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Revision as of 20:53, 26 March 2023
Jennifer "Jenny" Flint (née Scarrity) was the human maid and wife of Madame Vastra. Operating from London in the late 19th century, the two performed a variety of investigations alongside their butler Strax, forming the so-called Paternoster Gang. They were also friends and allies of the Doctor, who had saved Jenny's life during her and Vastra's first meeting.
Biography
Early life
Jennifer "Jenny" Scarrity (AUDIO: Family Matters; PROSE: A Perfect Christmas) was born to Albert and Miriam Scarrity and had two siblings: Dorothy and Barty. (AUDIO: Family Matters) She had family in Millwall (AUDIO: The Cars That Ate London!) and knew little of her lineage, assuming that her ancestors were mudlarks. (AUDIO: Rulers of Earth)
Jenny was a young girl when she first heard stories about Spring-heeled Jack (AUDIO: Spring-Heeled Jack) and once spent a halfpenny to see a mermaid at the fayre and was disappointed to find that it was a dried-up monkey tied together with a seal's tail. (AUDIO: A Photograph to Remember)
Ostracised by her family due to her "preferences in companionship" (WC: The Battle of Demons Run: Two Days Later) and having a strong disapproval for her parents' freakshow, Jenny ran away from home and changed her surname to "Flint", so chosen because she believed that she had to be "hard like flint" to survive on her own. (AUDIO: Family Matters)
Jenny spent much of her childhood in a match factory (PROSE: Assassin on the Railroads) after running away from her family. (AUDIO: Family Matters) She would sell matches on the street. (PROSE: Madame Vastra)
Relationship with Vastra
Jenny met Vastra and was employed as her maid, (TV: The Name of the Doctor) helping Jenny out when nobody else would. (AUDIO: A Photograph to Remember) According to one account, Vastra encountered Jenny who was being molested by a Chinese gang — known as Tongs. Knowing that the gang intended to drag her off as some sort of "mating ritual", she killed the gang and brought Jenny to her apartment in Cheapside, and Vastra looked after Jenny, for her protection. (PROSE: Madame Vastra) According to another account, the Doctor saved Jenny's life when she and Vastra first met. (TV: The Name of the Doctor) The two fell in love, Vastra having previously not been fond of human society. (WC: Vastra Investigates: A Christmas Prequel)
Living in London, Jenny and Vastra solved crimes and protected the British Empire, doing a lot of running and wearing "spectacular dresses" whilst doing so. (WC: The Battle of Demons Run: Two Days Later) In 1881, Jenny helped the Doctor defeat the Kraals, who had been plotting to replace Prince Bertie with an android duplicate. At the time, Vastra was in Egypt. Jenny and Vastra also battled a pair of CyberNeomorphs in Japan. (PROSE: Madame Vastra)
According to one account, Jenny and Vastra married on Christmas 1882. However, this account had Strax present for their two-year anniversary, placing the year of their wedding no earlier than 1886. (PROSE: The Red-Eyed League)
In 1886, Jenny and Vastra became aware of the corpse of a Silurian scholar and sailed on the Mary Anning in search of others, meeting the Ninth Doctor and Rose Tyler when the TARDIS materialised on the ship. The ship was attacked by a Myrka and the surviving crew washed up on an island where Jenny looked after the unconscious Vastra. The Doctor later returned them to 13 Paternoster Row and asked them to look after Rose for a time. (COMIC: The Lost Dimension)
Joined by Strax
In 1888, after Vastra told Jenny that she had eaten Jack the Ripper, the couple joined the Eleventh Doctor in the Battle of Demons Run and survived the attack of the Headless Monks. Afterwards, Jenny comforted Amy Pond on the kidnapping of her daughter and told her that it was not the Doctor's fault. The Doctor told River Song to take her and everybody else back to their own times. (TV: A Good Man Goes to War)
Jenny and Vastra were still on Demons Run two days later, waiting for Strax to fully recover from his wound. They invited him to join them in London 1888 and, whilst he initially refused, he accepted their offer at the last minute. The three of them left as Demons Run was evacuated (WC: The Battle of Demons Run: Two Days Later) and, following their return to their own time, Vastra and Jenny were added to the Papal Mainframe's "most wanted" list. (PROSE: Madame Vastra)
