Muriel Frost
Muriel Frost worked for UNIT over a twenty-year period, from the 1980s to the 2000s. By the 2000s, she appeared to be also working for the US Army. Over the course of her career, she was a Captain, a Colonel, and by the end of her life, she was either a Major or a General.
On a number of occasions, she worked with the Doctor's seventh incarnation. In 2006, Frost was killed by the Slitheen family, with her loss being felt by UNIT, especially by those who had become close to her.
Biography
In 1980, as a UNIT Captain, she met with Scalini at Pompeii, where the Professor had discovered a police box buried in the ruins. (AUDIO: The Fires of Vulcan [+]Loading...["The Fires of Vulcan (audio story)"])
Muriel had a troubled relationship with her boyfriend, Nick. She loved him, in spite of how much they fought, trying to make things better better between them, but he never reciprocated those feelings, often inciting their arguments in the first place. Ultimately, she knew that the relationship wasn't healthy. (COMIC: Evening's Empire [+]Loading...["Evening's Empire (comic story)"])
Working undercover, Frost investigated Stranks, the owner of a night club suspected of selling a potent street drug called Mandrake. At the same time, the Seventh Doctor and Ace had been drawn to Earth by the alien energy structure known as the Mandragora Helix. It had contacted Stranks and used him to produce Mandrake, which sapped the will of its users and made them susceptible to the Helix's influence. The Doctor and Ace worked with Frost to thwart the Helix again. During the course of this venture, she received a field promotion to Colonel. (COMIC: The Mark of Mandragora [+]Loading...["The Mark of Mandragora (comic story)"])
In the 1990s, she, Corporal Ives and UNIT helped the Seventh Doctor investigate a crashed Nazi plane from World War 2 in Middlesbrough, which the Doctor suspected had something to do with a UFO. She and two other UNIT personnel did a dive to the bottom of a river, finding the plane quickly, though Frost had a feeling it was waiting for her. Meanwhile, Ace was kidnapped by Alex Evening. That evening, the plane was removed from the river, and the body of the dead pilot was brought to a secure place, and Frost was wired up to a machine, built by the Doctor, to let her talk to te deceased pilot. The experience was tough for her, as the German pilot was able to read her mind, becoming privy to her uneasy relationship, though the pilot did try to console her. Afterwards, she was able to confirm that there was a UFO involved, but she also wanted to destroy the machine.
After stopping by the Burroughs Charted Surveyor so the Doctor could look for Ace, Ives drove Frost back to her flat, while the Doctor went off by himself. Inside, Nick started another fight with her, and even though she tried to get him to open up, he decided to nastily tell her that he pictured other people while having sex with her. Anger filled her, driving her to aim a gun at his head, but despite him goading her and even a dark part of her psyche longing to pull the trigger, she was interrupted by a ringing telephone. It was Ives, calling her to inform her that the Doctor found the UFO and to get her away from Nick.
At Alex's home, Frost was initially annoyed with the Doctor for being strung along, but was quietened when the Doctor showed her the UFO, a Q'Dhite Mind-Treader, which was smaller than she expected. After explaining that the Mind-Treader was designed to create new realities, and that Alex had used it to make one of his own, the Doctor lead them into his TARDIS, gathered a company of UNIT soldiers, and headed off to put an end to Alex's havoc. In a city created by Alex, Frost, Ives, and the UNIT soldiers fought against the locals, before Frost and Ives split off to aid Ace, whom Frost had located. However, when confronting Alex, he commanded a monstrous bible to attack and kill Ives. After she was killed, the Doctor went back to Earth and returned with Janice Evening, Alex's deeply religious mother, who reprimanded him, causing Alex's world to shatter. Frost evacuated the crumbling reality with the Doctor and the other survivors, and left after the Doctor took the Mind-Treader from the Evenings' shed. (COMIC: Evening's Empire [+]Loading...["Evening's Empire (comic story)"])
Major Jenny Maguire evidently knew Muriel Frost on a personal basis prior to her death. (PROSE: Operation London [+]Loading...["Operation London (short story)"])
