Ace
Dorothy Gale "Ace" McShane, was a companion of the Seventh Doctor. She was a human from late 20th century Earth. A native of the London suburb of Perivale, she was born on 20 August 1970. (NA: Timewyrm: Revelation, Falls the Shadow, Set Piece, PDA: Relative Dementias) By 2010, she was on Earth, running a company called "A Charitable Earth" and had raised billions. (SJA: Death of the Doctor)
Biography
Dorothy was the daughter of Audrey Dudman. She was a troubled teen on Earth, expelled from school for blowing up the art room as a "creative statement". Shortly after, she began to work as a waitress at a fast-food cafe, a job she found little excitement in. Gifted in chemistry (despite failing it for her "O"-levels), she was in her room experimenting with the extraction of nitroglycerin from gelignite when a time storm swept her up and transported her to the deck of Sabalom Glitz's spacecraft, which was docked at Iceworld far in her future. (NA: Love and War) Trapped on Iceworld, she got a job as a waitress and some time later met the Seventh Doctor and his companion Mel. When Mel left the Doctor at the conclusion of their battle with Kane, he offered to take Ace with him in the TARDIS, and she gladly accepted. (DW: Dragonfire)
Ace had suffered several traumatic events in her childhood, including a bad relationship with her mother and the racist firebombing of her friend Manisha's flat. Manisha died in the fire-bombing and an angry Ace set fire to Gabriel Chase, an abandoned mansion said to be haunted by an ancient evil (DW: Ghost Light, NA: Blood Heat). Ace covered her fears and insecurities with a streetwise, tough exterior. Her weapon of choice, disapproved of by the Doctor (who nonetheless found it useful on occasion), was a powerful explosive she called "Nitro-9", which she mixed up in canisters and carried around in her backpack.
Ace called the Doctor "Professor". She was convinced he needed his back watched and protected him with a fierce loyalty. In turn, the Doctor took a special interest in Ace's education, taking her across the universe and prompting her to figure out explanations rather than giving her all the answers.
Early travels
Under the Doctor's tutelage, Ace fought the Daleks and faced Davros in November 1963. During this adventure the stereo she carried around with her was destroyed by a dalek. (DW: Remembrance of the Daleks). She opposed Helen A and her sadistic government, which required people to be happy on pain of death. (DW: The Happiness Patrol) She stopped the Cybermen from getting hold of Nemesis in 1988 (DW: Silver Nemesis) and saved the Psychic Circus on Segonax from the Gods of Ragnarok. (DW: The Greatest Show in the Galaxy) She also met Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, helping UNIT defeat the Destroyer and Morgaine in Carbury in 1997. (DW: Battlefield)
The Doctor forced Ace to face demons from her past, taking her to a house she burned down a century before she did. There she discovered that the presence in the house of the Entity known as Light was what she had felt when compelled to burn the house down. (DW: Ghost Light)
Ace's arrival on Iceworld was not accidental, but part of a larger scheme conceived by Fenric. Ace was a "Wolf of Fenric", one of many descendants of a Viking tainted with Fenric's genetic instructions to free it from its ancient prison, and a pawn in the complex game between it and the Doctor. The Doctor appeared to have been aware of this from their first meeting, although Ace was not. After Fenric was defeated, Ace continued to journey with the Doctor. (DW: The Curse of Fenric)
Ace returned to Perivale where she found that all her old friends had gone missing. She thought they had moved on, but they had been taken to the Cheetah World as prey for the Cheetah People. The Master, an old enemy of the Doctor, was using them to get off the planet. Ace returned with two of her friends and went off to travel with the Doctor again. (DW: Survival)
Further journeys with the Doctor
Some time after encountering the Master in Perivale, she encountered the Master's influences involving Duchamp 331 in the 26th century and met Bev Tarrant for the second time. (BFA: Dust Breeding).
Following a brush with Nazis in Colditz Castle in October 1944 (BFA: Colditz), the Doctor took Ace to Ibiza on 14 May 1997 to "relax" following her ordeal. While there, she discovered that she had a younger brother: Liam McShane. (BFA: The Rapture)
Journeys with Hex and the Doctor
Whilst in London in 2021 investigating with the Doctor for evidence of 'xenotech' — alien technology used on humans—in fact Cyber technology --she met Hex, a nurse working at St Gart's Hospital. Following his help she convinced him to join her and the Doctor, taking him under her wing. (BFA: The Harvest)
Later travels
Indications exist that the Doctor had plans to take Ace to Gallifrey and secure her admission to the Prydon Academy, possibly as part of his assumed mission as "Time's Champion". However, Ace became more and more frustrated with the Doctor's manipulations, finally leaving his company (NA: Love and War) at age twenty-six. (NA: Set Piece) She joined Spacefleet and fought the Daleks for three years, later rejoining the Doctor and Bernice Summerfield, older and harder (NA: Deceit). Ace's relationship with Bernice was at first less than cordial, possibly out of jealousy, but the two eventually became friends.
Ace's relationship with the Doctor remained strained for some time, but they eventually resolved their issues. Finally, after their ordeal with the Robot Ants, she left the Doctor again to become Time's Vigilante, using a short-range time hopper mounted on a motorcycle to patrol a particular segment of time. (NA: Set Piece)
Life after the Doctor
During a search for other companions of the Doctor, Sarah Jane Smith discovered that a "Dorothy something" was alive and well and running a company called A Charitable Earth - the initials of which spell "ACE". (SJA: Death of the Doctor)
Alternate fates
There are several varying and contradictory reports of Ace's eventual fate.
- She was killed by the Threshold some time before the Seventh Doctor's regeneration into the Eighth Doctor. (DWM: Ground Zero)
- She inherited the mantle of the Time Lords when they became extinct. (WC: Death Comes to Time)
- She went to live in Paris in 1887 after leaving the Doctor. (DWN: The Curse of Fenric, NA: Set Piece, Lungbarrow)
Behind the scenes
- Ace's full name was never revealed on the television series, in which she was usually referred to by her nickname. Her surname was not established until original novels featuring the character were published, but her name, Dorothy, was referred to on screen in DW: Dragonfire and (possibly) in SJA: Death of the Doctor. Production notes suggest that it was intended that her last name would be Gale, given the fact that she was transported to Iceworld via a time storm (as was Dorothy Gale in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz). The novels (and, later, the Big Finish audio plays) gave Ace the last name of McShane. The Past Doctor Adventures set after DW: Survival and written by Mike Tucker and Robert Perry used the "Dorothy Gale" name, as the authors were unaware of the name used in the New Adventures. This was eventually resolved to some extent when the novel Relative Dementias by Mark Michalowski gave her full name as Dorothy Gale McShane, a version later taken up by the audios.
- Her name is a reference to the main protagonist in the Wizard of Oz series.
- Ace was the final female television companion to date not to kiss, or be kissed by, the Doctor until Adelaide Brooke in 2009.
- Though novels and comic strips had put forward scenarios of how Ace finally departs the Doctor's company, the TV series itself did not. She is one of the few official companions, and the only TV companion to date whose fate (or at least departure from the TARDIS) has not been revealed. In SJA: Death of the Doctor, a reference was made to a former companion of the Doctor named "Dorothy" (almost certainly Ace), who was running an organisation known as "A Charitable Earth".
- According to Rona Munro, the writer of Survival, there was to be a lesbian subtext to the relationship between Ace and Karra. This would makes Ace the first LGBT companion on screen and she is listed as such by many fans.
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