Harry Sullivan
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Surgeon-Lieutenant Harold "Harry" Sullivan was a companion of the Fourth Doctor.
He was a Royal Navy surgeon in the employ of UNIT and later worked for NATO and MI5.
Biography
Early life
Harold Sullivan, who preferred to go by Harry, (PROSE: Millennium Shock) was born in May 1942. (PROSE: Harry Sullivan's War) His great-grandparents were Athena James and Albert Sullivan, a 19th century navy surgeon whom he greatly resembled. (COMIC: Gaze of the Medusa) He was christened in Harrow on the Hill. (PROSE: Harry Sullivan's War)
As a boy, Harry enjoyed reading the adventures of Captain Jack Harkaway in The Ensign magazine (PROSE: Scratchman) and, at Christmas and on birthdays, Harry would visit his step-brother, Will Sullivan, who viewed him as more of an uncle than an older brother. (AUDIO: Buried Secrets) He studied medicine at Dartmouth Naval College, (PROSE: Harry Sullivan's War, PROSE: The Face of the Enemy) where he befriended Teddy Bland, played rugby and rowed with the Dartmouth College Ace Eight, (PROSE: Harry Sullivan's War) and became a Surgeon-Lieutenant in the Royal Navy, telling Will stories about his experiences and encouraging him to study medicine as well. (AUDIO: Buried Secrets)
During his first year as a fully commissioned officer, he served on the Ark Royal. He was posted at Faslane in Scotland and was occasionally visited by Esther, Teddy's sister whom he fancied. It was during his time there that he first encountered UNIT, meeting Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart. (PROSE: The Face of the Enemy) He often boxed whilst in the navy. (PROSE: Doctor Who and the Giant Robot)
Harry decided to propose to Esther but, before he could do so, he was seconded to UNIT (PROSE: Harry Sullivan's War) to serve as their new Medical Officer. Shortly after joining, the Brigadier summoned him to help see the Third Doctor through during his apparent coma. However, when Sergeant John Benton woke the Doctor up by offering him a cup of coffee, the Brigadier cancelled the call for his assistance. (TV: Planet of the Spiders)
Joining the Doctor
Harry was summoned to the laboratory by the Brigadier some weeks after the false alarm to see to the recently regenerated Fourth Doctor. He had him taken to the sick bay and, after being tied up and left in the cupboard by his patient, joined him and the Brigadier in visiting Emmett's Electronics, the scene of one of K1's robberies. He volunteered to infiltrate the Scientific Reform Society and escaped with the help of Sarah Jane Smith after being discovered and tied up.
Following K1's defeat, Harry saw the Doctor and Sarah go to enter the TARDIS and expressed his incredulity, prompting the Doctor to invite him in. (TV: Robot) Despite the Brigadier shouting that the Doctor was forbidden to leave, he quickly dematerialised the ship, taking Harry on his first adventure in time and space. (PROSE: Doctor Who and the Giant Robot)
Adventures with the Doctor
At first very much confused, he trailed the Doctor and Sarah Jane Smith to Space Station Nerva, where they were pitted against the Wirrn. (TV: The Ark in Space)
They then travelled by transmat from the space station to an uninhabited far future Earth. Harry fell into a trap set by the stranded GalSec colonist Roth, but was able to find a way out. He later tried to help a dying dehydrated prisoner held captive by Styre for his experiments, but was too late. He looked after Sarah when Styre's experiment caused her to pass out from fear. Under the Doctor's instructions, Harry removed the terullian diode bypass transformer from Styre's ship, which caused the energy Styre fed on in his ship to feed on Styre instead. (TV: The Sontaran Experiment) Heading back to the Nerva beacon, the Time Lords intercepted the transmat beam and took them to Skaro to prevent the creation of the Daleks. (TV: Genesis of the Daleks)
Departing Skaro via time ring, Harry was separated from the Doctor and Sarah and ended up in the midst of the war taking place in the Adelphine Cluster. Thought feeling out of his depth on a crisis-ridden alien world, he turned his attention to treating the wounded as best as he could, winning him the trust of those around him. He was soon reunited with his travelling companions and helped expose the corruption at the heart of the Averon Union. (PROSE: A Device of Death)
