Doland is the secondary antagonist of the "Terror of the Vervoids" segment of the Doctor Who story "The Trial of a Time Lord".
He was portrayed by the late Malcolm Tierney.
Biography
Doland was one of the two assistants of Professor Lasky, alongside Bruchner. Together, they developed the Vervoids, intelligent plant creatures. As a result of the experiments, Doland's lab assistant Ruth Baxter was infected and transformed into a half-human, half-plant being. Doland and the others planned to secretly take both Ruth and the pods containing the Vervoids back to Earth aboard the Hyperion III passenger liner. Unknown to the others, Doland had done a deal with a consortium on Earth and was planning to sell the Vervoids to them as cheap slave labour, needing only water and sunlight.
As the ship was about to lift off, Doland overheard a conversation between two other passengers, Kimber and Grenville, and learned Grenville was actually an investigator named Hallet. Eager to prevent the Vervoids being discovered prematurely, Doland set up a fatal electrical trap in the hyponics bay where the pods were being kept, which ended up killing a communications officer, Edwardes. He then realised that Hallet, having faked his death as "Grenville", was now posing as a Mogarian named Enzu, so poisoned him.
However, Hallet's interference had led to the Vervoids being prematurely awoken and hiding in the ducting, attacking and killing passengers and crew at random. Doland was determined to prevent discovery and sabotaged the ship's communications equipment, rejecting Bruchner's insistence that the experiments needed to end. When Mel recorded the Vervoids' speech inside the ducts, getting proof of their existence, Doland knocked her out and left her in a bin that was about to be poured into the incinerator. The Doctor saved her but Doland managed to steal the tape.
Bruchner ended up trying to fly the ship into a black hole, which led to security officer Rudge and two Mogarians hijacking the ship. While Rudge took a number of ship's personnel hostage, Doland remained at large with Mel and stewardess Janet. He sneaked onto the bridge and killed the Mogarians by damaging their protective faceplates and exposing them to the ship's atmosphere, convincing Rudge to surrender.
The Doctor confronted Doland, saying he now knew either he or Lasky was responsible for the murders and the culprit would have the missing tape. Doland threw him the tape and took the Doctor's gun, attempting to kill him with it, but the Doctor had already disarmed it. Doland was taken into custody by the ship's crew, but as he was being led away, the party was ambushed by Vervoids. Doland tried to convince him he was their friend, offering his hand. One of the Vervoids took it...and fired a poisoned dart into it, killing him.
