10 Doctor Who Side Characters With Tragic Backstories

2. Tricky Van Baalen

Doctor Who A Town Called Mercy the Gunslinger
BBC

There's arguably nothing worse in life than not being able to trust the people you love. Journey To The Centre Of The TARDIS presents us with a really harsh example of this when we meet the Van Baalen brothers, a trio of siblings who run a family-owned salvage company that operates in deep space.

Years before the episode starts, the company was run by the brothers' father, but he eventually moved on for unknown reasons. At this point, he chose his youngest and smartest son, Tricky, to take over - but this didn't go as smoothly as you'd expect.

Tricky ended up being caught in a terrible salvage accident which almost killed him. An explosion stripped him of his sight, his voice, and his memory, but he survived, and was fitted with a synthetic voice box and two bionic eyes.

However, the memories didn't prove so easy to replace, and rather then helping Tricky to remember his past, his brothers instead decided to have a bit of fun. To that end, they convinced him that he was actually an android, and that he wasn't a proper Van Baalen brother - just so they could assume control of the company for themselves.

Tricky's own family changed his identity and lied about his past, just for a bit of banter. As betrayals go, it doesn't get much more cruel than that.

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Danny has been with WhatCulture for almost nine years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. He has been writing and video editing for 10+ years, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers and uploading them to YouTube (they're admittedly a bit rusty by today's standards). If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order or to tell you about the making of 1988's Remembrance of the Daleks, Danny is the person to ask.