Jo Grant
Josephine Jones (née Grant), also known as Jo, 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) Jo also travelled with an old friend of the Doctor, Iris Wildthyme, who physically resembled Jo. (AUDIO: Find and Replace, The Elixir of Doom)[additional sources needed]
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, Once upon a Time Machine) 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, WC: Return of the Autons)
Biography
Early life
Jo Grant was variously claimed to have been born in 1950[1], 1951 (AUDIO: The Other Woman) or 1959. (GAME: The Legions of Death [+]Loading...["The Legions of Death (game)"]) During her childhood, Jo used to go on holiday at the seaside with her mother, father, uncle and 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)
Her uncle Giles owned a house with extensive grounds with an old oak tree that she would sit under when she was a little girl. She would stretch out underneath the tree and wonder what her future held. (PROSE: Josephine and the Argonauts [+]Loading...{"page":"90","chaptnum":"Thirteen","1":"Josephine and the Argonauts (novel)"})
As a child, Jo had "an army of gonks and trolls", as she found dolls creepy. (AUDIO: The Doll of Death)
Jo went to a grammar school, (AUDIO: The Havoc of Empires) and learnt about the Roman Empire. (PROSE: The Spear of Destiny) She did ballet, (AUDIO: Masterful) and took an A-Level in general science, though she apparently did not pass. She did, however, pass a course in escapology with flying colours. (TV: Terror of the Autons)
Jo was followed whilst on the way to see Jack for lunch and attacked by insect-like men from which she was saved by John Benton in a velvet suit and a wig, only to be captured by a cab driver and taken to the hotel where she was to meet her uncle. She overpowered him and demanded to be taken to the man in charge, whom she found was actually her uncle, testing her fitness for UNIT. She passed and learnt that Benton's disguise was because he was standing in for the Third Doctor. (AUDIO: Taken For Granted)
Jo was a victim of bullying in her youth. The experience led her to believe that bullies sought control to compensate for their emotional inadequacies and loneliness. (AUDIO: Masterful)
Assistant to the Doctor
Info from The Doll of Death, Dark Intruders, War in the Abyss, Hunt to the Death, Doorway into Nowhere, The Claw, Saucer of Fate, The Phaser Aliens, Deadly Reunion, Angel, UNIT Christmas Parties: Christmas Truce, The Thousand Years of Christmas, The Mega, Freedom, Still Life, Gardeners' Worlds & The Magician's Oath needs to be added.
According to one source, Jo joined UNIT in 1972 (AUDIO: The Sacrifice of Jo Grant) after calling in a favour from her uncle. (TV: The Green Death) According to another, she was only 19 at the time and her joining of UNIT occurred in 1970 instead. (AUDIO: The Other Woman)
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)
At some point, a woman, looking for advice on COVID-19, called the 1970s UNIT from the year 2020. She spoke with the Doctor, the Brigadier, and Jo, with Jo advising her to find ways to be positive. In addition to their own advice, the Doctor and Brigadier agreed. The three then had to hang up to deal with an urgent situation. (WC: U.N.I.T. On Call)
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)
Jo greeted the Prime Minister Jeremy Thorpe when he came to UNIT HQ, warning him that the Doctor was in a grumpy mood. She was affected by the listlessness field caused by Lila. (AUDIO: Damascus)
Missions in Time
Info from Horrors of War, The Monster in the Woods, Harvest of Time, The Face of the Enemy, The Sommerton Fetch, Spoilsport, Honest Living, The Switching, The Forgotten, The Eight Doctors, The Seismologist's Story, Under Pressure, The Other Woman, Doctor Who Fights Masterplan "Q", Prisoners of the Lake, Storm of the Horofax, The Touch of the Nurazh, Where the Heart Is, Primord, The Scream of Ghosts, Poison of the Daleks, Operation: Hellfire, Rags, Morphology, Target Practice, Where's the Doctor?, Jigsaw & Verdigris needs to be added
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)
The Doctor's freedom
Info from The Wages of Sin, Deep Stretch, The Many Deaths of Jo Grant, The Spear of Destiny, Losing Track of Time, The Havoc of Empires, Listen - The Stars, Out of the Green Mist, The Time Thief, The Fathom Trap, Menace of the Molags, Talons of Terror, Old Father Saturn & Galactic Gangster needs to be added.
