Companions: Fifty Years of Doctor Who Assistants (32 page)

Ace’s Timeline #3: Ground Zero

Ace’s final timeline is an odd one. After years of featuring in the comic strips of
Doctor Who Magazine
in her
New Adventures
persona, she returns to the strip in a story called
Ground Zero
. In this story she is back to her television persona, travelling with an older Seventh Doctor, looking much as he did in the
Television Movie
of 1996. This creates all kind of placement issues in itself, but none so much as the resolution of the story. In the most dramatic moment of the entire five parts, Ace attacks the alien Lorbi with the Doctor’s umbrella and a can of nitro-9. She destroys the Lobri, and in so doing kills herself for her ‘Professor’, leading to the tragic shot of the Doctor on his knees cradling the dead Ace in his arms.

For a Doctor with such a long life in the Expanded Universe, it is no shock to learn that he has more than his fair share of companions beyond the television show. Some have been mentioned above, but here’s a quick rundown of the more interesting among them.

The first Expanded Universe companion is Olla, the heat vampire, who appears in the comic strips
A Cold Day in Hell
and
Redemption
. Over in the books, after Bernice joins, and Ace leaves, rejoins and leaves again, comes Chris Cwej and Roz Forrester, two adjudicators (policemen) from thirtieth century Earth. They remain with the Doctor for the latter half of the
New Adventures
, although Roz dies in
So Vile a Sin
and Chris goes on to appear now and then in Bernice’s own
New Adventures
series.

In the audio plays, as mentioned, Ace and the Doctor are joined by Hex. Although he apparently dies, certainly from Ace’s point of view, he continues to live on in the netherworld of Elder Gods alongside Weyland and Fenric. Next up are Sally and Lysandra, also mentioned previously, who joined the Doctor in the Black TARDIS while Ace and Hex travelled with the Doctor in the White TARDIS. When the TARDISes were combined back into the normal blue Police Box, Sally and Lysandra remain with Ace and Hex, and were there when Hex apparently sacrifices himself to stop Fenric.

The Doctor is later joined by Doctor Elizabeth Klein, a Nazi scientist from an alternative Earth. The Doctor insists she travel with him to prevent her causing trouble to established history, preferring to keep an eye on her.

The Doctor’s most well-known Expanded Universe companion is, without doubt, ‘Professor’ Bernice Summerfield. Introduced in
Love and War
in 1993, she went on to travel with the Doctor until
Happy Endings
in 1996. She returns several times after, most notably in
The Dying Days
and becomes the first companion to meet the Eighth Doctor; at the end the Doctor drops her off to the planet Dellah where she finally becomes a real professor and begins teaching archaeology in
Oh No It Isn’t! –
that is, when she is sober enough. This series of
New Adventures
continues until October 1999 with the publication of
Twilight of the Gods
. But even the cancellation of that series does not keep Bernice down, and Big Finish picks up her story. They had already been adapting some of the books since 1998, but in December 2000 a brand new series of adventures began with
The Secret of Cassandra
. The series still continues today, occasionally featuring other
Doctor Who
elements, including the regular character of Irving Braxiatel, who was first introduced in the novel
Theatre of War
in 1994. Braxiatel is noteworthy because not only is he a Time Lord, a younger version of him appearing in the Big Finish
Gallifrey
series alongside companions Leela and Romana, but he is mentioned in the television series obliquely in
City of Death
in 1979. Like her or hate her, no one can deny the popularity of Bernice Summerfield. She is to the Expanded Universe what Sarah Jane Smith is to the television series; the longest running and, probably, most commercially successful companion ever. Twenty years on, Bernice continues…

The Eig
ht
h
Doctor

Paul McGann

‘I love humans. They always see patterns in things that aren't there.’

The Doctor
– Television Movie

Not unlike the Seventh Doctor, the Eighth’s life existed primarily in print and audio. After the failed
Television Movie
of 1996, starring Paul McGann as the Eighth Doctor, the BBC decided to take back the licence they had given to Virgin Publishing since 1991.

And so, from 1997 to 2005, they published an ongoing series of novels collectively known as the
Eighth Doctor Adventures
. Initially they appeared to be a little ‘dumbed down’ from the more mature tone of the
New Adventures
published by Virgin, but soon much of the
New Adventures
continuity continued forward into the
Eighth Doctor Adventures
and the tone returned to the previous level of maturity. Due to copyright issues, Grace Holloway, the would-have-been-companion from the
Television Movie
was unable to be used and so the BBC had to create brand new companions for the Eighth Doctor – the first of whom was Samantha Jones. Four more companions followed. But this was only the beginning. Over at Big Finish Productions, things were moving in place to bring Paul McGann back to perform further stories as the Eighth Doctor, and new, exclusive to audio, companions would be needed, but more on that later.

In Prose

First we shall take a look at the initial three print companions, to demonstrate the differing extremes the Eighth Doctor was faced with. There seems to be a trend, at the beginning of the
Eight Doctor Adventures
, to echo the origins of the television series. Sam Jones, for instance, bumps into the Doctor in the junkyard at Totter’s Lane and goes to Coal Hill School, much like Ian, Barbara and Susan in the very first television episode,
An Unearthly Child
, while the next companion, Fitz Kreiner, comes from 1963, the year
Doctor Who
began. The third companion, however, breaks the mould, in more ways than one and, intentionally or not, paves the way for concepts that will be seen in the revived series launched in 2005…

Samantha Jones
(
The Eight Doctors
to
Longest Day
, and
Dreamstone Moon
to
Interference, Book Two
)

The first companion of the Eighth Doctor (in prose, at least; Izzy Sinclair beat Sam by eight months, appearing in October 1996 in the comic strip of
Doctor Who Magazine
), Sam first appears in June 1997 and departs in August 1999, featuring in twenty-five novels. In many ways she sets the bar for all female companions that will follow, especially those featured in
Doctor Who
since its revival in March 2005.

