Companions: Fifty Years of Doctor Who Assistants (51 page)

Things come to a head once more at the end of
Inferno
when the Doctor decides he is leaving Earth, having seemingly got the TARDIS console working again. He makes a point of saying he will not miss the Brigadier, but when the console sends him to a nearby rubbish tip, he returns with his tail between his legs. The Brigadier takes great pleasure in reminding the Doctor of his harsh words before agreeing to help. This pretty much encapsulates their relationship for the next couple of years – two men who have a grudging respect for each other, but are not quite friends yet. One can almost suspect that the Brigadier’s assigning of Jo Grant to the Doctor is an act of spite – faced with an agent he doesn’t know what to do with; he simply palms her off onto the Doctor. When the Doctor wants rid of her, the Brigadier refuses to accept the responsibility of telling her, and says if he wishes to ‘sack’ Miss Grant he will have to tell her himself. One might argue the arrival of Jo mellows the Doctor and smoothes relations between him and the Brigadier.

In
Day of the Daleks
the Brigadier makes it quite clear that he doesn’t believe in ghosts, a fact the Doctor enjoys mocking before explaining his scientific rationale behind such things. This kind of insight slowly changes the Brigadier’s ideals about science versus military might, as reflected in the 2012 episode
The Power of Three
when his daughter, Kate, tells the Eleventh Doctor that her father drove into her that ‘science leads’. By the time Jo makes known her intentions to leave UNIT (and the Doctor) to get married, the Doctor and Brigadier’s friendship is strong enough to keep the Doctor attached to UNIT, even though he has no reason to remain behind any more.

The two men have a similar sense of humour which is made obvious when, in
Planet of the Spiders
, the Doctor discovers, via the latent telepathic abilities of Professor Clegg that sometime ago the Brigadier had a tryst with a woman called Doris in Brighton, where she bought him a much-loved watch. The Brigadier takes the Doctor’s ribbing well, but is clearly embarrassed by such private information being revealed by a stranger. He grows used to the Doctor’s sporadic trips in the TARDIS, especially once Sarah joins him. The Brigadier is there when the Doctor undergoes his third regeneration; his reaction is a far cry from his protracted acceptance of the Third Doctor. He merely raises an eyebrow and says, ‘Well, here we go again’.

He is more amused than annoyed when the newly regenerated Fourth Doctor departs abruptly rather than give an address at Buckingham Palace.

It is in
Terror of the Zygons
that we discover that the Brigadier is of Scottish descent, of the Clan Stewart, and proudly wears a kilt while in Scotland. Shortly after the Brigadier seems to become heavily involved in the bureaucracy of UNIT business, spending an increasing amount of time away from direct command of UNIT UK. When the Doctor returns in both
The Android Invasion
and
The Seeds of Doom
, UNIT is being commanded by two replacements while the Brigadier is away in Geneva.

The Brigadier leaves UNIT in 1976, and is replaced by Colonel Crichton (as seen in
The Five Doctors
). He moves on to teaching A-level maths at Brendon Public School in 1977. He meets Tegan in
Mawdryn Undead
, during the Queen’s Silver Jubilee and becomes involved in an adventure which sees him losing much of his memory – particularly in connection with the Doctor. When the Fifth Doctor arrives at Brendon in 1983, the Brigadier totally fails to recognise him, despite the Doctor reminding him of their time at UNIT and his ability to regenerate. Eventually the Doctor jogs the Brigadier’s memory, and he accompanies the Doctor on a ship stuck in a warp ellipse. There he meets his younger self from 1977 and as they touch hands the Blinovitch Limitation Effect shorts out the time differential, causing the 1977-Brigadier to lose all memory of the Doctor.

While attending a reunion at UNIT HQ, the Brigadier is visited by the Second Doctor, who is ‘bending’ the Laws of Time, in
The Five Doctors
. They are both time-scooped to the Death Zone on Gallifrey where they have to find their way to the Dark Tower and Rassilon, the single greatest figure in Time Lord history. There the Brigadier is reunited with other incarnations of the Doctor, the Fifth, Third and First and is reacquainted with both Sarah and Tegan. He strangely ignores Turlough, however, whom he taught at Brendon previously. He also takes great pleasure in flooring the Master with a single punch, ‘how nice to see you again,’ no doubt taking out years of frustration at being beaten by the Master so many times during his UNIT days.

