In Ancient Greek mythology, Medusa was the most horrifying monster – a gorgon! However, the gorgons are not a myth… Three gorgons came to our world thousands of years ago in the Doctor Who fictional universe. One was killed during ancient times. Another was defeated by the archaeologist Professor Nelson-Stanley and his wife Bea in Syria in the 1950s. However, the third gorgon was protected and sheltered by generations of nuns in St Agnes Abbey, Ealing, London (The Sarah Jane Adventures: Eye of the Gorgon). Sarah-Jane Smith and her teenage friends were thankfully able to find the gorgon and defeat it!

The Mind Robber

★★★☆☆

TX: 14/09/1968 – 12/10/1968

Written by Peter Ling    Directed by David Maloney

The TARDIS makes an emergency takeoff from the planet Dulkis, but the ship explodes and the Doctor and his friends are thrown into a white void. The Second Doctor, Jamie and Zoe have arrived in the Land of Fiction. The time travellers are menaced by white robots as well as encountering other fictional characters and beings, including the Karkus, Medusa the Gorgon, a minotaur, a unicorn, clockwork men, Lemuel Gulliver, Rapunzel and Cyrano de Bergerac. The Doctor and Zoe also have to solve puzzles, riddles and word games, including one which involves rearranging Jamie’s face! The Doctor and his friends ultimately confront the Master of the Land of Fiction, who wants to recruit the Doctor to take over his role as the creative power in this realm. It turns out that the Master of the Land of Fiction is in fact an ordinary Earth man abducted and brought to the Land of Fiction in order to provide creative energies for the unseen aliens who are really in charge. Everything that the Doctor has experienced was a series of tests to prepare him for his role as his replacement. The aliens’ plan is to control everyone on Earth and bring them to the Land of Fiction, leaving the Earth itself empty for easy colonisation. The Doctor rescues Jamie and Zoe from within the book they were trapped in, and they return to the control room to free ‘the Master’. Jamie and Zoe overload the computer and it explodes, with all 4 leaving just in time. The TARDIS reforms and the Doctor, Jamie, and Zoe are able to escape.

Torchwood: Random Shoes

★☆☆☆☆

TX: 10/12/2006

Written by Jacquetta May    Directed by James Erskine

The Torchwood team in Cardiff investigate the hit and run death of a young man called Eugene. Gwen takes charge of the investigation. Eugene had an ordinary boring life until one day he received what he believed to be the eye of an alien gorgon (a Dogon Sixth Eye according to Jack) from his estranged father Shaun. Eugene began collecting alien artefacts. He approached Torchwood several times but he was always rebuffed. Eugene auctioned the eye on eBay in order to buy tickets to Australia for his co-worker, Linda. The eye is sold on eBay for a whopping £15,005.50! In reality, the buyers are Eugene’s co-worker Gary and Josh, a DVD store clerk, who are playing a prank on him. Angry at being deceived, Eugene swallows the eye and runs outside into the road, where he is killed by oncoming traffic. The spirit of Eugene is preserved by the Dogon Sixth Eye after his death so he watches his whole life flash before his eyes. Eugene’s family and friends gather for his cremation, and Gwen recovers the eye from the ashes and travels to Eugene’s wake with the rest of Torchwood. As she watches across the street, Eugene becomes corporeal, and pushes Gwen out of the way of oncoming traffic. Eugene knows that he will not live much longer without the eye in his body. As his family watches in amazement at seeing Eugene, Gwen gives him a kiss for saving her life and for being real. This is one of the most existentialist episodes in the history of the Doctor Who universe.

The Sarah Jane Adventures: Eye of the Gorgon

★★★★★

TX: 01-08/10/2007

Written by Phil Ford   Directed by Alice Troughton

Sarah-Jane, Clyde, Luke and Maria investigate sinister reports of a nun haunting a nearby care home for the elderly. One of the residents, Mrs Bea Nelson-Stanley, gives Luke an ancient talisman, unearthed by her late husband Edgar in Syria. The nuns are searching for the talisman because it will unlock the doorway to the world of the Gorgons. The nuns are protecting a gorgon in the nearby St Agnes Abbey. The gorgon turns Maria’s dad to stone by accident and so the gang have to race against time to recover the talisman. The nuns kidnapped Luke and used him as a bargaining chip to steal the talisman from Sarah-Jane. The nuns at the abbey are about to open the portal to the gorgons’ homeworld, which will allow billions of parasitic gorgons through to our world. However, Maria uses a mirror to reflect the Gorgon’s powers so that it turns itself into stone. This frees the Gorgon’s hold over the nuns. The talisman is recovered and the portal closes. Sarah-Jane and Maria visit Bea in the nursing home and return the talisman to her, which restores Bea’s memories of her late husband. A lot of The Sarah Jane Adventures: Eye of the Gorgon was filmed at Cardiff Castle. I got a Doctor Who tour of Cardiff Castle from the late, lovely Deane who was also a huge Doctor Who fan and he had watched the show since the Jon Pertwee era, which was his childhood.