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. The Doctor reassured her that he had to build a new force-field generator first. (TV: The Three Doctors)
He promised Jo that he would take her to see the blue crystals of Metebelis III, although she had a feeling he would get side-tracked. When Jo dropped in on the lab looking for her Doctor, she was told by Benton that the Doctor and the Brigadier had gone to Geneva for a party, as the United Nations wanted to give the Doctor an award for his role in saving the World Peace Conference While they were both in the lab, the vortex energy now suffusing UNIT HQ as an aftereffect of its earlier interdimensional displacement caused a Cyberman from the earlier invasion to reanimate and break out of the UNIT Vault. However, Jo was able to kill it with her gold bracelet. (GAME: Lost in Time)
As Jo was on a date with Mike Yates, she was called to Fairford where a robotic race was invading. After UNIT had blown them apart, they began reconstituting, the Doctor seizing a piece for study. Returning to the lab, Jo and the Doctor found the Second Doctor waiting for them once again only for the piece to suddenly return to life, its nanites beginning to colonise Jo's body. The Doctor then entered Jo's mind to confront the machines, convincing them to stand down. When the two returned to the physical world, they were met by the Master who revealed that the "Second Doctor" was in fact Ramón Salamander. Backed up by UNIT, the three tracked down Salamander just as he time travelled back to 1868, intending to sell his machines to the British Empire. Through the benevolent machines inside him and Jo, the Doctor was able to halt this scheme. As they made for home, he revealed to Jo that he felt it past time he return to the stars, inviting her along. (COMIC: The Heralds of Destruction)
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)
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)
Jo was informed by Cornelius that she and the Doctor were going to taken to a secure location. She went to tell the Doctor but was greeted by the Seventh Doctor. She was suspicious of him but was more suspicious of Cornelius. The Doctor and Jo were forced to stay in the local pub whose patrons acted strangely. She managed to get a message through to Yates who told her about the strangeness of the supposed security concern in London. They later found all the patrons drowned in sea. Cornelius placed her in a sealed room and filled it with a sticky material. However, Shedgerton rescued her before she could drown in the substance, and told her that everyone was a defector on the isle. She encountered the Europans when exploring the base, but escaped and contacted Yates, who got a taskforce sent to the isle. The Doctor got her to realise that she was wrong at that the Europan's weren't invading. She turned off the feed from the TARDIS to the Europan ship causing it to explode. Once Mike killed the Europans she recognised the Doctor now as her version. (AUDIO: The Defectors)
Continued voyages
Info from The Same Face, The Suns of Caresh, The House That Jack Built, Revenge of the Phantoms, Dead on Arrival, Fugitives from Chance, After the Revolution, The Battle Within, The Mists of Time, Rock Star, Lost and Founded, Once upon a Time Machine & Pop-Up, needs to be added.
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)
One possibility regarding the identity of the time-travellers who foiled the War Chief from taking over the Roman Empire in 43 AD was that they included the Third Doctor and any combination of his companions the Brigadier, Liz Shaw, Sarah Jane Smith and Jo. The Colonel, Leora and their own companions may also have been involved, instead of or additionally to "the Doctor's party". This adventure, if it did occur to this combination of individuals, would have begun with the Doctor and his companions in flight in the TARDIS. (GAME: The Legions of Death [+]Loading...["The Legions of Death (game)"])
After Spiridon
Info from The Conquest of Far, Catastrophea, The Tyrants of Logic, The Piper, Nightdreamers, The Transcendence of Ephros, Hidden Talent, Dancing the Code, The Hidden Realm, Dr. Third, The Rise of the New Humans, Salt of the Earth, Lost in the Wakefield Triangle, Time Tunnel, Speed of Flight, Timelash, The Bad Guy, /Carpenter/Butterfly/Baronet, The Light at the End, Legacy, Come Friendly Bombs..., The Clean Air Act, Hide and Seek, The Christmas Inversion, ...And Eternity in an Hour, Categorical Imperative, Last of the Gaderene, Sphinx Lightning & The Dragon of Hyacinth Lodge needs to be added.
