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Josephine "Jo" Jones (née Grant, 1951 - 2028) was a companion of the Third Doctor.
Jo was a civilian employee of UNIT, whom the Brigadier assigned to the Doctor after the departure of Liz Shaw. Initially a laboratory assistant to him, she became a travelling companion to the Doctor during one-off missions for the Time Lords, and after his exile on Earth was entirely lifted.
Although she mostly knew the Doctor in his third incarnation she also had significant adventures with the Second and Eleventh Doctors, and briefly saw the First Doctor on the TARDIS scanner. (TV: The Three Doctors, Death of the Doctor)
She left UNIT, and therefore the Doctor, to marry Professor Clifford Jones, who at the time had received United Nations funding for a variety of progressive scientific studies. (TV: The Green Death) The path of their later lives was unclear. Some accounts stated that they got divorced. (PROSE: Genocide) Others held that they travelled the world together for years, leaving behind a legacy of environmental progressivism and protests — as well as an abundant number of children and grandchildren. (TV: Death of the Doctor)
Biography
Early life
Jo Grant was born in 1951. (PROSE: /Carpenter/Butterfly/Baronet) During her childhood, Jo used to holiday at the seaside with her mother, her father, her uncle and her grandfather. Her grandfather, who smoked a pipe, always used to spoil her. He often bought her ice cream behind her parents' backs, observing, "What's the harm? Life's too short." He died in 1958 when his granddaughter was seven years old. (AUDIO: The Mists of Time) She also had a cousin, Stephanie Andrews. (AUDIO: The Hidden Realm)
As a child, Jo had "an army of gonks and trolls" but even then she found dolls creepy. (AUDIO: The Doll of Death)
Jo went to a grammar school. (AUDIO: The Havoc of Empires) She took an A-Level in general science, though she apparently did not pass. (TV: Terror of the Autons)
One day when Jo set out to meet her uncle, Jack Canning, for lunch, she found her bus was being followed by a car. This led to a pursuit. She initially lost the car, only for it to find her again in the cab she took. When the cab driver decided to abandon her in the countryside, she was pursued by insect-like men. A grey-haired man dressed in a velvet suit and cloak fought off the insect men and gave her a chance to escape. After leaving the forest, Jo was attacked by a woman whom she attempted to help fix her broken car and was ultimately captured by the cabby who had abandoned her earlier. Jo was taken to the hotel where she was meant to meet her uncle. She overpowered the cabby upon arriving and took his gun. When she ordered to be taken to the man in charge, she found that it was none other than her uncle, who worked for the United Nations. All these experiences had apparently been a test to determine her fitness for UNIT, which she had passed. When Jo inquired about the identity of the man in the velvet suit, she was told that it was Sergeant Benton in a wig, who was standing in for their scientific adviser. (AUDIO: Taken For Granted)
Life with the Doctor
Info from The Heralds of Destruction needs to be added
Jo joined UNIT in 1972 (AUDIO: The Sacrifice of Jo Grant) after calling in a favour from her uncle. (TV: The Green Death)
Jo first met the Doctor when the Master was using the Nestene Consciousness to conquer Earth. Though the Doctor initially rejected Jo as scientifically incompetent, the Brigadier was correct in his assertion that what the Doctor needed was "someone to pass you your test tubes and tell you how brilliant you are". Even though Jo was hypnotised by the Master into bringing a bomb into UNIT HQ in an attempt to blow up the Doctor, she proved her worth to him and they quickly became almost inseparable. (TV: Terror of the Autons)
The Doctor and Jo watched a demonstration of the Keller Machine at Stangmoor Prison. Later, when the Doctor was called by UNIT to the World Peace Conference, Jo and Dr Summers were held hostage by Mailer and Vosper, two prisoners that helped take over the prison. The Doctor later joined her as a hostage. UNIT troops liberated the prison. The Doctor and Jo, aided by the rehabilitated prisoner Barnham, carried the Keller Machine to the site of the Thunderbolt missile to incapacitate the Master, preventing him from launching the Thunderbolt missile at the Conference. The Keller Machine was destroyed by the aborted missile, but the Master escaped, killing Barnham and reclaiming his TARDIS' dematerialisation circuit. (TV: The Mind of Evil) The journalist James Stevens saw Jo at Stangmoor Prison and described her as a "small, mousy looking woman with a pleasant face." (PROSE: Who Killed Kennedy)
