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{{Infobox Individual
{{Infobox Individual
|image          = MelLooksLeftDF.jpg
|image          = <gallery>
|alias          =  
Mel listens (TOTV).jpg|Human
Mel Angel of Death (EoD).jpg|Servant of Sutekh
</gallery>
|alias          = Eleanor, Ms Zingiber
|species        = Human
|species        = Human
|origin        = [[Pease Pottage]]
|job            = Programmer
|first          = Terror of the Vervoids (TV story)
|job2          = janitor
|appearances    = [[Melanie Bush - list of appearances|'''''see list''''']]
|affiliation    = Pease Pottage Radar Station
|affiliation2  = Brighton Information Technologies
|affiliation3  = Emit Institute
|affiliation4  = UNIT
|origin        = [[Croxdale]]
|birth date    = [[22 July]] [[1964]]
|death date    =  
|mother        = Christine Bush
|father        = Alan Bush
|father        = Alan Bush
|mother        = Christine Bush
|sister        = Anabel Bush
|sister        = Anabel Bush
|partner        = Jedediah Thurwell
|partner2      = Stuart Dale
|spouse        = Ben Heyworth
|spouse        = Ben Heyworth
|grandparent    = Alan Bush's father{{!}}Mr Bush
|grandparent2  = Alan Bush's mother{{!}}Mrs Bush
|grandparent3  = Christine Bush's father{{!}}Mr Hallam
|grandparent4  = Christine Bush's mother{{!}}Mrs Hallam
|first cs      = Terror of the Vervoids (TV story)
|appearances    = {{appears}}
|clip          = The Doctor and Mel re-unite - Doctor Who Classic - Time & The Rani - BBC
|clip          = The Doctor and Mel re-unite - Doctor Who Classic - Time & The Rani - BBC
|clip2          = Goodbye Mel, Hello Ace! - Doctor Who - Dragonfire - BBC
|clip2         = TARDIS at the toll booth - Doctor Who - Delta and the Bannermen - BBC
|soundcloudclip = https://soundcloud.com/big-finish/a-christmas-message-from-the
|clip3         = Goodbye Mel, Hello Ace! - Doctor Who - Dragonfire - BBC
|soundcloudclip = soundcloud.com/big-finish/a-christmas-message-from-the
|actor          = Bonnie Langford
|actor          = Bonnie Langford
}}{{you may|Melanie Bush (He Jests at Scars...)|n1=Mel from an alternate timeline}}
}}
'''Melanie Jane Bush, BSc (Hons)''' — also known as '''Melanie''' or simply '''Mel''' — was a [[computer]] programmer and [[companion]] of the [[Sixth Doctor|Sixth]] and [[Seventh Doctor]]s.
{{Navfobox
|header = Alternate counterparts of<br/>[[Melanie Bush]]
|t1    =
|1      = [[Melanie Bush|The Doctor's universe]] • [[Melanie Bush (The Daft Dimension)|Daft Dimension]]
}}
'''Melanie Jane Bush''' [[Bachelor of Science|BSc (Hons)]], also known as '''Mel''', was a [[companion]] of the [[Sixth Doctor|Sixth]], [[Seventh Doctor|Seventh]], [[Fourteenth Doctor|Fourteenth]] and [[Fifteenth Doctor]]s.
 
She hailed from [[Pease Pottage]], [[West Sussex]]. Although she was present for the Doctor's sixth [[regeneration]], she did not witness it, as she was unconscious at the time after being exposed to a latent [[radiation]] which only knocked her out, but was fatal to [[Time Lord]]s. As a result, the presence of a new incarnation of the Doctor confused her and made it hard to adjust to the differences in his appearance and [[personality]].
 
She had a temporally complex relationship with the Sixth Doctor, as she met him in an order different than he met her, as [[Charlotte Pollard]] and [[River Song]] later would. Eventually, however, their timelines synchronised, and she had a more-or-less linear relationship to the Doctor, starting in the later period of his sixth incarnation. Her temporal relationship to the Seventh Doctor was considerably more straightforward and linear.
 
Eventually, she was hired by the [[UNIT]] led by [[Kate Stewart]] in the 2020s. Working there, she met the [[Fourteenth Doctor]], helped him [[bi-generation|bi-generate]] into the [[Fifteenth Doctor]] and watched them defeat [[the Toymaker]]. She later visited the retired Fourteenth Doctor and [[Donna Noble]]'s family, and continued on to help the Fifteenth Doctor and [[Ruby Sunday]].
 
==Biography==
===Childhood===
Mel was born on [[22 July]] ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|Spiral Scratch (novel)}}) [[1964]] ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|Just War (novel)}}, {{cs|Spiral Scratch (novel)}}; [[AUDIO]]: {{cs|The Wrong Doctors (audio story)}}) to [[Alan Bush|Alan]] and [[Christine Bush]] ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|Business Unusual (novel)}}) eighteen months after the birth of their first daughter, [[Anabel Bush|Anabel]]. The family lived at [[8 Gosling Street]] in [[Croxdale]] where, at the age of eighteen months, Mel accidentally caused the two-and-a-half Anabel to fatally fall down the stairs.{{Note|In the text of ''Spiral Scratch'', it is said that Anabel's death only happens in one universe - the "prime" reality. However, the novel also implies heavily that the ''Doctor Who'' stories of [[Big Finish]] and [[Doctor Who Magazine]] take place in their own universes outside of the [[BBC Books]] reality. Thusly, is reasonable to suggest that while this event occurred to the Mel seen in ''Spiral Scratch'', it is not a universal origin.}}
 
Alan and Christine kept Anabel's existence a secret from Mel, who repressed the [[memory]] of her death, and moved the family to [[14 The Lawns]], [[Ardingly]] six months after Anabel's death to move on. To cover up the existence of her sister, Alan and Christine never showed Mel any [[photograph]]s from before they moved house and she grew up believing that she was an only child, had been born in [[Hove Hospital]] ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|Spiral Scratch (novel)}}) and had never encountered death. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|Business Unusual (novel)}})
 
When she was young, Mel would often fidget and complain about being sat on something that was hurting her. Her father would sarcastically tell her that she was sitting on a [[chair]] and her mother would liken her to the titular character of ''[[The Princess and the Pea]]''. ([[AUDIO]]: {{cs|The Devil's Footprints (audio story)}}) She was scared after watching ''[[Babes in the Wood]]'' and once got a baby [[bat]] caught up in her hair after wandering away from her parents in [[Durham Cathedral]]. She had to have it cut free. At the age of five or six, her parents woke her up to watch one of [[the Moon]] landings and she decided that she wanted to see the [[Earth]] from [[outer space]]. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|Business Unusual (novel)}})
 
At [[primary school]], Mel played [[pat-a-cake]], ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|Paradise Towers (novelisation)}}) made a replica of [[Vesuvius|Mount Vesuvius]] out of [[papier mâché]] ([[AUDIO]]: {{cs|The Fires of Vulcan (audio story)}}) and had a keen interest in [[science]] from a young age thanks to her uncle, [[John Hallam]]. ([[AUDIO]]: {{cs|Catch-1782 (audio story)}}) She was talented at [[mathematics]] ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|Business Unusual (novel)}}) and [[computer]]s, becoming adept in the [[computer language]]s of [[BASIC]], [[COBOL]] and [[FORTRAN]]. ([[AUDIO]]: {{cs|The Juggernauts (audio story)}}) She took dancing lessons from [[Miss Fairs]] ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|Business Unusual (novel)}}) and did combat training in the [[Pease Pottage]] [[community hall]]. ([[AUDIO]]: {{cs|Terror of the Sontarans (audio story)}})
 
At the age of eight, Mel committed the names of 150 different species of [[dinosaur]] to [[memory]] ([[AUDIO]]: {{cs|The Wrong Doctors (audio story)}}) and had read the entire canon of [[Sherlock Holmes]] by the age of nine. ([[AUDIO]]: {{cs|Unregenerate! (audio story)}}) She also read all of [[C. P. Snow]]'s works. ([[TV]]: {{cs|Time and the Rani (TV story)}}) In [[1973]], [[1974]] and [[1975]], she played [[Gabriel (mythology)|Gabriel]] in a [[nativity]] at the village hall and was afterwards more interested in reciting the [[periodic table]], but she did take part in her mother's [[ABBA]]-themed fundraisers. ([[AUDIO]]: {{cs|The Wrong Doctors (audio story)}}) She was a [[Girl Guide]] and once, with her parents, walked through deep [[snow]] to their village hall whilst carrying all the props and costumes for a show for pensioners, though the pensioners did not show up on account of the weather. ([[AUDIO]]: {{cs|The One Doctor (audio story)}})
 
After Mel finished primary school, the family moved a few miles away to [[36 Downview Crescent]], Pease Pottage, ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|Spiral Scratch (novel)}}) a house with a large [[garden]]. ([[TV]]: {{cs|Terror of the Vervoids (TV story)}}) She regularly used her address as a backdoor when writing code. ([[AUDIO]]: {{cs|The Juggernauts (audio story)}})
 
===Teenage years===
At [[secondary school]], Mel discovered [[vegetarianism]] and stopped eating [[turkey (bird)|turkey]] at [[Christmas]] dinner as she always had done. She would often return from school to find Christine, who was eager to fit in with the women of Pease Pottage, frantically tidying the house in preparation for meetings of the women's guilds, friendships, leagues and the like. As a result, she spent most of her time in her [[bedroom]] doing [[homework]] aside from when she was having dinner or saying hello to Alan after work. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|Spiral Scratch (novel)}})
 
For her school's performance of ''[[Macbeth]]'', Mel played the role of the [[Weird Sisters|Third Witch]]. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|Time and the Rani (novelisation)}}) She once bumped into [[Finch (Millennial Rites)|Mrs Finch]] whilst leaving the corner shop and, unsure as to whether to acknowledge her baby's [[Down's Syndrome]], she mumbled and smiled. This embarrassed her and hurt Mrs Finch. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|Millennial Rites (novel)}}) She frequented a [[roller disco]] and once remarked that it was the last place that somebody felt threatened by her. ([[AUDIO]]: {{cs|The Silurian Candidate (audio story)}})
 
Mel was bullied for her appearance, where she lived and who her parents were. She was unbothered, however, until [[Andy Ledger]] told her on her eleventh birthday that she did not have a sense of [[humour]] because she disliked the boys' [[joke]]s about [[car]] accidents and people from other countries. Because she reacted to this insult, Andy continued to bring it up even on the day they collected their [[A level]] results. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|The Best Joke I Ever Told (short story)}}) She left school with five A-levels and ten [[O-level]]s. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|Business Unusual (novel)}})
 
===Studies and career===
Mel went to [[France]] to pick [[apple]]s for a summer before travelling around [[Europe]] for eight months at her father's expense. Afterwards, she was employed by a nature reserve in [[Scotland]] and took to working exclusively in the office after an [[owl]] tried to attack her, leading her to discover her natural skill with [[computer]]s. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|Business Unusual (novel)}}) She applied to study at the [[University of West London]] ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|Millennial Rites (novel)}}; [[AUDIO]]: {{cs|Time-Burst (audio story)}}) or [[London University]] in [[1986]] ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|Business Unusual (novel)}}) as she wanted to get away from her family ([[AUDIO]]: {{cs|Time-Burst (audio story)}}) and opened her acceptance letter with her mother. ([[AUDIO]]: {{cs|The Wrong Doctors (audio story)}})
 
At university, Mel was frequently annoyed by her younger peers who were desperate for attention and befriended [[Trey Korte]], whom she immediately realised was [[gay]]. She had difficulty keeping men around her for long, which she attributed to her strait-laced demeanour and her need to show off her intelligence, ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|Business Unusual (novel)}}) but she did date [[Stuart Dale]] for more than two years. ([[AUDIO]]: {{cs|The Blood Furnace (audio story)}}) Philosophically opposed to [[army|armies]], she joined marches led by [[Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament|CND]] and [[Troops Out of Northern Ireland]]. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|Business Unusual (novel)}})
 
Mel returned home for the [[summer]] of [[1987]] and was kidnapped by [[time demon|Stapleton Petherbridge]] to be used as a memory buffer to allow him to control [[causality]] in [[cauterised time]] and escape. She forgot that she had been accepted to attend university and worked for Mr Petherbridge as a [[cleaner]] at the [[Pease Pottage Radar Station]], also believing that [[Jedediah Thurwell]] was her boyfriend. She met two versions of the [[Sixth Doctor]] and an older version of herself and eventually forced Mr Petherbridge into a [[temporal cul-de-sac]], after which she was removed from time until the Doctor pieced her back together, with no memory of recent events, using the TARDIS. ([[AUDIO]]: {{cs|The Wrong Doctors (audio story)}})
 
During her final year, Mel shared a room in halls with [[Anjeliqua Whitefriar]] and often had cheap dinner parties with her and their best friends, [[Arlene Cole]] and [[Paul Kairos]], at which they discussed how to put the world right. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|The Quantum Archangel (novel)}}) She was interviewed by [[IBM]], [[I²]] and [[Ashley Chapel Logistics]] and was offered jobs by all three. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|Millennial Rites (novel)}}) She went with ACL despite her mother pointing out that I² offered a better financial package. However, part of the deal was that she would have to spend the summer at a smaller firm to get more experience of working in an office. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|Business Unusual (novel)}})
 
Stuart planned to move to the [[Middle East]] after [[graduation]], but Mel, focused on her career and wanting to stay in [[England]], ended the relationship and kept in contact with him for some time afterwards. ([[AUDIO]]: {{cs|The Blood Furnace (audio story)}}) She would later say that she had never been in [[love]]. ([[AUDIO]]: {{cs|Thicker Than Water (audio story)}}, {{cs|The Wishing Beast (audio story)}}) She credited her uncle [[John Hallam]], ([[AUDIO]]: {{cs|Catch-1782 (audio story)}}) with whom she used to visit [[museum]]s, ([[AUDIO]]: {{cs|The Wrong Doctors (audio story)}}) for her accomplishments in further education. ([[AUDIO]]: {{cs|Catch-1782 (audio story)}})
 
Mel applied for a job in the troubleshooting department of [[Brighton Information Technologies]], as this was a prerequisite for a full-time job with [[ACL Services, Ltd]], for the summer following her graduation. [[Peter Lovelady]] offered her the job without an interview upon seeing her CV. She received a warm welcome from [[Luke Aspinall]] on her first day and went to the [[gym]] with him and a few other colleagues, but she was unable to convince him to go to [[aerobics]]. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|Business Unusual (novel)}})
 
===First travels===
====Joining the Doctor====
Having forgotten her meeting with the [[Sixth Doctor]] in [[1987]], ([[AUDIO]]: {{cs|The Wrong Doctors (audio story)}}) Mel met him again in [[1989]] after he brought [[Trey Korte]] back to [[36 Downview Crescent]] and helped him by programming a [[subroutine]] which removed all trace of [[the Master]]'s attempt to defraud the [[Dow-Jones]]. She resigned from [[Brighton Information Technologies]] after its takeover by [[SenéNet]] and helped the Doctor investigate the company, in the course of which she met [[Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart]] and learnt about [[regeneration]] and [[the Doctor's TARDIS|the TARDIS]].
 
Following the defeat of [[Martyn Townsend]] and the [[Nestene Consciousness]], Mel created a [[virus]] to render the [[Maxx]] games console useless and keep them from being used to activate [[plastic]]s and control children and asked the Doctor if she could join him on his adventures, feeling that she could no longer stay on [[Earth]]. The Doctor refused as he was hoping to avert the [[High Council]]'s creation of [[the Valeyard]], but she said goodbye to her parents and Trey, packed a bag and sneaked aboard the TARDIS, with the Doctor soon revealing that he knew that she was there. He agreed to let her stay and promised to show her the universe in the morning, starting with [[Herec]]. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|Business Unusual (novel)}})
 
According to other accounts, Mel joined the Doctor in [[1986]] ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|Terror of the Vervoids (novelisation)}}, {{cs|Head Games (novel)}}; [[AUDIO]]: {{cs|We Are The Daleks (audio story)}}) rather than 1989. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|Millennial Rites (novel)}}, {{cs|Business Unusual (novel)}}, {{cs|Instruments of Darkness (novel)}}) One agreed that Mel met the Doctor in 1989 but also had the Doctor suggesting that 1986 was Mel's home period. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|The Quantum Archangel (novel)}})
 
====Early adventures====
{{Section stub|Further info from ''[[Loud and Proud (audio story)|Loud and Proud]]'', ''[[Millennial Rites (novel)|Millennial Rites]]'' and ''[[The One Doctor (audio story)|The One Doctor]]'' needs to be added}}
[[File:Mel2.JPG|thumb|right|Mel in the console room ([[TV]]: {{cs|Terror of the Vervoids (TV story)}})]]
Mel was given [[Melanie Bush's TARDIS bedroom|a bedroom]] which she filled with souvenirs from her adventures. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|The Quantum Archangel (novel)}}) Despite telling the Doctor that she would not make him drink [[carrot juice]] nor [[exercise]], ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|Business Unusual (novel)}}) she did just that ([[TV]]: {{cs|Terror of the Vervoids (TV story)}}, etc.) for his own good. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|Business Unusual (novel)}}) She heard a lot about [[Evelyn Smythe]] and how big an impact she had had on the Doctor. ([[AUDIO]]: {{cs|Thicker Than Water (audio story)}})
 
The Doctor took Mel to [[Vertipax]] to meet [[Mosca Ragazzo]], for whom he had been covering by planting [[crop circle]]s on [[Earth]] to convince the [[Vervaloochenen]] that he has been doing his job and checking the planet's [[pollution]] levels. His reason for doing so, he explained, was that the Vervaloochenen would otherwise deem [[human]]ity a threat to its planet. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|The Deal (short story)}})


She hailed from [[Pease Pottage]], [[West Sussex]], at the turn of the [[21st century]]. ([[PROSE]]: ''[[Business Unusual]]''; [[AUDIO]]: ''[[Catch-1782 (audio story)|Catch-1782]]'', ''[[The One Doctor (audio story)|The One Doctor]]'', ''[[The Juggernauts (audio story)|The Juggernauts]]'') Although she was present for the Doctor's sixth [[regeneration]], she did not witness it, as she was unconscious at the time after being exposed to a latent [[radiation]] which only knocked her out, but was fatal to [[Time Lord]]s. As a result, the presence of a new incarnation of the Doctor confused her and made it hard to adjust to the differences in his appearance and personality.
To celebrate turning 991, the Doctor took Mel to the [[Royal Albion Hotel]] in [[Brighton]] where he caused a scene and accidentally caused a [[waitress]] to drop [[cream cake]]s onto [[Doris Lethbridge-Stewart|Doris Wilson]], after which she was assisted by [[Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart|the Brigadier]] ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|A Wee Deoch an ...? (short story)}}) whom she would go on to [[marriage|marry]]. ([[TV]]: {{cs|Battlefield (TV story)}})


She had a temporally complex relationship with the Doctor. She met the Doctor in an order different than he met her, as [[Charlotte Pollard|Charley Pollard]] and [[River Song]] later would. Eventually, however, their timelines synchronised, and she had a more-or-less linear relationship to the Doctor, starting in the later period of his sixth incarnation. Her temporal relationship to the Seventh Doctor was considerably more straightforward and linear.
Mel and the Doctor visited [[Tribolyca]] and found that the [[Tribolycan]]na were being exploited by [[Sekachos Bdella Travel Inc.]] After the Doctor liberated them by planting a [[sulphur bomb]] which caused the [[human]]s to flee because of its smell, he and Mel visited the [[Eye of Orion]]. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|A Tourist Invasion (short story)}})


== Biography ==
Mel convinced the Doctor to help [[Simon (Mortal Thoughts)|Simon]], a [[Robohuman]] on [[23rd century]] [[Andron (planet)|Andron]] who claimed that he could [[dream]], but the Doctor found that Simon had killed [[Eryk Zang]] and utilised his [[brain]] as he always felt that he was missing something organic. Upon being found out, Simon tried to kill Mel, but the Doctor incapacitated him and they reported him to [[Naylar|DI Naylar]], from whom they learnt that Zang was a [[serial killer]]. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|Mortal Thoughts (short story)}})
Because Mel's timeline was confused with respect to the Doctor, it was difficult to state with authority the order in which events happened to her.


=== Before the Doctor ===
In [[1975]] [[Hong Kong]], Mel was forced to play a computer game against [[the Rainbow]] cartel to keep them from taking the planet out of time and selling its [[technology]]. She succeeded with the Doctor's help and informed the authorities of the identities of the members of the Rainbow. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|Old Boys (short story)}})
Melanie Bush was born to [[Alan Bush|Alan]] and [[Christine Bush]] on [[22 July]] [[1964]]. She had an older sister named [[Anabel Bush|Anabel]], whose [[death]] she accidentally caused when Anabel was three years old. Mel's original home was at 8 Gosling Street in [[Croxdale]]. After her sister Anabel's death, her parents moved south to separate themselves from the tragedy. ([[PROSE]]: ''[[Spiral Scratch (novel)|Spiral Scratch]]'')


As a child, Mel took dancing lessons from a woman named [[Miss Fairs]]. She enjoyed the [[music]] of [[ABBA]] and the [[Bee Gees]]. ([[PROSE]]: ''[[Business Unusual (novel)|Business Unusual]]'')
Mel, the Doctor and [[Lionel Tooley]] were locked in an [[attic]] with a giant insect which had stolen [[Old woman (The Eyes Have It)|an old woman]]'s [[eye]]s and promised to return them if she supplied it with younger ones. The Doctor was able to defeat the insect with the help of Lionel's [[ventriloquism]] skills and returned the woman's eyes. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|The Eyes Have It (short story)}})


At the age of eight, Mel committed the names of 150 different species of [[dinosaur]] to [[memory]]. ([[AUDIO]]: ''[[The Wrong Doctors (audio story)|The Wrong Doctors]]'')
Months into their travels, Mel and the Doctor accidentally interrupted an illegal [[auction]] where [[Fegovy]] was selling the [[Face of Humanity]] to make [[money]] for a syndicate which no longer existed. Mel was kidnapped by [[Willchook]], but freed when he found that his [[spaceship]] could not leave the [[space platform]] and reunited with her travelling companion who tricked Fegovy into letting everybody on the platform leave. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|Fegovy (short story)}})


Mel had read the entire canon of [[Sherlock Holmes]] by the age of nine. ([[AUDIO]]: ''[[Unregenerate! (audio story)|Unregenerate!]]'')
Mel made the Doctor attend an [[anger management]] class at [[Pease Pottage]] in [[1986]]. They found that the organiser of the class, [[Louise Pranna]], was a member of the [[Kin (species)|Kin]] and was stealing [[anger]] to sell as a commodity. ([[AUDIO]]: {{cs|Loud and Proud (audio story)}})


She and her parents once walked through deep [[snow]] to their village hall whilst carrying all the props and costumes for a show for pensioners. This seemed to have created her insistence on never giving up. ([[AUDIO]]: ''[[The One Doctor (audio story)|The One Doctor]]'')
Mel and the Doctor learnt that [[Flux Control]] were feeding people to a supposed [[Flux Beast]], which was actually the [[decay]] of tourist planets that the company had frozen in [[time]]. They travelled to [[FluxiCon IV]] and freed the beast with Mel's computer skills, inciting the company's workers to release the [[slave]]s and [[Pip Hexiflorn]] to take control. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|Change Management (short story)}})


While at primary school, she made a replica of [[Vesuvius|Mount Vesuvius]] out of papier mâché. She later witnessed its eruption on [[24 August]] [[79]] and the consequent destruction of the [[Roman Empire|Roman]] city of [[Pompeii]]. ([[AUDIO]]: ''[[The Fires of Vulcan (audio story)|The Fires of Vulcan]]'')
After receiving an alien signal from a [[swamp]] on [[Earth]], Mel and the Doctor went to investigate and became part of [[Walter Fanik]]'s ''[[Swamp of Horrors]]''. They found that [[animal]]s had been growing in size after eating [[food]] from inside the crashed [[spaceship]] and managed to restore them to normal using a device, but the army killed the animals and [[Adrian Cooper]] and wounded [[Sheena Sown]]. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|Swamp of Horrors (1957) - Viewing Notes (short story)}})


