Companions: Fifty Years of Doctor Who Assistants (16 page)

After the hi-tech sandminer, the Doctor takes her to Victorian London (
The Talons of Weng-Chiang
), almost as if he is showing her the vastly different worlds she can expect to see on her travels – an echo of the smaller world inhabited by the savage Sevateem and the technologically advanced Tesh. She finds knickerbockers very uncomfortable, but it is almost certain she chose them when the Doctor insisted she get out of animal skins – knickerbockers enable a huntress like Leela to hide her blowpipe and Janis thorns – since walking around in skins in Victorian London would ‘frighten the horses’. She believes the Doctor is trying to annoy her, having no interest in the historical teachings the Doctor is trying to impart. She is somewhat indifferent to learning about her ancestors at this point, but later in
Image of the Fendahl
she finds that she doesn’t like the way the Doctor tends to insult them. She has very little concern for the intricacies of nineteenth century police procedure, and when a coolie, who attacks the Doctor, is being questioned unsuccessfully, she steps forward, growling, ‘make him talk’, quite intent on doing so herself. The idea of Victorian propriety is lost on her and she is not fazed even slightly by the autopsy conducted by Professor Litefoot and is amused by the deference he shows her. The Doctor attempts to explain Leela away by saying he found her ‘floating down the river in a hatbox’. She is fascinated by Litefoot’s pipe smoking; wondering why he makes smoke from his mouth. The Doctor explains they do not have tobacco where Leela comes from, a fact Litefoot finds to be rather dull yet he soon becomes fascinated by the savage girl. He is fascinated when she attacks a joint of meat with a knife and uses her fingers. It is actually her relationship with Litefoot that teaches her about her own femininity – she loves the dress he buys for her, and clearly enjoys being treated as a lady, even though she does still happily jump through a window to give chase when Mr Sin steals the time cabinet from Litefoot’s house.

It is a great shame that when they arrive on Fang Rock, much of what she learned from Litefoot is either forgotten or discarded. She starts out in period clothing, but soon changes into more practical clothes (trousers and a jumper) at the earliest opportunity. This she does in front of the young lighthouse keeper, Vince. He is obviously embarrassed saying that such clothes are not made for ladies, ‘I’m no lady, Vince,’ she tells him. Once more she demonstrates her fierce belief in the Doctor; when he attempts to explain the situation to a group of survivors of a ship wreck, and they do not listen, she warns them to pay attention or she will cut out their hearts. She admits that she once believed in superstition, after Vince tells her about the mythical Beast of Fang Rock, but the Doctor has taught her to believe in science. At the end of
Horror of Fang Rock
, after witnessing the explosion of a Rutan ship, Leela’s eyes turn from their natural deep brown to blue – due to pigment dispersal.

The Doctor’s education of Leela seems to end at this point, for no discernible reason, as she was clearly developing – both intellectually and socially – and so when we next see her in
The Invisible Enemy
she is back in her animal skins, and both her and the Doctor seemingly accept that she will always be a savage at heart. Nonetheless, somehow she has learned to operate the TARDIS control console, despite never having seen the ‘new’ console before (up to this point she has only been in the mahogany-based secondary control room, and is introduced to the original [now redecorated] console room in
The Invisible Enemy
). This suggests that some learning happened off screen and later in
Underworld
she is seen to be still learning how to operate that TARDIS’s controls. By the time they return to Earth in
Image of the Fendahl
Leela has developed an odd bloodlust, and seems to want to kill everyone – the guards at Fetch Priory and even a man from the council. This new over-aggressive streak extends to firearms, which she is now adept at using, despite having barely touched them before in
The Talons of Weng-Chiang
. She, more than the Doctor, initially responds to K9 favourably, referring to the mobile computer as ‘he’ before the Doctor ever does.