When the Master lured Axos to Earth, Jo was one of the first people to see their true form. It held her prisoner with Bill Filer and the Doctor. They escaped whilst the Master tried to turn Axonite against them. (TV: The Claws of Axos)
When Jo first entered the TARDIS, the Time Lords piloted it to the planet Uxarieus to stop the Master from using the Doomsday Weapon. While there, she was captured by the IMC, but escaped with the help of fellow captive David Winton. She was recaptured by the IMC, and was later taken prisoner by the primitive Uxarieans and taken to their city, but was rescued by the Doctor. (TV: Colony in Space)
After watching a TV programme about an archaeological dig in Devil's End, the Doctor and Jo visited the village. They found the Master there, trying to use the power of the Dæmon Azal who was buried in the Devil's Hump. UNIT finally captured the Master after Jo's act of self-sacrifice confused Azal into destroying himself. (TV: The Dæmons)
The Doctor and Jo investigated "ghosts" at Auderly House. They were attacked by guerrillas from an alternate future ravaged by World War III and a Dalek occupation. While trying to break one of their time travel devices, Jo was taken to an alternate 22nd century. In her talks with the Controller, she unwittingly drew the guerrillas and the Doctor back to her era. The guerrillas helped the Doctor and Jo return to the 20th century and prevent World War III, which was originally started by the guerrilla Shura's misguided assassination of Sir Reginald Styles. At the Second World Peace Conference at Auderly House, Jo helped evacuate the delegates, undoing the damage when the house was destroyed by Shura with the pursuing Daleks inside. (TV: Day of the Daleks)
One particular evening, Jo was dressed up, ready for a night on the town with Mike Yates. Her outfit proved to be lucky when she and the Doctor landed on the planet Peladon (thanks to the Time Lords' taking control of the TARDIS to have the Doctor arrange events to their liking). Jo was introduced as an Earth princess — Josephine, Princess of Tardis — and she was dressed appropriately. Only those of royal blood were allowed in the conference chamber. King Peladon was smitten and proposed marriage. In the time that she and the Doctor were on Peladon, Jo grew to like the king, but decided to return to her own planet. (TV: The Curse of Peladon)
The Doctor and Jo decided to visit the Master in prison. Whilst there they discovered the Master had contacted the Sea Devils, a race of underwater reptiles, who were a similar species to the Silurians the Doctor met in the caves. The Master intended to start a war between Sea Devils and humanity. Jo stayed behind at the HMS Seaspite naval base while the Doctor tried and failed to negotiate a peaceful solution with the Sea Devils in their underwater base, as the Royal Navy attacked them with depth charges. After the Doctor escaped the base, the Sea Devils captured HMS Seaspite. The Master forced the Doctor to help build a sonar device that would awaken more Sea Devil bases. As the Doctor incapacitated the Sea Devils with the noise made by plugging the device improperly, Jo subsequently brought Captain Hart with her to get naval reinforcements to fight against the Sea Devils and recapture HMS Seaspite. Following the Master to the Sea Devil base, the Doctor blew up the Sea Devil base, preventing more bases from being activated, and stopping the war, although the Master escaped. (TV: The Sea Devils)
Jo helped the Solonians in their battle against persecution. She also alerted the crew of the Hyperion to the Marshal of Solos' misdoings. (TV: The Mutants)
Jo learnt well with the Doctor. When he was unwilling to execute the time ram, she completed the action. She realised why the Doctor was reluctant, but also saw the risk of not completing it. However, the Chronovore Kronos saw fit to spare her and the Doctor from their demise when she carried out the time ram, but not the Master. Kronos decided the Master would be punished with endless suffering for his actions geared toward controlling it. Jo thought the Master deserved his fate, until the Doctor made her question if she would condemn anyone to eternal torment, even the Master. She agreed with the Doctor to spare the Master and returned to Earth unharmed. The Doctor apologised for taking her to Atlantis, but she was actually glad to have gone on the journey with him after hearing a tale about his past on Gallifrey. (TV: The Time Monster)
