Companions: Fifty Years of Doctor Who Assistants (34 page)

She is nineteen and from Blackpool, 2006. She doesn’t smoke, although seems very knowledgeable about indoor lamps, of the sort used for growing cannabis. She has always been close to her Aunt Pat, and when it is revealed in
The Zygon Who Fell to Earth
that the Pat she knew is in fact a Zygon, who used to be Pat’s dead husband Trevor, the Doctor keeps it from her. This secret comes back to haunt both the Doctor and Lucie in
Death in Blackpool
, and is the sole reason she leaves him.

The reason behind her placement in ‘temporal witness protection’ is revealed in
Human Resources
, when Straxus, a Time Lord working for the High Council, explains that he is the one who placed Lucie in the TARDIS after having learned that the CIA (the Celestial Intervention Agency of Gallifrey) have been manipulating her life, believing she will eventually become a dictator in Europe. It turns out, though, that they are mistaken and it is in fact Karen, another young woman who goes for the same job as Lucie. Once this is all revealed, Lucie isn’t sure she wants to remain with the Doctor, but comes to the realisation that she actually enjoys his company, and the somewhat irreverent relationship they have. However she only agrees to continue their travels after he first admits that he, too, enjoys her company.

Lucie parts from the Doctor for several weeks after he apparently plummets to his death from the balcony of Morbius’ palace. She returns home, believing the Doctor to be dead, crying for days as she tries to accept this. She is targeted by an alien Headhunter, and meets the Doctor again on the planet Orbis – six-hundred years having passed for him and he has forgotten who he is. A slap from Lucie restores his memories, due to the chronon particles on Lucie’s fingertips. They resume their travels, once again falling into their usual banter and mutual teasing.

On their travels Lucie encounters many foes from the Doctor’s past, especially those who encountered him during his first three incarnations, including Daleks, the Monk, Cybermen, Morbius, the Krynoids and the Giant Spiders of Metebelis Three. It is in encountering the latter that Lucie shows her real strength when her body is taken over by the Eight Legs’ Queen (much like Sarah was in
Planet of the Spiders
). She struggles against the Queen and learns of her secret link to a Gallifreyan remote stellar manipulator, inside which the Queen has created a virtual space. Lucie is able to take her own mind there, and use it to contact the Doctor. To save Lucie and stop the Eight Legs, the Doctor transfers Lucie’s mind into the TARDIS’ telepathic circuits, before using a blue crystal from Metebelis Three to return Lucie’s mind to her own body.

Lucie’s faith in the Doctor is shattered when they spend Christmas 2009 in Blackpool with her Aunt Pat. She finally discovers the truth about Pat. Although she understands the reason behind the deceit, after Zygon-Pat dies, Lucie finds she cannot forgive the Doctor for the lie and leaves him, deciding to travel around Europe for a time.

At some point in 2010 Lucie joins the Monk (last seen on television in 1965’s
The Daleks’ Masterplan
), after responding to an ad he placed in a paper for a new companion for the Doctor. It is uncertain how much time they spend together, but she goes on record as saying he is a ‘homicidal maniac’ and he kicks her out after she refuses to allow him to retroactively kill someone by ensuring said person is never born. She joins the Doctor once again, but only because he promises to give her a better Christmas than the one she had the previous year.

They spend time with Susan, the Doctor’s granddaughter, and Alex, his great-grandson, whom Lucie becomes particularly fond of. Lucie returns to Alex’s native time, the late twenty-second century, and travels Europe with him to see how humanity has rebuilt following the defeat of the Daleks in 2164 (
The Dalek Invasion of Earth
). While in Thailand a sickness breaks out, engineered by the Daleks. Lucie contracts the sickness, and although it does not kill her, it does cause her to lose an eye and cripples her. Realising she needs the Doctor’s help, she summons him back to Earth but he arrives too late – Earth is once again occupied by the Daleks and Lucie, Alex and Susan have joined resistance fighters. Alex is killed by the Daleks while placing a bomb – an incident that leads Lucie to commit herself to a suicide mission that will save the Earth. She flies a Dalek saucer to the core of the planet and destroys the Daleks’ time warp engine – killing herself in the process. Her death drives the Doctor to realise that he has always been too easy on the Daleks, and is determined to take the war to them (possibly leading to the Last Great Time War – the results of which are felt throughout the revived television series from 2005 onwards). He vows that one day, regardless of the Web of Time, he will travel back and prevent Lucie’s death…

Other companions created for Big Finish audio plays include Charley Pollard, C’rizz, Gemma & Samson Griffin, Mary Shelley, Tamsin Drew and Molly O’Sullivan.

Charlotte ‘Charley’ Pollard features in twenty-eight radio plays with the Eighth Doctor (
Storm Warning
[2001] to
The Girl Who Never Was
[2007] and returns for
Solitaire
[2010]), and again with the Sixth Doctor (
The Condemned
[2008] to
Blue Forgotten Planet
[2009]). She is a self-professed Edwardian Adventuress, and is saved from the destruction of the airship R101 by the Doctor in 1930. It transpires that she was supposed to die, and as a result she becomes a temporal anomaly, and is used by the Neverpeople of the Anti-time Universe to break through into the normal universe. The Doctor refuses to sacrifice Charley in order to save the universe. Charley develops a deep romantic love for the Doctor, but learns to accept that these feelings will never truly be reciprocated. For a time she travels with C’rizz, and after his death she asks the Doctor to take her home, however she becomes stranded in the year 500,002. She holds onto the hope that the Doctor survived, and will return for her, but when the TARDIS does finally arrive it brings with it the Sixth Doctor. To preserve the Web of Time, Charley has to pretend not to know him. They travel together through several adventures before Charley is infected with a virus which enables an entity called Mila to shift Charley out of phase and take her place by the Doctor’s side. After Mila sacrifices herself to save Earth, Charley reveals her secret to the Doctor. Still believing that he will ultimately die as a consequence of knowing her, she uses memory-altering technology to convince the Doctor that he only ever travelled with Mila and not Charley.