Melanie had a keen interest in [[science]] from a very young age. Her [[uncle]], Dr [[John Hallam]], was deeply influential to this childhood obsession, and she credited him with her later academic success at a [[London]] university. In [[2003]], Hallam told his colleague, [[Professor]] [[David Munro]], that Mel was "very gifted" with computers. ([[AUDIO]]: ''[[Catch-1782 (audio story)|Catch-1782]]'') As a consequence of her education, she was adept in the [[human]] computer languages of [[BASIC]], [[COBOL]] and [[FORTRAN]]. ([[AUDIO]]: ''[[The Juggernauts (audio story)|The Juggernauts]]'')
The Doctor took Mel to [[Switzerland]] where she went [[skiing]] whilst he went against the diet that she had set for him by ordering a [[hot chocolate]]. When the Doctor told her about [[Ur (Intuition)|Ur]], she correctly deduced that Ur's psychic powers, suppressed by an [[anti-sciatic atmosphere]], had awoken after he left his [[planet]] and caused him to crash into Earth, creating the [[Alps]] and remarked that drinking [[carrot juice]] was safest upon learning that Ur's [[DNA]] had entered the water supply and given those who drank [[mineral water]] similar powers. ([[AUDIO]]: {{cs|Intuition (audio story)}})


At the time of her initial encounter with the [[Sixth Doctor]], she was working at a summer job with [[Brighton Information Technologies]], a prerequisite for a full-time job with [[ACL Services, Ltd]].
The TARDIS landed on [[the Abbey]] where Mel and the Doctor investigated rumours that [[Tarrow|Charge Tarrow]] had been taking children who never returned. In doing so, they learnt that Tarrow had been attempting to find a [[cure]] for the [[human]] [[allergy]] that some [[Catkind]] suffered from. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|Fairy Tale of New New York (short story)}})


Her home address as an adult was 36 Downview Crescent in [[Pease Pottage]]. ([[PROSE]]: ''[[Business Unusual (novel)|Business Unusual]]'') She regularly used this address as a backdoor when writing code. For instance, she used it to override programming on the [[Juggernaut]]s. ([[AUDIO]]: ''[[The Juggernauts (audio story)|The Juggernauts]]'')
After unsuccessfully trying to get the Doctor to exercise, Mel wandered the TARDIS and came across the [[Time-Space Visualiser]], inside of which she saw a [[Thrusk]] in the form of a dark reflection of her. The Doctor sent Mel into the Thrusk [[dimension]] disguised as the reflection to stop the Thrusk, who had infected [[Tamira]], from using the TARDIS to destroy the universe. She managed to convince the Thrusk to turn against her double and returned to the TARDIS, where she and the Doctor were thanked by Tamira and Mel noticed that Tamira looked exactly like her. ([[AUDIO]]: {{cs|Mel-evolent (audio story)}})


Though a young career woman at the time that she travelled with the Doctor, she once told [[Evelyn Smythe]] that she had never been in love. ([[AUDIO]]: ''[[Thicker Than Water (audio story)|Thicker Than Water]]'')
Mel was sometimes left in the TARDIS whilst the Doctor went on what she termed "mysterious missions", unaware that he was going against the diet she had set him and had been eating [[cake]]s and attending [[feast]]s. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|The Man Who Wouldn't Give Up (short story)}})


She took some combat training in the Pease Pottage community hall. ([[AUDIO]]: ''[[Terror of the Sontarans (audio story)|Terror of the Sontarans]]'')
The Doctor attempted to take Mel to [[New Year's Eve]] [[1999]], but they instead arrived at a [[Christmas]] [[party]] in the wrong year. Mel convinced the Doctor to perform as a [[magician]] at the party after [[Man (Dr Cadabra)|a man]] mistook him for [[Dr Cadabra]] and they realised that the real Dr Cadabra had been trapped inside a [[mirror]] with an alien which stole [[Rachel (Dr Cadabra)|Rachel]]'s life energy. The man destroyed the mirror, restoring Rachel, and escorted Mel and the Doctor back to the TARDIS. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|Dr Cadabra (short story)}})


Mel dated [[Stuart Dale]] for more than two years in [[university]]. After they graduated, he got a job as an [[engineer]] in the [[Middle East]]. They had a long distance relationship for some time before they broke up. ([[AUDIO]]: ''[[The Blood Furnace (audio story)|The Blood Furnace]]'')
They thwarted [[Ashley Chapel]]. By this time, Mel had received some TARDIS training. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|Millennial Rites (novel)}})


=== A confused timeline ===
After three months ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|Terror of the Vervoids (novelisation)}}) or several years of adventures, ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|Millennial Rites (novel)}}) Mel and the Doctor received an unsigned [[mayday call]] sent from the ''[[Hyperion III]]'' by [[Hallett (Terror of the Vervoids)|Hallett]] and went to investigate, soon becoming aware of a series of [[murder]]s. [[Doland]] attempted to have her ejected from the ship with the [[laundry]] when she asked him about the [[Vervoid]] pods in the [[hydroponics centre]], but the Doctor saved her and the Vervoids were killed. ([[TV]]: {{cs|Terror of the Vervoids (TV story)}})  
==== Meeting the Sixth Doctor ====
[[File:MelInDocks.jpg|thumb|right|Mel as she appeared when the Doctor first met her, during his second trial by the [[Time Lord]]s. ([[TV]]: ''[[Terror of the Vervoids (TV story)|Terror of the Vervoids]]'')]]
According to some accounts, Mel first met the [[Sixth Doctor]] in [[Brighton]], [[1989]] at the age of twenty-five. However, as a consequence of [[The Trial of a Time Lord|the Doctor's trial]] prosecuted by [[the Valeyard]], he ''already'' knew her. To ''him,'' their first meeting was when she was pulled from her timestream by {{Ainley}} and made to testify on the Doctor's behalf. For an indeterminate time — from the moment she met him in Brighton until the younger Sixth Doctor returned her to the side of an older Sixth Doctor on the [[planet]] [[Oxyveguramosa]] — he had to pretend that he had originally met her in Brighton. ([[PROSE]]: ''[[Business Unusual (novel)|Business Unusual]]'', ''[[Time of Your Life (novel)|Time of Your Life]]'') Others, however, indicated that their first encounter had been in [[1986]]. ([[PROSE]]: ''[[Head Games (novel)|Head Games]]'', [[AUDIO]]: ''[[We Are The Daleks (audio story)|We Are The Daleks]]'') At the time, the younger Doctor considered her to be invisible and ineffectual. ([[AUDIO]]: ''[[The Wrong Doctors (audio story)|The Wrong Doctors]]'') It was only after she was returned to his future self that their timelines synchronised, and he could speak with her in a more open way.


Although the Doctor had initially attempted to avoid meeting Mel out of "fear" that travelling with her would be a sign that he was on the path to becoming the Valeyard, travelling instead with such diverse companions as [[Angela Jennings]], [[Grant Markham]], [[Frobisher]] and Evelyn Smythe in order to avoid his destiny, by the time his travels with Evelyn had ended, he was eager to prolong the inevitable no longer. ([[AUDIO]]: ''[[The Wrong Doctors (audio story)|The Wrong Doctors]]'') By the time circumstances led him to Pease Pottage, he was once again afraid of the results of beginning his travels with Mel, but after she helped him defeat a [[Usurian]] plot and a new [[Nestene Consciousness|Nestene]] invasion, he bowed to destiny and accepted her as his companion. ([[PROSE]]: ''[[Business Unusual (novel)|Business Unusual]]'')
In the [[Generios system]], Mel and the Doctor met [[Banto Zame]], whom they exposed and left with [[the Cylinder]], and [[Sally-Anne Stubbins]]. ([[AUDIO]]: {{cs|The One Doctor (audio story)}})


===== With respect to companions =====
Thanks to the machinations of the [[Dalek Supreme (The Juggernauts)|Dalek Supreme]], Mel was separated from the Doctor and spent three months working as a [[computer]] specialist for the [[Juggernaut]] programme on [[Lethe (The Juggernauts)|Lethe]], growing close to her colleague [[Geoffrey Gatlin]] and being gifted a [[music box]] by him. When the Doctor returned for her, she learnt that she had been working for [[Davros]] and exploited a backdoor that she had included in the Juggernauts' programming to get them to attack her former boss, apparently leading to his death. She apologised to the Doctor for her actions and left the music box behind, Geoff having sacrificed his life to kill Davros's [[Dalek]]s. ([[AUDIO]]: {{cs|The Juggernauts (audio story)}})
Mel's chronological placement with respect to other companions was also unusual: technically, she both pre-dated and post-dated the vast majority of the Sixth Doctor's companions. During their first encounter, Evelyn Smythe – or as she was then, ''Rossiter'' — referred to Bush as her "replacement". ([[AUDIO]]: ''[[Thicker Than Water (audio story)|Thicker Than Water]]'') Though it disagreed on many aspects of Mel and Evelyn's first meeting, another account also agreed that the bulk of Mel's travels with the Doctor were after Evelyn's. ([[PROSE]]: ''[[Instruments of Darkness (novel)|Instruments of Darkness]]'') The view that Mel was simply the Sixth Doctor's final companion is, however, a rather simple one. From the Doctor's viewpoint, he first learned of Mel during his trial, met her for the first time at its conclusion, took her back to the point in her travels with his future self she had reached, met for the first time and travelled with several other companions including Evelyn, [[Charlotte Pollard]], [[Flip Jackson|Philippa Jackson]] and [[Constance Clarke]], as well as others who he reencountered such as Frobisher and [[Peri Brown]], reunited with Mel in Brighton and began travelling with her, and reunited with Evelyn alongside Mel on Világ and/or Earth.


Mel's placement with respect to Frobisher, however, is even murkier than that of the Sixth Doctor's other multi-period companions. The Doctor first met Frobisher during his early adventures with Peri, while was on hiatus back in the [[United States]], although she later resumed her travels whilst Frobisher was onboard ([[COMIC]]: ''[[Kane's Story (comic story)|Kane's Story]]'') and continued to travel with the Doctor after his first departure. ([[TV]]: ''[[The Mysterious Planet (TV story)|The Mysterious Planet]]'') Equally clearly was the fact that Frobisher later travelled with the Doctor after his trial by the Time Lords; he knew, for instance, of Peri's marriage to [[Yrcanos]], ([[COMIC]]: ''[[The Age of Chaos (comic story)|The Age of Chaos]]'') and his first encounter with [[Sabalom Glitz]] was the Doctor's second. ([[PROSE]]: '' [[Mission: Impractical (novel)|Impractical]]'') However, Frobisher also briefly continued his journeys with the [[Seventh Doctor]], ([[COMIC]]: ''[[A Cold Day in Hell! (comic story)|A Cold Day in Hell!]]'') indicating some overlap with Mel's time in the TARDIS with a newly regenerated Doctor. However, as yet no account has established that the two ever met, or precisely how these events occurred.
Mel had a "terrifying run-in" with the [[Quark]]s and their [[Giant Wasp]]s and held on to a disconnected [[Quark processor unit]]. She also kept a [[holoempathic image]] of [[Troy (The Quantum Archangel)|Troy]], a [[Dalek logic crystal]] and a stuffed owl that she was given as a present. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|The Quantum Archangel (novel)}})


==== Travelling with the Sixth Doctor ====
==== Taken out of time====
[[File:Mel2.JPG|thumb|right|Mel in the console room ([[TV]]: ''[[Terror of the Vervoids (TV story)|Terror of the Vervoids]]'')]]
Mel and the Doctor, who had lost several [[centimetre]]s around his waist thanks to her regime, landed on [[Oxyveguramosa]] in the [[Apus Constellation]] where she promised to work on a programme which would enable them to leave and continue their adventures. Whilst the Doctor was in the TARDIS, ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|The Ultimate Foe (novelisation)}}) Mel was captured by [[Tremas Master|the Master]] and sent through time to [[Space Station Zenobia]] with [[Sabalom Glitz]].
Mel and the Sixth Doctor's timelines were not, however, asynchronous ''merely'' due to the unusual way in which they met. Even after their respective timelines seemed to come into harmony, Mel was often parted from the Sixth Doctor. At least twice, she was stranded for months away from him, even though very little time passed for him. When carried back in time to [[1781]] by a freak accident, the Doctor was unable to retrieve her until six months later in [[1782]]. ([[AUDIO]]: ''[[Catch-1782 (audio story)|Catch-1782]]'') Later, she was accidentally left on [[Lethe (The Juggernauts)|Lethe]] and the Doctor was delayed for an additional three months. ([[AUDIO]]: ''[[The Juggernauts (audio story)|The Juggernauts]]'') On both occasions, she became fully a resident of the era in which she found herself while waiting for the Doctor's uncertain return.


When the Doctor was at a loose end about where to visit, he found some tickets in a storage box for a visit the tower of [[Kalsos]]. Soon after arriving, she was almost killed when one of the tower's floors collapsed. She was rescued by [[Barlow Teveler]] who informed her that the tower was to be demolished. She was partially trapped when the tower fully collapsed but was healed by the time they got to [[Ridius]]. She was annoyed that [[Trellak]] had imprisoned the Doctor. She was upset when one of the soldiers shot an innocent man. Seeing how the populace of Riduius was emaciated, she wanted to help. Remembering a poem from Earth, Mel helped [[Helgert Teveler]] to remember the seed banks on Earth. She kept making promises on the Doctor's behalf for which the Doctor chastised her. She noticed that the Doctor wasn't acting like his usual self. Upon landing on Earth, she became concerned when he disappeared. She was then accosted by [[CRT-JCE-006]] because she didn't have an immigration visa. She worked out that the robot was sent by the Doctor to inform her of his plans. ([[AUDIO]]: ''[[The Seeds of War (audio story)|The Seeds of War]]'')  
Mel spoke in defence of a younger version of the Doctor at his [[trial]] and watched his adventure in [[the Matrix]] from the trial room with [[Darkel|Inquisitor Darkel]], stealing [[Zon|the Keeper]]'s key to go in and save him when he seemed willing to sacrifice himself. Upon learning that [[the Valeyard]] intended to [[assassination|assassinate]] those in the trial room, she returned to evacuate the [[Time Lord]]s and later left with the Doctor, intending to get him back to drinking [[carrot juice]] and doing exercise. ([[TV]]: {{cs|The Ultimate Foe (TV story)}})


In [[1957]], the Doctor and Mel investigated [[Unidentified Flying Object|UFO]] sightings in the proximity of [[Hammerston]], [[Louisiana]] and became involved in the production of the film ''[[Swamp of Horrors]]'' after attacking an actor in a rubber alien suit whom they mistook for a genuine alien. The Doctor, who used his pseudonym "[[Aliases of the Doctor#John Smith|Dr. John Smith]]", and Mel were assumed to be uncredited actors playing fictional characters by film critics. ([[PROSE]]: ''[[Swamp of Horrors (1957) - Viewing Notes (short story)|Swamp of Horrors (1957) - Viewing Notes]]'')
The Doctor chose to leave Mel in [[Pease Pottage]] to be picked up by her own version of him, but she realised that things were amiss when she encountered a neighbour's [[cat]] which she knew to have died and learnt that a younger version of herself, working as a [[cleaner]] and in a relationship with [[Jedediah Thurwell]], was around. She met a third version of the Doctor and took her younger self's role as a memory buffer in [[cauterised time]] to send [[Muriel Wilberforce]] to her own time, after which the Doctor and the younger Mel defeated [[Time demon|Stapleton Petherbridge]]. Mel left with the younger Doctor to be returned to Oxyveguramosa. ([[AUDIO]]: {{cs|The Wrong Doctors (audio story)}})


The Doctor avoided the [[Lakertyan System]] and took her to [[Zastros 9]]. Soon after escaping the rebels on that planet, they journeyed on, but the TARDIS console started to smoke, and the Doctor was replaced by the Valeyard but she didn't notice. The Valeyard took her to [[Plestinious]] as he had an errand to run. She met with [[Lorelas]] who told her that she doesn't know the Doctor properly. [[Genesta]] pointed out the Doctor to her and said she didn't know who he was. She noticed that the Valeyard was placing something into the TARDIS console.
Mel asked to stay with the younger Doctor but had to be returned to Oxyveguramosa so that the Doctor could return to his own place in time. She said farewell to the younger Doctor and was reunited with her version, whom she ordered to move over so that she could complete her programme and allow them to resume their travels. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|The Ultimate Foe (novelisation)}})


Upon encountering the Valeyard one last time, the Sixth Doctor gave up his own life to reverse the damage he caused to the Time Lord species after the Valeyard implanted [[Nathemus]] into his mind to modify the course of history. He altered his personal future by leading his past self unwittingly into the path of a deadly radiation source near the [[Lakertyan System]] to break loose of the Nathemus with which the Valeyard had infected him. The radiation was emanating from the laser fire issued out of [[the Rani's TARDIS]]. This radiation did nothing more than cause Mel to lose consciousness because it was harmless to humans, but it was deadly to Time Lords, causing the Doctor to regenerate into his seventh incarnation and throwing off the Nathemus' influence on the Doctor before the Valeyard could take his mind. ([[AUDIO]]: ''[[The Brink of Death (audio story)|The Brink of Death]]'', [[TV]]: ''[[Time and the Rani (TV story)|Time and the Rani]]'')
====Continued adventures====
{{Section stub|Info from ''[[Instruments of Darkness (novel)|Instruments of Darkness]]'', ''[[Spaceport Fear (audio story)|Spaceport Fear]]'', ''[[The Seeds of War (audio story)|The Seeds of War]]'', ''[[Mind of the Hodiac (audio story)|Mind of the Hodiac]]'' and ''[[The Ultimate Poe (audio story)|The Ultimate Poe]]'' needs to be added}}
On [[Maradnias]], Mel and the Doctor intervened in a civil war and narrowly escaped nuclear devastation for which the pair both blamed themselves. Mel asked to be dropped home but was instead dropped off in [[2003]] where they thwarted the Master, after which Mel forgave the Doctor and returned to travelling with him. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|The Quantum Archangel (novel)}})


==== Travelling with the Seventh Doctor ====
Mel and the Doctor responded to an invitation from her uncle [[John Hallam]] to attend the [[National Foundation for Scientific Research]]'s centenary celebrations in [[2003]], at which a [[canister]] made of an unstable [[alloy]] reacted to [[the Doctor's TARDIS|the TARDIS]] and sent Mel back in time to [[1781]]. Disorientated and confused, Mel was taken in by [[Henry Hallam]], who presumed that her name was Eleanor after mishearing her name as Nell and, still recovering from the death of [[Jane Hallam|his wife]], became infatuated with her. The Doctor and John rescued her six months later and took her back to 2003 where she decided that she needed several weeks at the [[seaside]] to recover, although she had little memory of her time at [[Hallam Hall]] on account of her [[amnesia]] and having been treated with [[laudanum]]. ([[AUDIO]]: {{cs|Catch-1782 (audio story)}})
Mel's timeline with respect to the Seventh Doctor was, by contrast, far more orderly than that with respect to the Doctor's previous incarnation  — though it, too, was heavily affected by a variety of temporal anomalies.


[[File:MelAndSevenReunite.jpg|thumb|left|Mel and the Doctor come to trust each other after his recent [[regeneration]]. ([[TV]]: ''[[Time and the Rani (TV story)|Time and the Rani]]'')]]
According to one account, Mel first met Evelyn some time after, in [[1993]], and fought the [[Cylox]]. Afterwards, she asked the Doctor to invite Evelyn aboard to take her home, with Evelyn adding that she wanted to return via the "scenic route". ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|Instruments of Darkness (novel)}})
At the very start of the Seventh Doctor's life, when the TARDIS was forced to land on [[Lakertya]], [[the Rani]] abducted him and induced [[amnesia]] by injecting a [[drug]] in him, using this opportunity to pose as Mel and trick him into helping to produce a [[Time Manipulator]]. After waking, Mel who was left behind, was jarred and frightened. She encountered the monstrous [[Tetrap]]s and also the Rani's traps set on the planet's surface. Finally, she reunited with the familiar yet unrecognisable man who was now in her Doctor's place. She was informed of how he had regenerated and realised it was really the Doctor.


[[File:MelSmilesLeftTATR.jpg|thumb|A happy Mel on Lakertya. ([[TV]]: ''[[Time and the Rani (TV story)|Time and the Rani]]'')]]
According to another account, an off-hand comment by Mel after saving a [[colony]]'s [[biodome]]s led the Doctor to take her to [[Világ]] to meet Evelyn. Mel and Evelyn were kidnapped by [[Sebastian Lawrence]] almost immediately after meeting to impress [[Sofia Rossiter]], but they were saved by Sofia and [[Jenner]] and taken to the [[hospital]] where Evelyn received medical attention. There, Mel survived an attempt on her life by [[Andrew Szabó]] and helped save the [[Killoran]]s that he had been experimenting on, after which she and the Doctor remained in [[Galen (Arrangements for War)|Galen]] for several weeks and attended Evelyn and [[Justice Rossiter]]'s renewal of their wedding vows. ([[AUDIO]]: {{cs|Thicker Than Water (audio story)}})
With Mel's help, the Doctor overcame his amnesia and left the Rani's plans in ruins, liberating the [[Lakertyan]]s from hers and the Tetraps' oppression. Assured by the new Doctor that he would grow on her, they continued travelling together. ([[TV]]: ''[[Time and the Rani (TV story)|Time and the Rani]]'')


The Doctor left her in [[2007]] for a bit, where Mel became annoyed at the celebrity culture before the TARDIS came to pick her up. She found the TARDIS empty save for a message to follow [[Louis (Unregenerate!)|Louis]] to try and find where the Doctor was being kept. Having located Louis, she followed him to an old mental hospital, only to find it a fake building. With the help of her [[Cabbie (Unregenerate!)|Cabbie]], they managed to get inside but discovered that the interior of the building was in fact located in the asteroid belt. She met with the Doctor again but he was acting unusual, having had a TARDIS consciousness placed inside his mind. She was later interrogated by [[Rigan]] to discover what she knew about the [[Celestial Intervention Agency]] plans. Using her compassion she showed the error of the plans to the newly regenerated Louis who helped her to stop the CIA's work. She then suggested that the TARDIS mind that was placed in [[Shokhra]] be placed in the mainframe of the building. ([[AUDIO]]: ''[[Unregenerate! (audio story)|Unregenerate!]]'')
Whilst the Doctor attended [[Diamond Sharp]]'s virtual reality concert, Mel, more interested in the technology than the [[music]], watched [[Alec (Sold Out)|Alec]] and [[Carol (Sold Out)|Carol]] at the controls. She connected herself to the virtual reality upon learning that Diamond's computer deck had once belonged to a [[serial killer]] and found that Diamond was intending to kill his audience and sell his story. After the Doctor thwarted Diamond, he suggested that he and Mel visit [[Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart|the Brigadier]] at [[UNIT]]. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|Sold Out (short story)}})


At some point during her travels with the Seventh Doctor, they visited the planet [[Nocturne (planet)|Nocturne]]. ([[AUDIO]]: ''[[Nocturne (audio story)|Nocturne]]'')
Mel and the Doctor confronted [[Zeet Frenzy]] about his programmes in which he had [[Dalek]]s making [[joke]]s and took him to [[Guria]] to show him that Daleks were not something to be laughed about. There, Mel was captured and taken to be interrogated before the Doctor managed to save her, after which she needed time to recover. Having been unable to make sense of Dalek technology, she decided to make sure to educate herself on future tech. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|The Best Joke I Ever Told (short story)}})


