Josephine "Jo" Jones (née Grant), was a civilian employee of UNIT. The Brigadier decided that Jo could serve as the Third Doctor's research assistant during his exile on Earth, replacing Liz Shaw, who had returned to Cambridge. 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". (DW: Terror of the Autons) Jo and the Doctor quickly became almost inseparable.
She stayed with him for the latter portion of his Time Lord-imposed exile, and adventured with him for a short while thereafter. During her time with the Doctor, she arguably became more familiar with the Master than any other companion, and even learnt how to resist his direct attempts at hypnotism. (DW: Frontier in Space) She was also one of the first people to witness a meeting between different incarnations of the Doctor. (DW: The Three Doctors) They were parted only when she became passionately involved in the growing ecology movement of the 1970s and got engaged to Professor Clifford Jones, who reminded her of a younger version of the Doctor. (DW: The Green Death)
Biography
Early life
Jo was born in 1951 or 1952 (SJA: Death of the Doctor). She took an A-Level in science, though she apparently did not pass. Nevertheless, she was accepted into employment at UNIT — largely because of the influence of her uncle. (DW: Terror of the Autons)
Life with the Doctor
Jo first met the Doctor when the Master was using the Nestene Conciousness to conquer Earth. (DW: Terror of the Autons)
One particular evening, Jo was dressed up, ready for a night on the town with Captain Mike Yates. Her outfit proved to be fortunate when the Doctor and she landed on the planet Peladon. Jo was introduced as an Earth princess, as she was dressed in an appropriate manner - only those of royal blood were allowed in the conference chamber. King Peladon was smitten, and later proposed marriage. In the time she and the Doctor were on Peladon, Jo grew to like the King, but decided that she really must return to her own planet. (DW: The Curse of Peladon)
Jo helped the Solonions in their persecution. She alerted the crew of the Hyperion as to the Marshal of Solos' misdoings. (DW: The Mutants)
Jo learnt well with the Doctor, and when he was unwilling to complete the time ram, it was she who finished the action. She realised why the Doctor was reluctant, but saw the risk of not completing it. (DW: The Time Monster)
Departure
When Jo arrived in Llanfairfach, she met Professor Clifford Jones. Over the short time that UNIT were in Llanfairfach, Jo and Cliff fell in love. Jo agreed to marry him and left UNIT. The Doctor was devastated about Jo's departure, drinking his champagne in one gulp and leaving on his own after giving Jo a blue crystal from Metebelis III. Before Jo and Cliff left for the Amazon, she asked her uncle to get UN status for the Wholeweal community. (DW: 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, as the expedition felt it brought them bad luck. (DW: Planet of the Spiders) Jo later tried called the Third Doctor at UNIT to keep in touch, but was told he had left. Jo waited to see the Doctor again, but he never came. Jo lived with the Nambikwara tribe in Mato Grosso, Brazil for six months in 1983. Although he never came back, the Doctor was aware of incidents where she lived in huts, climbed up trees, tore down barricades, flew kites on Mount Kilimanjaro and sailed down the Yangtze River in a tea chest. (SJA: Death of the Doctor)
There are two conflicting accounts of the Joneses' life after their last contact with the Doctor; one states that they had a son named Matthew and became estranged by the 1990s (EDA: Genocide) and another presented them as still happily married as of the late 2000s. (BFA: The Doll of Death) A later account showed Jo and Cliff still married with seven children, twelve grandchildren and expecting a thirteenth. The Joneses led a life of environmental and political activism, including an incident where Jo handcuffed herself to Robert Mugabe. (SJA: Death of the Doctor)
Reunions with the Doctor
Jo was told of the apparent death of the Doctor, and brought her grandson Santiago with her to the funeral at UNIT Base 5. There, she met Sarah Jane Smith, another former companion of the Doctor. Jo found that the Doctor had not died but had been stranded on a deserted planet by the Shansheeth. Jo was surprised to see the Doctor was no longer the old man she knew from her days in UNIT, but was now a young man in his late 20's despite knowing of the Doctor's ability to regenerate (possibly as his First and Second incarnations were quite older). Reunited with the Doctor at last, Jo, and Sarah Jane, stopped the Shansheeth from stealing the Doctor's TARDIS and went back home to her husband, travelling by hovercraft to Norway. During this time, she was still quite skeptical if the Doctor was truly himself and questioned him as to why he never tried to contact her after making the promise to keep in touch. To her surprise, her exploits through the years left her unable to be pinpointed by the Doctor's TARDIS as she was constantly on the move. Rememebering how the Doctor always joked with her about her intelegence, Jo final accpeted the Doctor for who he is now. She also bonded with Sarah Jane through theior shared memories of their time with the Doctor(s). (SJA: Death of the Doctor)
In Christmas 2010, Jo encountered an alien narrator called Huxley from Verbatim Six, who believed her past adventures had been as the companion of Iris Wildthyme, a different 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. (CC: Find and Replace)
Death
According to one account, Jo died in a house fire in 2028 aged 77. (ST: Carpenter/Butterfly/Baronet)
Personality
Jo's first meeting with the Third Doctor didn't bode well for the future, as she mistook an important experiment for an accidental fire and ruined it by dousing it with a fire extinguisher. This earned her the Doctor's wrath. Despite this initial clumsiness, her failures fueled her enthusiasm, and she was determined to prove people wrong about her. When, for example, 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. Having been hypnotised by the Master once, Jo was able to resist his hypnosis in further encounters by reciting nursery rhymes. (DW: Frontier in Space)
Jo claimed to be a qualified agent, but she may have exaggerated this in the same way she exaggerated her A-Levels. After saying she took an A-Level in Science, she later revealed that "I didn't say I passed." That said, there can be no doubt of Jo's abilities. She could ride a motorbike, use karate, pick locks, abseil, and even pilot a helicopter - all of which came in very useful as the Doctor's assistant. These abilities combined with her enthusiasm proved Jo to be an asset to UNIT.
Jo did not initially believe the Doctor when he said he was a time traveller. For a substantial period of her time with him, she thought his tinkering with bits of TARDIS was pointless. She may have been with the Doctor for as much as a year before she even stepped foot into the TARDIS. She was extremely tentative during her first trip away from Earth. She repeatedly begged to be taken back home, before she realized that the Doctor had no ability to grant her wish. After the Doctor coaxed her, she did step out of the TARDIS and into her first adventure on another world. (DW: Colony in Space) 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 her and the Doctor close. Near the end of her time with UNIT, Jo told the Brigadier that she was going to Llanfairfach even if it meant resigning. (DW: The Green Death)
Despite being told of the Doctor's ability to regenerate, she was skeptical when meeting his Eleventh incarantion during the faux funeral the Shansheeth performed for him. She came to accpet the Doctor's new form after confirming all that he knew was what the Third Doctor had told and knew about her. (SJA: Death of the Doctor)
Jo accepted a gun when it was offered to her, even after the Doctor declined it. (EDA: The Eight Doctors)
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