After losing her job in spectacular fashion, Ace becomes embroiled in the Doctor’s quest for a fabled treasure buried beneath the lower levels of Iceworld. That is, until she crosses paths with the Doctor, Mel, and intergalactic wide boy Sabalom Glitz. Whisked away from her humdrum existence on Earth via the appearance of a time-storm in her bedroom, she finds herself just as unfulfilled and working once again as a waitress in the trading colony of Iceworld. While Tom Baker’s swansong is likely remembered for the ‘epic’ final confrontation between the Doctor and the Master, before the ethereal Watcher arrives to ease in Peter Davison‘s Fifth Doctor, its impact is all the greater thanks to the recognisable and reassuring presence of Tegan – it’s her world and the others merely exist to interfere with it.Įight years later, Ace made her debut in 1987’s ‘Dragonfire’. A voice of reason in the madness that follows, with its entropy and block commutations – Tegan is a vital perspective character for viewers who don’t understand a word of ‘Logopolis’ either.
While her Aunt is reduced to the size of an action figure, Tegan stumbles upon a blue police box and her life is never the same. Brimming with self confidence and dressed impeccably, Tegan’s first day in her dream cabin crew role is rudely disrupted, firstly by a broken down car, and secondly by a murderous megalomaniac intent on holding the universe to ransom. Let’s revisit Tegan’s first appearance in 1981’s ‘Logopolis’. And Sophie Aldred was brilliant too.įirst Impressions: Logopolis & Dragonfire While she may not have influenced the creation of Rose Tyler directly, she is proof that in the late 80s, the show was not as far removed from the 2005 relaunch as some would have you believe.
TEGAN JOVANKA TV
Foreshadowing the emergence of similarly kickass 1990s female sci-fi and fantasy TV characters, Ace set a template for countless other shows to follow. With a penchant for homemade explosives, an iconic bomber jacket and slang suitable for a 7pm time slot, she afforded Doctor Who some much needed street cred. A conscious attempt by the show’s writers to move on from the screamer trope which had plagued Bonnie Langford’s Mel, Ace appears as a fully formed, well-crafted and believable teenage character from the very beginning. If Tegan’s presence gave the TARDIS crew a much needed kick up the backside, Ace (aka Dorothy McShane) literally blew the bloody doors off with her appearance heralding the arrival of something even rarer in classic Doctor Who – a working class character. Labelled stubborn, loud, and difficult for simply daring to have an opinion – she was brilliant. Here to remind the main characters of how ridiculous and downright dangerous their lives were, if a Doctor Who multiverse had existed in the 1980s – Tegan would have been breaking the fourth wall with expletives and all.
After leaving the beloved investigative journalist behind, the Doctor travelled with aliens, robots, and fellow Time Lords… until Tegan crash-landed her way into the TARDIS in 1981.Ĭarrying a viewpoint which had been sorely lacking, and never afraid to call out the Doctor’s pomposity, Tegan was a whirlwind of fresh air. Given how integral a companion’s home life is to the modern era of Doctor Who, it’s of note that Tegan was the first companion to hail from contemporary Earth since Sarah Jane Smith departed the TARDIS in 1976. Shaking Up the TARDIS Status QuoĪs if she had been plucked from an entirely different genre of television, much like Donna Noble would many years later, Australian flight attendant Tegan Jovanka shook up the TARDIS status quo like never before. So with that in mind, here’s a handy guide to what makes Janet Fielding and Sophie Aldred’s characters such icons of the show. Newer viewers less familiar with 1980s Doctor Who however, could be forgiven for feeling slightly mystified by this mass hysteria. When the return of companions Tegan Jovanka and Ace to Doctor Who was confirmed in the trailer at the end of ‘ Legend of the Sea Devils’, a certain section of the show’s fandom – for want of a better term – lost its nut.
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