Sam first comes to the Doctor’s attention when she is trying to hide from school drug dealers who believe she has grassed on them; she hides in the junkyard at Totter’s Lane and the Doctor arrives, saving her from the criminals. Before she really speaks to him he rushes off in the TARDIS, to appear moments later. Sam enters the TARDIS to avoid questions from the police, and the Doctor tells her he will take her on one trip only. At this time Sam is only sixteen, and a bit of an activist, having taken part in campaigns to save whales, to stop animal experiments and defend gay rights. She is also a vegetarian. A clean living girl, she is initially a bit out of her depth in the Doctor’s world, and he drops her off at a Greenpeace rally while he travels for a further three years (with other companions). She remains with the Doctor for ten to eleven months initially, and is faced with the reality of war when she meets the Daleks in
War of the Daleks
, forcing her to re-think her own ideals, ‘It’s easy to be anti-war when you’re not stuck in the middle of one.’ Sam always maintains a strong sense of right and wrong throughout her early travels, but finds holding onto such ideals more and more difficult the longer she is with the Doctor (not unlike Donna during the 2008 series). For example, in
Longest Day,
she beats herself senseless rather than shoot two rebels on the planet Hirath. During her initial travels she finds herself falling in love with the Doctor – building on a concept initially hinted at with Grace in the
Television Movie
, and further explored in the Big Finish series with Charley Pollard, and later in the revived television series, in particular with Rose, Martha and Amy.

In
Longest Day
, while performing CPR on the Doctor, Sam finds herself kissing him passionately. Worried about what might happen between her and the Doctor, Sam runs from him. She returns a couple of novels later, but misses the Doctor by a hair’s breath, and ends up on the planet Ha’olan in
Seeing I
. She spends three years there, working out her feelings for the Doctor. When they finally meet again, Sam, now aged twenty-one, kisses the Doctor but feels no passion or need to do it again – it seems that she is over him. Nonetheless they continue travelling together, first just the two of them, but later with Fitz Kreiner, who develops his own thing for Sam. She doesn’t reciprocate, but in
Unnatural History
this changes for a short while when Sam is erased from history and replaced by ‘Dark’ Sam. It transpires that Sam was never meant to travel with the Doctor; indeed she should have remained on Earth living a hard life from a London bedsit – a life of drugs, sex and work, the complete opposite to the Sam the Doctor knows. This Dark Sam continues to live while Sam is off with the Doctor. A dimensional scar tears through San Francisco, a result of the events seen in the
Television Movie
, and when Dark Sam falls into it the scar’s biodata is split in two, rippling back in time to create another version of Sam. In effect, Sam creates herself.

Intentionally or not, Sam continues to have links to the various other media of
Doctor Who
. In the novel
Revolution Man
she uses the alias ‘Evelyn Smith’, which is curiously close to the name of Big Finish companion Evelyn Smythe, who does not appear for another year. Her contact with her parents is another interesting link, later echoed in the revived television series. For several years she sends them postcards to reassure them she is OK and well, simply travelling. And, in
Interference
she works alongside Sarah Jane Smith, eventually leaving to live with Sarah a year before she even meets the Doctor. It echoes, in some respects, Sarah’s offer to Rose in the television episode
School Reunion
, only in the book series Sam and Sarah remain life-long friends. Sam even attends Sarah’s funeral at some point in the future. There is one final link between Sam and the revived television series, in the shape of Martha Jones. Not only do they share the same surname, but when Martha goes undercover to the Pharm in the
Torchwood
episode
Reset
, she uses the alias Samantha Jones.

Fitzgerald ‘Fitz’ Kreiner
(
The Taint
to
Ancestor Cell
, and
Escape Velocity
to
The Gallifrey Chronicles
)

Not only is Fitz the second companion of the Eighth Doctor, he features in fifty novels, from February 1998 to June 2005, making him the longest serving companion of any medium. Between him and Sam, they cover all but six of the
Eighth Doctor Adventures
. Such is his popularity that he even appears in one Big Finish audio play in the 2009 collection,
The Company of Friends: Fitz’s Story
.

When the Doctor meets Fitz, he is twenty-seven years old and working as a florist in his native time of 1963, having dodged National Service. In his spare time he is a guitarist – a very good one – and plays as Fitz Fortune, in an effort to hide his German ancestry (his father is of German descent). He plays on the role of a struggling artist with a ‘gammy’ leg to gain the sympathy of his audience. He is a heavy smoker, although he does give up once or twice, but never for long, and loves his tea and coffee. His mother, Muriel, lives in a care home but dies as a result of the Benelisa programme, which the Doctor has a hand in. Fitz initially holds this against the Doctor, but eventually comes to terms with it and joins the Doctor and Sam (Sam is not too happy about this at first), as he is now a fugitive wanted for a murder he did not commit. When first meeting Sam he tries to seduce her, and his interest continues for some time, until he is eventually able to bed Dark Sam in
Unnatural History
. His strong libido stays with him throughout his travels and he has many liaisons with several women, but only falls in love with one – Filippa in
Parallel 59
, who he always considers his one true love.