The Brigadier once asked her to record a report of a recent mission in order to keep up with her paperwork. She recorded an investigation into her friend who was acting strangely after buying a fusiliers jacket which contained the soul of Tommy Watkins. (AUDIO: Tales from the Vault)
After the Doctor went missing after investigating The Scorchies Show, she ended up being on their show when she was caught entering the studio. She had to explain why she was there in a story and make something, which she called an anti-scorchie gone. She told the viewers of the show to switch over to another side to try and stop them from killing them at home. She helped the Doctor to create a reverse polarity generator to undo the signal that controlled the scorchies. (AUDIO: The Scorchies)
When UNIT HQ was besieged by a force that even the Time Lords thought shouldn't exist, Jo travelled to a black hole to meet a Time Lord legend with her Doctor and the Second Doctor and was advised by the First Doctor. At the conclusion of this adventure, the Time Lords rescinded the Doctor's exile on Earth and restored his knowledge of operating the TARDIS and time travel. When she saw how happy he was, Jo was upset because she believed he would just leave and never come back. (TV: The Three Doctors)
The Doctor took her on a test flight and landed on Zayin Eight where she got scared at the noises she heard. She saw a ghost of her dead grandfather which lured her off a cliff. She later discovered that Tomis was behind the disappearances. (AUDIO: The Mists of Time) She was part of Rowe's experiments on the Doctor in which he sacrificed his life for her, but instead she sacrificed her life for his. This happened many times as they were wanting to study why someone would sacrifice their life for someone else. (AUDIO: The Many Deaths of Jo Grant)
The Doctor tried to take her to Metebelis III but overshot and ended up materialising inside the compression field of a miniscope on Inter Minor. Inside the miniscope, she developed a strong fear for the Drashigs. (TV: Carnival of Monsters) By the time of her next meeting with the Master, Jo had learnt to resist his hypnotism after being used as a weapon by him in the past during their first meeting. She was continually accused of being a spy for Earth or Draconia. (TV: Frontier in Space) After this meeting with the Master, the Doctor fell unconscious. He still managed to send a telepathic message to the Time Lords, who piloted the TARDIS to follow the Dalek ship to Spiridon. After being infected by an indigenous plant, Jo helped the Thals defeat the Dalek army being assembled on Spiridon. (TV: Planet of the Daleks)
Jo was captured during an incident involving giant tortoises and the Master. The Doctor was forced to lower himself down a pit three miles deep and communicate using only his eyes to negotiate for her release. (AUDIO: The Last Fairy Tale) The Doctor and Jo encountered the Necrobiologicals, a race of vampires, on Sekhmet. The Necrobiologicals escaped aboard a ship called the Exemplar and entered a wormhole. The Doctor spent many years searching for the Exemplar without success. However, he did not discover the ship's fate until his fifth incarnation when the Necrobiologicals attempted to feed on the people of Zaltys. (AUDIO: Zaltys)
Jo went through the TARDIS wardrobe when it landed in the Lezarata Research Centre and couldn't find the Doctor in the TARDIS and went to explore. She found the Doctor in a coma and decided to document her discoveries in the lab. She started to hear voices and became freaked out. On discovering the recordings of Benjamin Chikoto, she found out what had happened in the facility. The Second voice trapped Jo on a tape and planned to use her to escape the facility. The Doctor was on that tape and swapped his mind with Jo, in order to trick the voice into leaving Jo's body onto a tape, which she then erased. (AUDIO: Ghost in the Machine)
During her travels with the Doctor, she met Harry Houdini at some point prior to the 1920s. She told him about the Bay City Rollers. (AUDIO: Smoke and Mirrors) The Doctor, Jo and the Brigadier encountered the Mentor, whom the Doctor considered an impostor. (COMIC: Death to the Doctor!)
Departure
When Third Doctor went to visit Metebelis III without her, Jo went to the Welsh village of Llanfairfach to meet with the activist and mycologist Professor Clifford Jones, whom she much admired from afar for his activism which she shared because she had gone to Llanfairfach to protest against the manufacture of petrol which would cause more pollution. Cliff lived at Wholeweal, an alternative community where he pursued his studies of mushrooms. Jo's show of independence made the Doctor behave in a rather childish and hurt manner.