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)
The Doctor and Jo were taken to Draconia and were to be executed by the Lady Zinn. Ruji had them become agents of the Draconian Secret Service. She was later imprisoned on the orders of Chusa but she kept escape equipment in the heal of her boot, allowing her and Ruji to escape. She convinced the Doctor to go back to say goodbye to Ruji. (AUDIO: Conspiracy in Space)
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!)
Jo, along with the Doctor and Brigadier, confronted the Master when he attempted to steal the Crown Jewels. She was time scooped during this adventure by a future version of the Master who had been trying to bring his past self to a gathering of his incarnations. The assembled Masters decided to sacrifice her, however the arrival of Missy interrupted them. When the Masters fled via the time scoop, Jo was scattered along with them across the history of Kiamet. She met Kamelion, who took the form of her Doctor, and fled from an entropy creature that was destroying the planet. Kamelion appeared to sacrifice himself to slow it down to save her, however Jo ended up dangling off a cliff. Missy reluctantly rescued her and kept her as a companion whilst they explored the desolate planet, however eventually abandoned her to the creature when it caught up with them. These events were negated when all the Masters died, unravelling their timeline. (AUDIO: Masterful)
She, along with the Doctor and the Brigadier, then investigated Professor Green and the mysterious MythoScope, a machine that could transport people to a world where myth and reality collided. There, she was made Josephine of the Argonauts by ruler of the gods Zeus, and valiantly led a band of heroes across the sea to defeat the Master, who sought control over the land. The Master was defeated, and all returned to their own reality. (PROSE: Josephine and the Argonauts [+]Loading...["Josephine and the Argonauts (novel)"])
Departure from the TARDIS
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)
After the Doctor
Info from The Choice, Endgame & Girls' Night In needs to be added.
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. Two accounts depicted Jo as having a son named Matthew (PROSE: Genocide, Once upon a Time Machine) and a younger daughter named Lisa. (PROSE: Once upon a Time Machine) Cliff and Jo drifted apart due to a "blue crystal" (HOMEVID: Global Conspiracy?) and Jo started using her maiden name. (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. 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) and Jo would consider her life with Cliff as her "great adventure". (TV: The Three Doctors)
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)
Travelling 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
Info from The Infinite Today needs to be added.
Jo was devastated to hear about the Brigadier's death (AUDIO: Tidal Wave) and attended his funeral in 2012. (PROSE: Shroud of Sorrow)
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 Krelix 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)
Jo returned to Llanfairfach with Jack Harkness to deal with the resurfacing of giant maggots. She originally went there to discover why her friend Nancy was killed. Jo found out that BOSS was running the show and her and Jack learnt the truth of Proper Grub. (AUDIO: The Green Life)
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)
Defending Earth
Info from Hello Boys, The Turn of the Tides and Defenders of Earth needs to be added
Jo and her granddaughter Rio de Janeiro attended Sarah Jane Smith's memorial on a "bright, cold Spring day", where they discussed Sarah Jane with other guests, and helped fight the Jackals of the Backwards Clock to foil the Trickster's revenge plot. Towards the end of the service, she recalled her memories of Sarah Jane to Luke, Clyde and Rani, and also explained to them that the Doctor would not have attended because he would have found the service too saddening. (WC: Farewell, Sarah Jane) Sarah left her sonic lipstick to Jo. (WC: Defenders of Earth)
Arriving at his and Jo's home, Cliff brought in a plastic daffodil, aghast at yet another contributor towards pollution, but Jo recognised it as belonging to the Autons. They rushed outside to see around a dozen Autons advancing up the street. After returning from the house having unsuccessfully attempting to contact UNIT, Jo informed him that she had defeated the Autons by jacking their signals with the twins' electro hip-hop music. (WC: Return of the Autons)