She and the Doctor once visited [[Greece|Ancient Greece]]. While in [[Athens]], she corrected [[Euclid]]'s [[geometry]], much to his annoyance. ([[AUDIO]]: ''[[Mask of Tragedy (audio story)|Mask of Tragedy]]'')
The Doctor flew the TARDIS to [[asteroid (The Wishing Beast)|an asteroid]] after receiving a transmission from [[Maria Applewhite|Maria]] and [[Eliza Applewhite]], who welcomed Mel as a hero in space and time and intended to take to the [[Wishing Beast]], ostensibly to have her greatest wish granted. She and the Doctor learnt that she was going to be fed to a [[dragon]]-like creature created from the merging of the Wishing Beast and [[Daniel Applewhite]] and the Doctor offered himself in her place, giving him the opportunity to acquire the box containing the Wishing Beast and get rid of the monster as well as the Applewhite sisters and set Daniel free. ([[AUDIO]]: {{cs|The Wishing Beast (audio story)}})


In search of Leptonite Crystals, Mel and the Doctor travelled to [[Puxatornee]] landing in a slum. Soon after they were captured as terrorist by a local [[Slithergee]] patrol. She was then interrogated by Professor [[Capra (Flip-Flop)|Capra]] before being saved by [[Reed]] and [[Stuart (Flip-Flop)|Stuart]]. When Reed and Stuart wanted to go back in time to rewrite history she was used as a hostage to get the Doctor to do it. She was appalled at Stuart murdering [[Bailey (Flip-Flop)|Bailey]]. When visiting the new timeline she was intrigued that they already knew who she was when she was captured by [[Potter (Flip-Flop)|Potter]]. After being freed by Reed and Stuart, they forced the Doctor and Mel to take them back to before they initially left. They then went back in time and got captured to maintain the timeline saying they were Slithergee spies and escaped before this timeline's Mel and the Doctor turned up. This version Mel and the Doctor landed here for Leptonite crystals and were immediately captured by Lt. Reed and Lt. Stuart for being spies and interrogated. They were then rescued by the original timelines Stuart and Reed and decided to visit professor Capra's time machine. She was caught in the time field of the machine and taken back in time. She was with Stuart when he stopped the assassination of Bailey. This created the timeline that the original Mel and the Doctor were from, and which Lt. Stuart and Lt. Bailey didn't like so forced the Doctor and Mel to take them back to where they started to stop Capra's experiment. Back on the day they arrived, the Doctor maintained the timeline into saying they were terrorist. They then left before the original Mel and the Doctor arrived. ([[AUDIO]]: ''[[Flip-Flop (audio story)|Flip-Flop]]'')
Although Mel was anticipating a visit to [[1960s]] [[London]], the Doctor instead took her to [[Salford]] where she visited [[Lily Cook]]'s [[corner shop]] for something to eat and learnt about [[Coiffure|Monsieur Coiffure]]'s age-reducing Vanity Box. She and the Doctor decided to investigate, with the Doctor getting [[Nesta Trubshaw]] to put him in [[drag]] to allow him to pose as a potential customer, and found that it was the Wishing Beast that was responsible. After the Doctor sent it through the [[Time Vortex]] to the asteroid in the [[distant past]], they returned to Salford and Mel told him that her wish would have been for more time for their travels together. ([[AUDIO]]: {{cs|The Vanity Box (audio story)}})


They managed to escape an exploding ship, landing on [[Dark Space 8]] just before the [[Intergalactic Song Contest]]. She was mistaken for a pilot. When exploring the space station she met [[Nicky Newman]], who was pleased that she didn't know who he was. There was a series of murders and she and the Doctor decided to investigate. She started accusing people of murder left, right and centre, from [[Angvia (individual)|Angvia]], [[Golos]], to the Scientific Officer [[Ivor Fassbinder]] even the neutral arbiter [[Geri]], who Mel attacked. After the Doctor revealed the murderer she realised that the solution was too easy, which led them to find the bomb that [[Loozly]] had planted in Newman. She stopped him just in time for the Doctor to win the contest. ([[AUDIO]]: ''[[Bang-Bang-a-Boom! (audio story)|Bang-Bang-a-Boom!]]'')
Mel and the Doctor visited [[Tantane Spaceport]]. ([[AUDIO]]: {{cs|Spaceport Fear (audio story)}})


Mel and the Doctor landed in [[Pompeii]] [[79]] [[AD]], the day before [[Vesuvius]] erupted. She went to get some clothes with [[Aglae]] and realised she was a prostitute. When the Doctor told her that the TARDIS would be buried in the ash until [[1980]] she was determined to find a way to stop it. [[Eumachia]] had her arrested for theft but the Doctor helped her to escape. She left the city but was caught. She eventually found the TARDIS and allowed the Doctor to realise a way to both escape Pompeii and for the TARDIS to be found buried in the future. ([[AUDIO]]: ''[[The Fires of Vulcan (audio story)|The Fires of Vulcan]]'')
The two visited the tower of [[Kalsos]], where Mel was almost killed when one of the floor's collapsed, as well as [[Ridius IV]] and future Earth. Remembering a [[poem]], she helped [[Helgert Teveler]] remember the seed banks on Earth and helped fight [[the Eminence]]. ([[AUDIO]]: {{cs|The Seeds of War (audio story)}})


She got annoyed with the Doctor after he went off after he was acting strangely when they landed on the [[Needle (Red)|Needle]]. She was trapped outside shortly after arriving and fell into [[Draun]]'s hover car. In the underworld, she was given the drug Slow by Draun and experienced the being that was causing harm. She later visited [[Vi Yulquen]] who found it exciting that Mel was unchipped. The Doctor then used her programming skills to reprogram [[Whitenoise]] and stop the Red infection. ([[AUDIO]]: ''[[Red (audio story)|Red]]'')
On [[Peladon]], Mel was separated from the Doctor by the activation of a [[thermal detonator]] and taken by [[Guard Captain (The Death of Peladon)|the guard captain]] to the [[Citadel of Peladon]] where she convinced [[Minaris|Queen Minaris]] to help at the disaster site. [[Isabelda|Princess Isabelda]] detained her and [[Alpha Centauri (The Curse of Peladon)|Alpha Centauri]] because of their attempts to influence her mother, but they managed to escape and help the Doctor expose Isabelda for being behind the explosion and having secret dealings with the [[Arcturan]]s. ([[AUDIO]]: {{cs|The Death of Peladon (audio story)}})


The Doctor and Mel once visited [[Dido]]. On another occasion, they encountered [[weretarantula]]s on [[Vyga 3]]. ([[AUDIO]]: ''[[Maker of Demons (audio story)|Maker of Demons]]'')
The Doctor took Mel to [[Kolpasha]] to get [[S. Holtons]] to repair [[Sixth Doctor's coat|his coat]], but he lacked any [[money]] and Mel had to train and work as a [[janitor]]. Three months later, they took a [[Helios Fleet]] [[shuttle]] to [[Golm]] to retrieve the impounded TARDIS and Mel uncharacteristically told a lie to [[Otter (The Doctor and His Amazing Technicolour Nightmare Coat)|an otter businessman]] whose money she and the Doctor had accidentally stolen from his [[shop]]. They got the TARDIS and the Doctor's coat back and, after the Doctor returned the otter's money to his [[safe]], Mel thought about the best way to get rid of the coat. ([[AUDIO]]: {{cs|The Doctor and His Amazing Technicolour Nightmare Coat (audio story)}})


They once visited [[Llanfer Ceiriog]]. ([[PROSE]]: ''[[Cat's Cradle: Witch Mark (novel)|Cat's Cradle: Witch Mark]]'')
On [[Arunopal]], she attended a fayre with her new friend [[Zeta (The Exaltation)|Zeta]], although she didn't like her eating too much sugar. Realising that [[Otho (The Exaltation)|Otho]] was after the Doctor, she tried to get to the Doctor to warn him, but was chosen to go on stage instead to decide which of the quins would be assigned to each of the locations of the Doctor. She tried to stop them but was captured. ([[AUDIO]]: {{cs|The Exaltation (audio story)}}) She was then interrogated by [[Alonza]] to find out where the Doctor was. She found a room that contained portraits of [[Lynette (The Exaltation)|Lynette]] and theorised that Zeta was in fact the daughter and heir to the throne. After the timelines were rewritten so that Zeta could take her place as Queen, she visited regularly. ([[AUDIO]]: {{cs|The Firstborn (audio story)}})


=== Departure ===
====Joined by Hebe====
[[File:MelLeaves.jpg|thumb|right|Mel and the Doctor part ways as she begins her new travels. ([[TV]]: ''[[Dragonfire (TV story)|Dragonfire]]'')]]
Mel and the Doctor followed an [[SOS]] to [[21st century]] [[Albatross Alpha]] where they met [[Hebe Harrison]], who felt that Mel was patronising when she was angry on Hebe's behalf that the others on the rig did not help her, a [[wheelchair]] user, get around. They investigated the disappearances and Mel and Hebe escaped from aggressive [[gull]]s and [[sea]] creatures including a [[lion's mane]] which stung Mel. After learning that a [[compound]] in the [[water]] caused the aggression, Mel and the Doctor left with Hebe, whom they realised knew [[Evelyn Smythe]]. ([[AUDIO]]: {{cs|The Rotting Deep (audio story)|The Rotting Deep}})
Mel chose to leave the Doctor at a place and time radically different from her origin, without being enticed by a romantic relationship. Unlike most companions, she left the Doctor, but remained an adventurer. Trading one travelling companion for another, she departed the Doctor's side on [[Iceworld]], in search of new adventures with the galactic confidence trickster Sabalom Glitz, pausing only to hint to him that their newfound friend [[Ace]] would appreciate his intervention. ([[TV]]: ''[[Dragonfire (TV story)|Dragonfire]]'')


=== Travels with the Doctor and Ace ===
[[File:Mel and Hebe.jpg|thumb|left|Mel and [[Hebe Harrison|Hebe]]. ([[AUDIO]]: {{cs|Water Worlds (audio anthology)|Water Worlds}})]]
[[File:Mel Ace and the Doctor.jpeg|thumb|left|Mel with the Doctor and Ace ([[AUDIO]]: ''[[The High Price of Parking (audio story)|The High Price of Parking]]'')]]
Hebe saved Mel from drowning on [[the Moon]] circa [[BC|2,000,000,000 BC]] and, separated from the Doctor, they encountered the [[Gillean]]s and the [[Gillean|Sheega]]. At Mel's suggestion, Hebe [[apology|apologised]] to [[Wulk]] for touching his [[gill]]s despite her not liking people touching her wheelchair. The three travellers were eventually reunited in [[Gillean City]] and were to be [[sacrifice]]d by the Sheega, but the Doctor got them free and, after proving that the Sheega were the Gilleans affected by the [[gravity]] of [[Earth]], they left. ([[AUDIO]]: {{cs|The Tides of the Moon (audio story)|The Tides of the Moon}})
After travelling with Glitz, Mel ended up on the run from his criminal associates. She was reunited with the Seventh Doctor and Ace on [[Ricosta]], learning that Glitz had tried to compensate for his debts by selling Mel's possible futures to the [[Speravore]]s. After preventing the Speravores devouring the planet's population, Mel joined the Doctor and Ace on their travels. ([[AUDIO]]: ''[[A Life of Crime (audio story)|A Life of Crime]]'') They accidentally visited [[Spain]] during the [[Spanish Civil War]] ([[AUDIO]]: ''[[Fiesta of the Damned (audio story)|Fiesta of the Damned]]''), the planet [[Prosper]] ([[AUDIO]]: ''[[Maker of Demons (audio story)|Maker of Demons]]''), [[Parking]] ([[AUDIO]]: ''[[The High Price of Parking (audio story)|The High Price of Parking]]''), and [[Liverpool]] ([[AUDIO]]: [[The Blood Furnace (audio story)|''The Blood Furnace'']]). Visiting the old [[Silurian capital city]] in 2085, Mel found herself helping the Doctor implement a plan to essentially let the Silurians re-establish themselves on Earth, preventing their initial efforts to provoke a war between [[China]] and [[America]] in favour of remaining in stasis until Earth was devastated by solar flares and began to regenerate itself. ([[AUDIO]]: ''[[The Silurian Candidate (audio story)|The Silurian Candidate]]'')


=== Going home ===
Mel went for a walk after the TARDIS landed on [[Zoda-Kappa]] in [[3895]] and was captured by [[soldier]]s who took her to [[Koppenberg|Captain Koppenberg]] for questioning. Upon mentioning that she was a [[computer programmer]], Mel was sent to assist [[Charles Feige|Professor Charles Feige]] in awakening those who had entered [[the Dream]], but Feige instead injected her with a [[fungus|fungal]] serum which did the same to her. Mel was able to dictate code for the Doctor to Hebe in order to help combat [[the Holomorph]] and awaken everybody. ([[AUDIO]]: {{cs|The Dream Nexus (audio story)|The Dream Nexus}})
According to one account, Mel travelled with Glitz for about six months before deciding to try to go home. On her way she detoured to the planet [[Avalone]], where she worked at a holiday camp owned by [[Avalonian Resorts, Inc]]. Her progress towards Earth stalled and she succumbed to life on Avalone. After two years she chanced another run at Earth. She hacked into computer systems to send a message to Glitz to pick her up. Instead, she was "rescued" by [[Dr. Who (Land of Fiction)|Dr. Who]] and [[Jason (Conundrum)|Jason]], who imprisoned her in the Galactic Prison in the [[Land of Fiction]]. There, she met another prisoner, the Seventh Doctor. He, however, was a changed and considerably darker man than she had known. He revealed to her that he had manipulated her into leaving him on [[Iceworld]] because he knew what was coming (as [[Aliases of the Doctor#Time's Champion|Time's Champion]]) and couldn't have her as a companion. Incensed, she avoided his company and refused to travel with him in the TARDIS ever again. Ace, who was also much changed from the person that she had left behind on [[Iceworld]], tried to calm her and explain the reasons why she and the Doctor were so much "harder" than the people she had known. Although the explanation did little to dispel her disillusionment, Mel accepted a ride from Ace. Mel thus returned to Pease Pottage in the [[1990s]] thanks to Ace's [[time hopper]]. ([[PROSE]]: ''[[Head Games (novel)|Head Games]]'')


During their travels together, Mel and Glitz encountered a [[Galactic Heritage]] fleet. The experience led Mel to describe the organisation as "a militarised, spacefaring National Trust". ([[AUDIO]]: ''[[The High Price of Parking (audio story)|The High Price of Parking]]'')
On [[Veludia]], Mel was kidnapped by [[Jom]] whilst fetching a [[medical kit]] for the Doctor to use on a [[manatee]]-like creature and possessed by [[Alef]], who impersonated her for a time. Hebe eventually realised the deception and the Doctor managed to restore her from the [[Mindbank]], after which Mel asked the Doctor that Jom and Alef be allowed to live out their last days in the [[planet]]'s past. ([[AUDIO]]: {{cs|Maelstrom (audio story)|Maelstrom}})


Another account of her return to Pease Pottage existed, but it was unclear whether it described events that followed the angry final encounter with the Seventh Doctor or an entirely ''different'' return journey. ([[PROSE]]: ''[[Missing, Part One: Business as Usual]]'') This second account seemed to indicate her return was not affected by [[the Doctor's TARDIS]]. Whatever the truth of her return, she flung a message in a bottle into the universe at a moment near the end of her travels, hoping the Doctor would one day find it. ([[PROSE]]: ''[[Missing, Part Two: Message in a Bottle]]'')
Whilst Hebe met up with [[Elise Kaplan]], Mel and the Doctor followed a strange reading at [[Sheffield Hallam University]] to the [[Mindless Facility]] where they met [[Patricia McBride]], who told Mel about how [[Gary (The Mindless Ones)|a student]] had changed after visiting the facility. Mel helped the Doctor destroy the [[Betterment Machine]], which she incorrectly deduced was responsible for Elise's change in personality, and they got a takeaway in the TARDIS with Hebe. ([[AUDIO]]: {{cs|The Mindless Ones (audio story)|The Mindless Ones}})


As of [[2010]], Melanie worked with [[Ace|Dorothy]] and [[A Charitable Earth]], providing [[Computer|PCs]] to schools in [[Africa]]. ([[PROSE]]: ''[[Death of the Doctor (novelisation)|Death of the Doctor]]'')
[[File:Mel and a caveman.jpg|thumb|right|Mel and a [[Neanderthal]]. ([[AUDIO]]: {{cs|Purity Undreamed (audio anthology)|Purity Undreamed}})]]
Mel got a job as an [[analyst]] in the computer department at the [[Emit Institute]] after Patricia contacted the Doctor about having encountered [[Neanderthal]]s there. She learnt that its profits were funding secret research which, by stealing [[Tarek Gamal]]'s [[passcard]], she discovered was the creation of a machine to reverse [[time]]. She and Hebe evacuated the Emit staff into the TARDIS after the machine was damaged and, following a visit to [[Stockholm]] to drop them off, they and the Doctor were joined by Patricia for a trip into the future. ([[AUDIO]]: {{cs|Reverse Engineering (audio story)|Reverse Engineering}})


=== Undated events ===
Neither Mel nor Hebe initially understood why Patricia was horrified by the diverse population of [[Sheffield]] in [[2569]] and Mel later spoke with the Doctor about whether [[hatred]] like Patricia's was innate or developed over time. She joined the Doctor, Hebe, Elise and [[Tannus Vallon]] in thwarting [[Havash Khavûl]], who was assisted by an unwilling Patricia who took Vallon's suit after he was killed and changed time. Hebe disappeared and Mel and the Doctor discovered that, according to the TARDIS, she had never existed. ([[AUDIO]]: {{cs|Chronomancer (audio story)|Chronomancer}})
At some point, Mel was taken to the [[Black Archive]] by [[UNIT]] to have her record as a [[companion]] of the Doctor taken. Her memories of the visit were subsequently erased and she was sent on her way. ([[TV]]: ''[[The Day of the Doctor (TV story)|The Day of the Doctor]]'')


=== Other realities ===
====Saving Hebe====
While her return to Earth and possible death were the most obvious signs that the various accounts probably described different Melanies, there were other signs. She knew of at least one other version of herself in an adventure on the planet [[Puxatornee]]. ([[AUDIO]]: ''[[Flip-Flop (audio story)|Flip-Flop]]'') Likewise, she could not ignore the potential of thousands of other versions of herself when the Sixth Doctor took her to [[Library of Carsus]] to explore the disappearance of [[parallel universe]]s, which included a Mel who was a slave in a world where the Roman Empire never fell and a world where Mel was a human/[[Silurian]] hybrid named Melina Baal. ([[PROSE]]: ''[[Spiral Scratch (novel)|Spiral Scratch]]'') There was an alternate reality in which Mel became the [[Prime Minister of the United Kingdom|Prime Minister]] who led the [[United Kingdom]] against an invasion of the [[Cyberman (Mondas)|Cybermen]], only to be betrayed by an alternative version of the [[Third Doctor]] whose [[exile on Earth]] had never ended. ([[PROSE]]: ''[[The Quantum Archangel (novel)|The Quantum Archangel]]'')
Mel and the Doctor searched for [[temporal distortion]] in the hopes of locating [[Hebe Harrison|Hebe]] and, in [[New York City]] in the [[1930s]], found that a future Mel was starring in the [[fascism|fascist]] [[musical]] ''[[Behold America!]]'' at the [[Rivoli Theater]]. They went back in [[time]] five weeks so that Mel could take part in the show, using [[shoe]]s with [[psionic relay]]s to help her [[dancing|dance]], and put an end to it due to the views it espoused, but they found that [[Alliance of Retribution|an alliance]] of the Doctor's opponents was behind it. Using her newfound dance abilities, Mel was able to reach one of the Doctor's cat badges so that he could cause a temporal blowback to force their enemies to leave. ([[AUDIO]]: {{cs|Broadway Belongs to Me! (audio story)|Broadway Belongs to Me!}})


At some times she may not have been aware of other realities, but neutral observers could not rectify conflicting information about her life. Mel's relationship with another of the Doctor's companions, [[Evelyn Smythe]], also indicated alternative realities. It was particularly murky whether the Mel who bade farewell to Evelyn Smythe on [[Világ]] ([[AUDIO]]: ''[[Thicker Than Water (audio story)|Thicker Than Water]]'') was the same Mel who met her on Earth. ([[PROSE]]: ''[[Instruments of Darkness (novel)|Instruments of Darkness]]'') As Mel's trip to [[Carsus]] made clear, it was possible that neither of these Mels travelled with the Sixth Doctor in the primary universe. ([[PROSE]]: ''[[Spiral Scratch (novel)|Spiral Scratch]]'')
[[File:Mel and Patricia.jpg|thumb|left|Mel and [[Patricia McBride|Patricia]]. ([[AUDIO]]: ''[[Purity Unleashed (audio anthology)|Purity Unleashed]])'']]
Following [[chronomatic time signature]]s and making use of the [[Time-Space Visualiser]], Mel and the Doctor learnt that [[Patricia McBride|Patricia]] was meddling with time using [[Tannus Vallon]]'s suit to shape a future where the disabled did not exist. Mel kept [[Elizabeth Rodden]] busy for a time to keep her from being introduced to [[Jasper Woodward]] and was shocked to find that Patricia was responsible for Hebe's disappearance given that she believed the two of them to have been friends. After Patricia [[murder]]ed Jasper and went to enact her backup plan, Mel and the Doctor followed her in [[the Doctor's TARDIS|the TARDIS]] and were sent off-course when Patricia escaped the Doctor's [[vortex tether]]. ([[AUDIO]]: {{cs|Purification (audio story)|Purification}})


A timeline existed in which Mel never returned home. She got married to [[Ben Heyworth]] and lived on the planet [[Heritage]] in the [[61st century]]. They tried to conceive a child but she was unable since she had gone through menopause. They went to a local [[geneticist]], [[Wakeling]], for help. Instead of doing so normally, he created a [[clone]] of Mel. Furious when she found out, she argued with Wakeling, who accidentally killed her. ([[PROSE]]: ''[[Heritage (novel)|Heritage]]'') These events turned out to be the doing of the [[Council of Eight]]. The Council had eliminated the Doctor's companions from the timeline by causing their deaths. This was corrected when the Doctor's [[Eighth Doctor|eighth incarnation]] defeated the Council. ([[PROSE]]: ''[[Sometime Never... (novel)|Sometime Never...]]'')
Mel and the Doctor arrived in [[Neepsend]] in [[1864]], the [[still point in time|still point]] in a [[temporal anomaly]], and began investigating how the anomaly could relate to Hebe's disappearance and whether [[Samuel Harrison]] was relevant. They confronted Patricia at the [[Patrician Works]] and, after she seemed to die in the [[Time Vortex]] and her alterations to the [[timeline]] undone, they saved [[Patrick McBride|Patrick]] and [[Mary McBride]] from dying in the [[Great Flood of Sheffield]] and returned to the [[21st century]] to find Hebe. However, history had been changed by the McBrides and Hebe and [[Ron (The Mindless Ones)|Ron]], never having met the Doctor or Mel, held them at the point of a [[blaster]] in the name of Purity. ([[AUDIO]]: {{cs|Time-Burst (audio story)|Time-Burst}})


In one history, on the day Mel was supposed to meet the Doctor, she was distracted by [[Ellie Martin (He Jests at Scars...)|Ellie Martin]] and she never encountered the Doctor. In [[2012]], Mel was killed by a brain tumour brought on by radiation from a [[mobile phone]]. ([[AUDIO]]: ''[[He Jests at Scars... (audio story)|He Jests at Scars...]]'')
Hebe and Ron kicked the Doctor and Mel out and they went to the [[Tudor Tea Rooms]] where they learnt about the new timeline and Mel realised that it had come about because of the Doctor giving away future information to Patrick and Mary, allowing them to amass a fortune which Purity has used to take over the world. She stayed with Hebe when the TARDIS gave her her memories of the true timeline, but Hebe was captured by the [[Purity Patrol]] and Mel had to transcribe [[book]]s from memory to pay [[Mick (Girl in a Bubble)|Mick]] for the means to bribe their way into [[The Towers]] to save [[Elise Kaplan|Elise]]. There, the Doctor, Mel and Ron were reunited with Hebe and Elise, but Ron died taking a shot for Elise and Purity kept the survivors captive. ([[AUDIO]]: {{cs|Girl in a Bubble (audio story)|Girl in a Bubble}})


