Barbara Wright (Doctor Who)
Template:Infobox Doctor Who character Barbara Wright is a fictional character in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who and a companion of the First Doctor. She was one of the programme's very first regulars and appeared in the bulk of its first two seasons from 1963–65, played by Jacqueline Hill. In the film version of one of the serials, Dr. Who and the Daleks (1965), Barbara was played by actress Jennie Linden, but with a very different personality and backstory, which includes her being a granddaughter of "Dr Who". Barbara appeared in 16 stories (73 episodes).
Character history
Formerly of Bedfordshire,[1] Barbara Wright is teaching history at Coal Hill School in London in 1963, working with science teacher Ian Chesterton. One of their students, Susan Foreman, shows an unusually advanced knowledge of science and history, but a rudimentary knowledge of other subjects. In an attempt to learn more about this "unearthly child", Barbara and Ian follow Susan home to a junkyard, where they hear her voice coming from what appears to be a police box. During a confrontation with her grandfather, the Doctor, Barbara rushes in to the police box, only to discover that its exterior hides the much larger interior of the TARDIS, revealing the vehicle for the first time and making Barbara the first human to step aboard.
After the Doctor reveals to Barbara and Ian that he and Susan are aliens exiled from their own planet, he tells them he cannot risk their revealing information about the TARDIS to their contemporary world, and dematerialises the craft against Susan's protests. At this point in the series the Doctor had no control over where or when it would land, making a return to London in 1963 impossible to co-ordinate. They are transported back in time to 100,000 BCE Earth, where they are captured by a prehistoric tribe seeking the secret of fire. Once they escape back to the TARDIS, their second trip takes them to the planet Skaro, where they encounter the Daleks for the first time. At the end of the opening episode of that serial, Barbara becomes separated from her fellow travellers and is, an iconic cliffhanger, threatened by an unseen creature with a metal arm, marking the first appearance of a Dalek. In the subsequent story, The Edge of Destruction, tensions between the occupants of the TARDIS—Barbara, Ian, Susan, and the Doctor—reach the point of overt conflict when he accuses them of trying to sabotage the TARDIS in an attempt to return to 1963. Barbara remains level-headed and logical, allowing the Doctor to trace the source of the distress to telepathic influences from the TARDIS (which is trying to warn them of a major failure). Seeing that Barbara has been hurt by his accusations, the Doctor apologises and begins to realise he can rely on the two teachers, sealing a friendship which lasts until their eventual departure from the TARDIS.
At first a reluctant traveller in time and space, the strong-willed Barbara becomes more adventurous, while providing a maternal figure to Susan and subsequently Vicki. She is frequently the only person willing to stand up to the First Doctor's cantankerous outbursts with firmness and logic. A chemistry between her and Ian is also evident, although the nature of their relationship is never fully clarified in the television series.
Although mutually respectful and increasingly affectionate, the relationship between the Doctor and Barbara is often tested by their opposing viewpoints. In The Aztecs, Barbara is mistaken for the reincarnation of a high priest, Yetaxa, after they find her in possession of his bracelet. Barbara seizes this opportunity to change the course of history, and tries to persuade the Aztecs to abandon human sacrifice, so that by the time Hernan Cortes - who overthrew the Aztec empire - lands he will find a glorious civilisation. The Doctor warns Barbara that she cannot rewrite history, but his protests fall on deaf ears. Barbara fails and, although she has influenced some Aztecs, history remains on course.
As well as exploring alien planets, Barbara visits several eras of Earth's history, including the Roman Empire during the time of Nero, Palestine during the Third Crusade, the Himalayas in the 13th Century, and a post-apocalyptic London in the 22nd Century.
After the TARDIS is chased through time and space by the Daleks to the planet Mechanus, where a conflict destroys the pursuing faction of Daleks, Barbara suggests to Ian they use the abandoned Dalek time machine to get home. The Doctor is furious and tries to persuade them to stay with him by suggesting the journey might kill them, but the two teachers had made up their minds. After an emotional farewell to the Doctor and Vicki, Barbara and Ian are returned to London, albeit two years after their disappearance (presumably with much explaining to do to their friends and families). Back on the TARDIS, the Doctor uses the time-space visualiser to check they have returned safely, and tells Vicki how much he will miss them.
Barbara was mentioned in "Death of the Doctor", a two part story in the fourth series of The Sarah Jane Adventures transmitted in October 2010. After meeting Jo Grant and the Eleventh Doctor, Sarah Jane Smith reveals that she has researched the lives of some of the Doctor's earth-bound companions, and discovered that Ian and Barbara have married each other, become professors, live in Cambridge, and are rumoured to have not aged since the 1960s.