Using some hypnotic spores on her, the War Master had Jo believe he was her uncle, and lured her to his TARDIS. He then manipulated her into stealing a vial from UNIT archives, taking her back in time without her realising it. In her hallucination, Jo thought she was protecting her uncle from the plot of his housekeeper, Mevel (an android built by the Master), and a professor of psychology, Merc-Hodden (another victim of the Master); in reality, the Master was trying to get her locked away in Merc-Hodden's madhouse. Jo eventually saw through the Master's ruse, but this didn't stop him. On the contrary, the Master substituted himself as her uncle in all her memories, and suggested it was actually him who got her the job at UNIT, and had been manipulating her since childhood. When the Master departed, Jo was left in confusion and shock regarding her memories and tried to persuade Merc-Hodden to lock her up, in order to not become a tool of the Master against anyone else. (AUDIO: A Quiet Night In)
In 2022, Jo was one of many former allies of the Doctor who disappeared, including Luke, Clyde, and Martha, (AUDIO: Hysteria) due to a psychic virus infecting the Thirteenth Doctor and targeting people who had had contact with her. The Doctor and Cleo Proctor eventually restored the disappeared. (AUDIO: Salvation)
Later in 2022, Jo joined a support group for other people who had travelled with the Doctor, including Yasmin Khan, Graham O'Brien, Dan Lewis, Ian Chesterton, Tegan Jovanka, Melanie Bush, Ace and Kate Stewart. After Mel asked how many Doctors there were, Jo - knowing of at least four incarnations of the Doctor - joked that they were going to be there for quite some time. (TV: The Power of the Doctor)
Around this time, Jo's second great grandchild, Paulo, turned five, which she and Cliff celebrated. (PROSE: Velvet Hugs)
After Cliff's death
Fifty years after their marriage, whilst helping struggling farmers in Nepal, there was a landslide, following which Jo tended to the wounded whilst Cliff rescued survivors. Jo saw Cliff collapse and, initially believing that he was exhausted, she realised that he was dying and told him how many people he had saved. She attempted to revive him without success. (AUDIO: Supernature)
When she reunited with Clyde Langer in the "remembered TARDIS", Jo reminisced about the time she met three Doctors at one to help power the TARDIS. The remembered TARDIS provided her with a Metebelis crystal and reunited her with Cliff's spirit so she could say goodbye. (TV: The Three Doctors [+]Loading...["The Three Doctors (TotT TV story)"])
Return to the TARDIS
Jo travelled to the Isle of Wight with Al Hunter to help Lorna Holmes and Malcolm Hollings investigate a series of bird attacks and was reunited with the Third Doctor, who was also looking into the phenomena and had been travelling alone since leaving the younger Jo at Llanfairfach. Using the sonic screwdriver, Jo protected herself, Lorna and Malcolm from the birds whilst the Doctor thwarted Ms Frost's plan to weaponise animals through Project Supernature. Afterwards, Jo and the Doctor, both admitting that they were lonely, headed off in the TARDIS together once more. (AUDIO: Supernature)
The Doctor took Jo to Viltris in the 49th century where Laire Bearce slipped her a business card which led them to Vykane's anti-Overon Maldon rally. She used the sonic screwdriver against the Conservitors when they raided the building and was separated from the Doctor, escaping with Vykane only to deliberately get herself arrested to join the Doctor in the Conservitory. They managed to get free by manipulating the facility's nanites and convinced Maldon that his reign had accomplished precisely what his coup d'état had been intended to avoid, after which Maldon and Vykane were both arrested by the rebooted Conservitors. (AUDIO: The Conservitors)
On Mercator, Jo and the Doctor learnt about the supposed curse which killed all of Callis's family and friends and investigated Solomun, who communicated telepathically with Jo when she visited the wet dock and tried to pull her into the water. She was saved by the Doctor and wanted to help Solomun until the Doctor realised that he had been killing those around Callis and tricked him into a matter converter after making everybody, including Jo, believe that he had died. They then left in the TARDIS, intending on taking Solomun to an asteroid field. (AUDIO: The Iron Shore)