It is many years before the Brigadier meets the Doctor again, in a piece of flam called
Dimensions in Time.
Giving the Doctor a helicopter ride to the Greenwich Meridian, he fails to spot that he has picked up the Third Doctor but is dropping off the Sixth. The Brigadier does say, however, that he is having trouble keeping up with all the Doctors. At some point before the 1990s, he gives up teaching and leaves UNIT permanently, and marries Doris. He is called out of retirement by Geneva, being told that the Doctor is back. Doris doesn’t want him to go, but the presence of the Doctor is the deciding factor. He has to go.

In
Battlefield
, the Brigadier throws himself into the events at Carbury and rather enjoys the adventure. After reading the report of Brigadier Bambera, he assumes his replacement is a man and is a little surprised to discover that
Winifred
Bambera is a woman, although he doesn’t let any respect for the fairer sex get in the way. His awkwardness around women is emphasised in his initial bad handling of Ace, but they soon bond over her love of explosives, and work together to blow up King Arthur’s spaceship. The Brigadier, an old hand at regeneration by now, is not slightly fazed by the Doctor’s new appearance, recognising him immediately; ‘who else would it be?’ he asks with a smile. He single-handedly stands down the Destroyer, armed with only his faithful revolver and silver bullets. The Destroyer asks if the world can do no better than the Brigadier, to which he replies, ‘Probably. I just do the best I can,’ and pumps bullets into the creature. The Doctor thinks the Brigadier has been killed as a result, and states how the Brigadier was supposed to die in bed, but the Brigadier waves this away. ‘Have a little faith,’ he tells the Doctor.

Over the following years the Brigadier is made a Commander of the British Empire and becomes Sir Alistair. Shortly after this he takes on a position as UNIT’s special envoy, and is often sent overseas, especially to Peru, where he tends to get stuck quite a lot. This is evident in
The Sontaran Stratagem
when the Sontarans attempt to turn Earth into a cloning planet in 2009. The Tenth Doctor bemoans the lack of his presence. Shortly after returning from Peru he is debriefed by Major Kilburne and visited by a very old friend, Sarah Jane Smith (
The Sarah Jane Adventures: Enemy of the Bane
). Although they haven’t seen each other in a long time, they have kept in contact and the Brigadier often pulls strings at UNIT whenever Sarah needs help (in such stories as
SJA: Invasion of the Bane
and
SJA: Revenge of the Slitheen
). By the time of Sarah’s wedding and later when a faux funeral for the Doctor is arranged, the Brigadier is back in Peru and thus unable to attend.

Tragedy finally strikes at some point around 2012 when the Eleventh Doctor makes a phone call to speak to the Brigadier, only to discover the old soldier died peacefully in his bed, as the Seventh Doctor had previously anticipated. The nurse to whom the Doctor speaks informs him that the Brigadier always talked of the Doctor, and kept a small glass of brandy ready for him. The news hits the Doctor hard, and is enough to convince him to face his own death in
The Wedding of River Song
.

Their long-standing friendship inspires the Brigadier’s daughter, who goes on to be a lead scientist in UNIT (now renamed the UNified Intelligence Taskforce), and she forces the old organisation to reform with scientists taking the lead and not the military. Kate Stewart (having dropped the ‘Lethbridge’ so as not to curry favour), finally meets the Doctor sometime after her father’s death in
The Power of Three
. (In the apocryphal video/novel
Downtime
she previously meets Sarah in 1996, and we learn Kate also has a son, Gordy, named after her father. But it is important to note that none of this is referenced in the parent show). She explains why she changed UNIT, what her father taught her, and how he had ‘learned that from an old friend’. When they part she tells the Doctor that he really is as remarkable as her father said, and kisses him. ‘A kiss from a Lethbridge-Stewart – that’s new!’ the Doctor says, beaming.

