Valeyard
| The Valeyard | |
|---|---|
| Doctor Who character | |
 |
|
| First appearance | The Trial of a Time Lord: The Mysterious Planet |
| Last appearance | The Trial of a Time Lord: The Ultimate Foe |
| Portrayed by |
Michael Jayston Geoffrey Hughes (Popplewick disguise) |
| Information | |
| Affiliated | Time Lords |
| Species | Gallifreyan |
| Home planet | Gallifrey |
| Home era | Rassilon Era |
The Valeyard is a fictional character from the long-running British science fiction television series, Doctor Who. He is described by the Master as an amalgamation of the Doctor's darker sides from between his twelfth and final incarnations. In the serial The Trial of a Time Lord, comprising the whole of Season 23 of the series, the High Council of the Time Lords appoint the Valeyard as prosecutor at the Sixth Doctor's trial, hoping to have him executed and thereby remove the sole witness to their near-destruction of life on Earth.
"There is some evil in all of us, Doctor – even you. The Valeyard is an amalgamation of the darker sides of your nature, somewhere between your twelfth and final incarnation, and I may say you do not improve with age."
The Valeyard appears in all four segments of the 1986 serial The Trial of a Time Lord – The Mysterious Planet, Mindwarp, Terror of the Vervoids and The Ultimate Foe. In episode 4 of The Mysterious Planet it is stated that "valeyard" means "learned court prosecutor" in their language, although the term is obsolete and highly obscure.
During the course of the trial, the Doctor was accused of "conduct unbecoming a Time Lord" and transgressing the First Law of Time. As prosecutor, the Valeyard presented the events of The Mysterious Planet and Mindwarp as extracts from the Matrix, the computer network that serves as the repository of all Time Lord knowledge. The Valeyard used these extracts as evidence of the Doctor's meddling in time and space. Throughout the presentation of the evidence the Doctor barked at the Valeyard, calling him names such as "the Boneyard," "the Scrapyard," and "the Knacker's Yard," and only the interventions of the Inquisitor, another Time Lord, kept the trial going.
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