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If you have ever dipped a toe into Doctor Who lore, you know it’s jam-packed with time loops, complex characters, and legends. Among all those intertwined storylines, there’s one person who started the entire history of the Time Lords: Omega.
This fella is way more than an average villain. He is the OG legend and also a walking tragedy. From his origin story to the timeless beef he has with Gallifrey, Omega shows up throughout the show as a spectral, haunting reminder that you can change the universe and still end up totally screwed.
Omega barged onto the Doctor Who scene in the early 1970s during the tenth-anniversary special serial titled The Three Doctors (Season 10, 1972-73). His storyline is intertwined with the origin of the Time Lords (the Doctor’s people, aka the real power players). Omega was the original mad scientist, famous for pulling off the insane stunt of blowing up a star to enable time travel.
Anyway, as luck (or cosmic irony) would have it, his little science experiment went totally downhill. He got teleported into an antimatter universe, and everyone back home thought he died. However, Omega survived, if you can call festering alone in space-hell “living.” Years stuck in exile, stewing in his own misery, pretty much broke him. He turned into a villain, hell-bent on getting out and getting his vengeance.
Now, Omega’s story is the backbone of the Time Lord origin. He built the “Hand of Omega,” a supernova-sparking gadget that could harness stellar energy, forming the foundation of Time Lord civilization. But his backstory is dripping with tragedy: worshipped by his people, then left to rot in some cosmic oubliette.
He went off the deep end, but you get why he is mad. Every time he shows up in Doctor Who, old or new, it’s like the whole show gets this shot of adrenaline.
Let’s delve deeper into Omega’s character background, notable story arcs including The Three Doctors and Arc of Infinity (Season 20), and his reemergence in recent series, notably in the 2025 Season 15 episode The Reality War.
Omega: The first Time Lord and his origins
Omega’s origins trace back to Gallifrey, the Time Lords’ home planet. He started as Peylix but flipped things around and picked the name “Omega.” The name was pretty much Gallifreyan slang for someone who fails exams.
He is known as the “first Time Lord,” which is not 100% accurate, since he existed before the Time Lord society formed. But his claim to the title lies in the fact that he created a device that made time travel possible.
So what happened was Omega, working side-by-side with a fellow founder, Rassilon, created the so-called “Hand of Omega.” It’s a gadget that could blow up stars. They used it on a star called Erewhon, blew it up in a controlled supernova, and it created a surge of energy called the Eye of Harmony. It literally means the heart of all Time Lord tech. Without Omega becoming a mad scientist, Time Lords would probably just be regular people, not galactic time travelers.
Despite this invention, he drew the short straw. People thought he either died or got sucked into a black hole from that raging star explosion. But it didn’t kill him like everyone assumed. He got tossed into an antimatter universe, a bleak, upside-down reality, cut off from everything and everyone he knew. There was no way back, and his physical form was destroyed.
People on Gallifrey once worshipped Omega. They put him up there with the all-time greats, the big deals who started Time Lord society. But his exile made him bitter and vengeful.
The thing is, his story is more tragedy than it is villainy. He was a genius, literally saved his whole planet, and then got thrown and left to rot in absolute isolation.
Omega’s introduction: The Three Doctors
Omega showed up on Doctor Who in The Three Doctors, a 10th anniversary special where the show united the first three incarnations of the Doctor. We have William Hartnell’s First Doctor, Patrick Troughton’s Second, and Jon Pertwee’s Third all in one story (Season 10, Episodes 1 through 4). That’s where Omega gets his big villain spotlight, and if you want to figure out what makes him tick, this batch of episodes is where you start.
So, in The Three Doctors, everything goes downhill at UNIT HQ because some unknown energy is draining everything. Even the universe itself is getting drained of power. The Time Lords, who usually don’t interfere, break their rules by sending over the Second Doctor to help out the Third.
Turns out, Omega is behind it all. As he is stuck in an antimatter universe and has lost his physical body, he is finding ways to take revenge on Gallifrey. He’s so desperate that he kidnaps the Third Doctor and tries to swap places with him, hoping to break free.
There are complex psychic battles, and even the First Doctor gets involved through Time Eddy communication. In the end, the Doctors are clever as ever. They trick Omega into touching some real matter, which destabilizes his universe, and Omega is gone. (Or is he?).
Omega’s return: Arc of Infinity
Omega comes back in Doctor Who during the classic show’s 20th season, in a serial called Arc of Infinity (Episodes 1-6). Things go off the rails here, as it turns out, Omega is still alive.
We also get introduced to a traitorous Time Lord, Councillor Hedin, who tries to get Omega out by swiping some of the Doctor’s bio-data. Omega even manages to get himself a human-ish body, so he gets to go walk in the regular universe for a minute. However, the body starts falling apart immediately because antimatter cannot hold flesh and bone.
Omega is obsessed with getting back to Gallifrey and reclaiming his old Time Lord status. But it is impossible because his body is melting and he is unstable. The Doctor and crew swoop in, and with the help of an antimatter converter, they manage to send Omega back to his prison planet.
Omega in modern Doctor Who: The Reality War
After decades with a screen time, he showed up again in 2025, in Doctor Who’s Season 15, right when things start getting spicy, in the penultimate episode, The Reality War. This marked the first time one of the original villains was brought back for a newer generation of audience.
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Anyway, in The Reality War, his character has layers. The show digs way deeper into what makes him, well, him. His beef with Gallifrey isn’t just power-hungry drama anymore. He is twisted by antimatter but also wrecked by isolation and a bruised ego. After all this time, his desire for revenge has only grown, and he wants to bring down reality itself.
His storyline keeps an old-school mythos, but they really go to town updating him for modern audiences. He’s not a “mwahaha” villain; showmakers turn him into a powerhouse, burning from all that betrayal and misery. He is presented as someone who can manipulate reality to dangerous levels. Plus, his status as “The First Time Lord” remains at the center of it all.
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