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Revision as of 01:09, 17 July 2024
Victoria Maud Waterfield was a companion of the Second Doctor.
She was the daughter of Edward Waterfield. She primarily had adventures with Jamie McCrimmon, and her contact with other companions was limited. She was known to be at least acquainted with Sarah Jane Smith and Peri Brown.
One of the youngest companions ever to travel with the Doctor, the 14- or 15-year-old was made an orphan by her mother's early death and her father's murder by the Daleks. The Doctor and Jamie, by mutual agreement, immediately chose to bring her along with them upon the death of her father. Thereafter, the duo was very protective of her, to an extent that the two did not typically exhibit towards their other female companions, Polly and Zoe. The two acted as a substitute father and brother to her, and patiently took the time to help her get over her sense of loss over her parents, and the great fear she experienced in some of the more dangerous parts of their adventures together. Indeed, she often displayed her fear by screaming with much greater frequency than the other female companions of the Second Doctor.
Her reasons for leaving the Doctor and Jamie were unique, and a consequence of her youth. She decided to live with the childless Frank and Maggie Harris in 1968. Though no details were known about the "formality" of this arrangement, it was apparent that Victoria stopped travelling in the TARDIS because she valued the comfort of family. While the Doctor saw the decision as very much a matter of her own choosing, Jamie was significantly distressed — much more so than he had been when Ben and Polly departed.
Biography
Early life
Victoria Maud Waterfield (PROSE: The Age of Ambition [+]Loading...["The Age of Ambition (short story)"]) was born in 1852 to Edith (PROSE: Downtime [+]Loading...["Downtime (novelisation)"]) and Edward Waterfield. She bore a strong resemblance to her mother (TV: The Evil of the Daleks [+]Loading...["The Evil of the Daleks (TV story)"]) and was photographed at five years old by Lewis Carroll some years before he wrote Alice in Wonderland. (PROSE: Downtime [+]Loading...["Downtime (novelisation)"]) She was a Protestant (PROSE: Screamager [+]Loading...["Screamager (short story)"]) and her father too was religious. (PROSE: The Evil of the Daleks [+]Loading...["The Evil of the Daleks (novelisation)"])
Edith once gave Victoria a handkerchief monogrammed with her initials. (PROSE: The Evil of the Daleks [+]Loading...["The Evil of the Daleks (BBC Books novelisation)"]) On 23 November 1863, (PROSE: Downtime [+]Loading...["Downtime (novelisation)"]) Edith died from pneumonia (PROSE: The Age of Ambition [+]Loading...["The Age of Ambition (short story)"]) and Waterfield began to struggle with his finances, but he managed to survive thanks to Theodore Maxtible. Victoria went with him to a scientific conference at the British Museum shortly after her mother's death and was exhilarated by the opulence and fashion of London. She was bored by the conference, however, and wandered around the museum, eventually being found by her father and a search party.
Victoria was delighted when she first visited Maxtible's house and fantasised about what it would be like to live in such a large home. She ensured that her schedule was as empty as possible so that she could accompany her father there and explore the grounds, learning the names of flowers and herbs. (PROSE: The Evil of the Daleks [+]Loading...["The Evil of the Daleks (BBC Books novelisation)"]) She considered Kemel to be a dear friend, (TV: The Evil of the Daleks [+]Loading...["The Evil of the Daleks (TV story)"]) having met him whilst he was working around Maxtible's estate. (PROSE: The Evil of the Daleks [+]Loading...["The Evil of the Daleks (BBC Books novelisation)"])
Meeting the Doctor
Waterfield and Maxtible were experimenting with a method of time travel utilising mirrors and static electricity. They accidentally established a link between Maxtible's house and the Dalek city on the planet Skaro. The Daleks used Victoria as a hostage to control her father and Maxtible.
Taken prisoner and transported to Skaro, Victoria was stranded on the alien planet — her father having died to save the Second Doctor's life. Drawing on this experience, she was prepared to encounter civilisations more advanced than her own. Now an orphan, she chose to join the Doctor and Jamie McCrimmon on their travels — a decision made more through necessity than choice. (TV: The Evil of the Daleks)
Travels with the Doctor and Jamie
Victoria looked for the humanity in the circumstances in which she found herself. Rather than wonder at the TARDIS, Victoria worried about the Doctor's age.
