Chancellor Goth is the secondary antagonist of the Doctor Who story "The Deadly Assassin".
He was portrayed by the late Bernard Horsfall, who also portrayed Harrington Pace in Agatha Christie's Poirot.
Biography
Goth was one of the most senior Time Lords, second only to the President, and the head of the Prydonian Chapter. He was widely considered the leading candidate to be the next president, but learned that the retiring president did not intend to name him as his successor, considering him too ambitious. Shortly after learning this, he encountered the Master on the planet Tersurus, dying and unable to regenerate. Together, the two of them made a plan that would allow Goth to become president and the Master to extend his life with the Eye of Harmony, which Goth would have access to. This plan involved assassinating the President.
Goth provided the Master with the information and equipment he needed to enter the Matrix and lure the Doctor to Gallifrey, in order to frame him for the assassination. To this end, Goth gave orders for the TARDIS to be moved into the Capitol, aware that the Doctor was still inside. As the President's resignation ceremony began, Goth shot him dead after he and the Master arranged for the Doctor to be found holding a rifle on the balcony overlooking the ceremony.
Goth could now be elected president but first made plans to have the Doctor speedily tried and executed. This failed when the Doctor decided to stand against him in the election, meaning the trial had to be adjourned until afterwards. Goth continued to track the Doctor as he investigated the assassination.
When the Doctor decided to enter the Matrix in search of information, Goth entered it too, trapping him in a dreamscape. Goth assumed various personas to menace and attack the Doctor including a surgeon, a samurai, a train driver, a bi-plane pirate and ultimately a hunter who pursued the Doctor through jungle. Confronting the Doctor in a marshland, Goth unmasked himself. In this final battle, Goth came close to drowning the Doctor but his reserves of artron energy had been depleted and he collapsed, withdrawing from the dreamscape.
Furious, the Master immediately overloaded the APC Net in an attempt to kill the Doctor, but he had managed to disconnect in time, and instead Goth, still hooked up to the equipment, took the full force of the surge. He was found dying by the Doctor and his allies, telling them how he met the Master and his reasons for helping him, but failing to tell them the Master's plan before he died.
Trivia
- Bernard Horsfall previously played one of the unnamed Time Lords at the Doctor's trial in "The War Games". Some licensed fiction has claimed this was Goth but there is no mention of this on screen, nor any suggestion that the Doctor and Goth have met before.
- Goth has a cameo appearance in the novel Legacy of the Daleks, which depicts his first meeting with the Master.
