I was looking into a few past companions that I didn't know much about and was rather taken by the sad story of Dodo Chaplet.

I've now watched her final scene in The War Machines and the rather rushed explanation from Polly at the end of the story as to why she was not returning. It does feel like a particularly brutal departure.

I know there are other companions who didn't get a goodbye scene, such as Liz Shaw and Romana 1, but at least they departed between seasons. Poor old Dodo was booted out mid-way through a story, virtually mid-sentence.

Does anyone have any insight into this one? It feels very negative.

If you think that's bad, the standalone novel Who Killed Kennedy? has no mercy on her. She basically loses her mind, ends up murdered by the Master's request, and the only people who attend her funeral are the Doctor and her lover. That's mean.

Man, that is COLD.

Producer interference:


~ Jackie Lane

https://drwhointerviews.wordpress.co...kie-lane-1988/

Not only that but also Dodo was homeless at the start of the novel, having suffered a nervous breakdown after the WOTAN affair, was plagued by frightening memories of the Wild West and weird shaggy one-eyed creatures. She'd been in and out of hospitals, been given electroshock therapy, been attacked by other patients and eventually ended up on the streets. It may not be strictly canon, but never has a companion been treated so harshly.

Oh I'd never heard that! I completely understand where Jackie was coming from, seeing as Dodo's 'exit' was the most pathetic in Who history. (Didn't know about the novel either; Did The Master quip that she was as dead as a....)

Grating, stupid introduction with difficult to place accent at the end of 'The Massacre...' aside, I'm quite fond of Dodo. Thought she worked well with the often underrated Steven Taylor in stories I enjoy revisiting like 'The Ark' and 'The Gunfighters' (I'll add 'The Savages' now that I've seen the recon.) She was plucky, had a sense of humour and never got on my nerves particularly, whereas Susan and Victoria certainly did at times.

So, dreadful introduction (she doesn't even notice the phone box that she wants to use is quite roomy) and non-existent exit aside, Dodo was okay!

eta Just read adams66's post. Bimey; poor kid! In my own 'canon' she settled down and went into work as an agent, specialising in voice over work. Take that, you 'edgy' Doctor Who novelists!

Quite agree Michael Dodo did grow on me as she went along. I really liked her in the Gunfighters.
I feel for Jackie Lane -her character comes from out of nowhere really, with a very loose connection to an ancestor Anne Chaplet and disappears without a goodbye.

Even Katarina, who we didn't know that long had a nobility with her heroic death. However you can see in the War Machines that as Polly and Ben get very strong bubbly introductions her character is side-lined and she tales on the mantle of a victim taken over by WOTAN.
Not the show' finest moment

Ben and Polly got a similar exit too. Seemed at the time they were struggling finding the right actors to replace the Ian and Barbara characters.There was a lot of turnover until it settled down with the 2nd doctor Jamie, Victoria and later Zoe.

She never bothered you? She bugged the heck out of me. She had quite the ignoble exit, but, to me it was befitting of her character. I just never cared for her in the slightest. To me, she was just a flibbertigibbet.

Sounds like all that was piled on for the shock value, to be honest. Anyway, if it's not on TV then as far as I'm concerned it never happened.

It all worked well within the context of the book actually. Who Killed Kennedy is one of the more entertaining Who books in my opinion - it quite neatly weaves it's story around events that happened during the Pertwee era.

For example the narrator of the book turns out to be the reporter that the hospital porter calls in part one of Spearhead From Space, and there are all sorts of little touches like that which connect with the early 70s stories.

Dodo's plight is shocking but didn't, to me anyway, seem like it was put there only for shock value. Within the novel it comes across as a potentially realistic depiction of what could happen to a vulnerable young woman if she'd been whisked off to space, constantly scared, chased, shot at, brainwashed, and abandoned back on Earth. I mean, how well would you or I cope with such a scenario?

I like the Dodo character. Plucky, spunky and fun. Maybe a bit of a generic teenager, but they have a go at rooting her in the "here and now" of the 60s. She's great fun in the Ark and the Gunfighters, and has loads to do in The Savages. In fact, she should have been left running that planet, not Stephen.

This was a big time of upheaval in DW. Plenty of format changes and a sense that they're making it up as they go along and haven't quite thought things through. Maureen O'Brien was sacked as Vicki and they don't seem to have thought through the Katarina character. Dodo appears out of nowhere then disappears back into nowhere. There are experiments with the Doctor's character, leading to the regeneration. Then Jamie is grafted on to the series and everything has to be rewritten around him. Then Ben and Polly get binned off mid-story with no warning. They try comedy stories, they stop the historicals. Change change change. Several producers and several script editors came and went in a short period, and a bit of a trail of destruction was left. It must have been knackering.