Until her abduction by the Daleks, Victoria had apparently led the sheltered life usual for women from wealthy British families in the 19th century. She was, however, quite capable of looking after herself and held her own in a verbal spar with Captain Hopper. (TV: The Tomb of the Cybermen) She also coped well with Jamie's teasing over such things as short dresses. (TV: The Ice Warriors)
Victoria's sheltered life before encountering the Doctor had not made her gullible. She was a clever and intelligent young woman, who got the better of Kaftan twice after having been tricked into drinking drugged coffee. Her first ploy had been to scream as if a dead Cybermat were attacking again and the second was to tell Kaftan and Eric Klieg that the testing room, where the Doctor's group had been locked, contained another weapon. Victoria seemed such an innocent young woman that Kaftan believed her each time. (TV: The Tomb of the Cybermen)
When the travellers landed in Sumatra, near the Great Space Elevator, Victoria expressed admiration and wonder at the size of the giant building. The travellers were captured by security and taken inside the building; before they could be questioned, a request for help was heard by the Sky Station connected to the Elevator. The Doctor, Jamie, Victoria and Commander Tara Kerley all went up to the station, where Victoria stubbornly refused to be left behind and being kept from joining the adventure. The electric space creature who attacked the Elevator tried to take control of her mind as it did with the crew of the station, but she managed to resist and later offered to go inside of the control room (pretending she was being controlled) to find out what was going on. She then saw the creature controlling the men of the Station and having them creating an electric storm near Sumatra, for her to feed when she would descend on Earth. When the Doctor, who had discovered how to break the creature's influence on everyone, reminded Jamie of "what he did before", Victoria understood he was referring to the accident that happened while they were going up to the Station, when Jamie unadvertedly set up the fire alarm. She then activated it, thus having the floor covered in foam: since the power of the creature relied on static electricity, this broke the link between it and the men. The travellers then contacted Earth and instructed them how to earth the Elevator, in order to prevent it from reaching Earth. (AUDIO: The Great Space Elevator)
Although Victoria loved the Doctor and Jamie, she missed her home and father. Since she had joined the TARDIS crew only as a result of her father's death, she was something of an unwilling adventurer. Having told the Doctor this, he taught her to keep the memory of lost loved ones in the subconscious, where they could be recalled at will, but did not harry the mind at all times. (TV: The Tomb of the Cybermen) Her gleeful recollection of the recipe for Kaiser pudding when working in Ramón Salamander's kitchen was a manifestation of her longing for home. (TV: The Enemy of the World)
Victoria was witness to the Second Doctor's first encounter with the Great Intelligence and its robot Yeti during a trip to Tibet. (TV: The Abominable Snowmen)
Jamie, Victoria and the Doctor landed on a space station orbiting a black hole. She didn't know what a black hole was. When the Doctor told them that the only people that could control black holes were his people, she asked him what made him leave them. She stayed with Pavo when he and the Doctor tried to stabilise the black hole. She tried to help him when he started to convulse but she started to disappear. She soon reappeared but she wasn't herself and stayed behind when the Doctor went to visit Joinson Dastari. She discovered that there was a fake history about the black hole. She found it weird that there was books in the future and Flail told her but had to then wipe her memory. (AUDIO: The Black Hole)
She started to teach Jamie how to read. She helped Jamie to collect provisions for the archaeological dig they were part of on Amyryndaa. She became nervous when the Doctor left them in the TARDIS thinking they would be safe in there. When they looked for the Doctor they were attacked by the electronic parchment that was used for books in this time. (AUDIO: The Story of Extinction)
When they landed in China she was appalled at the sight of a burned out village. She was annoyed when the villagers of the neighbouring village thought she was the Doctor's concubine. She tried to convince the villagers to respect the strange monk that had arrived in the village. (AUDIO: The Emperor of Eternity)
