1. Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart, fully Brigadier Sir Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart, generally referred to simply as the Brigadier, is a fictional character in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, created by writers Mervyn Haisman and Henry Lincoln and played by Nicholas Courtney.
Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart is one of the founders of UNIT, an international organisation that defends Earth from alien threats, and serves as commander of the British contingent.
That year, Doctor Who later paid tribute to Courtney by announcing the Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart had died with a line of dialogue in "The Wedding of River Song".
Later still, a Cyberman avatar of the Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart appears, and achieves some closure with the Twelfth Doctor, in "Death in Heaven".
Alistair Gordon Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart's ancestry goes back to Scotland, according to dialogue in Terror of the Zygons.
Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart first encounters the Second Doctor in The Web of Fear, when Lethbridge-Stewart is a lieutenant-colonel in the Scots Guards commanding a British Army detachment sent to investigate the Yeti in the London Underground.
Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart eventually retired from the military to teach mathematics at an English public school in 1976, as seen in Mawdryn Undead.
Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart is listed as such by the BBC and is included in a book by John Nathan-Turner's discussing all the Doctor's companions.
Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart served as his world's champion as he faced down and killed the demonic Destroyer of Worlds armed only with his service revolver and a load of silver-tipped bullets.
Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart is then told that "Sir Alistair" is "stranded in Peru", indicating that the Brigadier has been knighted by this time.
Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart's wife is mentioned in this episode.
Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart is reported to be in Peru for a third time in Death of the Doctor.
The Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart discusses his marriages with Fiona and Doris, and mentions his daughter Kate and grandson Gordon.
Sometime later, the Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart becomes ill and is moved into a nursing home.
In 2011's "The Wedding of River Song", the Eleventh Doctor rings the nursing home to have the Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart made ready for a trip; a nurse regretfully informs him that the Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart died peacefully "a few months ago" and had spoken well of him often, insisting a glass always be kept ready for him in case he turned up.
The Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart has appeared with the Eighth Doctor in the novel The Eight Doctors by Terrance Dicks in audio plays and the novels The Dying Days and The Shadows of Avalon.
The novels have fleshed out the Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart's ancestry, establishing that he comes from a long-standing military family.
One, William Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, was in the retinue of James VI of Scotland and I of England.
The Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart says in The Dying Days that his father died in World War II, fighting alongside Field-Marshal Montgomery in Africa.
The Past Doctor Adventures novel The Wages of Sin by David A McIntee established that the Brigadier had an ancestor named Alastair Lethbridge-Stewart who worked for the British Government in 1916.
Deadly Reunion by Terrance Dicks and Barry Letts establishes that the Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart was a Second Lieutenant serving in Army Intelligence in 1944, although this makes the Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart older than other stories would suggest.
Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart was rejuvenated with alien technology in Happy Endings by Paul Cornell, taking place in 2010.
Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart played an alternate universe version of the Brigadier in the Doctor Who Unbound play Sympathy for the Devil, opposite David Warner as the Doctor and David Tennant as Colonel Brimmecombe-Wood.
In December 2004, Big Finish released the first of a series of UNIT-based audio plays, where General Sir Alistair Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart acted as a consultant to a new generation of officers and by series' end became UNIT's new Scientific Advisor.
The Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart briefly appears in Kim Newman and Eugene Byrne's Back in the USSA, supporting Britain's involvement in an alternate Vietnam War.
The Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart was referenced in name in the ABC Family show The Middleman.