== Personality ==
[[File:Mel Purity Unbound.jpg|thumb|right|Mel. ([[AUDIO]]: {{cs|Purity Unbound (audio anthology)|Purity Unbound}})]]
[[File:MelSmiling.jpg|thumb|A typical smile from Mel]]
Purity attempted to rewrite Mel's timeline, unaware that she was a [[Complex Space-Time Event]] and unwittingly creating a fractured world centred around her in which she lived an ordinary life in [[Pease Pottage]] with Hebe and Elise. She began to experience ''[[déjà vu]]'' and encountered corrupted potential versions of herself, the true nature of which she became aware when the Doctor managed to reach Pease Pottage and everybody's memories were restored. When Purity followed, Mel told her that she did not control time there and caused the timelines to snap back together, restoring the TARDIS. ([[AUDIO]]: {{cs|The Corruptions (audio story)|The Corruptions}})
Mel had a cheery personality. She greeted most situations with a warm smile and good humour. She was an optimist who generally believed the best of people's natures, although she tempered this optimism with a realism and scepticism borne of her scientific education. Her generally perky personality could cool quite quickly if she detected a threat to herself, the Doctor or any friend. ([[TV]]: ''[[Terror of the Vervoids]]'', [[AUDIO]]: ''[[The Fires of Vulcan (audio story)|The Fires of Vulcan]]'', ''[[The Wishing Beast (audio story)|The Wishing Beast]]'', ''[[The Juggernauts (audio story)|The Juggernauts]]'') Though she usually went by the informal "Mel", she sometimes insisted on being introduced as "Melanie" to those whom she didn't quite trust. ([[AUDIO]]: ''[[The Fires of Vulcan (audio story)|The Fires of Vulcan]]'')


In [[1959]], she tried to befriend [[Delta]], and could see that she was distressed. ([[TV]]: ''[[Delta and the Bannermen]]'')
Arriving in Sheffield in [[2527]], Mel and Elise were forced to surrender to the [[Purifier]]s and were saved from an [[incineration field]] by Hebe and [[Nil (The Wrong Side of History)|Nil]], after which Nil sacrificed himself to help the three women reach Purity. The reality ultimately collapsed and Mel, the Doctor, Hebe and Elise returned to the proper timeline where Ron saved them from [[Silkreth]] using knowledge that Patricia got to [[Evelyn Smythe]] before her death. Mel assured Hebe that she would understand if she did not want to return to travelling with her and the Doctor, but Hebe was enthusiastic to continue helping right wrongs. ([[AUDIO]]: {{cs|The Wrong Side of History (audio story)|The Wrong Side of History}})


Mel prided herself on her innate honesty, ([[TV]]: ''[[The Ultimate Foe]]'', [[AUDIO]]: ''[[Red (audio story)|Red]]'') and disliked inventing stories to explain away [[the Doctor's TARDIS|the TARDIS]]' materialisation to those who witnessed it. ([[AUDIO]]: ''[[The Fires of Vulcan (audio story)|The Fires of Vulcan]]'')
====The Doctor's regeneration====
{{Section stub|Further info from {{cs|Spiral Scratch (novel)}} and ''[[The Brink of Death (audio story)|The Brink of Death]]'' needs to be added}}
Mel was present during the Doctor's [[regeneration]], although she was unconscious at the time and did not witness it. According to one account, he suffered a fatal head injury whilst Mel was knocked out. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|Time and the Rani (novelisation)}})


Ace gave Mel the nickname "Donut". ([[TV]]: ''[[Dragonfire (TV story)|Dragonfire]]''; [[AUDIO]]: ''[[A Life of Crime (audio story)|A Life of Crime]]'', ''[[Fiesta of the Damned (audio story)|Fiesta of the Damned]]'', ''[[The Blood Furnace (audio story)|The Blood Furnace]]'') On another occasion, Ace referred to her as "the squeaky one". ([[PROSE]]: ''[[Cat's Cradle: Witch Mark (novel)|Cat's Cradle: Witch Mark]]'')
Another said that the Doctor had been suffering from [[chronon energy]] starvation after a confrontation with the [[Lamprey]]. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|Spiral Scratch (novel)}})  


In her own words, Mel was "as stubborn as they come". ([[AUDIO]]: ''[[A Life of Crime (audio story)|A Life of Crime]]'')
A third said that Mel was rendered unconscious by [[radiation]] which, whilst harmless to her, was deadly to [[Time Lord]]s and caused the Doctor to regenerate. ([[AUDIO]]: {{cs|The Brink of Death (audio story)}})


=== An extraordinary mind ===
====The new Doctor====
Mel had at least a couple of outstanding skills. First, she possessed — like [[Zoe Heriot]] — an [[eidetic memory]]. ([[TV]]: ''[[Terror of the Vervoids]]'', ''[[The Ultimate Foe]]'', [[AUDIO]]: ''[[Unregenerate! (audio story)|Unregenerate!]]'') It was not, however, an ''absolute'' photographic memory, as it failed her when her mind was clouded by emotion. ([[AUDIO]]: ''[[The Wishing Beast (audio story)|The Wishing Beast]]'') She also wasn't merely ''qualified'' in computer science; she was a veritable genius. Perhaps aided by her extraordinary memory, she could quickly assimilate new computer languages, even those in use in the distant future. ([[AUDIO]]: ''[[The Juggernauts (audio story)|The Juggernauts]]'', ''[[Red (audio story)|Red]]'')
{{Section stub|Info from ''[[We Are The Daleks (audio story)|We Are The Daleks]]'', ''[[The Warehouse (audio story)|The Warehouse]]'' and {{cs|Terror of the Sontarans (audio story)}}, ''[[Bang-Bang-a-Boom! (audio story)|Bang-Bang-a-Boom!]]'', ''[[Delta and the Bannermen (TV story)|Delta and the Bannermen]]'' and ''[[The Devil's Footprints (audio story)|The Devil's Footprints]]'' needs to be added}}
[[File:MelAndSevenReunite.jpg|thumb|left|Mel and the Doctor come to trust each other after his recent [[regeneration]]. ([[TV]]: {{cs|Time and the Rani (TV story)}})]]
Whilst {{O'Mara}} took the [[Seventh Doctor]] from the TARDIS, Mel was left behind and, upon waking, was caught in one of the Rani's traps from which she was saved by [[Ikona]]. She was reunited with the Doctor, whom she did not recognise and did not believe was him until he mentioned [[carrot juice]] and other memories. With Mel's help, the Doctor overcame his [[amnesia]] and they thwarted the Rani, liberating the [[Lakertyan]]s. Assured by the new Doctor that he would grow on her, they left for adventures new. ([[TV]]: {{cs|Time and the Rani (TV story)}})


=== A screamer with a steely resolve ===
[[File:MelSmilesLeftTATR.jpg|thumb|A happy Mel on Lakertya. ([[TV]]: {{cs|Time and the Rani (TV story)}})]]
[[File:MelInPool.jpg|thumb|left|Mel screams at the threat posed in the pool at [[Paradise Towers]]. ([[TV]]: ''[[Paradise Towers (TV story)|Paradise Towers]]'')]]
The Doctor left Mel in [[2007]] for a time until she found the empty TARDIS. Following a message to follow [[Louis (Unregenerate!)|Louis]], she located the Doctor inside of a [[Celestial Intervention Agency|CIA]] laboratory, with the help of [[Cabbie (Unregenerate!)|a cabbie]]. She showed Louis the error of his ways and left with the Doctor after the Time Lords' operation was ended. ([[AUDIO]]: {{cs|Unregenerate! (audio story)}})
Mel's reaction to fear was variable. She sometimes met danger with a loud scream. ([[TV]]: ''[[Terror of the Vervoids (TV story)|Terror of the Vervoids]]'', ''[[Time and the Rani (TV story)|Time and the Rani]]'', ''[[Paradise Towers (TV story)|Paradise Towers]]'') She was also possessed of an almost steely resolve. She might have cowered in fear upon first meeting the [[Vervoid]]s and the [[Tetrap]]s, but she composed herself quickly afterwards. On other occasions, she displayed little fear at all. She showed a relatively even temperament when defeating [[the Valeyard]] ([[TV]]: ''[[The Ultimate Foe (TV story)|The Ultimate Foe]]'') and facing down the [[Bannermen]]. ([[TV]]: ''[[Delta and the Bannermen (TV story)|Delta and the Bannerman]]'')


[[File:MelScreamsShangriLa.jpg|thumb|right|Mel screams at [[Shangri-La]] ([[TV]]: ''[[Delta and the Bannermen (TV story)|Delta and the Bannermen]]'')]]
At some point during her travels with the Seventh Doctor, they visited the planet [[Nocturne (planet)|Nocturne]] ([[AUDIO]]: {{cs|Nocturne (audio story)}}) and [[Greece|Ancient Greece]], where Mel corrected [[Euclid]]'s [[geometry]], much to his annoyance. ([[AUDIO]]: {{cs|Mask of Tragedy (audio story)}}) He also took her to [[2040]] Earth to see how far human technology advanced after she offered to help with his TARDIS repairs ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|Daisy Chain (short story)}}) and to [[1999]] where she destroyed a [[Nestene Consciousness|Nestene]] [[meteor]] at a [[Millennium Party]]. ([[COMIC]]: {{cs|Plastic Millenium (comic story)}})
On still other occasions she allowed her logic to guide her swift and efficient action, as when she almost single-handedly defeated [[Davros]] and then derided the Doctor for not having killed the Daleks and him when given the chance. ([[AUDIO]]: ''[[The Juggernauts (audio story)|The Juggernauts]]'') She displayed extraordinary calm when she had to navigate [[Pompeii]] on foot during the eruption of [[Vesuvius]] in search of [[the Doctor's TARDIS]] — when he believed it lost and his life near its end. She could also fight against more internal threats, as when she fought off the effects of having been slowly drugged for six months with [[laudanum]]. ([[AUDIO]]: ''[[The Fires of Vulcan (audio story)|The Fires of Vulcan]]'', ''[[Catch-1782 (audio story)|Catch-1782]]'')


Despite the occasional scream, Mel rarely expressed genuine, lasting fear of anything. However, she did once admit to a fear of heights. ([[AUDIO]]: ''[[Red (audio story)|Red]]'')
She and the Doctor become separated in the [[20th century]], with the Doctor in [[1995]] and Mel in [[1935]], where she met [[Michael Gregson]]. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|24 Crawford Street (short story)}})


=== The logic of healthy living ===
Mel wanted to recuperate after several arduous adventures and learnt of [[Paradise Towers]] from a [[travel video-brochure]] she found in the TARDIS. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|Paradise Towers (novelisation)}}) There, Mel became separated from the Doctor and, heading for the [[swimming pool]] where they had agreed to rendezvous, she was saved from [[Tabby (Paradise Towers)|Tabby]] and [[Tilda]] by [[Pex]], who joined her as her guide and [[sacrifice]]d himself to kill [[Kroagnon]]. Mel was declared by [[Fire Escape]] to be a [[Kang]] on account of having destroyed a [[Cleaner]] and the Doctor was made an honorary one. ([[TV]]: {{cs|Paradise Towers (TV story)}})
Mel was a health enthusiast and a vegetarian, often encouraging the slightly portly Sixth Doctor to exercise more. ([[TV]]: ''[[Terror of the Vervoids]]'') Though she remained staunchly vegetarian throughout her travels with the Doctor, ([[AUDIO]]: ''[[The Fires of Vulcan (audio story)|The Fires of Vulcan]]'') her attempts to be the Doctor's ''de facto'' nutritionist almost vanished after that incarnation [[regeneration|regenerated]].


Her enthusiasm for healthy living, born of the hard-nosed logic of basic science, manifested itself in other ways. She was flatly dismissive of the supernatural — like [[ghost]]s — as scientifically ludicrous. ([[AUDIO]]: ''[[Catch-1782 (audio story)|Catch-1782]]'', ''[[Unregenerate! (audio story)|Unregenerate!]]'') Neither did she believe in fate. ([[AUDIO]]: ''[[The Juggernauts (audio story)|The Juggernauts]]'')
Pex's death remained on her mind, thinking about him when [[Oliver (Special Weapons)|Oliver]] decided to join the [[British Army]] to kill [[Nazi]]s. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|Special Weapons (short story)}})


=== Relationship with the Doctor ===
In [[1978]], she sent [[Ly]] aboard the ''[[Water Carrier]]'' to poison the [[Cnidarian]]s' water with [[salt]], causing them to flee. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|The Invertebrates of Doom (short story)}})
In her dealings with both of "her" Doctors, Mel was warmly affectionate. She sometimes found herself separated from him for months on end and always extremely glad to see him return. ([[AUDIO]]: ''[[The Juggernauts (audio story)|The Juggernauts]]'', ''[[Catch-1782 (audio story)|Catch-1782]]'') She was an especially enthusiastic travelling companion. Once, when asked what she would wish for, if she had the opportunity, she replied:


{{quote|I was going to wish that things could go on just as they are — for as long as we could manage. I love all this, our lives, racketing about the galaxy.|Mel|The Vanity Box (audio story)}}
Mel infiltrated the [[Zenos Corporation]] in [[1987]] to find out why its head office was shaped like a [[Dalek]]. She investigated ''[[Warfleet]]'' and was transported to [[Skaro]]. Once the Daleks were defeated, [[Brinsley Heaton]] asked her to stay and work on computer programming together, but she declined. ([[AUDIO]]: {{cs|We Are The Daleks (audio story)}})


The manner of her departure from the Doctor was also gently affectionate ([[TV]]: ''[[Dragonfire (TV story)|Dragonfire]]'') and her emotional reaction and tears were genuine when she thought him dead. ([[AUDIO]]: ''[[The Wishing Beast (audio story)|The Wishing Beast]]'', ''[[The Vanity Box (audio story)|The Vanity Box]]'')
On the [[Warehouse (space station)|Warehouse]] she was tricked by the [[Supervisor (The Warehouse)|Supervisor]] into repairing the computer so that he could infect the population of the planet below. ([[AUDIO]]: {{cs|The Warehouse (audio story)}})


[[File:SixOnTheBike.jpg|thumb|The Doctor fails to enjoy his Mel-imposed diet of [[carrot juice]] and exercise. ([[TV]]: ''[[Terror of the Vervoids (TV story)|Terror of the Vervoids]]'')]]
She encountered [[Sontaran]]s and [[the Bloom]] on [[ERM 4997]] ([[AUDIO]]: {{cs|Terror of the Sontarans (audio story)}}) and helped broker a peace on [[Prosper]]. ([[AUDIO]]: {{cs|Maker of Demons (audio story)}})
However, her proactive lifestyle led her to be bossy to both her Doctors. Not only did she try to reform the Sixth Doctor's health standards, she also demanded and apparently got him to abandon his motley outfit for a time. ([[AUDIO]]: ''[[Catch-1782]]'') Likewise, she often spurred the Doctor to adventure, as when she insisted they stay on the ''[[Hyperion III]]'' to explore, against his better judgment ([[TV]]: ''[[Terror of the Vervoids]]''), or when she insisted on staying in [[Pompeii]] knowing [[Vesuvius]] was about to erupt. Her at times boundless optimism could prove the buoy the Doctor needed to survive, as when she insisted that there must be a solution to a [[temporal paradox]] that the Doctor believed doomed them to death under the volcanic ash of Vesuvius. ([[AUDIO]]: ''[[The Fires of Vulcan (audio story)|The Fires of Vulcan]]'')


Perhaps because of her highly adventurous nature, she sometimes found it difficult to cope with the mundane. She displayed reluctance at the sight of the rather ordinary [[Shangri-La|Shangri-La holiday camp]] in [[Wales]] in [[1959]]. ([[TV]]: ''[[Delta and the Bannermen]]'') In his investigation of reports of a series of ''agent provocateurs'' known as "the Doctor" who had been involved in numerous unusual incidents, the journalist [[James Stevens]] found evidence of the Doctor and Mel's presence in Shangri-La during this incident. ([[PROSE]]: ''[[Who Killed Kennedy (novel)|Who Killed Kennedy]]'')
They also attended the [[Intergalactic Song Contest]] where she helped solve a serial killing. ([[AUDIO]]: {{cs|Bang-Bang-a-Boom! (audio story)}})


When she began to travel with the Doctor and Ace ([[AUDIO]]: ''[[A Life of Crime (audio story)|A Life of Crime]]''), Ace speculated that the Doctor kept Mel around because she provided someone who genuinely believed that he was doing the right thing, in contrast to Ace's greater skepticism ([[AUDIO]]: ''[[The Silurian Candidate (audio story)|The Silurian Candidate]]'').
In search of [[leptonite crystal]]s, Mel and the Doctor travelled to [[Puxatornee]] where they interrogated by [[Capra (Flip-Flop)|Professor Capra]] before being saved by [[Reed]] and [[Stuart (Flip-Flop)|Stuart]]. Their saviours made them go back in time to rewrite history. When their past selves arrived in the new timeline, Mel was surprised at how they were already known. They were saved from [[Potter (Flip-Flop)|Potter]] by Reed and Stuart who wanted them to change time, eventually changed the timeline back to the original and leaving before their original selves arrived. ([[AUDIO]]: {{cs|Flip-Flop (audio story)}})


== Behind the scenes ==
After they landed at [[G715]], Mel and the Doctor ended up going to [[Shangri-La]] and helped [[Delta]]. ([[TV]]: {{cs|Delta and the Bannermen (TV story)}})
* Mel's last name is never spoken in any televised appearance and the closing credits identify her only by her first name. Her surname is, however, regularly used in novels, [[Big Finish Productions]]' audios, and various other stories.
* According to his book ''The Companions'', [[John Nathan-Turner]] planned to begin [[Season 24]] with a storyline explaining how the Sixth Doctor met Mel. This story was never produced due to [[Colin Baker]]'s removal from the role. An audio story of this nature, ''[[The Wrong Doctors (audio story)|The Wrong Doctors]]'', was eventually written by [[Matt Fitton]] and released in [[2013 (releases)|2013]].
* Mel was the only character in the original series to be depicted on television as having an unsynchronised relationship with the Doctor (aside from himself), as the production team opted to ignore the implications of ''[[The Five Doctors (TV story)|The Five Doctors]]''.
* Mel also appeared in the gag-comic strip ''[[How Much For Just The Planet?]]''