On Jenny and Vastra's two-year wedding anniversary, the couple and Strax met and defeated Kisimos, who had tried to lure Vastra away from her wife and friend. (PROSE: The Red-Eyed League)
Jenny helped investigate the strange soil on Silas Ruckford's boots and found that Lady Cornelia Basildon-Stone had had the roof of the Crystal Palace temporarily removed. She sneaked into the palace with Strax, having been assisted by Tommy Corrigan, and there killed Ajeeth to save her Sontaran friend. Following the destruction of the genetic splicer, Lady Basildon-Stone, as well as the eggs of her human-wasp hybrids, died. (COMIC: The Crystal Throne)
Around the time of Jenny and Vastra's third wedding anniversary, the Paternoster Gang went up against the Sacristans. (PROSE: A Perfect Christmas)
The Paternoster Gang solved a number of cases together, including that of an alien prankster, (PROSE: The Confounding Case of the Planetary Prankster) Lord Falstaff, (PROSE: The Pernicious Plots of the Big Game Hunter) Professor Samuel Lumber and his Dream Doorway, (PROSE: The Dangerous Dilemma of the Dream Doorway) the Wright Factory, (PROSE: The Fear Factory) psychics whom Jenny named the "Danger Thinkers" (PROSE: The Insidious Ideas of the Danger Thinkers) and the Blight of the Weirdling Woods. (PROSE: The Curious Case of the Weirdling Woods)
Assisting the Eleventh Doctor
Whilst disapproving of the Eleventh Doctor's isolation in 1892, the Paternoster Gang assisted him in it and kept in contact with him, requesting his help on 26 November but being turned down. (AUDIO: Regeneration Impossible) Nonetheless, Jenny tried to pique his interest by telling about Erasmus Pink's drunken plan to split the Earth and a man on Praed Street who apparently had an invisible wife, attempts which were unsuccessful. (TV: The Great Detective)
Jenny, Vastra and Strax saved Harry, paying Mr Ransit in order to keep him in their custody, and thwarted an alien who possessed the corpse of Able Hecklington and planned to blot out the Sun. Jenny offered Harry the chance to work as a kitchen boy under her friend Mary in Lincoln. (PROSE: Devil in the Smoke)
The Paternoster Gang stopped a man behind a crime which involved identical twins, undetectable poison and an ancient Egyptian curse. After Inspector Gregson took the man away, Jenny remained hopeful of the Doctor getting in contact with them, believing that he could only sulk in the TARDIS for so long. She also noticed that it was snowing despite the absence of clouds (WC: Vastra Investigates) and they soon became aware that the snow had a low-level telepathic field. Jenny and Vastra began investigating Walter Simeon and his Great Intelligence Institute.
Jenny saw Clara Oswin Oswald calling for the Doctor and took her to Paternoster Row to be given Vastra's one word test. She trapped the Ice Governess behind a force field and helped guard Latimer and his children, later being the first to see Clara's body when she fell from the clouds. She attended Clara's funeral and was confused when the Doctor ran off, saying that he was going to find her. (TV: The Snowmen)
In 1893, Jenny infiltrated Sweetville to find the Doctor, Vastra having seen him in a dead man's optogram. She was able to free him from captivity and help him cure himself of the red leech poison, later meeting and being confused by Clara Oswald, about whom the Doctor would give Jenny no answers. The three of them were saved from Winifred Gillyflower by Vastra and Strax, after which Jenny and Vastra prevented the poison from being placed inside of Mrs Gillyflower's rocket, thwarting her and Mr Sweet. (TV: The Crimson Horror)
Later that year, the Paternoster Gang entered a dream-induced conference call with Clara and River Song to discuss Clarence DeMarco's coordinates to the Doctor's tomb, during which Jenny was murdered by the Whisper Men. Her body was taken to Trenzalore and she was revived by Strax, only to vanish when the Great Intelligence entered the Doctor's time stream to kill him. However, Clara's actions restored her to the timeline. (TV: The Name of the Doctor)
Further investigations
Info from The Howling on the Hills, The Case of the Curious Fugitive, The Case of the Dissolving Man, Inside Every Warrior, The Curious Case of the Misery Diary, The Inscrutable Illusionist, The Giant's Heart, Heritage 4 needs to be added
