Iris Wildthyme is a renegade Time Lady who has encountered the Doctor on a number of occasions. Her TARDIS is in the shape of a red double decker bus (Number 22 to Putney Common).
There is some contention regarding where precisely she is from, and precisely where her home is. (EDA: The Blue Angel)
Iris's Adventures
Many of the experiences Iris claims as hers are very similar to the Doctor's own. In some cases she vividly remembers entire adventures as being part of her own past rather than his. Among the explanations she has offered for this are the possibility that she is an alternate universe's equivalent of the Doctor or that she is a creation of Faction Paradox. In truth however, Iris has a metafictional awareness of the fact that she is a parody of the Doctor, and is consequently madly in love with him. (DWM: DWM Issue 289) She once proposed to the Doctor, in Venice, when she appeared to be a woman in her 60s with long white hair that reached to the ground. (EDA: The Scarlet Empress)
She and five other of her incarnations have faced Morbius in the Death Zone, facing things such as Quarks and Zarbi. (BFA: Excelis Dawns, EDA: The Scarlet Empress)
Iris was part of the Sisterhood of Karn for a couple of years and was one of those present crying 'Death!' when the Doctor paid Karn a visit.
On occasion the Doctor has even participated in adventures of Iris's which have paralleled his own. The efforts of Bianca, her evil future self, to steal her remaining regenerations echo the Doctor's conflict with The Valeyard to such an extent that the Doctor was left outraged by the repeated scenario and plagiarised dialogue. (BFA: The Wormery)
Another characteristic of Iris's interactions with the Doctor is her tenancy to encounter him 'out of sequence'. For example, her adventure with the Fifth Doctor (BFA: Excelis Dawns) occurs later in her life than her first adventure with the Eighth (EDA: The Scarlet Empress). It has been suggested that her very nature makes it impossible to tie her to a linear chronology. (DWM: DWM Issue 289)
Similarly, her TARDIS transports her not through one universe but through the multiverse. Intuitively, and often drunkenly, Iris has been able to discern the soft places where the barriers between realities are weaker and spend her career travelling between them all. (Big Finish - Explored Worlds: Wildthyme at Large)) Since this is increasingly difficult for everyone else (DW: Rise of the Cybermen) the map of the multiverse her memories contain has made her a target for unnamed 'Higher Powers' who closely resemble the Celestis.
Iris survived the first destruction of Gallifrey (EDA: The Ancestor Cell) and, during the amnesiac Eighth Doctor's century on Earth, she attempted to explain the situation to him (EDA: Father Time) but instead utterly perplexed him and Miranda with unhelpful information on bottle universes and alternate timelines of Bernice Summerfield. (CP: Iris Explains...)
It remains unknown whether or not Iris's contested status as a Time Lord, metafictional nature or travels outside the universe have allowed her to survive the Last Great Time War.
Iris's Different Selves
The Old Woman
Encountered the Doctor and Sam Jones on the planet Hyspero, prior to this she had eaten a Kaled mutant during a meeting with some Draconians. (EDA: The Scarlet Empress)
The Barbarella Version
Was the self following a regeneration from eating a Kaled mutant. She encountered the Doctor in the Obverse. (EDA: The Blue Angel)
Brenda Soobie
Iris spent some time in Las Vegas in 1960 as Brenda Soobie, she was their with her companion, Martha from the Poodle Planet. Whilst there she ran into the Doctor (in his eighth incarnation), Fitz Kreiner, Anji Kapoor and Noel Coward (who was, incidentally, using time pinking shears). (EDA: Mad Dogs and Englishmen)
'Gracie Fields' Version
During another incarnation Iris left a handbag on the planet Excelis, then became and nun before finally encountering the Doctor. (BFA: Excelis Dawns)
Iris's TARDIS
Her TARDIS is in the shape of a red London double decker bus, specifically the Number 22 to Putney Common. Iris claims that she rescued her TARDIS from scrap and nursed it back to health.
Iris's TARDIS is dimensionally trancendental...sort of, it is slightly smaller inside than out.
Inside the TARDIS there is a kitchenette in the back ground floor, a small shower and wardrobe upstairs.
She sets the controls at the dashboard which has a resemblance to the Doctor's TARDIS in his Eighth Incarnation. (EDA: The Scarlet Empress)
Iris's Companions
- Captain Turner, who left Iris after only one trip to marry a sort of weretiger. (ST: Old Flames)
- Timmy, Iris referred to him as her "glamorous assistant". (EDA: The Scarlet Empress)
- Iris mentioned Gary as another of her previous companions. (EDA: The Scarlet Empress)
- Iris refers to one of her former companions as "an obtuse shape-shifter who loved nothing better than to spend much of his time as a lippy and garrulous penguin" (who most likely is Frobisher). (EDA: The Scarlet Empress)
- Flossie and Fritter joined Iris following the adventure with the Doctor and Noel Coward. (EDA: Mad Dogs and Englishmen)
Jenny
Traffic warden, (suggested she's a lesbian), used to get diarrhoea whenever they went through the vortex.
Martha
Is a poodle from the Poodle planet. (EDA: Mad Dogs and Englishmen)
Tom
Tom (who, it is suggested, is also gay) and his talking panda travelled with Iris for some time, before he returned to Earth, Iris then came looking for Tom once more. (Iris Wildthyme at Large)
Behind the Scenes
Iris Whildthyme can be described as a meta-fictional character, able to comment on the world she is in, and on the Doctor's own adventures from a point of view removed from the normal narrative structures. Iris has also appeared in novels by Paul Magrs outside of the Doctor Who Universe, making her a crossover character. The "old woman" Iris Wildthyme appears like actor Beryl Reid (who has guest-starred on Doctor Who). On audio, Katy Manning supplies the voice for the character.
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