On a beach, Mel met [[Emily (Driftwood)|Emily]] and wondered if her own children would be so beautiful and well-behaved, watching her and pretending that she was her daughter. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|Driftwood (short story)}}) She and the Doctor visited [[Harrow Green]], ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|Pulling Strings (short story)}}) [[1936]] [[Cairo]], ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|Just War (novel)}}) [[1850]] [[England]], ([[AUDIO]]: {{cs|The Devil's Footprints (audio story)}}) [[Dido]], [[Vyga 3]] ([[AUDIO]]: {{cs|Maker of Demons (audio story)}}) and [[Llanfer Ceiriog]]. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|Cat's Cradle: Witch Mark (novel)}})
====Deciding to leave====
{{Section stub|Info from ''[[Uranus (short story)|Uranus]]'' and ''[[Red (audio story)|Red]]'' needs to be added}}
In [[4010]] [[Cressida]], Mel began to feel alienated by the Doctor. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|Uranus (short story)}})
The TARDIS materialised in [[Pompeii]] in [[79|79 AD]], the day before [[Vesuvius]] erupted. She was determined to find a way to stop the TARDIS from being buried in the [[ash]] upon learning that it would be dug up in [[1980]], eventually locating it and allowing the Doctor to realise a way that they could both escape and be dug up in the future. ([[AUDIO]]: {{cs|The Fires of Vulcan (audio story)}})
On [[Needle (Red)|Needle]], she used her programming skills to reprogram [[Whitenoise]] and stop the Red infection. ([[AUDIO]]: {{cs|Red (audio story)}})
In [[Brightedge]], the Doctor pretended that he was a [[magician]] and Mel an entertainment [[journalist]] so that she would be at liberty to investigate [[Big Gerald]]'s silver arms, leading her to find the [[cyber-conversion|cyber-converted]] [[Nelson (Bad Day in Tinseltown)|Nelson]] in a [[cupboard]]. [[Polly Juno]] began converted everybody, so the Doctor told Mel and [[Mitzi Cinque]] to run and later had them send out [[electromagnetic radiation]] to repulse [[Cyber-Warship (Bad Day in Tinseltown)|a Cyber-Warship]], after which they saved the Doctor from falling from a height into a [[mineshaft]]. ([[AUDIO]]: {{cs|Bad Day in Tinseltown (audio story)}})
Mel found the Doctor brooding in the [[Cloister Room]] and advised him to live in the moment rather than worry about who he might become in the future, after which he took her to [[Ribos]] and they found that it was [[Icetime]] when it ought to have been [[Suntime]]. She and [[Sandarr]] recovered the key to the weather machine keeping the [[planet]] in [[winter]] from the [[Duke of Hishtar]], whose [[invasion]] of [[Shur]] they eventually stopped. Mel was disturbed by how the Doctor [[blackmail]]ed [[Baladin Smith]] and wondered about how he would behave in the future. ([[AUDIO]]: {{cs|The Ribos Inheritance (audio story)}})
===Departure===
[[File:MelLeaves.jpg|thumb|right|Mel and the Doctor part ways as she begins her new travels. ([[TV]]: {{cs|Dragonfire (TV story)}})]]
Mel and the Doctor were reunited with [[Sabalom Glitz]] on [[Svartos]], where they also met [[Ace]]. Following [[Kane (Dragonfire)|Kane]]'s death, Mel decided to leave the Doctor and suggested that he invite Ace to join him. She chose to continue travelling the universe with Glitz aboard the ''[[Iceworld|Nosferatu II]]'', ([[TV]]: {{cs|Dragonfire (TV story)}}) although, according to one account, she realised that she was not a traveller and needed somewhere that she could belong. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|Dragonfire (novelisation)}}) She intended to keep Glitz on the straight and narrow, keeping him from involving himself in "dodgy deals". ([[TV]]: {{cs|Dragonfire (TV story)}})
During their travels together, Mel and Glitz encountered a [[Galactic Heritage]] fleet. The experience led Mel to describe the organisation as "a militarised, space-faring [[National Trust]]". ([[AUDIO]]: {{cs|The High Price of Parking (audio story)}})
===Post-Svartos===
{{Section stub|Info from ''[[Heritage (novel)|Heritage]]'' needs to be added}}
====An unhappy reunion====
According to one account, Mel travelled with Glitz for about six months before leaving him to hitch-hike her way to Earth, stopping off at [[Avalonian Resorts, Inc]] to try to revamp it and finding herself stuck there for two years. Eventually, she hacked into the [[Galactic Banking Conglomerate]]'s systems and sent messages to Glitz asking her to pick her up, but he used her to steal [[money]] from the Conglomerate and she was captured by [[Dr. Who (Land of Fiction)|Dr Who]] and [[Jason (Conundrum)|Jason]] before he could arrive. They imprisoned her in the [[Galactic Prison]] in the [[Land of Fiction]], from which she was rescued by the Seventh Doctor.
[[File:Mel and the Doctor Head Games.jpg|thumb|left|Mel, back in the TARDIS with the Doctor. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|Head Games (novel)}})]]
Mel was appalled to learn the type of person that the Doctor had become, having manipulated her into leaving him on [[Svartos]] and knowing of her being stuck on Avalone, and by how violent and callous [[Bernice Summerfield]], [[Roz Forrester]] and [[Chris Cwej]] were and [[Ace]] had become. Following the defeat of Dr Who, Mel took some [[clothes]] from the [[TARDIS wardrobe]] and had the Doctor take her to the [[1990s]], telling him that she had no wish to know him and calling him a [[liar]], a user and a possible [[murderer]]. Ace went after her after she left the TARDIS to try to "sort her out". ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|Head Games (novel)}})
==== Meeting with Lines====
According to another account, Mel returned to Earth long after she last saw the Doctor. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|Missing, Part One: Business as Usual (short story}}) She had thrown a [[bottle]] into [[space]] containing a message for him before she returned home, just as she had promised him, and looked into the [[sky]] at [[night]] wondering if he had found it, although she had long since forgotten what the message actually said. Ultimately, it fell into a [[black hole]] some time after passing the TARDIS. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|Missing, Part Two: Message in a Bottle (short story)}})
Mel arranged a meeting with [[Robert Lines]] at [[Sally's Café]] in [[Brighton]] on [[23 July]] [[1991]], wanting to know how her mother and father were before she returned home to Pease Pottage. She had come to the conclusion that life in space was just as mundane as it was on Earth and that being out there was only a distraction, one which she did not regret but which she would not have chosen to do again. Assured that her parents were okay, she accepted Lines's offer of a lift home and remarked that she was ready to return to business as usual. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|Missing, Part One: Business as Usual (short story)}})
====Alongside Ace====
{{Section stub|Further info from ''[[A Life of Crime (audio story)|A Life of Crime]]'', ''[[Fiesta of the Damned (audio story)|Fiesta of the Damned]]'', ''[[Maker of Demons (audio story)|Maker of Demons]]'', ''[[Red Planets (audio story)|Red Planets]]'' and ''[[The Dispossessed (audio story)|The Dispossessed]]'' needs to be added}}
[[File:Mel Ace and the Doctor.jpeg|thumb|left|Mel with the Doctor and Ace ([[AUDIO]]: {{cs|The High Price of Parking (audio story)}})]]
According to one account, Mel's possible futures were sold by Glitz to [[Speravore Investment Holdings]] to pay off his debts, leaving Mel on [[Ricosta]]. She was reunited with the Doctor and Ace, whom she helped save the planet from the [[Speravore]]s, after which she joined them in the TARDIS. ([[AUDIO]]: {{cs|A Life of Crime (audio story)}})
They accidentally landed in [[Spain]] during the [[Spanish Civil War]], where Mel suffered the casual [[sexism]] of the time whilst Ace refused to. She became infected by [[God Seed]]. ([[AUDIO]]: {{cs|Fiesta of the Damned (audio story)}})
They returned to [[Prosper]], where she helped identify and defeat [[Caliban]]. ([[AUDIO]]: {{cs|Maker of Demons (audio story)}})
The Doctor and friends landed on [[Parking (planet)|Parking]] where they were arrested. Learning about the [[Free Parker]]s from [[Cowley]], she realised that there must be someone inside the Warden's system that helped them. She tried the stop the Free Parker's virus from escaping and when the explosions started she worked a way to save casualties by sending the tourists to [[Dashrah]]. She worked a way to stop the infected spaceships from escaping the planet. ([[AUDIO]]: {{cs|The High Price of Parking (audio story)}})
They landed in [[1991]] [[Liverpool]] where Mel was reunited with her former boyfriend of university, [[Stuart Dale]]. He asked her if she wanted a job creating an IT system from scratch which she accepted. When in the TARDIS something forced her hands to stay on the console when it blew up, and later she had the same effect o any piece of digital equipment she went near. The Doctor realised that she was infected by a virus. She later went through the supply gate with Stuart finding enough equipment to build 100 ships. She was cured of the virus and helped the Doctor to create a digital hologram to diminish the Eorgm powers. ([[AUDIO]]: {{cs|The Blood Furnace (audio story)}})
Ace told Mel that the Doctor had changed their course because he wanted to deal with some unfinshed business, and warned her when the Doctor was in this state. In [[2085]], Mel, the Doctor and Ace prevented the [[Silurian]]s from provoking war between [[China]] and the [[United States of America|United States]], later helping implement a plan to allow the Silurians to re-establish themselves on Earth in the future. ([[AUDIO]]: {{cs|The Silurian Candidate (audio story)}})
Mel and the Doctor both investigated the Republic of [[Mokoshia]] in a timeline in which Mel was a [[communism|communist]], this disconcerted the Doctor. She was helped by [[Anna (Red Planets)|Anna]] to acclimatised, she later went with the Doctor to a base on mars. ([[AUDIO]]: {{cs|Red Planets (audio story)}})
She started reading the TARDIS manuals. The Doctor brought her and Ace to a tower block near Manchester. She decided to go with Ace into a lift which [[Ruck]] said was a bad idea. The lift took them to another world. They met with [[Arkallax]] and learnt about his plans. She helped [[Isobel (The Dispossessed)|Isobel]] to defeat him. [[Josiah W. Dogbolter]] manipulated Mel into delivering the TARDIS to him. ([[AUDIO]]: {{cs|The Dispossessed (audio story)}})
She wanted to make sure that her debt was clear and had to sign a contract to do this. She was delighted was she discovered that Ace and the Doctor had escaped the cells. She used her technical ability to put a virus on the system to locate the TARDIS, and also could control [[Hob]]. She learnt about the [[Quantum Possibility Engine]] from Hob and was appalled by it. Having realised that Hob didn't kill her friends and [[Narvin]] but had put it in the engine's timelines she was determined to get them out of there to stop Dogbolter. She used the Engine to help the Doctor. Because she read the TARDIS manual, Mel was a better pilot of the TARDIS and knew ways to pilot it that the Doctor didn't even realise were possible. She asked for forgiveness to her actions. ([[AUDIO]]: {{cs|The Quantum Possibility Engine (audio story)}})
====Running 24 Carat====
[[File:Mel Bush space billboard.jpg|thumb|Mel on a billboard in space. ([[WC]]: {{cs|24 Carat (webcast)}})]]
According to one account, Mel began [[24 Carat]], a small [[carrot juice]] business which grew into a [[galaxy]]-wide [[technology]], [[health]] and [[lifestyle]] empire. She became a [[philanthropist]] and invited potential investors to her headquarters on [[Mel's spacestation headquarters|a space station]] to impress her and enter into a partnership with 24 Carat.
Mel turned down [[Blue Kang Travel]]'s package holidays to [[Paradise Towers]] due to the continued threat of the [[Cleaner]]s and [[Visitor (24 Carat)|a visitor]] from the [[Ice Colonies]]' [[Mr Melty Face Peel|face peel]] and [[ice sculpture]]s, after which she had to call security because of [[Derek the Tetrap]]'s attempts to threaten her into investing in his [[bubble-trap bath]]. She was finally approached by a hooded Seventh Doctor, whom she recognised when he started playing the [[spoon]]s, and they went to watch [[Doctor Who Season 24 (in-universe)|a record]] of their adventures together, agreeing not to start on [[Time and the Rani (in-universe)|one with]] the [[Tetrap]]s. ([[WC]]: {{cs|24 Carat (webcast)}})
==== Lift off a Zingo====
According to one account, Mel travelled with Glitz until he fell over a [[bottle]] of [[whiskey]] at the age of 101 and died. She attended his [[Viking]]-style [[funeral]] and decided that it was time to go home, so she got a lift back to Earth with a [[Zingo]]. Upon returning, she had to face the fact that she was an orphan and had nothing on Earth. ([[TV]]: {{cs|The Giggle (TV story)}})
===Back on Earth===
In [[2003]], [[John Hallam]] invited Mel to the [[National Foundation for Scientific Research]], although her past self and the Doctor went instead, having intercepted the invitation. ([[AUDIO]]: {{cs|Catch-1782 (audio story)}})
By [[2010]], Mel was working with Ace and [[A Charitable Earth]], providing computers to schools in [[Africa]]. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|Death of the Doctor (novelisation)}})
===Working for UNIT===
[[File:Mel Power of the Doctor 1.jpg|thumb|Mel in [[2022]]. ([[TV]]: {{cs|The Power of the Doctor (TV story)}})]]
In [[2022]], Mel joined [[Companion support group|a support group]] for people who had travelled with [[the Doctor]], a group which also included [[Yasmin Khan]], [[Graham O'Brien]], [[Dan Lewis]], [[Ian Chesterton]], [[Jo Jones]], [[Tegan Jovanka]], Ace and [[Kate Stewart]]. During the meeting, Kate half-jokingly offered a job with [[UNIT United Kingdom|UNIT]] to the attendants, ([[TV]]: {{cs|The Power of the Doctor (TV story)}}) with Mel taking her up on the offer. By [[2023]], she was a fully deputised employee of UNIT.
During [[The Giggle (event)|the Giggle]], Mel assisted the [[Fourteenth Doctor]] and [[Donna Noble]] in tracking [[the Giggle]] down to [[Stooky Bill]] due to its arpeggio nature, and also safeguarded [[the Toymaker]]'s toybox when the Doctor retrieved it from [[1925]] [[Soho]]. When the Toymaker attacked [[UNIT HQ, City of London|UNIT HQ]], she survived being thrown across a room by him. Mel stood by the Doctor with Donna when the Toymaker triggered a [[regeneration]], and then helped the Doctor complete a [[bi-generation]] by pulling the [[Fifteenth Doctor]] out of him. After the Doctors beat the Toymaker in a game of catch and exiled him from their existence, Mel presented the Toybox to which he was banished to. She later joined the [[Noble family]] and the Doctor for a dinner party ([[TV]]: {{cs|The Giggle (TV story)}}) at the [[Fourteenth Doctor's home]], ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|The Giggle (novelisation)}}) where she was adopted into the family as "Mad Auntie Mel". ([[TV]]: {{cs|The Giggle (TV story)}})
UNIT placed her undercover inside [[Triad Technology]], where she worked as a media officer. She was tasked with monitoring [[Susan Triad]] as UNIT thought there was something alien about her. This involved regularly testing her DNA to see if she was still human. She observed the Doctor's experiment in UNIT's time window, hoping to use her good memory to look at who [[Ruby Sunday's mother]] was in the simulation, as well as explaining to [[Ruby Sunday]] how they could take the data from the VHS tape to do it. She took the Doctor to Susan to help with question her. She watched Susan's speech in the lecture theatre, witnessing her breakdown and allow [[Sutekh]] to manifest. ([[TV]]: {{cs|The Legend of Ruby Sunday (TV story)}})
She drove the Doctor back to UNIT and the time window. After watching Sutekh explain how he survived his first encounter with the Doctor, she escaped in the [[Remembered TARDIS]]. Inside she saw the [[Sixth Doctor's coat]] and cravat hanging inside reminding her of that incarnation. She helped stabilise the TARDIS. Growing more weak she clung to the Sixth Doctor's Coat and the [[Seventh Doctor's jumper]] for warmth. This is when she started hearing Sutekh's voice, trying to turn her into an Angel of Death. She was becoming colder, and when the snow that fell around Ruby appeared again this was enough to kill her and fully become an angel of death. In this form she was able to bring the Doctor and Ruby back to UNIT HQ in an instance. After the Doctor defeated Sutekh she returned to her human form. ([[TV]]: {{cs|Empire of Death (TV story)}})
===Undated===
* At some point, Mel was taken to the [[Black Archive]] by [[UNIT]] to have her record as a [[companion]] of the Doctor taken. Her memories of the visit were subsequently erased and she was sent on her way. ([[TV]]: {{cs|The Day of the Doctor (TV story)}})
* At another point, Mel was abducted by [[Adam Mitchell]] as part his plan to get revenge on the Doctor, in collaboration with {{Ainley}}. She was placed in stasis alongside the Doctors' multiple other companions, before being released by the Doctors first eleven numbered incarnations with the help of [[Frobisher]]. ([[COMIC]]: {{cs|The Choice (comic story)}}, {{cs|Endgame (POT comic story)}})
* The Doctor took Mel to visit [[Bletchley Park]] and she received several job offers there. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|Death in the Stars (novel)}})
==Psychological profile==
=== Personality===
[[File:Mel at computer.jpg|thumb|right|Mel at a [[computer]]. ([[TV]]: {{cs|Terror of the Vervoids (TV story)}})]]
Mel had a perky personality. She greeted most situations with a warm smile and good humour. She was an optimist who generally believed the best of people's natures, although she tempered this optimism with a realism and scepticism borne of her scientific education. Her cheeriness could cool quite quickly if she detected a threat to herself, the Doctor or her friends. ([[TV]]: {{cs|Terror of the Vervoids (TV story)}}; [[AUDIO]]: {{cs|The Fires of Vulcan (audio story)}}, {{cs|The Wishing Beast (audio story)}}, {{cs|The Juggernauts (audio story)}}) Though she usually went by the informal "Mel", she sometimes insisted on being introduced as "Melanie" to those whom she didn't quite trust. ([[AUDIO]]: {{cs|The Fires of Vulcan (audio story)}}) In [[1959]], she tried to befriend [[Delta]], and could see that she was distressed. ([[TV]]: {{cs|Delta and the Bannermen (TV story)}})
She enjoyed the [[music]] of [[ABBA]] and the [[Bee Gees]]. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|Business Unusual (novel)}}) She did not drink [[tea]]. ([[AUDIO]]: {{cs|The Devil's Footprints (audio story)}}) Mel sometimes found it difficult to cope with the mundane. She displayed reluctance at the sight of the rather ordinary [[Shangri-La|Shangri-La holiday camp]] in [[Wales]] in [[1959]]. ([[TV]]: {{cs|Delta and the Bannermen (TV story)}})
Mel prided herself on her innate honesty, ([[TV]]: {{cs|The Ultimate Foe (TV story)}}, [[AUDIO]]: {{cs|Red (audio story)}}) and was reluctant to lie such as inventing stories to explain away [[the Doctor's TARDIS|the TARDIS]]'s materialisation to those who witnessed it. ([[AUDIO]]: {{cs|The Fires of Vulcan (audio story)}}) In her own words, Mel was "as stubborn as they come". ([[AUDIO]]: {{cs|A Life of Crime (audio story)}})
[[File:MelInPool.jpg|thumb|left|Mel screams at the threat posed in the pool at [[Paradise Towers]]. ([[TV]]: {{cs|Paradise Towers (TV story)}})]]
Mel's reaction to fear was variable. She sometimes met danger with a loud scream. ([[TV]]: {{cs|Terror of the Vervoids (TV story)}}, {{cs|Time and the Rani (TV story)}}, {{cs|Paradise Towers (TV story)}}) She was also possessed of an almost steely resolve. She might have cowered in fear upon first meeting the [[Vervoid]]s and the [[Tetrap]]s, but she composed herself quickly afterwards. On other occasions, she displayed little fear at all. ([[TV]]: {{cs|Terror of the Vervoids (TV story)}}, {{cs|Time and the Rani (TV story)}}) She showed a relatively even temperament when defeating [[the Valeyard]] ([[TV]]: {{cs|The Ultimate Foe (TV story)}}) and facing down the [[Bannermen]]. ([[TV]]: {{cs|Delta and the Bannermen (TV story)}}) On still other occasions, she allowed her logic to guide her swift and efficient action, as when she almost single-handedly defeated [[Davros]] and then derided the Doctor for not having killed the [[Dalek|Daleks]] and him when given the chance; before realising to her shame she was acting as them. ([[AUDIO]]: {{cs|The Juggernauts (audio story)}}) She displayed extraordinary calm when she had to navigate [[Pompeii]] on foot during the eruption of [[Vesuvius]] in search of [[the Doctor's TARDIS]] — when he believed it lost and his life near its end. She could also fight against more internal threats, as when she fought off the effects of having been slowly drugged for six months with [[laudanum]]. ([[AUDIO]]: {{cs|The Fires of Vulcan (audio story)}}, {{cs|Catch-1782 (audio story)}}) Despite the occasional scream, Mel rarely expressed genuine, lasting fear of anything. However, she did once admit to a fear of heights. ([[AUDIO]]: {{cs|Red (audio story)}}) Even when she nearly died because of [[the Toymaker]], she remained calm and bravely went to comfort the [[Fourteenth Doctor]] as he regenerated. ([[TV]]: {{cs|The Giggle (TV story)}})
Mel was a health enthusiast and a [[vegetarian]], often encouraging the slightly portly Sixth Doctor to exercise more. ([[TV]]: {{cs|Terror of the Vervoids (TV story)}}) Her enthusiasm for healthy living, born of the hard-nosed logic of basic science, manifested itself in other ways. She was flatly dismissive of the supernatural — like [[ghost]]s — as scientifically ludicrous. ([[AUDIO]]: {{cs|Catch-1782 (audio story)}}, {{cs|Unregenerate! (audio story)}}) Neither did she believe in fate. ([[AUDIO]]: {{cs|The Juggernauts (audio story)}})
===Relationship with the Doctor===
[[File:SixOnTheBike.jpg|thumb|The Doctor fails to enjoy his Mel-imposed diet of [[carrot juice]] and exercise. ([[TV]]: {{cs|Terror of the Vervoids (TV story)}})]]
In her dealings with the Doctor, Mel was warmly affectionate. She sometimes found herself separated from him for months on end and always extremely glad to see him return. ([[AUDIO]]: {{cs|The Juggernauts (audio story)}}, {{cs|Catch-1782 (audio story)}}) She was an especially enthusiastic travelling companion. Once, when asked what she would wish for, if she had the opportunity, she replied: ''"I was going to wish that things could go on just as they are — for as long as we could manage. I love all this, our lives, racketing about the galaxy."'' ([[AUDIO]]: {{cs|The Vanity Box (audio story)}}) The manner of her departure from the Doctor was also gently affectionate ([[TV]]: {{cs|Dragonfire (TV story)}}) and her emotional reaction and tears were genuine when she thought him dead. ([[AUDIO]]: {{cs|The Wishing Beast (audio story)}}, {{cs|The Vanity Box (audio story)}})
However, her proactive lifestyle led her to be bossy to the Doctor. Not only did she try to reform the Sixth Doctor's health standards, she also demanded and apparently got him to abandon his motley outfit for a time. ([[AUDIO]]: {{cs|Catch-1782 (audio story)}}) Likewise, she often spurred the Doctor to adventure, as when she insisted they stay on the ''[[Hyperion III]]'' to explore, against the Sixth Doctor's judgement, ([[TV]]: {{cs|Terror of the Vervoids (TV story)}}) or when she insisted on staying in [[Pompeii]] knowing [[Vesuvius]] was about to erupt. Her at times boundless optimism could prove the buoy the Seventh Doctor needed to survive, as when she insisted that there must be a solution to a [[temporal paradox]] that the Doctor believed doomed them to death under the volcanic ash of Vesuvius. ([[AUDIO]]: {{cs|The Fires of Vulcan (audio story)}})
When she began to travel with the Doctor and Ace, ([[AUDIO]]: {{cs|A Life of Crime (audio story)}}) Ace speculated that the Doctor kept Mel around because she provided someone who genuinely believed that he was doing the right thing, in contrast to Ace's greater scepticism. ([[AUDIO]]: {{cs|The Silurian Candidate (audio story)}})
Mel was happy to meet the [[Fourteenth Doctor]], and chose to be with him as he regenerated. She quickly accepted the [[Fourteenth Doctor's bi-generation|bi-generation]] and welcomed the [[Fifteenth Doctor]]. When the Fourteenth Doctor went into semi-retirement to live with the Noble family, Mel often came to join them for dinner, accepting the Doctor's suggestion that she was 'Mad Auntie Mel' to the Noble family dynamic. ([[TV]]: {{cs|The Giggle (TV story)}})
Later, when the Fifteenth Doctor and [[Ruby Sunday]] arrived at [[UNIT HQ, City of London|UNIT Tower]], [[Kate Stewart]] told the Doctor that Mel was working for [[Susan Triad]] on her media team. Later, when [[Sutekh]] returned, she briefly travelled with the Doctor and Ruby in the [[Remembered TARDIS]] before dying and bringing them to Sutekh. When he was defeated, Mel was revived, unscathed.
===Skills ===
Mel possessed an [[eidetic memory]]. ([[TV]]: {{cs|Terror of the Vervoids (TV story)}}, {{cs|The Ultimate Foe (TV story)}}, [[AUDIO]]: {{cs|Unregenerate! (audio story)}}) It was not, however, an absolute photographic memory, as it failed her when her mind was clouded by emotion. ([[AUDIO]]: {{cs|The Wishing Beast (audio story)}}) She also wasn't merely qualified in computer science; she was a veritable genius. Perhaps aided by her extraordinary memory, she could quickly assimilate new computer languages, even those in use in the distant future. ([[AUDIO]]: {{cs|The Juggernauts (audio story)}}, {{cs|Red (audio story)}}) At the age of eight, she committed the names of 150 different species of [[dinosaur]]s to memory and is therefore able to recognise an [[iguanodon]] on sight. ([[AUDIO]]: {{cs|The Wrong Doctors (audio story)}})
Mel Bush proved able with [[martial arts]]. ([[TV]]: {{cs|Time and the Rani (TV story)}}; [[AUDIO]]: {{cs|Terror of the Sontarans (audio story)}})
==Appearance==
Mel had curly red hair and brown eyes. According to one account, was four foot ten. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|Terror of the Vervoids (novelisation)}}) According to another, she was about five foot one. ([[AUDIO]]: {{cs|The Trials of a Time Lord (audio story)}}) Because of her complexion and the colour of her hair, she did not suit black clothes. ([[AUDIO]]: {{cs|Mel-evolent (audio story)}}) She cut her hair short after leaving the ''[[Nosferatu II]]''. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|Head Games (novel)}})
==Behind the scenes ==
*''[[The Companions (reference book)|The Companions]]'', a reference book by [[John Nathan-Turner]], established that Mel joined the [[Sixth Doctor]] in [[1986]] when she helped thwart [[the Master]] (presumably {{Ainley}}), who planned a dastardly attempt at a massive computer fraud involving all the banking houses on [[Earth]].
* Mel's last name is never spoken in any televised appearance and the closing credits in her original appearances identify her only by her first name. Her surname is, however, regularly used in novels, [[Big Finish Productions]]' audios, and various other stories. Her surname would finally be used onscreen in the closing credits of ''[[The Power of the Doctor (TV story)|The Power of the Doctor]]''.
*According to his book ''The Companions'', [[John Nathan-Turner]] planned to begin [[Season 24 (Doctor Who 1963)|Season 24]] with a storyline explaining how the Sixth Doctor met Mel. This story was never produced due to [[Colin Baker]]'s removal from the role. An audio story of this nature, ''[[The Wrong Doctors (audio story)|The Wrong Doctors]]'', was eventually written by [[Matt Fitton]] and released in [[2013 (releases)|2013]].
*Mel was the only character in the original series to be depicted on television as having an asynchronous relationship with the Doctor, unless multi-Doctor stories are taken into account.
* Mel also appeared in the gag-comic strip ''[[How Much For Just The Planet? (comic story)|How Much For Just The Planet?]]''
*She and [[Susan]] remain the only televised companions without a televised story on how they met [[the Doctor]], aside from [[Handles]].
*There were plans for her to stay on for [[Season 25 (Doctor Who 1963)|Season 25]], but [[Bonnie Langford]] decided to leave the series, feeling there wasn't much more to be done with her character. So, the ending of ''[[Dragonfire (TV story)|Dragonfire]]'' was amended to have her leave with [[Sabalom Glitz]] while [[Ace]] went off with the Doctor.
* Her character being a fitness fanatic was inspired by the workout craze of the late 1980s, which had been popularised by celebrities such as {{w|Jane Fonda}}.
*She was the first British companion since [[Sarah Jane Smith]] departed.
* [[John Nathan-Turner]]'s main stipulation for her character was that she have red hair, hence why [[Bonnie Langford]] was cast.
* Mel has the unique distinction of being present for the "birth" of two Doctors, the Seventh and the Fifteenth. While it could be argued that Donna was as well, the [[Meta-Crisis Doctor]] was a clone of the [[Tenth Doctor]], rather than a new incarnation.
==Footnotes==
===Notes===
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Latest revision as of 18:39, 25 November 2024

Melanie Bush
Other realities
Appearances

Melanie Jane Bush BSc (Hons), also known as Mel, was a companion of the Sixth, Seventh, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Doctors.

She hailed from Pease Pottage, West Sussex. Although she was present for the Doctor's sixth regeneration, she did not witness it, as she was unconscious at the time after being exposed to a latent radiation which only knocked her out, but was fatal to Time Lords. As a result, the presence of a new incarnation of the Doctor confused her and made it hard to adjust to the differences in his appearance and personality.

She had a temporally complex relationship with the Sixth Doctor, as she met him in an order different than he met her, as Charlotte Pollard and River Song later would. Eventually, however, their timelines synchronised, and she had a more-or-less linear relationship to the Doctor, starting in the later period of his sixth incarnation. Her temporal relationship to the Seventh Doctor was considerably more straightforward and linear.