While visiting an unnamed planet, the Doctor, Victoria and Jamie discovered three Daleks , who had crashed and were trying to build a beacon to attract rescuers. As Victoria watched, the Doctor rigged their beacon to emit an electromagnetic pulse outwards instead of upwards, frying the Dalek mutants alive. Shocked, Victoria resolved to leave his company soon. (COMIC: Bringer of Darkness)
Departure
Victoria may have been courageous, but she was certainly a screamer. Never afraid to scream at danger, it was this which, ultimately, provided the solution to the weed creature on the Euro Sea Gas refinery the travellers visited. Leading up to this adventure, Victoria had begun speaking with greater frequency of her dislike of the dangers she, the Doctor and Jamie encountered in their travels. Unsurprisingly, she took her first opportunity to settle down with an established, caring family. With no family to return to and realising that her travels had changed her outlook and expectations, Victoria chose to stay with Maggie and Frank Harris rather than continue her travels, despite the fact that Jamie tried to persuade her to stay. (TV: Fury from the Deep) Victoria watched from the beach as the Doctor and Jamie rowed back to the floating TARDIS, and then saw the police box shoot up into the sky like a rocket, leaving her to start her new life in England, 1968. (TV: The Wheel in Space)
Life after the Doctor
Victoria settled down in the 20th century with her foster parents. According to one account, she was visited once more by the Doctor, who was in his seventh incarnation and who took her to London in February 1868. There, Victoria took care of her father's fortune and visited her aunt, Margaret Waterfield, before returning to the 20th century. (PROSE: Prelude Birthright) In 1909, her aunt was murdered by thugs in the employ of Jared Khan. (PROSE: Birthright)
In 1980, she returned to Tibet and the Great Intelligence for a third time. It manipulated her into establishing the New World University, preparing the way for it to manifest in Earth's computer networks.
In 1995, its plan almost came to fruition; a ghostly version of the long-dead Professor Edward Travers got her to realise that she was being manipulated and she joined the fight against the Intelligence's plan. (HOMEVID: Downtime)
Victoria married and had several children. One of her children was expecting Victoria's first grandchild. By this time, she considered her days travelling with the Doctor as the most exciting, vivid and terrifying of her life. She never told her family of her travels in the TARDIS or that she was from the 19th century. (AUDIO: The Great Space Elevator)
Having seen the wonders of the universe, Victoria was horrified by how humanity polluted the Earth and became an environmental activist, joining a group led by Marion Tudor and being affectionately likened to a grandmother. She was protesting and investigating Matthew Dysart's power plant when she was captured by Collator Leiss and ordered to assassinate the Sixth Doctor, but the Doctor manages to release her from the hypnosis and she used the mind link that had been created to help defeat Leiss and Dominicus. Afterwards, the Doctor offered Victoria the opportunity to join him and Peri Brown on their adventures and, when she declined, told her that the door was always open for her. (AUDIO: Power Play)
Victoria attended Sarah Jane Smith's memorial on a "bright, cold Spring day", where she discussed Sarah Jane with other guests, and helped fight the Jackals of the Backwards Clock to foil the Trickster's revenge plot. (WC: Farewell, Sarah Jane)
A woman named Mrs V. M. McCrimmon lived in the City of the Saved. (PROSE: Philology: The Real Professional Bag of Tricks, Postscript)
Undated events
At some point, Victoria 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)
At one point, Victoria 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, Endgame)
Victoria and Jamie McCrimmon once returned to the Dalek City and, upon being confronted by the Dalek Emperor, were horrified to realise the Dalek Civil War had not destroyed the exterminators. Soon, an army of Dalek drones revealed themselves, surrounding Jamie and Victoria. Victoria and Jamie also realised the Daleks had captured the Doctor's TARDIS. (HOMEVID: Emperor of the Daleks)
Legacy