Appearances in other media
Since 1994, the character has appeared in several Doctor Who novels from Virgin Publishing and BBC Books. In the BBC Books novel, The Face of the Enemy by David A. McIntee (1998), the story of Ian and Barbara, now married to each other, is picked up in the early 1970s. In this book, they have a young son named John. Many of the novels mention a 1980s pop star named Johnny Chester or Johnny Chess, intended to be the same character. Chess was idolised by the Seventh Doctor's companion Ace and appears to have been romantically involved with the Fifth Doctor's companion Tegan.
In the novelisation Doctor Who in an Exciting Adventure with the Daleks by David Whitaker, Barbara and Susan have just been in a car accident when they first meet Ian. After entering the TARDIS, the remainder of the story largely follows the events of The Daleks.
In the movie Dr. Who and the Daleks, Barbara is Susan's older sister, the granddaughter of the eccentric human scientist Dr. Who, and girlfriend of the bumbling Ian Chesterton. In Daleks - Invasion Earth 2150 AD Barbara is replaced by Louise, who serves much the same role. No mention is made as to the fate of Barbara.
I Am The Doctor: The Unauthorised Diaries of a Time Lord by John Peel states that, in the Doctor Who universe, Dr. Who was created by Barbara Wright as a way of making some money from her adventures and alerting people to the existence of the Daleks, without giving away too much about the real Doctor.
List of appearances
Television
- Season 1
- An Unearthly Child
- The Daleks
- The Edge of Destruction
- Marco Polo
- The Keys of Marinus
- The Aztecs
- The Sensorites (Episodes 1, 2, 5 & 6)
- The Reign of Terror
- Season 2
- Planet of Giants
- The Dalek Invasion of Earth
- The Rescue
- The Romans
- The Web Planet (Episodes 1, 2, 4, 5 & 6)
- The Crusade
- The Space Museum
- The Chase
Films
Audio dramas
- Here There Be Monsters (adventure related by Susan)
- Transit of Venus (adventure related by Ian)
- Farewell Great Macedon & Fragile Yellow Arc of Fragrance (adventure related by Ian and Susan)
- The Rocket Men (adventure related by Ian)
- The Masters of Luxor (adventure related by Ian and Susan)
- The Wanderer (adventure related by Ian)
- The Revenants (adventure related by Ian)
- The Time Museum (adventure related by Ian)
- The Flames of Cadiz (adventure related by Ian and Susan)
- The Dark Planet (adventure related by Ian and Vicki)
Short Trips audios
- 1963
- A Star is Born
Novels
- Venusian Lullaby by Paul Leonard
- The Sorcerer's Apprentice by Christopher Bulis
- The Plotters by Gareth Roberts
- The Face of the Enemy
- The Witch Hunters by Steve Lyons
- City at World's End by Christopher Bulis
- Byzantium! by Keith Topping
- The Eleventh Tiger by David A. McIntee
- The Time Travellers by Simon Guerrier
- Matrix by Mike Tucker & Robert Perry (Alternate timeline visited by the Seventh Doctor and Ace)
Short stories
- "Brief Encounter" by David Bishop (Doctor Who Magazine #169)
- "The Book of Shadows" by Jim Mortimore (Decalog)
- "The Nine-Day Queen" by Matt Jones (Decalog 2: Lost Property)
- "The Last Days" by Evan Pritchard (Rebecca Levene) (Short Trips)
- "Romans Cutaway" by David A. McIntee (More Short Trips)
- "Nothing at the End of the Lane (3 Parts)" by Daniel O'Mahony (Short Trips and Sidesteps)
- "The True and Indisputable Facts in the Case of the Ram’s Skull" by Mark Michalowski (Short Trips: Zodiac)
- "The Splintered Gate" by Justin Richards (Short Trips: Companions)
- "Distance" by Tara Samms (Short Trips: Companions)
- "A Long Night" by Alison Lawson (Short Trips: Companions)
- "Mire and Clay" by Gareth Wigmore (Short Trips: A Universe of Terrors)
- "The Thief of Sherwood" by Jonathan Morris (Short Trips: Past Tense)
- "White Man's Burden" by John Binns (Short Trips: Past Tense)
- "Every Day" by Stephen Fewell (Short Trips: A Christmas Treasury)
- "The Duke’s Folly" by Gareth Wigmore (Short Trips: Seven Deadly Sins)
- "Set in Stone" by Charles Auchterlonie and John Isles (Short Trips: The History of Christmas)
- "The Ruins of Time" by Philip Purser-Hallard (Short Trips: Time Signature)
- "Tell Me You Love Me" by Scott Matthewman (Short Trips: The Ghosts of Christmas)
Comics
- "A Religious Experience" by Warwick Gray and Colin Andrew (Doctor Who Yearbook 1994)
References
- ^ Barbara's dialogue to Jenny at the transport museum in part 4 of The Dalek Invasion of Earth
External links
- Barbara Wright on Tardis Wiki, the Doctor Who Wiki
- Barbara Wright on the BBC's Doctor Who website