Eventually, she was hired by the UNIT led by Kate Stewart in the 2020s. Working there, she met the Fourteenth Doctor, helped him bi-generate into the Fifteenth Doctor and watched them defeat the Toymaker. She later visited the retired Fourteenth Doctor and Donna Noble's family, and continued on to help the Fifteenth Doctor and Ruby Sunday.

Biography[[edit] | [edit source]]

Childhood[[edit] | [edit source]]

Mel was born on 22 July (PROSE: Spiral Scratch [+]Loading...["Spiral Scratch (novel)"]) 1964 (PROSE: Just War [+]Loading...["Just War (novel)"], Spiral Scratch [+]Loading...["Spiral Scratch (novel)"]; AUDIO: The Wrong Doctors [+]Loading...["The Wrong Doctors (audio story)"]) to Alan and Christine Bush (PROSE: Business Unusual [+]Loading...["Business Unusual (novel)"]) eighteen months after the birth of their first daughter, Anabel. The family lived at 8 Gosling Street in Croxdale where, at the age of eighteen months, Mel accidentally caused the two-and-a-half Anabel to fatally fall down the stairs.[nb 1]

Alan and Christine kept Anabel's existence a secret from Mel, who repressed the memory of her death, and moved the family to 14 The Lawns, Ardingly six months after Anabel's death to move on. To cover up the existence of her sister, Alan and Christine never showed Mel any photographs from before they moved house and she grew up believing that she was an only child, had been born in Hove Hospital (PROSE: Spiral Scratch [+]Loading...["Spiral Scratch (novel)"]) and had never encountered death. (PROSE: Business Unusual [+]Loading...["Business Unusual (novel)"])

When she was young, Mel would often fidget and complain about being sat on something that was hurting her. Her father would sarcastically tell her that she was sitting on a chair and her mother would liken her to the titular character of The Princess and the Pea. (AUDIO: The Devil's Footprints [+]Loading...["The Devil's Footprints (audio story)"]) She was scared after watching Babes in the Wood and once got a baby bat caught up in her hair after wandering away from her parents in Durham Cathedral. She had to have it cut free. At the age of five or six, her parents woke her up to watch one of the Moon landings and she decided that she wanted to see the Earth from outer space. (PROSE: Business Unusual [+]Loading...["Business Unusual (novel)"])

At primary school, Mel played pat-a-cake, (PROSE: Paradise Towers [+]Loading...["Paradise Towers (novelisation)"]) made a replica of Mount Vesuvius out of papier mâché (AUDIO: The Fires of Vulcan [+]Loading...["The Fires of Vulcan (audio story)"]) and had a keen interest in science from a young age thanks to her uncle, John Hallam. (AUDIO: Catch-1782 [+]Loading...["Catch-1782 (audio story)"]) She was talented at mathematics (PROSE: Business Unusual [+]Loading...["Business Unusual (novel)"]) and computers, becoming adept in the computer languages of BASIC, COBOL and FORTRAN. (AUDIO: The Juggernauts [+]Loading...["The Juggernauts (audio story)"]) She took dancing lessons from Miss Fairs (PROSE: Business Unusual [+]Loading...["Business Unusual (novel)"]) and did combat training in the Pease Pottage community hall. (AUDIO: Terror of the Sontarans [+]Loading...["Terror of the Sontarans (audio story)"])

At the age of eight, Mel committed the names of 150 different species of dinosaur to memory (AUDIO: The Wrong Doctors [+]Loading...["The Wrong Doctors (audio story)"]) and had read the entire canon of Sherlock Holmes by the age of nine. (AUDIO: Unregenerate! [+]Loading...["Unregenerate! (audio story)"]) She also read all of C. P. Snow's works. (TV: Time and the Rani [+]Loading...["Time and the Rani (TV story)"]) In 1973, 1974 and 1975, she played Gabriel in a nativity at the village hall and was afterwards more interested in reciting the periodic table, but she did take part in her mother's ABBA-themed fundraisers. (AUDIO: The Wrong Doctors [+]Loading...["The Wrong Doctors (audio story)"]) She was a Girl Guide and once, with her parents, walked through deep snow to their village hall whilst carrying all the props and costumes for a show for pensioners, though the pensioners did not show up on account of the weather. (AUDIO: The One Doctor [+]Loading...["The One Doctor (audio story)"])

After Mel finished primary school, the family moved a few miles away to 36 Downview Crescent, Pease Pottage, (PROSE: Spiral Scratch [+]Loading...["Spiral Scratch (novel)"]) a house with a large garden. (TV: Terror of the Vervoids [+]Loading...["Terror of the Vervoids (TV story)"]) She regularly used her address as a backdoor when writing code. (AUDIO: The Juggernauts [+]Loading...["The Juggernauts (audio story)"])

Teenage years[[edit] | [edit source]]

At secondary school, Mel discovered vegetarianism and stopped eating turkey at Christmas dinner as she always had done. She would often return from school to find Christine, who was eager to fit in with the women of Pease Pottage, frantically tidying the house in preparation for meetings of the women's guilds, friendships, leagues and the like. As a result, she spent most of her time in her bedroom doing homework aside from when she was having dinner or saying hello to Alan after work. (PROSE: Spiral Scratch [+]Loading...["Spiral Scratch (novel)"])

For her school's performance of Macbeth, Mel played the role of the Third Witch. (PROSE: Time and the Rani [+]Loading...["Time and the Rani (novelisation)"]) She once bumped into Mrs Finch whilst leaving the corner shop and, unsure as to whether to acknowledge her baby's Down's Syndrome, she mumbled and smiled. This embarrassed her and hurt Mrs Finch. (PROSE: Millennial Rites [+]Loading...["Millennial Rites (novel)"]) She frequented a roller disco and once remarked that it was the last place that somebody felt threatened by her. (AUDIO: The Silurian Candidate [+]Loading...["The Silurian Candidate (audio story)"])

Mel was bullied for her appearance, where she lived and who her parents were. She was unbothered, however, until Andy Ledger told her on her eleventh birthday that she did not have a sense of humour because she disliked the boys' jokes about car accidents and people from other countries. Because she reacted to this insult, Andy continued to bring it up even on the day they collected their A level results. (PROSE: The Best Joke I Ever Told [+]Loading...["The Best Joke I Ever Told (short story)"]) She left school with five A-levels and ten O-levels. (PROSE: Business Unusual [+]Loading...["Business Unusual (novel)"])

Studies and career[[edit] | [edit source]]

Mel went to France to pick apples for a summer before travelling around Europe for eight months at her father's expense. Afterwards, she was employed by a nature reserve in Scotland and took to working exclusively in the office after an owl tried to attack her, leading her to discover her natural skill with computers. (PROSE: Business Unusual [+]Loading...["Business Unusual (novel)"]) She applied to study at the University of West London (PROSE: Millennial Rites [+]Loading...["Millennial Rites (novel)"]; AUDIO: Time-Burst [+]Loading...["Time-Burst (audio story)"]) or London University in 1986 (PROSE: Business Unusual [+]Loading...["Business Unusual (novel)"]) as she wanted to get away from her family (AUDIO: Time-Burst [+]Loading...["Time-Burst (audio story)"]) and opened her acceptance letter with her mother. (AUDIO: The Wrong Doctors [+]Loading...["The Wrong Doctors (audio story)"])

At university, Mel was frequently annoyed by her younger peers who were desperate for attention and befriended Trey Korte, whom she immediately realised was gay. She had difficulty keeping men around her for long, which she attributed to her strait-laced demeanour and her need to show off her intelligence, (PROSE: Business Unusual [+]Loading...["Business Unusual (novel)"]) but she did date Stuart Dale for more than two years. (AUDIO: The Blood Furnace [+]Loading...["The Blood Furnace (audio story)"]) Philosophically opposed to armies, she joined marches led by CND and Troops Out of Northern Ireland. (PROSE: Business Unusual [+]Loading...["Business Unusual (novel)"])

Mel returned home for the summer of 1987 and was kidnapped by Stapleton Petherbridge to be used as a memory buffer to allow him to control causality in cauterised time and escape. She forgot that she had been accepted to attend university and worked for Mr Petherbridge as a cleaner at the Pease Pottage Radar Station, also believing that Jedediah Thurwell was her boyfriend. She met two versions of the Sixth Doctor and an older version of herself and eventually forced Mr Petherbridge into a temporal cul-de-sac, after which she was removed from time until the Doctor pieced her back together, with no memory of recent events, using the TARDIS. (AUDIO: The Wrong Doctors [+]Loading...["The Wrong Doctors (audio story)"])

During her final year, Mel shared a room in halls with Anjeliqua Whitefriar and often had cheap dinner parties with her and their best friends, Arlene Cole and Paul Kairos, at which they discussed how to put the world right. (PROSE: The Quantum Archangel [+]Loading...["The Quantum Archangel (novel)"]) She was interviewed by IBM, I² and Ashley Chapel Logistics and was offered jobs by all three. (PROSE: Millennial Rites [+]Loading...["Millennial Rites (novel)"]) She went with ACL despite her mother pointing out that I² offered a better financial package. However, part of the deal was that she would have to spend the summer at a smaller firm to get more experience of working in an office. (PROSE: Business Unusual [+]Loading...["Business Unusual (novel)"])

Stuart planned to move to the Middle East after graduation, but Mel, focused on her career and wanting to stay in England, ended the relationship and kept in contact with him for some time afterwards. (AUDIO: The Blood Furnace [+]Loading...["The Blood Furnace (audio story)"]) She would later say that she had never been in love. (AUDIO: Thicker Than Water [+]Loading...["Thicker Than Water (audio story)"], The Wishing Beast [+]Loading...["The Wishing Beast (audio story)"]) She credited her uncle John Hallam, (AUDIO: Catch-1782 [+]Loading...["Catch-1782 (audio story)"]) with whom she used to visit museums, (AUDIO: The Wrong Doctors [+]Loading...["The Wrong Doctors (audio story)"]) for her accomplishments in further education. (AUDIO: Catch-1782 [+]Loading...["Catch-1782 (audio story)"])

Mel applied for a job in the troubleshooting department of Brighton Information Technologies, as this was a prerequisite for a full-time job with ACL Services, Ltd, for the summer following her graduation. Peter Lovelady offered her the job without an interview upon seeing her CV. She received a warm welcome from Luke Aspinall on her first day and went to the gym with him and a few other colleagues, but she was unable to convince him to go to aerobics. (PROSE: Business Unusual [+]Loading...["Business Unusual (novel)"])

First travels[[edit] | [edit source]]

Joining the Doctor[[edit] | [edit source]]

Having forgotten her meeting with the Sixth Doctor in 1987, (AUDIO: The Wrong Doctors [+]Loading...["The Wrong Doctors (audio story)"]) Mel met him again in 1989 after he brought Trey Korte back to 36 Downview Crescent and helped him by programming a subroutine which removed all trace of the Master's attempt to defraud the Dow-Jones. She resigned from Brighton Information Technologies after its takeover by SenéNet and helped the Doctor investigate the company, in the course of which she met Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart and learnt about regeneration and the TARDIS.

Following the defeat of Martyn Townsend and the Nestene Consciousness, Mel created a virus to render the Maxx games console useless and keep them from being used to activate plastics and control children and asked the Doctor if she could join him on his adventures, feeling that she could no longer stay on Earth. The Doctor refused as he was hoping to avert the High Council's creation of the Valeyard, but she said goodbye to her parents and Trey, packed a bag and sneaked aboard the TARDIS, with the Doctor soon revealing that he knew that she was there. He agreed to let her stay and promised to show her the universe in the morning, starting with Herec. (PROSE: Business Unusual [+]Loading...["Business Unusual (novel)"])

According to other accounts, Mel joined the Doctor in 1986 (PROSE: Terror of the Vervoids [+]Loading...["Terror of the Vervoids (novelisation)"], Head Games [+]Loading...["Head Games (novel)"]; AUDIO: We Are The Daleks [+]Loading...["We Are The Daleks (audio story)"]) rather than 1989. (PROSE: Millennial Rites [+]Loading...["Millennial Rites (novel)"], Business Unusual [+]Loading...["Business Unusual (novel)"], Instruments of Darkness [+]Loading...["Instruments of Darkness (novel)"]) One agreed that Mel met the Doctor in 1989 but also had the Doctor suggesting that 1986 was Mel's home period. (PROSE: The Quantum Archangel [+]Loading...["The Quantum Archangel (novel)"])

Early adventures[[edit] | [edit source]]

This section's awfully stubby.

Further info from Loud and Proud, Millennial Rites and The One Doctor needs to be added

Mel in the console room (TV: Terror of the Vervoids [+]Loading...["Terror of the Vervoids (TV story)"])

Mel was given a bedroom which she filled with souvenirs from her adventures. (PROSE: The Quantum Archangel [+]Loading...["The Quantum Archangel (novel)"]) Despite telling the Doctor that she would not make him drink carrot juice nor exercise, (PROSE: Business Unusual [+]Loading...["Business Unusual (novel)"]) she did just that (TV: Terror of the Vervoids [+]Loading...["Terror of the Vervoids (TV story)"], etc.) for his own good. (PROSE: Business Unusual [+]Loading...["Business Unusual (novel)"]) She heard a lot about Evelyn Smythe and how big an impact she had had on the Doctor. (AUDIO: Thicker Than Water [+]Loading...["Thicker Than Water (audio story)"])

The Doctor took Mel to Vertipax to meet Mosca Ragazzo, for whom he had been covering by planting crop circles on Earth to convince the Vervaloochenen that he has been doing his job and checking the planet's pollution levels. His reason for doing so, he explained, was that the Vervaloochenen would otherwise deem humanity a threat to its planet. (PROSE: The Deal [+]Loading...["The Deal (short story)"])

To celebrate turning 991, the Doctor took Mel to the Royal Albion Hotel in Brighton where he caused a scene and accidentally caused a waitress to drop cream cakes onto Doris Wilson, after which she was assisted by the Brigadier (PROSE: A Wee Deoch an ...? [+]Loading...["A Wee Deoch an ...? (short story)"]) whom she would go on to marry. (TV: Battlefield [+]Loading...["Battlefield (TV story)"])

Mel and the Doctor visited Tribolyca and found that the Tribolycanna were being exploited by Sekachos Bdella Travel Inc. After the Doctor liberated them by planting a sulphur bomb which caused the humans to flee because of its smell, he and Mel visited the Eye of Orion. (PROSE: A Tourist Invasion [+]Loading...["A Tourist Invasion (short story)"])

Mel convinced the Doctor to help Simon, a Robohuman on 23rd century Andron who claimed that he could dream, but the Doctor found that Simon had killed Eryk Zang and utilised his brain as he always felt that he was missing something organic. Upon being found out, Simon tried to kill Mel, but the Doctor incapacitated him and they reported him to DI Naylar, from whom they learnt that Zang was a serial killer. (PROSE: Mortal Thoughts [+]Loading...["Mortal Thoughts (short story)"])

In 1975 Hong Kong, Mel was forced to play a computer game against the Rainbow cartel to keep them from taking the planet out of time and selling its technology. She succeeded with the Doctor's help and informed the authorities of the identities of the members of the Rainbow. (PROSE: Old Boys [+]Loading...["Old Boys (short story)"])

Mel, the Doctor and Lionel Tooley were locked in an attic with a giant insect which had stolen an old woman's eyes and promised to return them if she supplied it with younger ones. The Doctor was able to defeat the insect with the help of Lionel's ventriloquism skills and returned the woman's eyes. (PROSE: The Eyes Have It [+]Loading...["The Eyes Have It (short story)"])

Months into their travels, Mel and the Doctor accidentally interrupted an illegal auction where Fegovy was selling the Face of Humanity to make money for a syndicate which no longer existed. Mel was kidnapped by Willchook, but freed when he found that his spaceship could not leave the space platform and reunited with her travelling companion who tricked Fegovy into letting everybody on the platform leave. (PROSE: Fegovy [+]Loading...["Fegovy (short story)"])

Mel made the Doctor attend an anger management class at Pease Pottage in 1986. They found that the organiser of the class, Louise Pranna, was a member of the Kin and was stealing anger to sell as a commodity. (AUDIO: Loud and Proud [+]Loading...["Loud and Proud (audio story)"])

Mel and the Doctor learnt that Flux Control were feeding people to a supposed Flux Beast, which was actually the decay of tourist planets that the company had frozen in time. They travelled to FluxiCon IV and freed the beast with Mel's computer skills, inciting the company's workers to release the slaves and Pip Hexiflorn to take control. (PROSE: Change Management [+]Loading...["Change Management (short story)"])

After receiving an alien signal from a swamp on Earth, Mel and the Doctor went to investigate and became part of Walter Fanik's Swamp of Horrors. They found that animals had been growing in size after eating food from inside the crashed spaceship and managed to restore them to normal using a device, but the army killed the animals and Adrian Cooper and wounded Sheena Sown. (PROSE: Swamp of Horrors [+]Loading...["Swamp of Horrors (1957) - Viewing Notes (short story)"])

The Doctor took Mel to Switzerland where she went skiing whilst he went against the diet that she had set for him by ordering a hot chocolate. When the Doctor told her about Ur, she correctly deduced that Ur's psychic powers, suppressed by an anti-sciatic atmosphere, had awoken after he left his planet and caused him to crash into Earth, creating the Alps and remarked that drinking carrot juice was safest upon learning that Ur's DNA had entered the water supply and given those who drank mineral water similar powers. (AUDIO: Intuition [+]Loading...["Intuition (audio story)"])

The TARDIS landed on the Abbey where Mel and the Doctor investigated rumours that Charge Tarrow had been taking children who never returned. In doing so, they learnt that Tarrow had been attempting to find a cure for the human allergy that some Catkind suffered from. (PROSE: Fairy Tale of New New York [+]Loading...["Fairy Tale of New New York (short story)"])

After unsuccessfully trying to get the Doctor to exercise, Mel wandered the TARDIS and came across the Time-Space Visualiser, inside of which she saw a Thrusk in the form of a dark reflection of her. The Doctor sent Mel into the Thrusk dimension disguised as the reflection to stop the Thrusk, who had infected Tamira, from using the TARDIS to destroy the universe. She managed to convince the Thrusk to turn against her double and returned to the TARDIS, where she and the Doctor were thanked by Tamira and Mel noticed that Tamira looked exactly like her. (AUDIO: Mel-evolent [+]Loading...["Mel-evolent (audio story)"])

Mel was sometimes left in the TARDIS whilst the Doctor went on what she termed "mysterious missions", unaware that he was going against the diet she had set him and had been eating cakes and attending feasts. (PROSE: The Man Who Wouldn't Give Up [+]Loading...["The Man Who Wouldn't Give Up (short story)"])

The Doctor attempted to take Mel to New Year's Eve 1999, but they instead arrived at a Christmas party in the wrong year. Mel convinced the Doctor to perform as a magician at the party after a man mistook him for Dr Cadabra and they realised that the real Dr Cadabra had been trapped inside a mirror with an alien which stole Rachel's life energy. The man destroyed the mirror, restoring Rachel, and escorted Mel and the Doctor back to the TARDIS. (PROSE: Dr Cadabra [+]Loading...["Dr Cadabra (short story)"])

They thwarted Ashley Chapel. By this time, Mel had received some TARDIS training. (PROSE: Millennial Rites [+]Loading...["Millennial Rites (novel)"])

After three months (PROSE: Terror of the Vervoids [+]Loading...["Terror of the Vervoids (novelisation)"]) or several years of adventures, (PROSE: Millennial Rites [+]Loading...["Millennial Rites (novel)"]) Mel and the Doctor received an unsigned mayday call sent from the Hyperion III by Hallett and went to investigate, soon becoming aware of a series of murders. Doland attempted to have her ejected from the ship with the laundry when she asked him about the Vervoid pods in the hydroponics centre, but the Doctor saved her and the Vervoids were killed. (TV: Terror of the Vervoids [+]Loading...["Terror of the Vervoids (TV story)"])

In the Generios system, Mel and the Doctor met Banto Zame, whom they exposed and left with the Cylinder, and Sally-Anne Stubbins. (AUDIO: The One Doctor [+]Loading...["The One Doctor (audio story)"])

Thanks to the machinations of the Dalek Supreme, Mel was separated from the Doctor and spent three months working as a computer specialist for the Juggernaut programme on Lethe, growing close to her colleague Geoffrey Gatlin and being gifted a music box by him. When the Doctor returned for her, she learnt that she had been working for Davros and exploited a backdoor that she had included in the Juggernauts' programming to get them to attack her former boss, apparently leading to his death. She apologised to the Doctor for her actions and left the music box behind, Geoff having sacrificed his life to kill Davros's Daleks. (AUDIO: The Juggernauts [+]Loading...["The Juggernauts (audio story)"])

Mel had a "terrifying run-in" with the Quarks and their Giant Wasps and held on to a disconnected Quark processor unit. She also kept a holoempathic image of Troy, a Dalek logic crystal and a stuffed owl that she was given as a present. (PROSE: The Quantum Archangel [+]Loading...["The Quantum Archangel (novel)"])

Taken out of time[[edit] | [edit source]]

Mel and the Doctor, who had lost several centimetres around his waist thanks to her regime, landed on Oxyveguramosa in the Apus Constellation where she promised to work on a programme which would enable them to leave and continue their adventures. Whilst the Doctor was in the TARDIS, (PROSE: The Ultimate Foe [+]Loading...["The Ultimate Foe (novelisation)"]) Mel was captured by the Master and sent through time to Space Station Zenobia with Sabalom Glitz.

Mel spoke in defence of a younger version of the Doctor at his trial and watched his adventure in the Matrix from the trial room with Inquisitor Darkel, stealing the Keeper's key to go in and save him when he seemed willing to sacrifice himself. Upon learning that the Valeyard intended to assassinate those in the trial room, she returned to evacuate the Time Lords and later left with the Doctor, intending to get him back to drinking carrot juice and doing exercise. (TV: The Ultimate Foe [+]Loading...["The Ultimate Foe (TV story)"])

The Doctor chose to leave Mel in Pease Pottage to be picked up by her own version of him, but she realised that things were amiss when she encountered a neighbour's cat which she knew to have died and learnt that a younger version of herself, working as a cleaner and in a relationship with Jedediah Thurwell, was around. She met a third version of the Doctor and took her younger self's role as a memory buffer in cauterised time to send Muriel Wilberforce to her own time, after which the Doctor and the younger Mel defeated Stapleton Petherbridge. Mel left with the younger Doctor to be returned to Oxyveguramosa. (AUDIO: The Wrong Doctors [+]Loading...["The Wrong Doctors (audio story)"])

Mel asked to stay with the younger Doctor but had to be returned to Oxyveguramosa so that the Doctor could return to his own place in time. She said farewell to the younger Doctor and was reunited with her version, whom she ordered to move over so that she could complete her programme and allow them to resume their travels. (PROSE: The Ultimate Foe [+]Loading...["The Ultimate Foe (novelisation)"])

Continued adventures[[edit] | [edit source]]

This section's awfully stubby.