Victoria left some of her belongings in the TARDIS after she left, including a dress which was later found and worn by Sarah Jane Smith. (TV: Pyramids of Mars) On this occasion, the Fourth Doctor looked back fondly on Victoria, mentally recalling that she was "always so frightened, always trying so hard to be brave." (PROSE: Doctor Who and the Pyramids of Mars)
Jamie McCrimmon was still missing her while on an adventure with the Second Doctor. (AUDIO: The Last Day at Work)
The TARDIS, in an attempt to warn the Seventh Doctor about the threat of the Timewyrm, projected one of his memories of Victoria on the scanner. (PROSE: Timewyrm: Genesys)
Personality
Victoria was naturally cheerful. (PROSE: The Evil of the Daleks)
Despite her obvious distress in many situations, she quickly adapted a role where she could actively help the Doctor and Jamie. She was eager to participate in any current adventure. She attempted to force her way past Kaftan to open the tombs on Telos. Victoria showed no qualms about using force either, taking the seemingly-dead Kaftan's gun and using it to kill a Cybermat. (TV: The Tomb of the Cybermen)
Although Victoria loved the Doctor and Jamie, she missed her home and father. Since she had joined the TARDIS crew only as a result of her father's death, she was something of an unwilling adventurer. Having told the Doctor this, he taught her to keep the memory of lost loved ones in the subconscious, where they could be recalled at will, but did not harry the mind at all times. (TV: The Tomb of the Cybermen) Her gleeful recollection of the recipe for Kaiser pudding when working in Ramón Salamander's kitchen was a manifestation of her longing for home. (TV: The Enemy of the World)
Right from the start of her adventures, Victoria was defiant and could show great courage. Though frightened of the Daleks who had held her captive, she defied their orders and continued to feed the pigeons at the window of her room. (PROSE: The Evil of the Daleks) When offered the opportunity of safety with the Monks in Tibet, she refused. (TV: The Abominable Snowmen) She almost assaulted the Doctor, thinking he was Salamander until he did an impression of playing the recorder. (TV: The Enemy of the World)
Victoria eventually forgave the Daleks for killing her father. (AUDIO: The Emperor of Eternity)
Appearance
Looking almost identical to her mother, Victoria was very pretty with dark, flowing hair and bright eyes. Her choice of clothes made her look elegant and innocent. (PROSE: The Evil of the Daleks)
Behind the scenes
- V. M. McCrimmon in The City of the Saved could be interpreted to be Victoria after her resurrection in the City of the Saved, married to Jamie McCrimmon.
- She was supposed to make a cameo in The Five Doctors as an illusion. She would give herself away by referring to Lethbridge-Stewart as "Brigadier", when she knew him as a colonel. Deborah Watling was booked to appear on The Dave Allen Show, so her cameo was given to Zoe instead.
- One unmade story for Season 23 called Meltdown would have seen the Sixth Doctor reunite with Victoria, who is now an environmental activist. It was adapted into Power Play.
Victoria's age
The Evil of the Daleks explicitly occurs in June of 1866. As the novelisation of Downtime gives her birth year as 1852, this makes her either fourteen or fifteen years old when she joins the TARDIS team.
The novel also states that Victoria "had been just eleven when her mother had died of pneumonia.", and this concurs with The Age of Ambition, which states her mother's death as occurring in 1863.
That which survives
Until the 9-episode find in 2013, Victoria was the companion hardest-hit by missing episodes, discounting those like Katarina and Sara Kingdom who only appeared in one or two serials. She had the lowest percentage of surviving material of any companion to appear in more than two stories. Before the 9 episodes were found, only 24% of her episodes existed. Afterwards, that number was raised to 53%.
| Name | Episodes made | Total surviving | Percentage |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dodo | 19 | 11 | 58% |
| Victoria | 39 | 20 | 51% |
| Steven | 45 | 18 | 40% |
| Polly and Ben | 36 | 12 | 33% |
Casting
The circumstances under which Deborah Watling won the part are somewhat mysterious. She does not appear on the audition paperwork and appears to have quietly replaced the first choice Denise Buckley for reasons unknown. Records indicate that Buckley won the role after a camera test on 11 April 1967, but lost it by 13 April, when Innes Lloyd officially confirmed Watling in the role. (REF: The Second Doctor Handbook)
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