Although Brigadier Sir Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart has passed, his name lives on with his daughter, and she makes an appearance in the anniversary special in November 2013, honouring her dad along the way…

After
w
ord

Back in 1995 when Mark Stammers and I wrote the book Doctor Who: Companions, we had just twenty-six years of
Doctor Who
on telly to contend with. So thirty-two television companions, a handful from films, stage plays, and other media, and that was it. It was a great book to write and research, talking to many of the actors and actresses, and scouring photo libraries for unseen pictures of the cast as they were in the series, and as they appeared outside of the show.

Since then we have met many more friends of the Doctor: Grace, Rose, Mickey, Martha, Donna and so, so many more. Not to mention a plethora in novels, novellas, comic strips and elsewhere! The television series has also changed focus with the times, putting the companion centre-stage and throwing the Doctor into mysterious shadow. So the subject was ripe for re-exploration.

In a way, we are all companions of the Doctor. Observing and participating vicariously in his adventures. Expressing opinions and asking important questions, journeying to far flung places and times, and feeling the excitement and terror that those visits bring. And with writers like Andy to guide us, we are in good hands.

Hopefully, in another eighteen years, there will be even more Companions to discuss and explore, and more adventures with the Doctor in time and space.

David J Howe, May 2013

With
Thanks

It’s always said that no book is written by one person. This is doubly true of this book. I had the help and support of some great people, and they deserve thanks for their help, because without them this book would not be half the book it is.

For help with research and answering my barrage of questions, I thank
Doctor Who
experts (in no particular order), David Howe, Gary Russell, Paul Scoones, Paul Simpson, John Dorney, Joe Lidster, David McIntee, Justin Richards, Keith Topping, Martin Day, Mark Michalowski, and Steve Lyons.

Special thanks go to the team at Candy Jar Books for going beyond the call of duty in putting this all together: Shaun Russell, Hayley Cox, Richard Kelly, Jake Rudge, Rose Wildlake, Terry Cooper, Rebecca Lloyd James, Charles Lax, and Justin Chaloner.

Personal thanks for general support and interest goes to my family, as ever, and Phillip Archer, Jay Hartman, Katie Riggs, Jolene Ferries, Jack Adams, Lukus Therneau, Tom Webster, Luke Spillane, Owen and Damien (our very own Russell Howard) Moran, Rebecca Flower, Elizabeth Medeiros, Kristian Barry, Gareth Starling & Jason Godden, Merlin Cryer, Christian Mansell, Tom Sanford, Jon Cooper, James Beale, John Davies, Steve Roberts, Trudi Topham, JR Southall, Christopher Bryant, Sharon Bidwell, Prakash Bakrania, and Simon Williams.

And, of course, special thanks go to Joseph W Quintana; you will always be ‘so much more’.

Refer
ences

Doctor Who
(BBC Television, 1963-2013)

Doctor Who Magazine
(Marvel, Panini, 1979-2013)

The Encyclopaedia of the Worlds of Doctor Who
by David Saunders (Knight Books, 1989)

Doctor Who Novels
(Virgin Publishing, BBC Books, 1991-2013)

The DisContinuity Guide
by Paul Cornell, Martin Day and Keith Topping (Virgin Publishing, 1995)

Doctor Who Audios
(BBC Audio, Big Finish, 1996-2013)

A History of the Universe
by Lance Parkin (Virgin Publishing, 1996)

Doctor Who: The Television Companion
by David J Howe & Stephen James Walker (BBC Books, 1998)

I, Who 1, 2 & 3
by Lars Pearson (Mad Norwegian Press, 2003)

Doctor Who: The New Audio Adventures
–
The Inside Story
by Benjamin Cook (Big Finish, 2004)

Doctor Who: The Inside Story
by Gary Russell (BBC Books, 2006)

Torchwood
(BBC Television, 2007-2010)

Inside the Hub
by Stephen James Walker (Telos Publishing, 2007)

The Sarah Jane Adventures
(Children’s BBC Television, 2008-2012)

Doctor Who: The Encyclopaedia
by Gary Russell (BBC Books, 2012)

The Comic Strip Companion
by Paul Scoones (Telos Publishing, 2012)

TARDIS Data Core (www.tardis.wikia.com)