Info from Instruments of Darkness, Spaceport Fear, The Seeds of War, Mind of the Hodiac and The Ultimate Poe needs to be added

On Maradnias, Mel and the Doctor intervened in a civil war and narrowly escaped nuclear devastation for which the pair both blamed themselves. Mel asked to be dropped home but was instead dropped off in 2003 where they thwarted the Master, after which Mel forgave the Doctor and returned to travelling with him. (PROSE: The Quantum Archangel [+]Loading...["The Quantum Archangel (novel)"])

Mel and the Doctor responded to an invitation from her uncle John Hallam to attend the National Foundation for Scientific Research's centenary celebrations in 2003, at which a canister made of an unstable alloy reacted to the TARDIS and sent Mel back in time to 1781. Disorientated and confused, Mel was taken in by Henry Hallam, who presumed that her name was Eleanor after mishearing her name as Nell and, still recovering from the death of his wife, became infatuated with her. The Doctor and John rescued her six months later and took her back to 2003 where she decided that she needed several weeks at the seaside to recover, although she had little memory of her time at Hallam Hall on account of her amnesia and having been treated with laudanum. (AUDIO: Catch-1782 [+]Loading...["Catch-1782 (audio story)"])

According to one account, Mel first met Evelyn some time after, in 1993, and fought the Cylox. Afterwards, she asked the Doctor to invite Evelyn aboard to take her home, with Evelyn adding that she wanted to return via the "scenic route". (PROSE: Instruments of Darkness [+]Loading...["Instruments of Darkness (novel)"])

According to another account, an off-hand comment by Mel after saving a colony's biodomes led the Doctor to take her to Világ to meet Evelyn. Mel and Evelyn were kidnapped by Sebastian Lawrence almost immediately after meeting to impress Sofia Rossiter, but they were saved by Sofia and Jenner and taken to the hospital where Evelyn received medical attention. There, Mel survived an attempt on her life by Andrew Szabó and helped save the Killorans that he had been experimenting on, after which she and the Doctor remained in Galen for several weeks and attended Evelyn and Justice Rossiter's renewal of their wedding vows. (AUDIO: Thicker Than Water [+]Loading...["Thicker Than Water (audio story)"])

Whilst the Doctor attended Diamond Sharp's virtual reality concert, Mel, more interested in the technology than the music, watched Alec and Carol at the controls. She connected herself to the virtual reality upon learning that Diamond's computer deck had once belonged to a serial killer and found that Diamond was intending to kill his audience and sell his story. After the Doctor thwarted Diamond, he suggested that he and Mel visit the Brigadier at UNIT. (PROSE: Sold Out [+]Loading...["Sold Out (short story)"])

Mel and the Doctor confronted Zeet Frenzy about his programmes in which he had Daleks making jokes and took him to Guria to show him that Daleks were not something to be laughed about. There, Mel was captured and taken to be interrogated before the Doctor managed to save her, after which she needed time to recover. Having been unable to make sense of Dalek technology, she decided to make sure to educate herself on future tech. (PROSE: The Best Joke I Ever Told [+]Loading...["The Best Joke I Ever Told (short story)"])

The Doctor flew the TARDIS to an asteroid after receiving a transmission from Maria and Eliza Applewhite, who welcomed Mel as a hero in space and time and intended to take to the Wishing Beast, ostensibly to have her greatest wish granted. She and the Doctor learnt that she was going to be fed to a dragon-like creature created from the merging of the Wishing Beast and Daniel Applewhite and the Doctor offered himself in her place, giving him the opportunity to acquire the box containing the Wishing Beast and get rid of the monster as well as the Applewhite sisters and set Daniel free. (AUDIO: The Wishing Beast [+]Loading...["The Wishing Beast (audio story)"])

Although Mel was anticipating a visit to 1960s London, the Doctor instead took her to Salford where she visited Lily Cook's corner shop for something to eat and learnt about Monsieur Coiffure's age-reducing Vanity Box. She and the Doctor decided to investigate, with the Doctor getting Nesta Trubshaw to put him in drag to allow him to pose as a potential customer, and found that it was the Wishing Beast that was responsible. After the Doctor sent it through the Time Vortex to the asteroid in the distant past, they returned to Salford and Mel told him that her wish would have been for more time for their travels together. (AUDIO: The Vanity Box [+]Loading...["The Vanity Box (audio story)"])

Mel and the Doctor visited Tantane Spaceport. (AUDIO: Spaceport Fear [+]Loading...["Spaceport Fear (audio story)"])

The two visited the tower of Kalsos, where Mel was almost killed when one of the floor's collapsed, as well as Ridius IV and future Earth. Remembering a poem, she helped Helgert Teveler remember the seed banks on Earth and helped fight the Eminence. (AUDIO: The Seeds of War [+]Loading...["The Seeds of War (audio story)"])

On Peladon, Mel was separated from the Doctor by the activation of a thermal detonator and taken by the guard captain to the Citadel of Peladon where she convinced Queen Minaris to help at the disaster site. Princess Isabelda detained her and Alpha Centauri because of their attempts to influence her mother, but they managed to escape and help the Doctor expose Isabelda for being behind the explosion and having secret dealings with the Arcturans. (AUDIO: The Death of Peladon [+]Loading...["The Death of Peladon (audio story)"])

The Doctor took Mel to Kolpasha to get S. Holtons to repair his coat, but he lacked any money and Mel had to train and work as a janitor. Three months later, they took a Helios Fleet shuttle to Golm to retrieve the impounded TARDIS and Mel uncharacteristically told a lie to an otter businessman whose money she and the Doctor had accidentally stolen from his shop. They got the TARDIS and the Doctor's coat back and, after the Doctor returned the otter's money to his safe, Mel thought about the best way to get rid of the coat. (AUDIO: The Doctor and His Amazing Technicolour Nightmare Coat [+]Loading...["The Doctor and His Amazing Technicolour Nightmare Coat (audio story)"])

On Arunopal, she attended a fayre with her new friend Zeta, although she didn't like her eating too much sugar. Realising that Otho was after the Doctor, she tried to get to the Doctor to warn him, but was chosen to go on stage instead to decide which of the quins would be assigned to each of the locations of the Doctor. She tried to stop them but was captured. (AUDIO: The Exaltation [+]Loading...["The Exaltation (audio story)"]) She was then interrogated by Alonza to find out where the Doctor was. She found a room that contained portraits of Lynette and theorised that Zeta was in fact the daughter and heir to the throne. After the timelines were rewritten so that Zeta could take her place as Queen, she visited regularly. (AUDIO: The Firstborn [+]Loading...["The Firstborn (audio story)"])

Joined by Hebe[[edit] | [edit source]]

Mel and the Doctor followed an SOS to 21st century Albatross Alpha where they met Hebe Harrison, who felt that Mel was patronising when she was angry on Hebe's behalf that the others on the rig did not help her, a wheelchair user, get around. They investigated the disappearances and Mel and Hebe escaped from aggressive gulls and sea creatures including a lion's mane which stung Mel. After learning that a compound in the water caused the aggression, Mel and the Doctor left with Hebe, whom they realised knew Evelyn Smythe. (AUDIO: The Rotting Deep [+]Loading...["The Rotting Deep (audio story)","The Rotting Deep"])

Mel and Hebe. (AUDIO: Water Worlds [+]Loading...["Water Worlds (audio anthology)","Water Worlds"])

Hebe saved Mel from drowning on the Moon circa 2,000,000,000 BC and, separated from the Doctor, they encountered the Gilleans and the Sheega. At Mel's suggestion, Hebe apologised to Wulk for touching his gills despite her not liking people touching her wheelchair. The three travellers were eventually reunited in Gillean City and were to be sacrificed by the Sheega, but the Doctor got them free and, after proving that the Sheega were the Gilleans affected by the gravity of Earth, they left. (AUDIO: The Tides of the Moon [+]Loading...["The Tides of the Moon (audio story)","The Tides of the Moon"])

Mel went for a walk after the TARDIS landed on Zoda-Kappa in 3895 and was captured by soldiers who took her to Captain Koppenberg for questioning. Upon mentioning that she was a computer programmer, Mel was sent to assist Professor Charles Feige in awakening those who had entered the Dream, but Feige instead injected her with a fungal serum which did the same to her. Mel was able to dictate code for the Doctor to Hebe in order to help combat the Holomorph and awaken everybody. (AUDIO: The Dream Nexus [+]Loading...["The Dream Nexus (audio story)","The Dream Nexus"])

On Veludia, Mel was kidnapped by Jom whilst fetching a medical kit for the Doctor to use on a manatee-like creature and possessed by Alef, who impersonated her for a time. Hebe eventually realised the deception and the Doctor managed to restore her from the Mindbank, after which Mel asked the Doctor that Jom and Alef be allowed to live out their last days in the planet's past. (AUDIO: Maelstrom [+]Loading...["Maelstrom (audio story)","Maelstrom"])

Whilst Hebe met up with Elise Kaplan, Mel and the Doctor followed a strange reading at Sheffield Hallam University to the Mindless Facility where they met Patricia McBride, who told Mel about how a student had changed after visiting the facility. Mel helped the Doctor destroy the Betterment Machine, which she incorrectly deduced was responsible for Elise's change in personality, and they got a takeaway in the TARDIS with Hebe. (AUDIO: The Mindless Ones [+]Loading...["The Mindless Ones (audio story)","The Mindless Ones"])

Mel and a Neanderthal. (AUDIO: Purity Undreamed [+]Loading...["Purity Undreamed (audio anthology)","Purity Undreamed"])

Mel got a job as an analyst in the computer department at the Emit Institute after Patricia contacted the Doctor about having encountered Neanderthals there. She learnt that its profits were funding secret research which, by stealing Tarek Gamal's passcard, she discovered was the creation of a machine to reverse time. She and Hebe evacuated the Emit staff into the TARDIS after the machine was damaged and, following a visit to Stockholm to drop them off, they and the Doctor were joined by Patricia for a trip into the future. (AUDIO: Reverse Engineering [+]Loading...["Reverse Engineering (audio story)","Reverse Engineering"])

Neither Mel nor Hebe initially understood why Patricia was horrified by the diverse population of Sheffield in 2569 and Mel later spoke with the Doctor about whether hatred like Patricia's was innate or developed over time. She joined the Doctor, Hebe, Elise and Tannus Vallon in thwarting Havash Khavûl, who was assisted by an unwilling Patricia who took Vallon's suit after he was killed and changed time. Hebe disappeared and Mel and the Doctor discovered that, according to the TARDIS, she had never existed. (AUDIO: Chronomancer [+]Loading...["Chronomancer (audio story)","Chronomancer"])

Saving Hebe[[edit] | [edit source]]

Mel and the Doctor searched for temporal distortion in the hopes of locating Hebe and, in New York City in the 1930s, found that a future Mel was starring in the fascist musical Behold America! at the Rivoli Theater. They went back in time five weeks so that Mel could take part in the show, using shoes with psionic relays to help her dance, and put an end to it due to the views it espoused, but they found that an alliance of the Doctor's opponents was behind it. Using her newfound dance abilities, Mel was able to reach one of the Doctor's cat badges so that he could cause a temporal blowback to force their enemies to leave. (AUDIO: Broadway Belongs to Me! [+]Loading...["Broadway Belongs to Me! (audio story)","Broadway Belongs to Me!"])

Mel and Patricia. (AUDIO: Purity Unleashed)

Following chronomatic time signatures and making use of the Time-Space Visualiser, Mel and the Doctor learnt that Patricia was meddling with time using Tannus Vallon's suit to shape a future where the disabled did not exist. Mel kept Elizabeth Rodden busy for a time to keep her from being introduced to Jasper Woodward and was shocked to find that Patricia was responsible for Hebe's disappearance given that she believed the two of them to have been friends. After Patricia murdered Jasper and went to enact her backup plan, Mel and the Doctor followed her in the TARDIS and were sent off-course when Patricia escaped the Doctor's vortex tether. (AUDIO: Purification [+]Loading...["Purification (audio story)","Purification"])

Mel and the Doctor arrived in Neepsend in 1864, the still point in a temporal anomaly, and began investigating how the anomaly could relate to Hebe's disappearance and whether Samuel Harrison was relevant. They confronted Patricia at the Patrician Works and, after she seemed to die in the Time Vortex and her alterations to the timeline undone, they saved Patrick and Mary McBride from dying in the Great Flood of Sheffield and returned to the 21st century to find Hebe. However, history had been changed by the McBrides and Hebe and Ron, never having met the Doctor or Mel, held them at the point of a blaster in the name of Purity. (AUDIO: Time-Burst [+]Loading...["Time-Burst (audio story)","Time-Burst"])

Hebe and Ron kicked the Doctor and Mel out and they went to the Tudor Tea Rooms where they learnt about the new timeline and Mel realised that it had come about because of the Doctor giving away future information to Patrick and Mary, allowing them to amass a fortune which Purity has used to take over the world. She stayed with Hebe when the TARDIS gave her her memories of the true timeline, but Hebe was captured by the Purity Patrol and Mel had to transcribe books from memory to pay Mick for the means to bribe their way into The Towers to save Elise. There, the Doctor, Mel and Ron were reunited with Hebe and Elise, but Ron died taking a shot for Elise and Purity kept the survivors captive. (AUDIO: Girl in a Bubble [+]Loading...["Girl in a Bubble (audio story)","Girl in a Bubble"])

Mel. (AUDIO: Purity Unbound [+]Loading...["Purity Unbound (audio anthology)","Purity Unbound"])

Purity attempted to rewrite Mel's timeline, unaware that she was a Complex Space-Time Event and unwittingly creating a fractured world centred around her in which she lived an ordinary life in Pease Pottage with Hebe and Elise. She began to experience déjà vu and encountered corrupted potential versions of herself, the true nature of which she became aware when the Doctor managed to reach Pease Pottage and everybody's memories were restored. When Purity followed, Mel told her that she did not control time there and caused the timelines to snap back together, restoring the TARDIS. (AUDIO: The Corruptions [+]Loading...["The Corruptions (audio story)","The Corruptions"])

Arriving in Sheffield in 2527, Mel and Elise were forced to surrender to the Purifiers and were saved from an incineration field by Hebe and Nil, after which Nil sacrificed himself to help the three women reach Purity. The reality ultimately collapsed and Mel, the Doctor, Hebe and Elise returned to the proper timeline where Ron saved them from Silkreth using knowledge that Patricia got to Evelyn Smythe before her death. Mel assured Hebe that she would understand if she did not want to return to travelling with her and the Doctor, but Hebe was enthusiastic to continue helping right wrongs. (AUDIO: The Wrong Side of History [+]Loading...["The Wrong Side of History (audio story)","The Wrong Side of History"])

The Doctor's regeneration[[edit] | [edit source]]

This section's awfully stubby.

Further info from Spiral Scratch [+]Loading...["Spiral Scratch (novel)"] and The Brink of Death needs to be added

Mel was present during the Doctor's regeneration, although she was unconscious at the time and did not witness it. According to one account, he suffered a fatal head injury whilst Mel was knocked out. (PROSE: Time and the Rani [+]Loading...["Time and the Rani (novelisation)"])

Another said that the Doctor had been suffering from chronon energy starvation after a confrontation with the Lamprey. (PROSE: Spiral Scratch [+]Loading...["Spiral Scratch (novel)"])

A third said that Mel was rendered unconscious by radiation which, whilst harmless to her, was deadly to Time Lords and caused the Doctor to regenerate. (AUDIO: The Brink of Death [+]Loading...["The Brink of Death (audio story)"])

The new Doctor[[edit] | [edit source]]

This section's awfully stubby.

Info from We Are The Daleks, The Warehouse and Terror of the Sontarans [+]Loading...["Terror of the Sontarans (audio story)"], Bang-Bang-a-Boom!, Delta and the Bannermen and The Devil's Footprints needs to be added

Mel and the Doctor come to trust each other after his recent regeneration. (TV: Time and the Rani [+]Loading...["Time and the Rani (TV story)"])

Whilst the Rani took the Seventh Doctor from the TARDIS, Mel was left behind and, upon waking, was caught in one of the Rani's traps from which she was saved by Ikona. She was reunited with the Doctor, whom she did not recognise and did not believe was him until he mentioned carrot juice and other memories. With Mel's help, the Doctor overcame his amnesia and they thwarted the Rani, liberating the Lakertyans. Assured by the new Doctor that he would grow on her, they left for adventures new. (TV: Time and the Rani [+]Loading...["Time and the Rani (TV story)"])

A happy Mel on Lakertya. (TV: Time and the Rani [+]Loading...["Time and the Rani (TV story)"])

The Doctor left Mel in 2007 for a time until she found the empty TARDIS. Following a message to follow Louis, she located the Doctor inside of a CIA laboratory, with the help of a cabbie. She showed Louis the error of his ways and left with the Doctor after the Time Lords' operation was ended. (AUDIO: Unregenerate! [+]Loading...["Unregenerate! (audio story)"])

At some point during her travels with the Seventh Doctor, they visited the planet Nocturne (AUDIO: Nocturne [+]Loading...["Nocturne (audio story)"]) and Ancient Greece, where Mel corrected Euclid's geometry, much to his annoyance. (AUDIO: Mask of Tragedy [+]Loading...["Mask of Tragedy (audio story)"]) He also took her to 2040 Earth to see how far human technology advanced after she offered to help with his TARDIS repairs (PROSE: Daisy Chain [+]Loading...["Daisy Chain (short story)"]) and to 1999 where she destroyed a Nestene meteor at a Millennium Party. (COMIC: Plastic Millenium [+]Loading...["Plastic Millenium (comic story)"])

She and the Doctor become separated in the 20th century, with the Doctor in 1995 and Mel in 1935, where she met Michael Gregson. (PROSE: 24 Crawford Street [+]Loading...["24 Crawford Street (short story)"])

Mel wanted to recuperate after several arduous adventures and learnt of Paradise Towers from a travel video-brochure she found in the TARDIS. (PROSE: Paradise Towers [+]Loading...["Paradise Towers (novelisation)"]) There, Mel became separated from the Doctor and, heading for the swimming pool where they had agreed to rendezvous, she was saved from Tabby and Tilda by Pex, who joined her as her guide and sacrificed himself to kill Kroagnon. Mel was declared by Fire Escape to be a Kang on account of having destroyed a Cleaner and the Doctor was made an honorary one. (TV: Paradise Towers [+]Loading...["Paradise Towers (TV story)"])

Pex's death remained on her mind, thinking about him when Oliver decided to join the British Army to kill Nazis. (PROSE: Special Weapons [+]Loading...["Special Weapons (short story)"])

In 1978, she sent Ly aboard the Water Carrier to poison the Cnidarians' water with salt, causing them to flee. (PROSE: The Invertebrates of Doom [+]Loading...["The Invertebrates of Doom (short story)"])

Mel infiltrated the Zenos Corporation in 1987 to find out why its head office was shaped like a Dalek. She investigated Warfleet and was transported to Skaro. Once the Daleks were defeated, Brinsley Heaton asked her to stay and work on computer programming together, but she declined. (AUDIO: We Are The Daleks [+]Loading...["We Are The Daleks (audio story)"])

On the Warehouse she was tricked by the Supervisor into repairing the computer so that he could infect the population of the planet below. (AUDIO: The Warehouse [+]Loading...["The Warehouse (audio story)"])

She encountered Sontarans and the Bloom on ERM 4997 (AUDIO: Terror of the Sontarans [+]Loading...["Terror of the Sontarans (audio story)"]) and helped broker a peace on Prosper. (AUDIO: Maker of Demons [+]Loading...["Maker of Demons (audio story)"])

They also attended the Intergalactic Song Contest where she helped solve a serial killing. (AUDIO: Bang-Bang-a-Boom! [+]Loading...["Bang-Bang-a-Boom! (audio story)"])

In search of leptonite crystals, Mel and the Doctor travelled to Puxatornee where they interrogated by Professor Capra before being saved by Reed and Stuart. Their saviours made them go back in time to rewrite history. When their past selves arrived in the new timeline, Mel was surprised at how they were already known. They were saved from Potter by Reed and Stuart who wanted them to change time, eventually changed the timeline back to the original and leaving before their original selves arrived. (AUDIO: Flip-Flop [+]Loading...["Flip-Flop (audio story)"])

After they landed at G715, Mel and the Doctor ended up going to Shangri-La and helped Delta. (TV: Delta and the Bannermen [+]Loading...["Delta and the Bannermen (TV story)"])

On a beach, Mel met Emily and wondered if her own children would be so beautiful and well-behaved, watching her and pretending that she was her daughter. (PROSE: Driftwood [+]Loading...["Driftwood (short story)"]) She and the Doctor visited Harrow Green, (PROSE: Pulling Strings [+]Loading...["Pulling Strings (short story)"]) 1936 Cairo, (PROSE: Just War [+]Loading...["Just War (novel)"]) 1850 England, (AUDIO: The Devil's Footprints [+]Loading...["The Devil's Footprints (audio story)"]) Dido, Vyga 3 (AUDIO: Maker of Demons [+]Loading...["Maker of Demons (audio story)"]) and Llanfer Ceiriog. (PROSE: Cat's Cradle: Witch Mark [+]Loading...["Cat's Cradle: Witch Mark (novel)"])

Deciding to leave[[edit] | [edit source]]

This section's awfully stubby.

Info from Uranus and Red needs to be added

In 4010 Cressida, Mel began to feel alienated by the Doctor. (PROSE: Uranus [+]Loading...["Uranus (short story)"])

The TARDIS materialised in Pompeii in 79 AD, the day before Vesuvius erupted. She was determined to find a way to stop the TARDIS from being buried in the ash upon learning that it would be dug up in 1980, eventually locating it and allowing the Doctor to realise a way that they could both escape and be dug up in the future. (AUDIO: The Fires of Vulcan [+]Loading...["The Fires of Vulcan (audio story)"])

On Needle, she used her programming skills to reprogram Whitenoise and stop the Red infection. (AUDIO: Red [+]Loading...["Red (audio story)"])

In Brightedge, the Doctor pretended that he was a magician and Mel an entertainment journalist so that she would be at liberty to investigate Big Gerald's silver arms, leading her to find the cyber-converted Nelson in a cupboard. Polly Juno began converted everybody, so the Doctor told Mel and Mitzi Cinque to run and later had them send out electromagnetic radiation to repulse a Cyber-Warship, after which they saved the Doctor from falling from a height into a mineshaft. (AUDIO: Bad Day in Tinseltown [+]Loading...["Bad Day in Tinseltown (audio story)"])

Mel found the Doctor brooding in the Cloister Room and advised him to live in the moment rather than worry about who he might become in the future, after which he took her to Ribos and they found that it was Icetime when it ought to have been Suntime. She and Sandarr recovered the key to the weather machine keeping the planet in winter from the Duke of Hishtar, whose invasion of Shur they eventually stopped. Mel was disturbed by how the Doctor blackmailed Baladin Smith and wondered about how he would behave in the future. (AUDIO: The Ribos Inheritance [+]Loading...["The Ribos Inheritance (audio story)"])

Departure[[edit] | [edit source]]

Mel and the Doctor part ways as she begins her new travels. (TV: Dragonfire [+]Loading...["Dragonfire (TV story)"])

Mel and the Doctor were reunited with Sabalom Glitz on Svartos, where they also met Ace. Following Kane's death, Mel decided to leave the Doctor and suggested that he invite Ace to join him. She chose to continue travelling the universe with Glitz aboard the Nosferatu II, (TV: Dragonfire [+]Loading...["Dragonfire (TV story)"]) although, according to one account, she realised that she was not a traveller and needed somewhere that she could belong. (PROSE: Dragonfire [+]Loading...["Dragonfire (novelisation)"]) She intended to keep Glitz on the straight and narrow, keeping him from involving himself in "dodgy deals". (TV: Dragonfire [+]Loading...["Dragonfire (TV story)"])

During their travels together, Mel and Glitz encountered a Galactic Heritage fleet. The experience led Mel to describe the organisation as "a militarised, space-faring National Trust". (AUDIO: The High Price of Parking [+]Loading...["The High Price of Parking (audio story)"])

Post-Svartos[[edit] | [edit source]]

This section's awfully stubby.

Info from Heritage needs to be added

An unhappy reunion[[edit] | [edit source]]

According to one account, Mel travelled with Glitz for about six months before leaving him to hitch-hike her way to Earth, stopping off at Avalonian Resorts, Inc to try to revamp it and finding herself stuck there for two years. Eventually, she hacked into the Galactic Banking Conglomerate's systems and sent messages to Glitz asking her to pick her up, but he used her to steal money from the Conglomerate and she was captured by Dr Who and Jason before he could arrive. They imprisoned her in the Galactic Prison in the Land of Fiction, from which she was rescued by the Seventh Doctor.

