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Doctor Mehendri Solon is the secondary antagonist of the Doctor Who story The Brain of Morbius. A brilliant scientist based on the planet Karn, he is in reality a loyal follower of Morbius, and plans to build his brain a new body.
Solon is portrayed by the late Philip Madoc, who also played Eelek in "The Krotons", the War Lord in "The War Games" and the U-Boat Captain in Dad's Army.
Biography[]
Solon was a reknowed scientist and surgeon, who was secretly a follower of the renegade Time Lord Morbius. When Morbius was captured by the Time Lords and executed, Solon removed his brain from his body prior to it being disintegrated. He remained on Karn, the site of Morbius' defeat, maintaining an uneasy peace with the Sisterhood of Karn, the group who guarded the Elixir of Life and who had been Morbius' enemies. The Sisterhood's paranoia led to them causing ships to crash on the planet. Solon scavenged the remains of the crash to find body parts to create a new body for Morbius, stitching them together into a patchwork creature. At one point, he rescued a dimwitted slave, Condo, who had survived one of the crashes. He used one of Condo's arms for the creature, fitting him with a prosthetic, and promised he would give the arm back if Condo served him.
Solon's body for Morbius was only in need of a head when the Doctor and Sarah arrived on Karn and came to Solon's castle. Solon quickly realised the Doctor's head would be suitable, especially when he discovered he was a Time Lord. He drugged him and prepared to operate, but the Sisterhood teleported the Doctor to their enclave. Solon went after him and learned they were not rescuing the Doctor but preparing to sacrifice him. He begged with the Sisterhood's leader Maren to spare the Doctor or at least his head, offering Condo as a replacement, but they rejected him.
After narrowly averting Condo's wrath at the betrayal by offering to restore his arm, Solon was again visited by the Doctor and Sarah, who had escaped but not before a blast from Maren's ring had blinded Sarah. Although the effect was only temporary, Solon told the Doctor it was permanent and only the Elixir could heal her, sending him to the Sisterhood. He then sent Condo to Maren with a message warning her the Doctor was on his way and asking her to send his head after killing him.
When Solon told the brain of Morbius what he had done, Morbius was shocked that the Doctor was a Time Lord and suspected he and Maren were working together. Fearing capture and execution, Morbius demanded that Solon attempt a plan he had previously rejected: Placing the brain in an artificial casing and attaching it to the body. The operation was derailed when Condo, on seeing the body for the first time, realised what had happened to his arm and attacked Solon, who shot and wounded him and drove him away.
Solon completed the operation but a number of factors, including the brain being damaged in Colon's attack, meant Morbius awoke without any higher brain functions and ran amok, attacking Solon and staggering out into the castle. Solon was forced to ally himself with the Doctor to stop Morbius' rampage and together they managed to tranquilise him. The Doctor insisted Solon remove the brain so he could return it to the Time Lords. Solon pretended to agree, then locked the Doctor and Sarah in the cellar and began work on repairing the brain's connections. He succeeded and Morbius woke in full control of mind and body but it was the last thing Solon did: He died as a result of the Doctor flooding his laboratory with poisoned gas.
Personality[]
Solon gave the impression of an intelligent and sophisticated scientist, which disguised his fanatical loyalty to Morbius. He believed that Morbius had been rejected for offering the Time Lords true greatness. However, given his obsession with the achievement of giving his master new life, Morbius himself accused Solon of wanting him to be his creator rather than his servant. He still retained a sense of humour, joking that by giving Morbius a Time Lord head would be "the crowning irony", before apologising for the terrible pun.
Trivia[]
- As befitting this era of Doctor Who, Solon is based on the "mad scientist" archetype from Hammer Horror movies, such as Baron Frankenstein.
- Solon's role was originally going to be played by a robot who was trying to build Morbius a new body out of whatever it could find, not being able to understand how hideous the result would be. When the script editor, Robert Holmes, changed the character into being a human scientist for budgetary reasons, the original writer, Terrance Dicks, was rather disappointed.
- Solon's back story of retrieving Morbius' brain prior to his execution is dramatised by Terrance Dicks in the novel Warmongers. The Fifth Doctor is present for the events and has to let things play out as before.
