glitz: Course he is. I knew it all along. He's got no more interest in the scientific side of things than I have.
Dibber: Well, you didn't fool him, telling him you're a philatelist, did you, mister Glitz?
Glitz: Philanthropist, you ignorant dink. Didn't you learn nothing in that remand home?
Dibber: Well, whatever the word, he guessed that you weren't one.
Glitz: Don't I look like a philanthropist?
Dibber: Well, how do I know? I've never seen one.
Glitz: A philanthropist, my son, is someone who gives away all their grotzits out of the simple goodness of their heart.
Dibber: Oh, you mean they're stupid? Oh yeah, you probably do look like one, then.
Trial Of A Time Lord Part 4: The Mysterious Planet – Part 4
The Doctor: I didn't appear to be hurrying there, did I? But that deceptively easy gait of mine covers the ground at amazing speed.
The Inquisitor: I did not interrupt the evidence to commend you on your athleticism, Doctor.
The Doctor: Oh. Well, you can if you like. All compliments gratefully accepted.
The Inquisitor: And may I remind you yet again that this is a serious trial.
The Doctor: It is not serious! It's a farce! A farrago of trumped up charges.
The Inquisitor: You will have the opportunity in due course to rebut any or all of the Valeyard's charges.
The Doctor: Oh, the Valeyard's charges. I always thought Valeyard meant learned court prosecutor.
The Valeyard: And so it does.
The Doctor: Not in your case, sir. Your points of law are spurious, your evidence weak, verging on the irrelevant, and your reasoning quite unsound. In fact, your point of view belongs in quite another place. Perhaps the mantle of Valeyard was a mistake. I would therefore suggest that you change it for the garment of quite another sort of yard. That of the knackers' yard. For your argument is as tired and warn out as the poor, unfortunate creatures that end up there.
The Inquisitor: You will apologise at once!
The Doctor: For telling the truth? Never!
The Valeyard: The Doctor is well known for these childish outbursts. I do not find the ramblings of an immature mind offensive.
The Doctor: Immature?
The Valeyard: It is that particular state of mind that has made it necessary for you to be brought before this court.
The Doctor: Immature? I was on Ravalox trying to avert a catastrophe. The deaths of several hundred innocent people! Surely not even in the eyes of Time Lords can that be deemed either immature or a crime.
The Valeyard: The crime was in being there, Doctor! Your immaturity was in not realising you had broken a cardinal law of the Time Lords. Your presence initiated the whole chain of events that we have witnessed.
The Inquisitor: Thank you, Valeyard. It was that point about the relevance of the testimony that I had intended to raise.
The Valeyard: My pleasure, Inquisitor.