Mel, back in the TARDIS with the Doctor. (PROSE: Head Games [+]Loading...["Head Games (novel)"])

Mel was appalled to learn the type of person that the Doctor had become, having manipulated her into leaving him on Svartos and knowing of her being stuck on Avalone, and by how violent and callous Bernice Summerfield, Roz Forrester and Chris Cwej were and Ace had become. Following the defeat of Dr Who, Mel took some clothes from the TARDIS wardrobe and had the Doctor take her to the 1990s, telling him that she had no wish to know him and calling him a liar, a user and a possible murderer. Ace went after her after she left the TARDIS to try to "sort her out". (PROSE: Head Games [+]Loading...["Head Games (novel)"])

Meeting with Lines[[edit] | [edit source]]

According to another account, Mel returned to Earth long after she last saw the Doctor. (PROSE: Missing, Part One: Business as Usual (short story [+]Loading...["Missing, Part One: Business as Usual (short story"]) She had thrown a bottle into space containing a message for him before she returned home, just as she had promised him, and looked into the sky at night wondering if he had found it, although she had long since forgotten what the message actually said. Ultimately, it fell into a black hole some time after passing the TARDIS. (PROSE: Missing, Part Two: Message in a Bottle [+]Loading...["Missing, Part Two: Message in a Bottle (short story)"])

Mel arranged a meeting with Robert Lines at Sally's Café in Brighton on 23 July 1991, wanting to know how her mother and father were before she returned home to Pease Pottage. She had come to the conclusion that life in space was just as mundane as it was on Earth and that being out there was only a distraction, one which she did not regret but which she would not have chosen to do again. Assured that her parents were okay, she accepted Lines's offer of a lift home and remarked that she was ready to return to business as usual. (PROSE: Missing, Part One: Business as Usual [+]Loading...["Missing, Part One: Business as Usual (short story)"])

Alongside Ace[[edit] | [edit source]]

This section's awfully stubby.

Further info from A Life of Crime, Fiesta of the Damned, Maker of Demons, Red Planets and The Dispossessed needs to be added

Mel with the Doctor and Ace (AUDIO: The High Price of Parking [+]Loading...["The High Price of Parking (audio story)"])

According to one account, Mel's possible futures were sold by Glitz to Speravore Investment Holdings to pay off his debts, leaving Mel on Ricosta. She was reunited with the Doctor and Ace, whom she helped save the planet from the Speravores, after which she joined them in the TARDIS. (AUDIO: A Life of Crime [+]Loading...["A Life of Crime (audio story)"])

They accidentally landed in Spain during the Spanish Civil War, where Mel suffered the casual sexism of the time whilst Ace refused to. She became infected by God Seed. (AUDIO: Fiesta of the Damned [+]Loading...["Fiesta of the Damned (audio story)"])

They returned to Prosper, where she helped identify and defeat Caliban. (AUDIO: Maker of Demons [+]Loading...["Maker of Demons (audio story)"])

The Doctor and friends landed on Parking where they were arrested. Learning about the Free Parkers from Cowley, she realised that there must be someone inside the Warden's system that helped them. She tried the stop the Free Parker's virus from escaping and when the explosions started she worked a way to save casualties by sending the tourists to Dashrah. She worked a way to stop the infected spaceships from escaping the planet. (AUDIO: The High Price of Parking [+]Loading...["The High Price of Parking (audio story)"])

They landed in 1991 Liverpool where Mel was reunited with her former boyfriend of university, Stuart Dale. He asked her if she wanted a job creating an IT system from scratch which she accepted. When in the TARDIS something forced her hands to stay on the console when it blew up, and later she had the same effect o any piece of digital equipment she went near. The Doctor realised that she was infected by a virus. She later went through the supply gate with Stuart finding enough equipment to build 100 ships. She was cured of the virus and helped the Doctor to create a digital hologram to diminish the Eorgm powers. (AUDIO: The Blood Furnace [+]Loading...["The Blood Furnace (audio story)"])

Ace told Mel that the Doctor had changed their course because he wanted to deal with some unfinshed business, and warned her when the Doctor was in this state. In 2085, Mel, the Doctor and Ace prevented the Silurians from provoking war between China and the United States, later helping implement a plan to allow the Silurians to re-establish themselves on Earth in the future. (AUDIO: The Silurian Candidate [+]Loading...["The Silurian Candidate (audio story)"])

Mel and the Doctor both investigated the Republic of Mokoshia in a timeline in which Mel was a communist, this disconcerted the Doctor. She was helped by Anna to acclimatised, she later went with the Doctor to a base on mars. (AUDIO: Red Planets [+]Loading...["Red Planets (audio story)"])

She started reading the TARDIS manuals. The Doctor brought her and Ace to a tower block near Manchester. She decided to go with Ace into a lift which Ruck said was a bad idea. The lift took them to another world. They met with Arkallax and learnt about his plans. She helped Isobel to defeat him. Josiah W. Dogbolter manipulated Mel into delivering the TARDIS to him. (AUDIO: The Dispossessed [+]Loading...["The Dispossessed (audio story)"])

She wanted to make sure that her debt was clear and had to sign a contract to do this. She was delighted was she discovered that Ace and the Doctor had escaped the cells. She used her technical ability to put a virus on the system to locate the TARDIS, and also could control Hob. She learnt about the Quantum Possibility Engine from Hob and was appalled by it. Having realised that Hob didn't kill her friends and Narvin but had put it in the engine's timelines she was determined to get them out of there to stop Dogbolter. She used the Engine to help the Doctor. Because she read the TARDIS manual, Mel was a better pilot of the TARDIS and knew ways to pilot it that the Doctor didn't even realise were possible. She asked for forgiveness to her actions. (AUDIO: The Quantum Possibility Engine [+]Loading...["The Quantum Possibility Engine (audio story)"])

Running 24 Carat[[edit] | [edit source]]

Mel on a billboard in space. (WC: 24 Carat [+]Loading...["24 Carat (webcast)"])

According to one account, Mel began 24 Carat, a small carrot juice business which grew into a galaxy-wide technology, health and lifestyle empire. She became a philanthropist and invited potential investors to her headquarters on a space station to impress her and enter into a partnership with 24 Carat.

Mel turned down Blue Kang Travel's package holidays to Paradise Towers due to the continued threat of the Cleaners and a visitor from the Ice Colonies' face peel and ice sculptures, after which she had to call security because of Derek the Tetrap's attempts to threaten her into investing in his bubble-trap bath. She was finally approached by a hooded Seventh Doctor, whom she recognised when he started playing the spoons, and they went to watch a record of their adventures together, agreeing not to start on one with the Tetraps. (WC: 24 Carat [+]Loading...["24 Carat (webcast)"])

Lift off a Zingo[[edit] | [edit source]]

According to one account, Mel travelled with Glitz until he fell over a bottle of whiskey at the age of 101 and died. She attended his Viking-style funeral and decided that it was time to go home, so she got a lift back to Earth with a Zingo. Upon returning, she had to face the fact that she was an orphan and had nothing on Earth. (TV: The Giggle [+]Loading...["The Giggle (TV story)"])

Back on Earth[[edit] | [edit source]]

In 2003, John Hallam invited Mel to the National Foundation for Scientific Research, although her past self and the Doctor went instead, having intercepted the invitation. (AUDIO: Catch-1782 [+]Loading...["Catch-1782 (audio story)"])

By 2010, Mel was working with Ace and A Charitable Earth, providing computers to schools in Africa. (PROSE: Death of the Doctor [+]Loading...["Death of the Doctor (novelisation)"])

Working for UNIT[[edit] | [edit source]]

Mel in 2022. (TV: The Power of the Doctor [+]Loading...["The Power of the Doctor (TV story)"])

In 2022, Mel joined a support group for people who had travelled with the Doctor, a group which also included Yasmin Khan, Graham O'Brien, Dan Lewis, Ian Chesterton, Jo Jones, Tegan Jovanka, Ace and Kate Stewart. During the meeting, Kate half-jokingly offered a job with UNIT to the attendants, (TV: The Power of the Doctor [+]Loading...["The Power of the Doctor (TV story)"]) with Mel taking her up on the offer. By 2023, she was a fully deputised employee of UNIT.

During the Giggle, Mel assisted the Fourteenth Doctor and Donna Noble in tracking the Giggle down to Stooky Bill due to its arpeggio nature, and also safeguarded the Toymaker's toybox when the Doctor retrieved it from 1925 Soho. When the Toymaker attacked UNIT HQ, she survived being thrown across a room by him. Mel stood by the Doctor with Donna when the Toymaker triggered a regeneration, and then helped the Doctor complete a bi-generation by pulling the Fifteenth Doctor out of him. After the Doctors beat the Toymaker in a game of catch and exiled him from their existence, Mel presented the Toybox to which he was banished to. She later joined the Noble family and the Doctor for a dinner party (TV: The Giggle [+]Loading...["The Giggle (TV story)"]) at the Fourteenth Doctor's home, (PROSE: The Giggle [+]Loading...["The Giggle (novelisation)"]) where she was adopted into the family as "Mad Auntie Mel". (TV: The Giggle [+]Loading...["The Giggle (TV story)"])

UNIT placed her undercover inside Triad Technology, where she worked as a media officer. She was tasked with monitoring Susan Triad as UNIT thought there was something alien about her. This involved regularly testing her DNA to see if she was still human. She observed the Doctor's experiment in UNIT's time window, hoping to use her good memory to look at who Ruby Sunday's mother was in the simulation, as well as explaining to Ruby Sunday how they could take the data from the VHS tape to do it. She took the Doctor to Susan to help with question her. She watched Susan's speech in the lecture theatre, witnessing her breakdown and allow Sutekh to manifest. (TV: The Legend of Ruby Sunday [+]Loading...["The Legend of Ruby Sunday (TV story)"])

She drove the Doctor back to UNIT and the time window. After watching Sutekh explain how he survived his first encounter with the Doctor, she escaped in the Remembered TARDIS. Inside she saw the Sixth Doctor's coat and cravat hanging inside reminding her of that incarnation. She helped stabilise the TARDIS. Growing more weak she clung to the Sixth Doctor's Coat and the Seventh Doctor's jumper for warmth. This is when she started hearing Sutekh's voice, trying to turn her into an Angel of Death. She was becoming colder, and when the snow that fell around Ruby appeared again this was enough to kill her and fully become an angel of death. In this form she was able to bring the Doctor and Ruby back to UNIT HQ in an instance. After the Doctor defeated Sutekh she returned to her human form. (TV: Empire of Death [+]Loading...["Empire of Death (TV story)"])

Undated[[edit] | [edit source]]

  • At some point, Mel was taken to the Black Archive by UNIT to have her record as a companion of the Doctor taken. Her memories of the visit were subsequently erased and she was sent on her way. (TV: The Day of the Doctor [+]Loading...["The Day of the Doctor (TV story)"])
  • At another point, Mel was abducted by Adam Mitchell as part his plan to get revenge on the Doctor, in collaboration with the Tremas Master. She was placed in stasis alongside the Doctors' multiple other companions, before being released by the Doctors first eleven numbered incarnations with the help of Frobisher. (COMIC: The Choice [+]Loading...["The Choice (comic story)"], Endgame [+]Loading...["Endgame (POT comic story)"])

Psychological profile[[edit] | [edit source]]

Personality[[edit] | [edit source]]

Mel at a computer. (TV: Terror of the Vervoids [+]Loading...["Terror of the Vervoids (TV story)"])

Mel had a perky personality. She greeted most situations with a warm smile and good humour. She was an optimist who generally believed the best of people's natures, although she tempered this optimism with a realism and scepticism borne of her scientific education. Her cheeriness could cool quite quickly if she detected a threat to herself, the Doctor or her friends. (TV: Terror of the Vervoids [+]Loading...["Terror of the Vervoids (TV story)"]; AUDIO: The Fires of Vulcan [+]Loading...["The Fires of Vulcan (audio story)"], The Wishing Beast [+]Loading...["The Wishing Beast (audio story)"], The Juggernauts [+]Loading...["The Juggernauts (audio story)"]) Though she usually went by the informal "Mel", she sometimes insisted on being introduced as "Melanie" to those whom she didn't quite trust. (AUDIO: The Fires of Vulcan [+]Loading...["The Fires of Vulcan (audio story)"]) In 1959, she tried to befriend Delta, and could see that she was distressed. (TV: Delta and the Bannermen [+]Loading...["Delta and the Bannermen (TV story)"])

She enjoyed the music of ABBA and the Bee Gees. (PROSE: Business Unusual [+]Loading...["Business Unusual (novel)"]) She did not drink tea. (AUDIO: The Devil's Footprints [+]Loading...["The Devil's Footprints (audio story)"]) Mel sometimes found it difficult to cope with the mundane. She displayed reluctance at the sight of the rather ordinary Shangri-La holiday camp in Wales in 1959. (TV: Delta and the Bannermen [+]Loading...["Delta and the Bannermen (TV story)"])

Mel prided herself on her innate honesty, (TV: The Ultimate Foe [+]Loading...["The Ultimate Foe (TV story)"], AUDIO: Red [+]Loading...["Red (audio story)"]) and was reluctant to lie such as inventing stories to explain away the TARDIS's materialisation to those who witnessed it. (AUDIO: The Fires of Vulcan [+]Loading...["The Fires of Vulcan (audio story)"]) In her own words, Mel was "as stubborn as they come". (AUDIO: A Life of Crime [+]Loading...["A Life of Crime (audio story)"])

Mel screams at the threat posed in the pool at Paradise Towers. (TV: Paradise Towers [+]Loading...["Paradise Towers (TV story)"])

Mel's reaction to fear was variable. She sometimes met danger with a loud scream. (TV: Terror of the Vervoids [+]Loading...["Terror of the Vervoids (TV story)"], Time and the Rani [+]Loading...["Time and the Rani (TV story)"], Paradise Towers [+]Loading...["Paradise Towers (TV story)"]) She was also possessed of an almost steely resolve. She might have cowered in fear upon first meeting the Vervoids and the Tetraps, but she composed herself quickly afterwards. On other occasions, she displayed little fear at all. (TV: Terror of the Vervoids [+]Loading...["Terror of the Vervoids (TV story)"], Time and the Rani [+]Loading...["Time and the Rani (TV story)"]) She showed a relatively even temperament when defeating the Valeyard (TV: The Ultimate Foe [+]Loading...["The Ultimate Foe (TV story)"]) and facing down the Bannermen. (TV: Delta and the Bannermen [+]Loading...["Delta and the Bannermen (TV story)"]) On still other occasions, she allowed her logic to guide her swift and efficient action, as when she almost single-handedly defeated Davros and then derided the Doctor for not having killed the Daleks and him when given the chance; before realising to her shame she was acting as them. (AUDIO: The Juggernauts [+]Loading...["The Juggernauts (audio story)"]) She displayed extraordinary calm when she had to navigate Pompeii on foot during the eruption of Vesuvius in search of the Doctor's TARDIS — when he believed it lost and his life near its end. She could also fight against more internal threats, as when she fought off the effects of having been slowly drugged for six months with laudanum. (AUDIO: The Fires of Vulcan [+]Loading...["The Fires of Vulcan (audio story)"], Catch-1782 [+]Loading...["Catch-1782 (audio story)"]) Despite the occasional scream, Mel rarely expressed genuine, lasting fear of anything. However, she did once admit to a fear of heights. (AUDIO: Red [+]Loading...["Red (audio story)"]) Even when she nearly died because of the Toymaker, she remained calm and bravely went to comfort the Fourteenth Doctor as he regenerated. (TV: The Giggle [+]Loading...["The Giggle (TV story)"])

Mel was a health enthusiast and a vegetarian, often encouraging the slightly portly Sixth Doctor to exercise more. (TV: Terror of the Vervoids [+]Loading...["Terror of the Vervoids (TV story)"]) Her enthusiasm for healthy living, born of the hard-nosed logic of basic science, manifested itself in other ways. She was flatly dismissive of the supernatural — like ghosts — as scientifically ludicrous. (AUDIO: Catch-1782 [+]Loading...["Catch-1782 (audio story)"], Unregenerate! [+]Loading...["Unregenerate! (audio story)"]) Neither did she believe in fate. (AUDIO: The Juggernauts [+]Loading...["The Juggernauts (audio story)"])

Relationship with the Doctor[[edit] | [edit source]]

The Doctor fails to enjoy his Mel-imposed diet of carrot juice and exercise. (TV: Terror of the Vervoids [+]Loading...["Terror of the Vervoids (TV story)"])

In her dealings with the Doctor, Mel was warmly affectionate. She sometimes found herself separated from him for months on end and always extremely glad to see him return. (AUDIO: The Juggernauts [+]Loading...["The Juggernauts (audio story)"], Catch-1782 [+]Loading...["Catch-1782 (audio story)"]) She was an especially enthusiastic travelling companion. Once, when asked what she would wish for, if she had the opportunity, she replied: "I was going to wish that things could go on just as they are — for as long as we could manage. I love all this, our lives, racketing about the galaxy." (AUDIO: The Vanity Box [+]Loading...["The Vanity Box (audio story)"]) The manner of her departure from the Doctor was also gently affectionate (TV: Dragonfire [+]Loading...["Dragonfire (TV story)"]) and her emotional reaction and tears were genuine when she thought him dead. (AUDIO: The Wishing Beast [+]Loading...["The Wishing Beast (audio story)"], The Vanity Box [+]Loading...["The Vanity Box (audio story)"])

However, her proactive lifestyle led her to be bossy to the Doctor. Not only did she try to reform the Sixth Doctor's health standards, she also demanded and apparently got him to abandon his motley outfit for a time. (AUDIO: Catch-1782 [+]Loading...["Catch-1782 (audio story)"]) Likewise, she often spurred the Doctor to adventure, as when she insisted they stay on the Hyperion III to explore, against the Sixth Doctor's judgement, (TV: Terror of the Vervoids [+]Loading...["Terror of the Vervoids (TV story)"]) or when she insisted on staying in Pompeii knowing Vesuvius was about to erupt. Her at times boundless optimism could prove the buoy the Seventh Doctor needed to survive, as when she insisted that there must be a solution to a temporal paradox that the Doctor believed doomed them to death under the volcanic ash of Vesuvius. (AUDIO: The Fires of Vulcan [+]Loading...["The Fires of Vulcan (audio story)"])

When she began to travel with the Doctor and Ace, (AUDIO: A Life of Crime [+]Loading...["A Life of Crime (audio story)"]) Ace speculated that the Doctor kept Mel around because she provided someone who genuinely believed that he was doing the right thing, in contrast to Ace's greater scepticism. (AUDIO: The Silurian Candidate [+]Loading...["The Silurian Candidate (audio story)"])

Mel was happy to meet the Fourteenth Doctor, and chose to be with him as he regenerated. She quickly accepted the bi-generation and welcomed the Fifteenth Doctor. When the Fourteenth Doctor went into semi-retirement to live with the Noble family, Mel often came to join them for dinner, accepting the Doctor's suggestion that she was 'Mad Auntie Mel' to the Noble family dynamic. (TV: The Giggle [+]Loading...["The Giggle (TV story)"])

Later, when the Fifteenth Doctor and Ruby Sunday arrived at UNIT Tower, Kate Stewart told the Doctor that Mel was working for Susan Triad on her media team. Later, when Sutekh returned, she briefly travelled with the Doctor and Ruby in the Remembered TARDIS before dying and bringing them to Sutekh. When he was defeated, Mel was revived, unscathed.

Skills[[edit] | [edit source]]

Mel possessed an eidetic memory. (TV: Terror of the Vervoids [+]Loading...["Terror of the Vervoids (TV story)"], The Ultimate Foe [+]Loading...["The Ultimate Foe (TV story)"], AUDIO: Unregenerate! [+]Loading...["Unregenerate! (audio story)"]) It was not, however, an absolute photographic memory, as it failed her when her mind was clouded by emotion. (AUDIO: The Wishing Beast [+]Loading...["The Wishing Beast (audio story)"]) She also wasn't merely qualified in computer science; she was a veritable genius. Perhaps aided by her extraordinary memory, she could quickly assimilate new computer languages, even those in use in the distant future. (AUDIO: The Juggernauts [+]Loading...["The Juggernauts (audio story)"], Red [+]Loading...["Red (audio story)"]) At the age of eight, she committed the names of 150 different species of dinosaurs to memory and is therefore able to recognise an iguanodon on sight. (AUDIO: The Wrong Doctors [+]Loading...["The Wrong Doctors (audio story)"])

Mel Bush proved able with martial arts. (TV: Time and the Rani [+]Loading...["Time and the Rani (TV story)"]; AUDIO: Terror of the Sontarans [+]Loading...["Terror of the Sontarans (audio story)"])

Appearance[[edit] | [edit source]]

Mel had curly red hair and brown eyes. According to one account, was four foot ten. (PROSE: Terror of the Vervoids [+]Loading...["Terror of the Vervoids (novelisation)"]) According to another, she was about five foot one. (AUDIO: The Trials of a Time Lord [+]Loading...["The Trials of a Time Lord (audio story)"]) Because of her complexion and the colour of her hair, she did not suit black clothes. (AUDIO: Mel-evolent [+]Loading...["Mel-evolent (audio story)"]) She cut her hair short after leaving the Nosferatu II. (PROSE: Head Games [+]Loading...["Head Games (novel)"])

Behind the scenes[[edit] | [edit source]]

  • The Companions, a reference book by John Nathan-Turner, established that Mel joined the Sixth Doctor in 1986 when she helped thwart the Master (presumably the Tremas Master), who planned a dastardly attempt at a massive computer fraud involving all the banking houses on Earth.
  • Mel's last name is never spoken in any televised appearance and the closing credits in her original appearances identify her only by her first name. Her surname is, however, regularly used in novels, Big Finish Productions' audios, and various other stories. Her surname would finally be used onscreen in the closing credits of The Power of the Doctor.
  • According to his book The Companions, John Nathan-Turner planned to begin Season 24 with a storyline explaining how the Sixth Doctor met Mel. This story was never produced due to Colin Baker's removal from the role. An audio story of this nature, The Wrong Doctors, was eventually written by Matt Fitton and released in 2013.
  • Mel was the only character in the original series to be depicted on television as having an asynchronous relationship with the Doctor, unless multi-Doctor stories are taken into account.
  • Mel also appeared in the gag-comic strip How Much For Just The Planet?
  • She and Susan remain the only televised companions without a televised story on how they met the Doctor, aside from Handles.
  • There were plans for her to stay on for Season 25, but Bonnie Langford decided to leave the series, feeling there wasn't much more to be done with her character. So, the ending of Dragonfire was amended to have her leave with Sabalom Glitz while Ace went off with the Doctor.
  • Her character being a fitness fanatic was inspired by the workout craze of the late 1980s, which had been popularised by celebrities such as Jane Fonda.
  • She was the first British companion since Sarah Jane Smith departed.
  • John Nathan-Turner's main stipulation for her character was that she have red hair, hence why Bonnie Langford was cast.
  • Mel has the unique distinction of being present for the "birth" of two Doctors, the Seventh and the Fifteenth. While it could be argued that Donna was as well, the Meta-Crisis Doctor was a clone of the Tenth Doctor, rather than a new incarnation.

Footnotes[[edit] | [edit source]]

Notes[[edit] | [edit source]]

  1. ↑ In the text of Spiral Scratch, it is said that Anabel's death only happens in one universe - the "prime" reality. However, the novel also implies heavily that the Doctor Who stories of Big Finish and Doctor Who Magazine take place in their own universes outside of the BBC Books reality. Thusly, is reasonable to suggest that while this event occurred to the Mel seen in Spiral Scratch, it is not a universal origin.
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Companions of the Sixth Doctor
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Jason  • Crystal  • Zog
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The Sixth Doctor's companions from stage plays are difficult to assert with certainty, as different actors played the Doctor in the same play. If a medium is not mentioned, then this incarnation did not have companions who were original to that medium; it does not mean that this Doctor failed to appear in that medium.
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If a medium is not mentioned, then this incarnation did not have companions who were original to that medium; it does not mean that this Doctor failed to appear in that medium.
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Companions of the Fourteenth Doctor
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v • e
Companions of the Fifteenth Doctor
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If a medium is not mentioned, then this incarnation did not have companions who were original to that medium; it does not mean that this Doctor failed to appear in that medium.
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