Her experience isn't so very different from that of a lot of other companions although she clearly suffered much more from production decisions than others did, hence the "abandonment" that I bet wouldn't have happened if the producers had been more on the ball. So given that being whisked off to space, scared, shot at, brainwashed, chased and all the rest is all pretty standard for companions, how come they haven't all ended up the same way? I mean, travelling with the Doctor is supposed to be a bit of a dangerous experience but I don't think we're really supposed to see it as something that ultimately is going to totally wreck your life, with one or two exceptions (Adric, Katarina). To me that just doesn't really feel like what Doctor Who is about.

I remember an interview with Nicola Bryant, back in the 80s, when she was talking about how her reaction to things as Peri was different to a real-life reaction.

I think she gave an example of seeing Mestor for the first time (Twin Dilemma) and a genuine human reaction would have been to scream the place down. But the Doctor Who reaction was to be a little bit scared.

It sounds like, with Dodo, they went for the genuine human reaction.

Your last paragraph is why I detest "Vincent and The Doctor" so much: The Doctor takes an already unstable person into the future and then dumps him back in his own time without a thought of how that would affect his fragile mental health.

Look at what happened to Amy, Rory and River. Clara also lost Danny. Guess you pay a price for being the doctors friend. Bill will probably have scary and sad things happen as well during her adventures.

The last we hear of Dodo (putting the books to one side...) is that she was last seen recuperating at Sir Thingummyjig's country house. Maybe she carried on living there? Maybe she lived happily ever after? She was brought up by an aunt or a great-aunt, I think, and might not be in any hurry to go back there.

The Doctor has a bit of a chequered history when it comes to not making sure companions are actually OK after they leave him suddenly.

Tegan was in the middle of a nervous breakdown when she decided to stay on Earth, and the Doctor couldn't leave quickly enough. There was no chance for Tegan to have a few hours to calm down and think again.

And poor old Peri was left stranded with King Yrcanos. We never saw the Doctor go back to check on her during the rest of the TV series. And in the Big Finish reunion it turns out the 6th Doctor never went to see if she was OK because Really?

And let's not forget poor old stupid Adam - stranded on modern-day Earth with technology in his head from the year 200,000. He probably ended up getting vivisected. But, hey, at least that will teach him a lesson!

Pretty rough on the actress, Jackie Lane, but in regard to the character it's more surprising that they ever thought she was a good idea than that they got rid of her so quickly.

The actual manner of departure is a completely inadequate way to write out a major character of course but then the whole 'War Machines' serial is very poor. It's often remarked upon as being the first serial in the style that would become standard for Doctor Who, and that may be the case but it was a very messy birth.

"Bring me.... Doooctooor Whoooo... but not that annoying Dodoooo girl... juuusst say she got on the wrong buusss..."

I agree a little with Chuffnobbler's point that change had an impact on the companions exits and debuts in Season Three but I think there's more to it than that.

I think Dodo fell in between two characters who perhaps fit into later companion moulds. Sara Kingdom(if you count her as a companion) was an Avengerseque woman very much in the style of Emma Peel who showed she could kick butt when she needed too. Then there was Polly, the first of the real glamorous Companions who was also quite witty and warm. This contrast was really shown in all of it's glory in The War Machines. In comparison to those two companions, Dodo often came across as a bit dull.

Dodo did have her moments when she showed her worth as a companion, like in The Savages, but they were all too rare for me and most of the time she seemed more like the earlier designed for kids companions that were very much a feature of the Hartnell Era.

As I said in another thread, I don't dislike her that much, but I'm not overly keen on her either. It doesn't help that her stories aren't that brilliant either, bar a couple of exceptions. I think the Hartnell Era did begin to sag a lot by this point and it's good Lloyd and Davis came along and gave the show the boost it needed.

Imo off course.

The unpopular companions tend to get the high hat in other media, in the Virgin novel Head Games, 7 admits to psychically getting Mel to leave as he was fed up with her "simplistic morality" and of course Adric is portrayed as a sex pest in the Big Finish audio The Boy That Time Forgot.

As we are talking of companions, I did come across the Radio Times bookazine 'Doctor Who: The Companions' at the beginning of this week, in my local Oxfam.

http://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/...20110119020144

I'm glad I did, as it wasn't available in shops, only online through the Radio Times website six years ago.

The Oxfam shop only wanted £2.99 for it, so it was a bargain, as it was originally priced at £9.99!

There is a two page profile of Dodo (Jackie Lane) on pages 40 and 41. On page 40 I thought the b&w photo of Dodo with the Doctor and Steven was rather sweet!

So wrong. The concept of Dodo was OK, the realisation perhaps not as good as it should have been. The War Machines is an excellent story.

Yes, I love The War Machines!

Dodo is the last of the schoolgirl companions. It's interesting to see other shows trying similar things with their formula, too. The Avengers has Venus Smith, who starts out as a miniskirted dolly and turns into a sultry woman in an evening gown. As the 60s moved on, so representations of women changed greatly. No need for the older man / younger woman combo to be "avuncular" anymore, as was the case with Steed and Venus, or with the Doctor and Susan/Vicki/Dodo.

Maureen O'Brien got treated pretty badly as well. She was told her character was leaving the show just before rehearsals for the story she was leaving in. .