According to some accounts, in 2005, (PROSE: Case File A01 [+]Loading...["Case File A01 (short story)"]) General Muriel Frost wrote portions of a classified dossier on the Ninth Doctor, warning any potential readers of the dossier of the information contained inside (PROSE: + + Classified + + Special Intelligence File Alpha Zero [+]Loading...["+ + Classified + + Special Intelligence File Alpha Zero (short story)"]) and later, of the termination of the dossier and the dangers the Doctor could present (PROSE: Memorandum [+]Loading...["Memorandum (short story)"]) following the loss of UNIT surveillance of the Doctor on the Game Station in the year 200,100 when he was about to be exterminated. (PROSE: Case File A13 [+]Loading...["Case File A13 (short story)"]) Her writings of the Doctor seemed impersonal, lacking any mention of previously meeting the Doctor (PROSE: + + Classified + + Special Intelligence File Alpha Zero [+]Loading...["+ + Classified + + Special Intelligence File Alpha Zero (short story)"], Memorandum [+]Loading...["Memorandum (short story)"]) despite having met him on multiple occasions, (COMIC: Evening's Empire [+]Loading...["Evening's Empire (comic story)"], The Mark of Mandragora [+]Loading...["The Mark of Mandragora (comic story)"]) and the dossier also contained detailed information about the alien spaceship crash and the subsquent Slitheen plot, (PROSE: Case File A04 [+]Loading...["Case File A04 (short story)"], Case File A04 [+]Loading...["Case File A04 (short story)"]) despite it being during this attack when Muriel Frost died. (TV: Aliens of London [+]Loading...["Aliens of London (TV story)"]/World War Three [+]Loading...["World War Three (TV story)"], PROSE: Number Ten [+]Loading...["Number Ten (short story)"]) Furthermore, when the attack happened in 2006, UNIT had no knowledge of the Slitheen, (TV: Aliens of London [+]Loading...["Aliens of London (TV story)"]/World War Three [+]Loading...["World War Three (TV story)"], PROSE: Operation London [+]Loading...["Operation London (short story)"], Number Ten [+]Loading...["Number Ten (short story)"]) despite the dossier including information on them. (PROSE: Case File A04 [+]Loading...["Case File A04 (short story)"], Case File A04 [+]Loading...["Case File A04 (short story)"])
Death
After the London UFO crash on 6 March 2006 (TV: Aliens of London [+]Loading...["Aliens of London (TV story)"]) or 28 June 2006, (PROSE: Operation London [+]Loading...["Operation London (short story)"]) Major Frost and her Geneva EVA team (PROSE: Number Ten [+]Loading...["Number Ten (short story)"]) were summoned to 10 Downing Street (TV: Aliens of London [+]Loading...["Aliens of London (TV story)"]) from Geneva. (PROSE: Operation London [+]Loading...["Operation London (short story)"]) By this point, Frost was Head of Operations of UNIT-UK and was accompanied by Scientific Advisor Peter Reynolds and PR Delegate Alex Brook. (PROSE: UNIT History [+]Loading...["UNIT History (short story)"]) The Doctor, Rose Tyler, and Mickey Smith saw a news broadcast on the arrival of the experts which had been picked up on the TARDIS scanner, and Frost was visible on the left. The Doctor immediately identified them as UNIT, noting that they were "good people". (TV: Aliens of London [+]Loading...["Aliens of London (TV story)"])
She was summoned to be an advisor on extraterrestrial activity, coming dressed in her US Army Major uniform. During the meeting, she sat next to General Schwartz and, contrary to the rest of her colleagues, was intrigued rather than disturbed by the Ninth Doctor's conclusion that the crash had been faked so as to draw out and assassinate the experts. Unfortunately, he was proven right when the aliens unmasked and identified themselves as the Slitheen family, specifically Asquith Slitheen and Jocrassa Fel-Fotch Passameer-Day Slitheen, and they summarily used electrocution via the experts' ID cards to execute them. (TV: Aliens of London [+]Loading...["Aliens of London (TV story)"]) Major Jenny Maguire shortly after officially announced her and her team's death on an operations board to other UNIT officers. She had to inform the families of the deceased, and later saw the coffins off an air strip. (PROSE: Number Ten [+]Loading...["Number Ten (short story)"])
Other universes
Perhaps a little more info could be added.
