Companions: Fifty Years of Doctor Who Assistants (23 page)

Kamelion
– Gerald Flood
(
The King’s Demons
to
Planet of Fire
)

While trapped on Xeriphas the Master discovers an android called Kamelion. Although sentient, Kamelion is susceptible to strong personalities, and so the Master, being something of an expert at controlling people against their will, uses Kamelion to pose as King John in an attempt to prevent the signing of the Magna Carta. A battle of wills ensues between the Doctor and the Master which ultimately the Doctor wins. He frees Kamelion from the Master’s mind and allows the android to travel with them. After this Kamelion seems to just vanish – we must assume he is still in the TARDIS somewhere, but there is no logical reason for everyone to simply forget about him. Certainly Tegan is not happy about him being there, and Turlough is surprised by the Doctor’s decision. The fact that none of them mention him again is somewhat odd to say the least. In
Frontios
the TARDIS is torn apart by the force of the Tractators, and scattered throughout the planet. But what happens to Kamelion?

The next time we see Kamelion, he is being manipulated once more by the Master, but this time it is not only the Master whose mind is powerful enough to dominate. Peri, distraught after almost having drowned, starts to affect Kamelion’s mind to the point where he takes on the form of her step-father, Howard Foster. Throughout the story a battle of wills ensues between the Master and Peri, until finally the Master is able to gain complete control of Kamelion. However when the Master relinquishes control, Kamelion begs the Doctor to destroy him, not wanting to be used again. The Doctor reluctantly agrees.

Unfortunately due to his lack of screen time, and the fact that when he is on screen he is almost certainly being controlled by someone else, we never got to see any real growth in Kamelion.

That said, the Doctor clearly never forgets about him since he appears to the dying Doctor in
The Caves of Androzani
, along with all the other companions who travelled with the Fifth Doctor, encouraging him to not give in, and regenerate.

By the mid-1980s
Doctor Who
was becoming popular in America, and to that end a decision was made to introduce an American companion. She was also to serve as the transition across Doctor’s, since the end of the Fifth Doctor’s run was drawing near...

Perpugilliam ‘Peri’ Brown – Nicola Bryant
(
Planet of Fire
to
The Trial of a Time Lord
)

A young student of botany, when we meet Peri she is on vacation in Lanzarote with her mother and step-father. She seems to have a close relationship with her step-father, Howard, but not so much with her mother. She is a bit flighty when we first meet her, opting to cash in her travellers’ cheques to travel to Morocco with a bunch of people she has only just met. When Howard asks her how she hopes to pay for her ticket home, she simply says, ‘I’ll get a job’, as though she hasn’t really thought about it at all. Howard, quite rightly, is not keen on this idea, and so purposely strands her on his boat to ensure she cannot leave until they can have a long talk about it. Peri reacts in a very spoiled way, and chooses to steal one of Howard’s artefacts to get some money to fund her trip. The only problem she has is getting to shore.

As it turns out, Peri is not a very strong swimmer and is soon rescued by Turlough, who takes her into the TARDIS to recover. Her dreams about her recent argument with Howard are so realistic that she accidentally influences Kamelion, who takes the form of her step-father. When she awakes she has no idea where she is, and stumbles into the console room to find Howard there with the Doctor and Turlough. The time travellers go out to explore, leaving the confused Peri with her step-father. It is then that she learns the truth, that somehow this is not her step-father at all, but the Master. Unusually for a companion of the Doctor’s, the Master is quite impressed by Peri’s force of will, being able to wrest control of Kamelion from him. Despite her continual whining, she does prove to have a very strong sense of self, and is willing to be convinced that they are on another planet. In her short time on Sarn, Peri becomes quite fond of the Doctor and agrees to look after him when Turlough realises it is time he returns home to Trion. The Doctor is not so sure about having her join him, but she explains she still has three months of vacation left, and he almost reluctantly agrees that she can travel with him.

Their first port of call is the planet Androzani Minor – a place Peri is initially very impressed with. As they begin to explore she demonstrates her sarcastic wit, which helps build up a nice sense of friendship between her and the Doctor. For the first time, the Doctor seems to be truly relaxed with his travelling companion, almost as if he has finally found the perfect person to travel with his fifth incarnation. She is, however, impatient to move on to the next place once she tires of talk about fused silica – the Doctor is in full exploration mode so she has no choice but to follow him, ‘Is this wise I ask myself?’

The adventure becomes less fun when they are arrested as suspected gun runners, and are scheduled to be executed. Peri has a very hard time on Androzani; she narrowly avoids death by firing squad and then becomes infected by Spectrox Toxaemia, a fatal infection with only one cure. To make matters worse she finds herself under the close attention of Sharez Jek, an insane genius who becomes obsessed by her beauty. The Doctor becomes very protective of Peri in Jek’s company, but his flippancy is insufficient to quell her fear. She tries to keep her humour, but finds it very difficult in the face of such horrendous company. The Doctor literally risks his life to find the cure for his young companion (probably a result of his guilt at the loss of Adric, Nyssa, Tegan and Turlough). The Doctor holds back his regeneration, as he too is infected and near to death; he is determined to save Peri.

By the time he returns, the laboratory is in flames, and Jek is dead. The Doctor carries Peri back to the TARDIS, dodging blasts of primordial mud, and spills enough of the bat’s milk (the cure) that he only has some to save Peri. Safe in the TARDIS, and away from Androzani he gives her the cure, which works rapidly. Although still weak, Peri finds the Doctor lying on the TARDIS floor, dying. She can do nothing but cradle him in her arms. She is both upset and terrified – upset at the Doctor’s death, and terrified that she is being left alone in a ship she doesn’t understand, ‘Don’t give up. You can’t leave me now!’ she tells him, but it is too late. The Doctor does warn her that he might regenerate, but she has no idea what he means. Scared and alone, Peri crawls away and pushes herself against the console room walls, having no idea what she is going to do. Then something quite amazing happens... the Doctor begins to change. And not a moment too soon...

