Nicholas Courtney (1929 – 2011 )

“Just once, I’d like to face an alien menace that wasn’t immune to bullets!”

We’ll take a moment from our usual music rants to remember this good fellow, who acted with all the Doctors from the past in one of the shows we enjoy (mostly) at the site, Doctor Who.

Nicholas Courtney was a good natured man, quick with a joke and although he did act in quite a few things, our collective memories will always be fixed on that of Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart, a man who sometimes had to take hard decisions (The Silurians), kicked arse (Inferno, Ambassadors of Death) and quipped, a lot (The Three Doctors).

A lot of things I remember from my childhood fondly and one of them is the Tom Baker era (that’s why we had him cameoing here), and although not a regular, Nicholas Courtney did appear in some of his best stories (Terror of the Zygons) and we referenced some of his most famous lines in our reviews (like these two).

The quintessential British military authority (at least in my mind, growing up), he left a mark in my fondest memories and I for one will shoot five rounds at any daemon I encounter. With rapid fire.

Godspeed, good man.

Video clip from BBC Worldwide’s Youtube channel. No infringement is intended nor ownership is inferred. Also, go buy Inferno. It rocks.