Via time ring, they travelled back to Nerva, but to a much earlier year. There he helped save Voga from the terror of the Cybermen. They then received a summons from the Brigadier on the space-time telegraph calling them back to 20th century Earth. (TV: Revenge of the Cybermen)
Immediately after his adventure with the Cybermen, Harry was ejected from the TARDIS and it stranded him in England, 1936. There Harry met the Eighth Doctor, who had no memory of Harry or any of his previous adventures. Harry helped the Eighth Doctor to stop a Dryad from turning the land of Britain on the people that lived upon it. The Fourth Doctor and Sarah picked Harry up shortly after. (PROSE: Wolfsbane)
Back in the late 20th century, Harry rejoined UNIT to defeat the shape-changing Zygons and their giant, dinosaur-like beast, the Skarasen, in Scotland. After the Zygons' defeat, Harry decided to return home to London by train rather than by TARDIS. (TV: Terror of the Zygons)
Sometime after the attempted Zygon invasion, Harry developed a Zygon-killing gas called Z-67 while working on captive Zygons at Porton Down. However, the gas was confiscated by the Doctor. (TV: The Zygon Invasion/The Zygon Inversion)
When the Doctor and Sarah returned to Earth, Harry helped them against the Kraals, who had also created an android duplicate of him. (TV: The Android Invasion)
On one occasion when the Doctor and Sarah left a note that simply said "Gone on holiday", the Brigadier questioned Harry on the letter but he did not know anything as he had recently returned from leave. (PROSE: A New Life)
At some point during his UNIT career, Harry was put in charge of a team and sent to the West Country to investigate a missing UNIT team member and a subsequent series of "monster" sightings. He met up with the Ninth Doctor and his companions, Rose Tyler and Jack Harkness, and together they found the missing man and solved the mystery of the "monsters". (COMIC: Official Secrets)
Resumed travels with the Doctor
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Harry rejoined the Doctor and Sarah on their travels after a time. The Doctor was in UNIT HQ working on an Oscillating Reverberator Unit to improve the TARDIS. After being briefly interrupted by Benton, the Doctor convinced Harry and Sarah to join him to test out the gadget, after relieving the former about the worries he had deserting his post at UNIT by telling him it would only take five minutes. They found themselves under attack from a galleon in space. Sarah and Harry were forced to walk the plank of the ship by the captain before being rescued by the Doctor. (PROSE: Avast There!)
Post-UNIT career
In the early 1980s, Harry worked at NATO. (TV: Mawdryn Undead, PROSE: Harry Sullivan's War) He did not see Sarah again until ten years after he left her and the Doctor in Scotland. (PROSE: Harry Sullivan's War)
By 1997, he was Deputy Director at MI5. At that time, via the agency of time travel, he met up once again with a familiar version of the Doctor, as well as a much younger Sarah Jane Smith, for whom little time had passed. (PROSE: System Shock) He still worked for MI5 in 1999, (PROSE: Millennium Shock) and became Chief of Staff at some point prior to 2015. (PROSE: Damaged Goods)
By 2005, he was back at NATO, having achieved the rank of Commodore. The Brigadier asked him for a favour at the time. (AUDIO: The Wasting)
To commemorate an anniversary date, Sarah Jane had yearly meetings with Harry Sullivan. By 2006, Harry had been missing in action for some time, though Sarah kept coming to the same place they used to meet. She "talked" to him and raised a toast to him wherever he was. (AUDIO: Buried Secrets) Harry was still missing in 2009. (PROSE: The Wedding of Sarah Jane Smith)
In 2010, Sarah Jane recalled that Harry had worked in developing vaccines that had saved thousands of lives. (TV: Death of the Doctor)
In June 2015, though, Harry was alive and discovered a possible cure for HIV in blood taken from David Daniels. (PROSE: Damaged Goods)
Alternative timelines
A parallel Earth version of Harry served on a nuclear submarine in a world taken over by the Silurians after the death of the Third Doctor. He saved the life of the Seventh Doctor's companion Bernice Summerfield. (PROSE: Blood Heat)