In 1893, Jenny, Vastra and Strax caught Volta stealing from Monte Carlo Casino and followed him through a time portal to 1544. The trio were able to capture him and return home. (PROSE: The Tudor Engagement)
In February 1894, the Paternoster Gang were invited to the Royal Observatory by William Christie to investigate mysterious scratches on the telescope. Using a magnifying glass, Jenny saw that the room was full of gremlins whom she negotiated with under Vastra's guidance, arranging to have them moved to the bottom of the River Thames to eat rubbish at their leisure. (PROSE: The Curious Case of the Miniature Menaces)
That spring, the Paternoster Gang went to the Isle of Skye to look into the disappearance of fifteen fishing boats and reports of Blue Men. The trio found that human thieves had been disguising themselves as the Blue Men to scare their victims and Jenny turned them in to the authorities. (PROSE: The Singular Case of the Blue Men of the Minch)
In June 1894, Jenny was visited by her old friend Faye Garrideb, who was looking for the Paternoster Gang's help in saving Stanley Garrideb's Palace of Wonder. The trio attempted to do so, but the palace was ultimately destroyed by the Prince of Calamiño as he departed in his spacecraft. (PROSE: The Phantom of the Music Hall)
In September 1894, the Prime Minister asked the Paternoster Gang to protect Professor Thaddeus Maine's time machine. After Jenny, Vastra and Strax thwarted several attempts to steal the machine and kill Professor Maine, he departed in it in order to keep it from misuse. (PROSE: The Singular Case of the Time Machine)
On 15 November 1894, Strax's fighting drone took on Jenny's form and fought with her. Before it could kill Jenny, its batteries ran out. (PROSE: The Spectre of Paternoster Row)
Vastra, Jenny and Strax investigated the sightings of automated driverless electric cars. As part of this she was to have her knowledge drained from her. Her Sonic gauntlet interfered with the cars works. (AUDIO: The Cars That Ate London!)
Vastra told Jenny and Strax to have an afternoon off. During this she and Strax viewed an exhibition of spirit photographs, she hoped that it would show what came after this life. She was sent to Foster & Stonn's to investigate more about the photographs how they linked to Vastra's investigation on resurrected corpses. (AUDIO: A Photograph to Remember)
As part of an investigation into Ghosts, she helped to gather information from Strax's friend Smallpiece. She later investigated the Royal Observatory with Charlotte Mayfly and learnt that Neville Plumstead was behind it. She was prematurely aged after brashly going after Neville. (AUDIO: The Ghosts of Greenwich)
She help investigate why an alien peace conference had been attacked. She used her contacts around the tradespeople of London to find a rebel faction of one of the side, who wanted to return to more simpler ways. She was caught in the collapsed water tower after witnessing a Haldron execution squad. (AUDIO: Dining with Death)
Thomas Carnacki annoyed her to the point that she thought to kill him with Strax didn't. She trailed Dorothy around the castle and discovered she was waking up the building. (AUDIO: The Screaming Ceiling)
She didn't like the police illustrated news and made this known when she encountered one of it's journalists Gwendoline Platt. She then had to make sure that Platt didn't badger their witness Elizabeth. Her dislike of Platt wasn't help when Elizabeth was abducted in front of them. She let herself be used as bait and kidnapped herself. She learnt that Tomanu was behind the kidnappings, but they were peaceful as the victims where about to die. (AUDIO: Spring-Heeled Jack)
Woken one night by Strax's snoring, Vastra and Jenny found a set of lions intruding their cellar. Soon afterwards her mother Miriam Scarrity came to visit. She went to visit her parent's freakshow and found that Vastra had became one of her exhibits. (AUDIO: Family Matters)
She was asked by Vastra to steal a Silurian artefact from the Lullwind Cove Museum. Vastra and Jenny explored a Silurian temple. Jenny became distraught after Vastra left her to explore the inner sanctum of the temple. Strax and Jenny encountered one of the temple's guardian dinosaurs before falling down a hole. After being rescued, she discovered that the guardian was a fake created by Rodger Merripit so that he could mine the land for oil. (AUDIO: Whatever Remains)