In the short time that UNIT were in Llanfairfach, Jo and Cliff fell in love. He reminded her of a younger version of the Doctor. Jo agreed to marry him and resigned from UNIT. The Doctor was devastated by Jo's departure, drinking his champagne in one gulp. He left the engagement party on his own after giving Jo a blue crystal from Metebelis III as a wedding present. Before Jo and Cliff left for the Amazon, she asked her uncle to get UN status for Wholeweal; she told the Doctor it had only been the second time she'd asked her uncle for anything (the first was getting her into UNIT). (TV: The Green Death)
Later life
A few months later, the couple, who were already on their trip up the Amazon River, returned the crystal by mail because the expedition felt it brought them bad luck; in her letter with the crystal, Jo wrote that their native guides had said: "Either it goes or they go!". (TV: Planet of the Spiders)
Jo later tried to call the Doctor at UNIT to keep in touch, but was told that he had left. Jo waited to see the Doctor again, but he never came. She lived with the Nambikwara tribe in Mato Grosso, Brazil for six months in 1983. The Doctor was aware of incidents where she lived in huts, climbed trees, tore down barricades, and flew kites on Mount Kilimanjaro among other adventures. While his tenth incarnation was dying he watched her sail down the Yangtze River in a tea chest. (TV: Death of the Doctor)
There were conflicting accounts of the Joneses' life after their last contact with the Doctor. One depicted Jo as having a daughter named Lisa. (PROSE: Once Upon a Time Machine) One stated they had a son named Matthew and became estranged by the 1990s. (PROSE: Genocide)
Another presented them as still happily married as of the late 2000s. (AUDIO: The Doll of Death) A later account showed Jo and Cliff still married, with seven children and twelve grandchildren, and expecting a thirteenth (who, according to the Eleventh Doctor, would be dyslexic but a great swimmer). The Joneses led a life of environmental and political activism, including an incident in which Jo handcuffed herself to Robert Mugabe. (TV: Death of the Doctor)
Reunited with the Doctor
When Jo was told of the Doctor's death, she brought her grandson Santiago with her to the funeral at UNIT Base 5. There, she met and bonded with Sarah Jane Smith, who had been her immediate successor as companion of the Doctor. She seemed sad on learning the Doctor had returned to Sarah Jane, but never her after she had left — being unaware of the Tenth Doctor's secret visit shortly before his regeneration into his eleventh incarnation. Both doubted that the Doctor was truly dead.
They found that the Doctor had not died, but had been stranded on a deserted planet by the Shansheeth. Although knowing from her past experiences that the Doctor could change his appearance, she was initially taken aback to see how young he now appeared. She learned the Doctor had indeed kept track of her life, even though her constant "on the move" lifestyle had made it difficult for the TARDIS to pinpoint her. He revealed that he visited her and most of his former companions near the end of his tenth incarnation's life. Reunited with the Doctor at last, Jo and Sarah Jane stopped the Shansheeth from stealing his TARDIS. Santiago and she set off to Norway by hovercraft.
She was baffled that the Doctor had a married couple travelling with him, telling him she only left because she got married. (TV: Death of the Doctor)
Adventures with Iris Wildthyme
At Christmas 2010, Jo encountered an alien narrator called Huxley from Verbatim Six, who believed that her past adventures had been as the companion of Iris Wildthyme, another renegade Time Lord. To work out the truth, Jo and Iris travelled back to the 1970s. After finding the truth from the Third Doctor, Jo and Iris set off to have adventures of their own. (AUDIO: Find and Replace)
Iris and Jo travelled to Los Angeles in the 1930s. Jo didn't like Iris drinking whilst driving. She was delighted to go to a Hollywood party. At this party she met someone she met in her past. She encountered the Eighth Doctor whilst he stopped a monster from attacking the party goers. (AUDIO: The Elixir of Doom)
Working with Jack and UNIT
Jo returned to Llanfairfach with Jack Harkness to deal with the resurfacing of giant maggots. They learnt the truth of Proper Grub. (AUDIO: The Green Life)
Kate Stewart came to one of her protests to recruit her for a UNIT mission. Jo was protesting the use of animal testing in pharmaceutical trial. She didn't realise that Kate was the Brigadier's daughter. Kate wanted her to inspect a tidal energy factory, 'Project Charybdis'. Anthony Burmaster locked them in their quarters whilst he went to locate a Sea Devil Colony. She used her lock picking skills to allow herself and Osgood to escape before the Project exploded. Osgood later helped her to get to the Sea Devil base as she wanted to complete the Doctor's work to broker a peace between them. When Krellix told her of his work and that Jastrok wanted the weapons he had created, some Sea Creatures, she persuaded Krelix to get back into hibernation before the base was destroyed. Krelix saved her from drowning. (AUDIO: Tidal Wave)
