Vicki (Doctor Who)

Template:Infobox Doctor Who character

Vicki is a fictional character played by Maureen O'Brien in the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who. An orphan from the 25th century, she was a companion of the First Doctor and a regular in the programme in Seasons 2 and 3 in 1965. Her last name was never revealed during the series. Vicki appeared in 9 stories (38 episodes).

Character history

Vicki first appears in the serial The Rescue, a survivor of a spaceship crash on the planet Dido and menaced by the monstrous Koquillion (who killed the crew, including Vicki's father) when she meets the Doctor and his companions Ian and Barbara. Still coping with his recent parting from his granddaughter Susan at the end of The Dalek Invasion of Earth, the Doctor invites the teenage girl to join the TARDIS crew.

Vicki is in many respects an ordinary teenage girl. She is a surrogate granddaughter to the Doctor and takes care of him like her own grandfather. She rarely takes the initiative at first, relying on Ian, Barbara and then Steven Taylor, whom she treats like an older brother. She is the one who persuades the Doctor to let Ian and Barbara use a Dalek time machine to return to their own time in The Chase.Like many, her travels with the Doctor change and mature her and through the chase and the time meddler, her capacities as a team member in her own right and a decision maker starts being acknowledged.

Vicki eventually falls in love with the warrior Troilus when the TARDIS lands during the siege of Troy (The Myth Makers). After making sure that Steven and the Doctor will be all right without her, she decides to remain with Troilus, eventually passing into legend as Cressida, the name given to her by King Priam.

Other appearances

Vicki appears in the spin-off short story Apocrypha Bipedium by Ian Potter, where the Eighth Doctor- having convinced her that he is a later Doctor rather than a younger one as Vicki first believed due to her ignorance of Regeneration- advises her and Troilus to move to Cornwall to avoid the tragic conclusion to their story as related by William Shakespeare.

The audio story Frostfire is told by an older Vicki living in Carthage, where she and Troilus traveled with Aeneas, had children and settled, although it is shown that she now regrets her decision to stay in Troy. Frostfire portrays Vicki as somewhat lonely and isolated, conversing with a somewhat malevolent living cinder (a spark of the phoenix) because it is the only being with whom she can discuss her travels with the Doctor.

The novel The Eleventh Tiger by David A. McIntee (set during Vicki's time with the First Doctor, Ian and Barbara) states that her full name is Vicki Pallister. Like all spin-off media, the canonicity of these stories is unclear.

Other mentions

Vicki is mentioned by the 5th Doctor in Castrovalva, by the 7th Doctor in The Curse of Fenric and a vision of Vicki is seen along with every other companion up until that point aside from Leela and Kamelion on the scanner screen in Resurrection of the Daleks.