The Trial of a Time Lord is the name used on screen for all fourteen episodes comprising the 23rd season (1986) of the original Doctor Who series. Despite the single name, however, it is actually the linking narrative that holds together the separate serials that comprise the season.
Synopsis
The Doctor (Colin Baker) is taken out of time, his TARDIS lured to a mysterious space station where it is revealed that his people, the Time Lords, are putting him on Trial once again. Using the evidence presented from the Matrix, which collects data from the various time zones in which a TARDIS lands and records it, three segments of evidence are shown to prove the Doctor's guilt or otherwise: one from his past, one from his (near) present and one from his own future.
Although each of the separate segments has been given a name by the fans, based upon working titles, the story is only ever credited on screen as "The Trial of a Time Lord". This leads to the single story being 14 episodes long, making it the longest ever Doctor who story (although technically the Key to Time story arc from Season 16 is longer, it is always presented on screen as six separate stories).
A decade after the story first aired, special effects footage of the TARDIS arriving at the space station, taken from the opening moments of episode one, was used in TV promotions for the 1996 Twentieth-Century Foxtelemovie, Enemy Within.
The unauthorised extraction of a TimeLord's bio-data is tantamount to treason (Arc of Infinity).
TimeLord society is full of pomp and ceremony, with artefacts given weighty names like the Hand of Omega, the Eye of Harmony or the Key of Rassilon.
One exception to the TimeLords' defensive weaponry is the demat gun (or dematerialisation gun), a weapon of mass destruction that removes its target from spacetime altogether (The Invasion of Time).
The Trial of a TimeLord is the name used on screen for all fourteen episodes comprising the 23rd season (1986) of the original Doctor Whoseries.
Using the evidence presented from the Matrix, which collects data from the various time zones in which a TARDIS lands and records it, three segments of evidence are shown to prove the Doctor's guilt or otherwise: one from his past, one from his (near) present and one from his own future.
Many fans have attempted to draw an analogy between the Doctor's trial and the programme itself which, at the time, was under threat of cancellation (although the BBC has on many occasions denied that this was the case).
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