Kate passed local control of UNIT in the UK to Mike, Benton and Jo due to their experience with Silurians and Sea Devils before, whilst she couldn't get back to base. She thought that the dinosaurs were beautiful and was annoyed that the Silurians had altered their nature. She wanted to make sure that there was a peaceful negotiations not just war, and stormed off to help Osgood. She learnt how to make scientific equipment from the Doctor and learnt of the new technology from Santiago Jones. She decided to take situations into her hands, and went to the Houses of Parliament to negotiate with Jastrok as she thought the Doctor would want her to do. Jastrok took her hostage and gave her to Kalana to ensure UNIT's cooperation. She was later released by Benton. Following the defeat she travelled back with Sam Bishop and Osgood to the Sea Devil base to put the Sea Creatures back in hibernation. (AUDIO: United)
While on holiday with Osgood, Jo was called in to investigate temporal rifts after Kate Stewart found an eyewitness account of a similar incident in the 1970s that stated this was resolved when Jo sacrificed herself. As UNIT attempted to stabilise the holes in time, Jo and Kate fell through a rift and travelled back to the 1970s, where Jo was reunited with the Third Doctor, and told him some details of her future. The Doctor was able to devise a machine that could stabilise the anomalies, but an entity posing as Osgood tricked Kate into reprogramming the equipment, forcing the Doctor to find an alternative system that would swiftly seal off the rifts at the cost of trapping the operator in the Time Vortex. Jo knocked out the Doctor and took on that responsibility, but after Kate returned to the future, she discovered instructions left by the Doctor that gave Osgood the equations needed to retrieve Jo from the Vortex. (AUDIO: The Sacrifice of Jo Grant)
Death
According to records in 2040, Jo died in a house fire in 2028 at the age of 77. (PROSE: /Carpenter/Butterfly/Baronet) When Newton Calder recalled her "ghost" on Zayin Eight in the distant future, Jo recalled that the last thing she remembered was being at home. (AUDIO: The Mists of Time)
Undated events
At some point, Jo was taken to the Black Archive by UNIT to have her record as a companion of the Doctor taken. (TV: The Day of the Doctor)
Personality
Jo's first meeting with the Doctor didn't bode well. She mistook an important experiment for an accidental fire and ruined it by dousing it with a fire extinguisher. However, her failures fuelled her enthusiasm. She was determined to prove people wrong about her. When she recovered from the Master's hypnosis, she disobeyed orders and followed the Doctor to Luigi Rossini's circus. There she proved her competence by rescuing the Doctor. (TV: Terror of the Autons)
Having been hypnotised by the Master once, Jo was able to resist his future attempts at hypnosis by reciting nursery rhymes, deciding that once was more than enough. (TV: Frontier in Space)
Jo claimed to be a qualified agent, but she may have exaggerated this in the way she exaggerated her A-Levels. She said she took an A-Level in science, but later admitted, "I didn't say I passed." (TV: Terror of the Autons)
Jo did not initially believe the Doctor when he said he was a time traveller. For much of her time with him, she thought his tinkering with bits of TARDIS was pointless. She was tentative during her first trip away from Earth. She repeatedly begged to be taken home before she realised that the Doctor could not do so. After the Doctor coaxed her, she did step out of the TARDIS and into her first adventure on another world. (TV: Colony in Space)
Captain Mike Yates once referred to Jo as "Jemima Bond, Licence to Spill." (AUDIO: The Doll of Death)
Whilst Jo was certainly a member of the team, her individualism made her stand out in UNIT and her desire to follow her own instincts and speak her mind made the Doctor and her close. Near the end of her time with UNIT, Jo told the Brigadier that she was going to Llanfairfach even if it meant resigning. (TV: The Green Death)
Although she had been aware of the Doctor's ability to regenerate, she was sceptical when she met his eleventh incarnation at the fake funeral the Shansheeth held for him. She accepted his new form after confirming he knew everything that "her" Doctor had told her and knew about her. (TV: Death of the Doctor)
Jo accepted a gun when it was offered to her, even after the Doctor declined it. (PROSE: The Eight Doctors)
Upon joining Iris Wildthyme on her adventures, Jo was happy to be a time traveller once again. She often chided Iris for drinking too much. (AUDIO: The Elixir of Doom)
Appearance
In her youth, Jo was a very small, very pretty girl with fair hair. (PROSE: The Mind of Evil)
Behind the scenes
- Jo was the last companion not to have travelled with the Fourth Doctor until the introduction of Turlough in 1983.
- Jo and the First Doctor are the only characters to have travelled in the TARDIS with their own grandchildren (Santiago Jones and Susan Foreman respectively), although Graham O'Brien also travelled in the TARDIS with his step-grandson Ryan Sinclair. They are also two of only four characters (along with Wilfred Mott and Brian Williams) who, like their grandchildren, travelled in the TARDIS. Jo is one of only seven characters (along with the First Doctor, Markus Creevy, Jackie Tyler, Brian Williams, Rory Williams, and Amy Pond) to have flown in the TARDIS with their own descendants. (TV: An Unearthly Child etc., Death of the Doctor, The Runaway Bride etc., The End of Time, Flesh and Stone etc., Dinosaurs on a Spaceship, Journey's End, The Impossible Astronaut etc., AUDIO: Thin Ice)
- In COMIC: Unnatural Selection, Adam Mitchell had in his possession a nude photo of a blonde girl with a Dalek. Katy Manning, who portrayed Jo, posed nude with a Dalek in real life.