Leela does score a first in the history of Gallifrey, being the first ‘alien’ to be allowed there. The Doctor is acting very out of character, even to the point of telling K9 to shoot Leela if she questions him again, but despite this she is convinced he has a plan, and trusts him, even when, as President of the Time Lords, the Doctor casts her out of the Capitol into the wilderness of Gallifrey. Leela’s loyalty to the Doctor convinces Rodan – the first female Gallifreyan to be seen on screen since Susan – to join Leela in the wilderness. Rodan is very out of her depth among the Outsiders, who are not unlike Leela’s tribe, but Leela protects her and teaches Rodan how to survive. When the Doctor reveals his plan – a trap for the Vardans – things get complicated when the Vardans are unveiled as dupes for the Sontaran invasion of Gallifrey. To remove the Sontaran threat, the Doctor has to assemble the ultimate Gallifreyan weapon, the DeMat Gun and trusts Leela with the Great Key of Rassilon, an almost mythical Gallifreyan artefact. The Doctor’s trust in her is a source of disconcertion for others, but shows how much stock the Doctor places in his ‘savage’. At the end of
The Invasion of Time
Leela abruptly elects to remain on Gallifrey, having chosen Andred, captain of the Capitol Guards, to be her mate. Andred doesn’t seem surprised by this, despite the fact that there is no previous indication of any such feeling between them. K9 also elects to remain behind with his ‘mistress’, leaving the Doctor to continue on his own (or not, as it turns out since the Doctor has already started building a K9 Mark II).

Nothing is ever heard of Leela again, except a mention in
Arc of Infinity
when the (Fifth) Doctor returns to Gallifrey and enquires after her, having missed her wedding. We learn nothing, save that she is still married to Andred.

As a footnote, it is interesting that in
Resurrection of the Daleks
an android duplicate of the Doctor is created by the Daleks to assassinate the High Council of the Time Lords. The duplicate needs the memories of the real Doctor, and during this memory extraction, images of
all
the Doctor’s previous companions are shown on a screen, except for Leela, the only companion who would be on Gallifrey when the duplicate arrives. We never see this attempted assassination, however, and so never learn why the Doctor failed to remember Leela. An intentional omission?

The next companion was completely different to any featured before; a mobile computer in the shape of a dog called K9. There have actually been five versions of K9 in
Doctor Who
and associated spin-offs, but they all had the same basic character. Mark I was destroyed in the first episode of the spin-off series,
K9
, in 2009, only to regenerate into a more advanced (and for the first time ever, physically different) model (see below). Mark II was left in E-space with Romana. Mark III was given to Sarah in the 1981 spin-off episode,
K9 & Company: A Girl’s Best Friend
and destroyed in the 2006 episode
School Reunion,
and replaced by a newly built Mark IV. Since neither Mark III nor Mark IV ever travelled with the Doctor, however, they are not considered companions, even though they both refer to the Doctor as ‘master’.

K9 Mark I
–
John Leeson (The Invisible Enemy
to
The Invasion of Time
and
K9
)

K9 is an advanced computer-shaped dog ‘made up’ for Professor Marius, to help him conduct advanced medical research at the Bi-Al Foundation in the year 5000. Unable to bring his own dog with him from Earth due to weight restrictions, Marius constructs K9 himself, and considers the dog his best friend. Leela particularly takes to K9, and he soon becomes very protective of her, rarely far from her side. Unable to return to Earth with K9, again due to the weight restrictions, Marius offers K9 to the Doctor, but the Doctor is uncertain about the prospect, although Leela is very keen on K9 joining them. The decision is, however, taken out of their hands, when K9 trundles into the TARDIS of his own accord.

Due to the often impractical conditions of their adventures, Leela is regularly forced to leave K9 in the TARDIS, but that doesn’t stop him from exiting the time ship if he believes his help is needed. He is smug in his attitude, believing himself superior to the TARDIS, and the Doctor never seems to quite get on with him. One suspects that the Doctor tolerates K9 for the sake of Leela (or in light of the revelation [in
The Invasion of Time
] that the Doctor has been making the Mark II while travelling with the Mark I, it might be that the Doctor merely thinks he can do a better job creating a K9 unit), who looks on K9 more as her pet than that of the Doctor’s. For a machine who claims to have no emotion, he shows a surprising amount of it, including sulking when Leela shouts at him. K9 is equally loyal to both of them, but his mood will often alter the level of his loyalty, sometimes favouring Leela over the Doctor and vice versa.