Undated events
At some point, a photo of Harry existed in UNIT's Black Archive alongside Sergeant Benton and Sarah Jane to record him as a companion of the Doctor. (TV: The Day of the Doctor)
At another point, Harry was abducted by Adam Mitchell as part his plan to get revenge on the Doctor, in collaboration with the Tremas Master. He 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)
In the Hellscape
A version of Harry appeared in a "hellscape" dream the Eleventh Doctor created while the mind parasite Mr Waites fed off the worst thing Doctor could imagine. In the dream, the Doctor worked with Harry at the Department of Commonality. Harry revealed that the protest at the "square" was much larger than reported and that his sister's boyfriend had proof on his camera. After the Doctor didn't enjoy working at mediation and wanted to return to records, he reported to Mr Waites about the camera, and the peace officers arrested Harry. (COMIC: John Smith and the Common Men)
Personality
Harry was rather old-fashioned and stereotypically English in his attitudes. He often employed slightly archaic language, referring to Sarah affectionately as "old girl" or "old thing" — which somewhat annoyed her. (TV: The Sontaran Experiment, PROSE: Doctor Who and the Ark in Space) He was brave, one time saving the Fourth Doctor's life from a land mine on Skaro. (TV: Genesis of the Daleks) He had a "can-do" attitude, adapting well to the many strange situations in which he found himself. He could, however, be quite clumsy and unsubtle. This led the Doctor to declare in a moment of frustration, at the top of his lungs that "Harry Sullivan is an imbecile!", before passing out from the effects of a rockfall on Voga – caused by Harry. (TV: Revenge of the Cybermen) He flirted a bit with Sarah. Despite an outward annoyance at that attitude, once when thinking him dead, Sarah admitted she found it endearing. (PROSE: Wolfsbane)
He was good at cricket, and was able to throw a cricket ball over at least a metre. (PROSE: Doctor Who and the Ark in Space)
Appearance
Harry was a big and cheerful man with a square jaw, fair curly hair and blue eyes. (PROSE: Doctor Who and the Giant Robot) He had sideburns which he shaved off after leaving UNIT, refusing Esther's requests that he grow them back. (PROSE: Harry Sullivan's War) He was in top physical condition, (PROSE: Doctor Who and the Giant Robot) having rowed and played rugby in college, (PROSE: Harry Sullivan's War) boxed in the navy (PROSE: Doctor Who and the Giant Robot) and regularly exercised in the gym. (PROSE: Harry Sullivan's War)
Sarah thought that Harry looked like the hero of a Boy's Own Paper adventure, reminding her of Biggles and Bulldog Drummond. (PROSE: Doctor Who and the Giant Robot)
Behind the scenes
- Harry was created as a companion to be a man of action much like Ben Jackson or Jamie McCrimmon. However, Tom Baker proved to be capable of handling the physical side of the series, leaving Harry with less to do.[1]
- Laury L. Varnish, an alias used by Harry in Harry Sullivan's War, is an anagram of his own name.
- Harry has many similarities to Martha Jones: They both worked as medical officers for UNIT whilst working with other organisations, they both had adventures with the Doctor after leaving the TARDIS, both were possessed by enemies of the Doctor, and they both battled Davros, Daleks and Sontarans.
- Harry is a member of a small group of companions who did not feature in any TARDIS interior scenes. Although he is seen entering and emerging from the TARDIS several times, he is never seen within the TARDIS itself.
- Doctor Who and the Rebel's Gamble, a story which this wiki does not consider to be a valid source, suggests that at some point Harry Sullivan shared an adventure with the Sixth Doctor.
- According to an interview in Doctor Who Magazine #512 with writer Mike Bartlett, the character of Harry in the 2017 episode TV: Knock Knock was originally to have been identified as Harry Sullivan's grandson, but the reference was cut before broadcast. In this story, Harry's grandfather is established as having a boyfriend.
External links
Footnotes
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