The Fifth Doctor

Expanded Universe

The Fifth Doctor’s companions are a disparate group, often arguing with each other while frustrating the Doctor. Did this change in the Expanded Universe, or did the authors take the opportunity to delve deeper into the characters to find out why they were so aggressive towards each other? And what of Kamelion – the most wasted companion during the 1980s? Without the restrictions placed on him by a ‘rubbish’ prop, did the authors take advantage of this shape-changing android?

First though, we will take a look at Adric. Often regarded in fandom as one of the least popular companions, did the authors take the opportunity to make him more interesting, or did their dislike for him come across in their stories?

In
Divided Loyalties
, the 1999 novel in which the Doctor, Adric, Nyssa and Tegan battle the Toymaker, we learn that pizza is a mystery to Adric. He also doesn’t appear to know what hygiene is as both Nyssa and Tegan suggest to the Doctor that he have a chat with Adric about his reluctance to bathe regularly, a chat that never takes place. Never one for tact, Tegan also thinks that Adric is lazy and generally loathsome, although in the novel
The Sands of Time
she discusses the emotional impact of his death with the Doctor and the reasons why Adric cannot be saved by using the TARDIS.

We also get a glimpse of Adric’s earlier years in
Divided Loyalties
; his childhood friend Jiana, with whom there may have been a romantic link, flees when Adric joins his brother Varsh’s rebel forces as they fight against the elite. The Toymaker traps Adric in an illusionary dreamscape and uses Jiana’s image to try and turn Adric against the Doctor, reminding him of the numerous times the Time Lord has placed his life in danger while fighting against such foes as the Master and the Terileptils.

There is little exploration of his family life beyond this mention of Varsh, but we do learn that Adric’s parents are named Morell and Tanisa.

Adric’s adeptness at chess is touched upon in
Divided Loyalties
, a skill he uses to repeatedly beat Nyssa at the game in
Hearts of Stone
, a short story in the
Short Trips: Companions
collection. This shouldn’t be surprising though as Adric is not only highly competent in astrometrics (
Divided Loyalties
again) but also possesses a badge for mathematical excellence.

Following Adric’s death in the television story
Earthshock
he is remembered by Nyssa and Tegan in the novel
Zeta Major
and again in
Fear of the Dark
, by the Doctor. Unsurprisingly Tegan finds it easier to deal with his death than the others but not for the reasons you would think. In
The Sands of Time
she says that she finds it easier to cope because she didn’t see him die.

It is following his death that Adric makes perhaps his strangest appearance in the Expanded Universe. In
The Boy That Time Forgot
, the 2008 audio drama, the Doctor and Nyssa are looking for the TARDIS after its theft by Thomas Brewster in
The Haunting of Thomas Brewster
and their search leads them to an Aztec jungle pocket-dimension packed with insects and giant scorpions. There they find that, during a séance, the Doctor unintentionally saves Adric by sending him subconscious Block Transfer Computations. However, the Adric they encounter is not the boy they remember. Alone and isolated for centuries he has become quite insane and seethes with bitterness. The Doctor makes repeated attempts to show him that he has become essentially a very old and resentful teenager.

In the Expanded Universe of
Doctor Who
novels it appears that Nyssa, the aristocratic daughter of Traken, is always being turned into a monster of some kind.
Goth Opera
, a 1994
Virgin Missing Adventure
, sees her changed into a vampire; she even bites the Doctor. In
The Sands of Time
she is chosen to become a host for Nephthys, the sister and wife of Sutekh (encountered by the Fourth Doctor in
Pyramids of Mars
) and for most of the book is wrapped up as a mummy, spending four thousand years in a comatose state. This gives her chance to rest, before becoming a feral monster in
Zeta Major
, a
BBC Past Doctor Adventure
, after being implanted with anti-matter – her Trakenite body gives her only partial protection from radiation.

She manages to remain herself through
Divided Loyalties
, and the book provides some more information regarding her character. We learn that Nyssa has a working knowledge of bioelectronics, in addition to her knowledge of biology which is covered in the television series.

According to Big Finish, there is a very large gap between seasons nineteen and twenty, and Nyssa spends quite some time travelling alone with the Doctor before Tegan rejoins them in
Arc of Infinity
. During this time her latent telepathic powers are explored, most notably when she visits Traken’s past. She witnesses the creation of the Cybermen on a battered Mondas in
Spare Parts
. She has her first taste of romance in
Circular Time
, and is later joined in her travels with the Doctor by Thomas Brewster.

In
Empire of Death
(a
BBC Past Doctor Adventure
), Nyssa considers, as she has done many times, asking the Doctor to take her to Traken prior to its destruction. She actually asks him in the audio story
Cobwebs
but it will still be a while before he can. Like most people of Traken (often called Trakenites in the Expanded Universe) she has no knowledge of her planet’s history since she wasn’t taught this as a child, as mentioned in the audio drama
Primeval
.

In
Cobwebs
, an older Nyssa, some years after she left in
Terminus
, rejoins the Doctor, Tegan and Turlough on their travels. And in
Heroes of Sontar
she confides in Tegan that she is married to a man by the name of Lasarti and has three children called Adric, Neeka and Tegan. She implores Tegan to keep this from the Doctor in order to protect the Web of Time as it isn’t until shortly before his regeneration that he finds out that she is married (in
Winter
, a story that sees Nyssa enter the Doctor’s mindscape mere seconds before he regenerates at the end of
The Caves of Androzani
).