She didn't like the fact that they were asked to donate at party. She discovered that Tom Foster and Stonn were faking Egyptian mummies. She and Tom encountered Skark asking them where Strax and Stonn where. She was used as a bargaining tool to make Vastra cooperate by keeping her hostage. She learnt that Skark wanted Vastra for some Silurian technology. (AUDIO: Truth and Bone)
Jenny and Vastra got annoyed at the new set of alarms Strax, and had to compensate for them electrocuting a local set of carollers. She later caught Smallpiece trying to break into the house. She got stuck with him in the scullery. (AUDIO: Merry Christmas, Mr Jago)
She told Vastra of a set of sightings of fairytale and mythical creatures around London. She noticed something oily about the Mermaid and discovered it to be ink. (AUDIO: The Ghost Writers)
Strax and Jenny were captured and imprisoned by Vella who told them Vastra was no more, but she freed them to help in her plans. She made her way back to London to see what had happened to it. She pretended to be Victoria to trap Franz Albrecht Stuart using her contacts in the royal household. She was able to bring Vastra back to consciousness. She told Vastra to trap the Tenebrae in the ancient book by writing a story in it. (AUDIO: Rulers of Earth)
On 12 December 1894, Jenny accompanied Vastra and Strax to London Zoo, where they encountered a fog laced with temporal radiation that devolved living things into their ancestors. When Vastra was affected by the fog, Jenny prevented her from acting on savage instincts by reminding her of their love. (PROSE: The Evolution Episode)
Oscar Wilde invited the Paternoster Gang to the opening performance of The Importance of Being Earnest at St James's Theatre on 14 February 1895. Being human, Jenny was affected by Rose Leclerq's powers until Strax knocked Leclerq out with her handbag prop. (PROSE: The Importance of Being Strax)
In December 1895, Jenny and Vastra freed Mr Cosmo from the Djinn's dimension in which Missy had trapped him. (AUDIO: Brimstone and Terror)
Lord Cecil hired the Paternoster Gang to protect him from assassination during a meeting in Geneva. Jenny and Vastra chased the porter after Lord Cecil was given poisoned wine and fought him, discovering that he was a Troxil Gamemaster. Jenny defeated him using a cryo-mine, after which Vastra activated his teleport bracelet to send him away. (PROSE: Assassin on the Railroads)
Jenny, Vastra and Strax investigated the disappearances of four children from an orphanage in the autumn of 1897. They discovered the Esturians' spacecraft in the Thames and trapped them. (PROSE: The Terror of the Thames)
Jenny, Vastra and Strax thwarted the attempted Cromek invasion of London, which involved a spacecraft which was disguised as a house. (PROSE: The Pneuman League)
Meeting the new Doctor
Inside a spacecraft crash-landing into London in 1898, Jenny and Vastra guided it towards water whilst Strax sent a message to Sontar regarding the Doctor's ability to regenerate. The trio parachuted off the ship as it headed towards water and Vastra mentioned that a dinosaur had been spotted in the Thames. (TV: Prequel to Deep Breath)
Looking into the appearance of a Tyrannosaurus rex, Jenny, Vastra and Strax were reunited with Clara and met the Twelfth Doctor, whom they cared for and sent the Paternoster Irregulars when he ran away. Jenny and Vastra discovered that the dinosaur had been reduced to ash by spontaneous combustion and fought Clockwork Droids in Mancini's Family Restaurant after Clara sent a distress call. Before they could be killed by the droids, the Half-Face Man was destroyed and the droids became inert. (TV: Deep Breath)
Later investigations
Jenny had her place taken by a a Graske, sending her to limbo. Vastra eventually realised that she had been replaced when "Jenny" offered to make tea without being asked. (PROSE: The Pest of Paternoster Row)
One December, Jenny helped to investigate reports of a poltergeist that was breaking plates in an old house. The haunting turned out to be a false alarm when the house was discovered to be built atop an old Bakerloo Line that caused the house to shake every time a train came through.