C’rizz travels with the Doctor for fourteen adventures (
The Creed of the Kromon
[2004] to
Absolution
[2007]). He is a Eutermesan from Bortresoye in the Divergent Universe, and joins the Doctor and Charley after he is forced to kill his wife who has been genetically altered by the Kromon. He is still with them when they finally break free into the real universe again, and continues with them for a further series of adventures, all the while seeking the Doctor’s help in fixing his emotional wounds. Like all Eutermaseans he is an emotional chameleon, and is subject to the moods of those around him. He dies after being granted incredible psychic powers, which exhaust him and turn his body to dust.

Gemma and Samson Griffin only actually appear in one audio story (
Terror Firma
[2005]) and a couple of short stories. They meet the Doctor in Folkestone Library and follow him into the TARDIS. They have several adventures, and are left in 1816 while the Doctor investigates a distress call. They resume their travels with the Doctor, after he travels with Mary Shelley, until they arrive on the time cruiser, Nekkistani, where they meet Davros (who takes control of their minds). He attempts to use Samson against the Doctor, but once beaten, the Doctor frees Samson from the Daleks’ control. The Doctor continues his travels with Charley and C’rizz once Samson and Gemma have been reunited.

Mary Shelley appears in four audio adventures (
Mary’s Story
[2009] to
Army of Death
[2011]). She meets the Doctor in 1816, seeing him apparently coming back to life (no doubt inspiring aspects of
Frankenstein
), and joins him in his travels for an unknown period of time. She leaves him eventually after an encounter with the Bone Lord, and realises she is fearful of the Doctor’s one constant companion, death.

Tamsin Drew appears in seven audio adventures (
Situation Vacant
[2010] to
To the Death
[2011]). She meets the Doctor by answering an ad for a new companion. We later discover that the ad has actually been placed by the Monk. She fails in her audition, but is later saved since the other contenders want to join him for nefarious purposes. They have several adventures together before arriving on the Martian moon, Deimos. She leaves the Doctor because he will not sacrifice Lucie to save thousands of humans on Mars, and takes up travelling with the Monk who convinces her that the Doctor is evil. During the Daleks’ second invasion of Earth, she discovers the part the Monk plays in the invasion and sides with the Doctor, Lucie, Susan and Alex. Like so many of the Eighth Doctor’s companions she, too, is killed, after sacrificing her life to save the Earth.

Molly O’Sullivan features in the four audio adventures that comprise the
Dark Eyes
tetralogy on 2012. Hailing from Ireland, Molly is a Voluntary Aid Detachment nursing assistant in France during the First World War. She calls the TARDIS a Tardy-Box, and constantly refers to the Doctor as ‘the Doctor’ instead of simply ‘Doctor’. Following an old running gag from television, Molly believes Gallifrey is in Ireland, and constantly refers to it as ‘Galilee’. She is something of a mystery initially, having eyes darker than anyone on Earth, and recognising the TARDIS interior the first time she enters, as if she has been in there before.

In Comics

Although the novels and audios are largely regarded as the primary source material for the Eighth Doctor’s adventures (even though both have gone to great lengths to say that each range exists in parallel universes to each other), there is, as with all the other Doctors, a third source of material. The comic strip from
Doctor Who Magazine
which ran from 1996 to 2005.

Throughout this run the Doctor is accompanied by a plethora of companions, including the first legitimate LGBT companion, Izzy Sinclair, who is introduced in 1996 – nine years before the arrival of Jack Harkness on television. For a period she switches bodies with Destrii, an amphibious alien, but is eventually restored to her human form and returned to Earth in the exact same moment she leaves. Like Fitz, she also appears in one audio play from Big Finish, in 2009’s
The Company of Friends: Izzy’s Story
.

Fey Truscott-Sade is an undercover agent for the British government, encountering the Doctor off-panel, and is later used by the Threshold against the Doctor. Along the way she temporarily merges with the alien entity called Shayde, to become Feyde. She resumes her service for the British government, often working alongside Shayde. There is also a short-lived romance between Izzy and Fey, but it is never made clear if she is a lesbian or bi-sexual.

Kroton is one of the more unusual companions ever – a Cyberman who has retained his emotions. He first appears in a back-up strip of
Doctor Who Weekly
in 1979, returning once the following year. This soulful Cyberman is never forgotten, however, and he returns again in 1999 in
Doctor Who Magazine
in a story that sees him battling Sontarans. He joins the Doctor and Izzy later that year in
The Company of Thieves
in
issue #284
, and remains with them until
issue #296
and the final instalment of
The Glorious Dead
. He left the Doctor and Izzy to become the new centre of the Omniversal Spectrum.

The only other comic companions that count, in so much as they cross stories, are Stacy Townsend and Ssard. They begin their lives in the pages of
Radio Times
(1996-1997), and later feature in the 1998 novel
The Placebo Effect
. Stacy meets the Doctor after the Cybermen have attacked her space haulage freighter and converted her fiancé, Bill. She joins the Doctor on his travels, and later meets Ssard on Mars, who, after dealing with the treachery of High Lord Artix, accepts the Doctor’s offer of a holiday. Stacy and Ssard leave the Doctor at the same time, and eventually become engaged. Later, they invite the Doctor to their wedding, and he attends with Sam Jones.