It is unsurprising that when Leela chooses to remain on Gallifrey at the end of
The Invasion of Time
, K9 decides to remain with her. As soon as the TARDIS leaves Gallifrey, the Doctor unveils a box containing the Mark II – which, as suggested by the following story (
The Ribos Operation
), he simply needs to assemble.

It is unknown how long the Mark I remains on Gallifrey, but he clearly leaves before the Time War, for he ends up in the year 50,000 and meets Zanthus Pia the head of the Galactic Peace Conference. He witnesses the murder of Zanthus by the Jixen, who escape to London in 2050. K9 follows them there and self-destructs to defeat them. Revealing a previously unknown ability, K9 uses a ‘regeneration unit’ (which is inscribed with symbols that are said to be the Doctor’s Gallifreyan name – suggesting the Doctor installed this unit at some point prior to K9’s remaining on Gallifrey) to transform his remains into a, confusingly named, Mark Two body (
K9: Regeneration
). He still remains on twenty-first century Earth working for the Department as part of the K9 Unit, defending the planet with Professor Gryffen and his friends, Starkey, Darius and Jorjie.

K9 Mark II – John Leeson & David Brierly
(
The Ribos Operation
to
Warriors’ Gate
)

The Mark II is more advanced than the original version, understandably so, the Doctor having built it. His personality, although essentially the same as before, takes on a few more of the Doctor’s values, as well as a much more obvious ironic wit. As a rule this version doesn’t kill, only stun with his nose laser, but will kill in defence if necessary. He also responds to a dog whistle, and has the ability to sense danger and the Doctor from a distance. Technologically the Doctor has made some improvements to K9 – including the ability to hover. This is not seen on screen, however, but the Eleventh Doctor, in
The Power of Three
, mentions that he had a robot dog that could hover – presumably it is the Mark II model since he was built by the Doctor.

At one point, in
The Pirate Planet
, K9 remarks that Romana is prettier than the Doctor, which means she is more likely to receive help than he is. The Doctor is not convinced, but K9 is proven right moments later. As with his predecessor, the Mark II insists he feels nothing, but his actions and responses often belie that assertion, as seen when taking pride in correcting the Doctor in
The Ribos Operation
. He finds organic life forms unpredictable, and is glad to have a conversation with the super-computer, Mentalis, in
The Armageddon Factor
. For a short spell he is turned against the Doctor by the Shadow, an agent of the Black Guardian, but the Doctor is able to restore him to normal. K9 assists the Doctor and Romana in tracking down the Key to Time, after which a very strange thing happens to him. K9, a robot, contracts laryngitis! Whether K9 actually possesses a larynx or not is explored later in
The Creature from the Pit
when Erato, the Tyhthonian ambassador, uses K9 as a medium by which to speak – Erato doesn’t possess a larynx and can only communicate verbally by using the larynxes of others. Thus, K9 must have a larynx! As a consequence of his laryngitis K9 is temporarily grounded in the TARDIS (
Destiny of the Daleks
and
City of Death
), unable to speak, but when his voice returns it has changed. His usual voice eventually returns in
The Leisure Hive
for reasons unknown, although he doesn’t get to use it very much as his lack of waterproofing causes him to malfunction when he chases a beach ball into the sea at Brighton Beach.

Mark II K9 remains in E-space, the Exo-space/time continuum, with Romana. Damaged by the time winds, it is revealed that if K9 were to return to N-Space, the Normal-space/time continuum, he would no longer function, so he remains with Romana to help free the time-sensitive Tharils. It is assumed that both Romana and K9 eventually escape E-space since K9 is left with a complete knowledge of how to build a TARDIS. There has, however, never been any indication of their return shown, or hinted at, on screen.