Read Online Companions: Fifty Years of Doctor Who Assistants by Andy Frankham-Allen - Free Book Online Page A

Jamie reverts to a feral state, to the point where he attacks Peri – like an animal protecting its lair. He accepts the Sixth Doctor with ease. Even though the explanation makes little sense to Jamie he doesn’t question it any further. He enjoys a good rapport with the Sixth Doctor, and becomes a little protective of Peri, much like he had once had been with Victoria and Zoe. He is last seen departing in the TARDIS with the Second Doctor, but not before giving Peri a quick peck on the cheek.
     
    The teenage daughter of wealthy scientist, Edward Waterfield, Victoria was from 1866 and was very much a girl of her time. Well educated both academically and in the subject of manners and propriety.
     
    Victoria Waterfield – Deborah Watling ( The Evil of the Daleks to Fury from the Deep )
     
    Victoria first meets Jamie while being held captive by the Daleks ( The Evil of the Daleks ), to ensure the continued assistance of her father and his associate Theodore Maxtible. She is understandably almost hysterical with fear, isolated with only the occasional appearance of a Dalek for company (it comes in barking orders at her, asking her to repeat her name constantly; an abject lesson in creating terror in a person). Even through her fear she continues to feed the birds that land on the sill of her cell window, despite repeated orders not to do so. It is as if she considers them the only contact she still has with a world she does understand. Her fear is not helped once Jamie and Kemel rescue her, since they are, for a time, barricaded in the cell. Later she and Kemel are transferred to Skaro in the distant future which Victoria has some difficulty accepting, but not as much as when Kemel is later killed. Death seems to follow her a lot and her father is also killed by the Daleks on Skaro, but not before he asks the Doctor to take care of Victoria for him.
    Victoria accepts the Doctor’s offer to join the TARDIS crew, with little other choice, since she is now an orphan, cut off and far from home. She is somewhat surprised by the TARDIS, and laughs at the idea that it is a time machine, having no knowledge of the experiments in time travel her own father conducted. Her laughter soon turns to concern when she realises just how old the Doctor is. This concern becomes even more evident when she tells him he probably needs rest being ‘so old’. The Doctor, however, rebuffs this as he is quite sprightly really.
    Victoria changes into clothes she considers far too short, until the Doctor points out that Jamie’s kilt is not much different (although by The Enemy of the World she dons an even shorter skirt and calls it ‘elegant’, showing her acceptance of the new life she is living). This nineteenth century mindset continues with her for some time, but she still maintains an inquisitive mind, no doubt as encouraged by her father (as witnessed by her knowledge of science in The Abominable Snowmen ) and evident in her dealings with the crew of the rocket that brings the archaeological team to Telos ( The Tomb of the Cybermen ) . She talks down to them a lot, probably in the same manner she would have adopted speaking to servants back home – it is telling that she doesn’t show the same attitude to the archaeologists themselves.
    Although a product of her time, Victoria does show a surprising level of bravery, even when being held at gunpoint she holds her own and later stands up to Donald Bruce, the thuggish head of security for the World Zone Authority in The Enemy of the World . It appears she has been trained in firearms, or she is a very lucky shot, since she manages to hit a Cybermat with her first shot.
    She often demonstrates a wide knowledge of academic subjects, including the sciences and geology, but she hasn’t heard of the London Underground even though it existed in her native time. She is not afraid to lie if the situation requires it, for example when she professes knowledge of cooking, when it is clear she has