The following January, Jenny attended the Carnival of Curiosities in search of Marlowe Hapworth's killer, where she once again met the Twelfth Doctor and Clara and helped defeat Orestes Milton and his Carnival of Curiosities. (PROSE: Silhouette) At some point, Jenny taught Clara how to pick locks. (PROSE: The Crawling Terror)
When Jenny's cat, Mittens, was stuck up a tree, Strax went back in time with his Time Shark to prevent the tree ever growing. The tree disappeared and Mittens fell into Jenny's arms. She later asked Strax to get her a pineapple from the greengrocer. (COMIC: The Adventures of Strax & the Time Shark)
Jenny was absent from the Twelfth Doctor and Vastra's adventure defeating a Triad of murderous Silurians who'd awakened from under Hyde Park, as she was out interviewing suspects for an unrelated case. Vastra was concerned for her safety when she learned the Triad were preparing to unleash the Silurian plague in London, but she and the Doctor ensured that this did not come to pass. (GAME: Lost in Time)
Death
Jenny eventually died of old age, with Vastra outliving her throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. (AUDIO: Requiem)
Legacy
As one of the people she had met during her travels with the Doctor, Jenny was included in a series of notes written by Clara when she was planning to confess to Danny Pink via phone call about her adventures with the Doctor. (TV: Dark Water)
Shortly before regenerating, the Twelfth Doctor dreamt of Jenny along with some of his other companions. (TV: The Doctor Falls)
During a meeting of the Requiem Group in 2022, Vastra alluded to Jenny, by saying that "[a person] will not escape [their] grief. She - it will be a part of you, always". (AUDIO: Requiem)
Personality
Jenny had a romantic relationship with Vastra, despite the fact that she was a different species. She seemed proud to be married to the Silurian, noting that Dr Simeon had never been married. (WC: Vastra Investigates, TV: The Snowmen) This commitment to her marriage was further shown when the Doctor kissed her after she rescued him from Ada Gillyflower's cell. Although he only intended to show his gleeful gratitude, Jenny promptly slapped him in annoyance. (TV: The Crimson Horror) Jenny showed jealousy when Vastra showed interest in others. She was also quite sarcastic at times. For example, she replied, "Thank you," to Vastra's comment that mammals all looked alike. (TV: A Good Man Goes to War) Her sarcastic nature was also shown when she said, "At your service," to Simeon. (TV: The Snowmen) When Vastra explained to Clara about the public image she and Jenny had to maintain, Jenny wondered aloud why she still acted as a maid in the house. (TV: Deep Breath)
Even though she lived with a "lizard woman" and a "potato dwarf", Jenny was something of a realist as she still believed Clara to be dead during the events of the Crimson Horror and was deeply confused when the Doctor stated otherwise, despite the fact that the Doctor had told her before that there was another version of her somewhere in the universe. However, she seemed satisfied when she saw the truth for herself and didn't believe the new Clara to be an imposter. She was subsequently impressed by Clara's deduction of where Winifred Gillyflower was keeping her rocket and the two eventually became friends. (TV: The Crimson Horror, Deep Breath)
Jenny proved very courageous and kind, risking life and limb for those in need. She, along with Vastra and Strax, joined the Doctor's rescue mission and also comforted Amy about the loss of her child. (TV: A Good Man Goes to War) She comforted Clara to help her cope with the Doctor's new persona and helped her during her time in the Victorian era. (TV: Deep Breath) She risked her own life to stop Vastra from becoming a savage primitive and reminded her of their bond. (PROSE: The Evolution Episode)
Appearance
Whilst Strax said that Jenny was "weak and stringy", Vastra believed that she was one of the "fittest and most beautiful" (TV: The Crimson Horror) and told her that she lit up the room. (TV: Deep Breath) Jenny warned Strax not to mention any physical resemblance between herself and her mother. (AUDIO: Family Matters)
Abilities
Jenny was quite capable in combat — she survived the Battle of Demons Run without any injury. She displayed excellent skills with a sword during the battle, and was capable of using a blaster against Headless Monks. (TV: A Good Man Goes to War) She also used unarmed martial arts when confronted in Sweetville, and was, as the Doctor put it, "everyone's favourite lock-picking Victorian chambermaid". (TV: The Crimson Horror)
She was also of "considerably" above average intelligence. (AUDIO: The Cars That Ate London!)
Behind the scenes
Spin-off?
Since their first appearance, Vastra and Jenny became popular characters in fandom, with fans wishing for a spin-off series to be made based on their adventures. Steven Moffat addressed this, saying that he considered making a spin-off when he created the two characters, but wouldn't have the time, though he said he would like to revisit them.[1] Since their debut, Vastra, Jenny and Strax have returned for four additional episodes and three minisodes. Although no television spinoff materialised, they did receive their own short story series in the Doctor Who Adventures magazine called The Paternoster Gang Investigates and later The Paternoster Gang from Big Finish Productions.
Other matters
- The book The Secret Lives of Monsters includes an excerpt from a book called A Study in Green in which Vastra, Jenny and Strax encounter Sherlock Holmes and John Watson. Jenny bought all 200 copies of the book to keep it off the shelves.
- Jenny was supposed to appear as a hallucination when the Eleventh Doctor regenerated, along with other of the Doctor's companions. In the end, only Amy appeared.[2]
External links
Footnotes
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