In a world where humans had a working relationship with the Silurians, Muriel Frost was a member of URIC, that world's equivalent to UNIT. (COMIC: Final Genesis [+]Loading...["Final Genesis (comic story)"])
Personality
Fiery in both hair colour and temperament, Frost was a no-nonsense and efficient UNIT operative who had problems maintaining personal relationships. (AUDIO: The Fires of Vulcan [+]Loading...["The Fires of Vulcan (audio story)"]) Major Jenny Maguire, who was familiar with Frost, joked that "[she would] like to see anyone face her down", referencing her temperament. (PROSE: Operation London [+]Loading...["Operation London (short story)"])
Muriel Frost was outwardly confident and brave, always facing challenges head on; she took enthusiasm in undertaking challenging tasks, such as diving, using untested machinery built by the Doctor to let her communicate with the dead, and even when faced with the dead, she never backed down from her motivations, acting like a "warrior", not giving in to fear. She didn't appreciate being strung along, and would confront those who did.
In her home life, she faced constant abuse from her boyfriend, Nick, who would deliberately start fights. She would try to not let his comments, his insults, affect her, but they always managed to do so. She would try to get him to talk, to try to fix their problems, but these actions were never reciprocated. She knew the relationship was troubled. She knew it wasn't healthy. But she still loved him. (COMIC: Evening's Empire [+]Loading...["Evening's Empire (comic story)"])
Major Frost, in her final minutes, displayed intrigue at the Doctor's conclusion that the crash had been faked to lure Earth's alien experts into a deadly trap, as opposed to the other experts, who were more peturbed. (TV: Aliens of London [+]Loading...["Aliens of London (TV story)"])
Appearance
Fairskinned and slim built, (COMIC: Evening's Empire [+]Loading...["Evening's Empire (comic story)"]) Frost had distinct firey-red hair (COMIC: Evening's Empire [+]Loading...["Evening's Empire (comic story)"], AUDIO: The Fires of Vulcan [+]Loading...["The Fires of Vulcan (audio story)"]) that was typically short in length (COMIC: The Mark of Mandragora [+]Loading...["The Mark of Mandragora (comic story)"], TV: Aliens of London [+]Loading...["Aliens of London (TV story)"]) although she once grew it slightly longer. (COMIC: Evening's Empire [+]Loading...["Evening's Empire (comic story)"]) By the time of Frost's death, however, she had black hair. (TV: Aliens of London [+]Loading...["Aliens of London (TV story)"])
She had an angular face, complete with arching eyebrows and prominent cheekbones. (COMIC: The Mark of Mandragora [+]Loading...["The Mark of Mandragora (comic story)"], Evening's Empire [+]Loading...["Evening's Empire (comic story)"], TV: Aliens of London [+]Loading...["Aliens of London (TV story)"]) She had ear piercings. (COMIC: The Mark of Mandragora [+]Loading...["The Mark of Mandragora (comic story)"], TV: Aliens of London [+]Loading...["Aliens of London (TV story)"]) She had either blue (COMIC: Evening's Empire [+]Loading...["Evening's Empire (comic story)"]) or brown eyes. (TV: Aliens of London [+]Loading...["Aliens of London (TV story)"])
Behind the scenes
- In early drafts of 2005's Aliens of London, the Ninth Doctor specifically named one of the experts, stating: "General Muriel Frost. Strategic Adviser to the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce. Good woman." While this exchange was cut, Frost's nametag — "FROST" — was visible in the broadcast cut of the episode.[1]
- However, the actor who played Muriel Frost went uncredited, and it was in DWMSE 11 where she was indirectly credited; Claudia Blondeau,[1] an English model,[2] was credited as playing an "academic"[1] although Blondeau is clearly identifiable as Frost's actor.
- Curiously, the script described her of being thirty-five years of age, at odds with such stories such as the audio drama The Fires of Vulcan, which showed her working for UNIT in 1980 — therefore, going by the age given in Aliens of London, Frost would've been around nine years old.
- The short stories Operation London and Number Ten, two short stories that were released to coincide with Aliens of London and World War Three, explicitly references Frost by her surname.
- The short stories + + Classified + + Special Intelligence File Alpha Zero and Memorandum — both from Classified! A Confidential 3-D Dossier — seem to have been written in conjunction with the cut line of dialogue from Aliens of London, as the identification of Muriel Frost seems to have been directly lifted from the television story. Classified! A Confidential 3-D Dossier also contains stories that see the events of Aliens of London and World War Three documented by UNIT a year prior to when they happened, through the vague explanation of "spy-cams"; this creates a large paradoxial anachronism, as the information gathered in the "classified dossier" should've prepared UNIT for the secret invasion to come, yet there is absolutely no mention of this knowledge in any source apart from the stories within Classified! A Confidential 3-D Dossier.