Death
Factual records gathered in 2040 documented that Jo had died in a house fire in 2028. (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)
At some point during her association with the Doctor, Jo was kidnapped by the Nine for his collection of the Doctor’s companions. She was returned home by River Song. (AUDIO: Companion Piece)
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 UNIT 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 soon confessed, "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)
Jo proved loyal to the Doctor, ready to risk her own life for him (TV: The Daemons, Planet of the Daleks; AUDIO: The Sacrifice of Jo Grant etc.) and stay in Omega's world with him. (TV: The Three Doctors) She told Clyde Langer she loved The Doctor in the way the Doctor loved Sarah Jane Smith. (WC: The Three Doctors)
Jo proved capable of such compassion to others. She was ready to treat aliens, including Alpha Centauri (TV: The Curse of Peladon) and the Thals, (TV: Planet of the Daleks) as people, was willing make peace with the Silurians and Sea Devils, (AUDIO: Tidal Wave, United) and was delighted to see a newborn Sea Devil. (WC: Defenders of Earth) Even after the Master harmed her, she felt sorry for Missy, who sought a friend, and told the Lumiat of her belief that there was always good within each of the Master's regenerations. (AUDIO: Masterful)
Whilst Jo was certainly a UNIT member, her individualism made her stand out 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. (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 (PROSE: The Mind of Evil) with blonde hair that was always perfectly groomed. (PROSE: The Twin Dilemma)
She also seemed to have a liking for rings, as she wore a variety of them. (Terror of the Autons et al)
Skills
Jo was grand with martial arts. She learned Venusian aikido from the Third Doctor. (AUDIO: The Sacrifice of Jo Grant) She claimed that she was "pretty nifty at karate" and that she once rendered Sergeant Benton unconscious. (AUDIO: Ghost in the Machine)
Jo also showed talents with abseiling and hovercraft driving. (TV: The Sea Devils)
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.
- If audio dramas are taken into account, she is one of three characters (the other two being Trinity Wells and the French newsreader) to appear in Doctor Who, The Sarah Jane Adventures, and Torchwood.
- Jo never appeared in the regular Doctor Who comic strip in TV Comic and/or TV Action, as Katy Manning did not want her likeness used in any merchandising.[2] However, World Distributors (Manchester), Ltd were able to feature the character in their Doctor Who Annuals for 1974 and 1975, providing they did not use Manning's likeness.[3]
- Jo did feature in Chris Achilleos' cover art for the 1974 edition of Malcolm Hulke's novelisation of The Sea Devils.
- Jo was supposed to appear in The Five Doctors, but Katy Manning was living in Australia at the time.
- David Richardson cited Jo among the potential companions to meet the Tenth Doctor in Tenth Doctor Classic Companions, but were ultimately not utilised in the anthology. (BFX: Tenth Doctor Classic Companions)
- Cheryl Hall, Rula Lenska and Jenny McCracken, who would later appear as Shirna, Elizabeth Styles and Claire Daly respectively in Carnival of Monsters were considered for the role.
- Before Manning was cast, there were three hundred actresses considered for the part. This was whittled down to fifty. Among those considered were Shakira Baksh, Julia Chambers, Gabrielle Drake, Anoushka Hempel and Yutte Stensgaard.
Age
Jo Grant's age, year of birth, and year joining the Doctor are contradictory given the UNIT dating controversy.
- Jo was born in 1959 according to GAME: The Legions of Death.
- Jo was 18 when she started working with UNIT, according to AUDIO: The Doll of Death.
- Jo was 19 first met the Doctor in 1970, according to AUDIO: The Other Woman. This would make year of birth 1951.
- Jo has been "on the UNIT books since 1971", according to PROSE: Genocide.
- Jo joined UNIT in 1972, according to AUDIO: The Sacrifice of Jo Grant
- Jo was 21 or 22 when she left the Third Doctor, according to the Eleventh Doctor in TV: Death of the Doctor.
Footnotes
- ↑ Original script for Day of the Doctor Part 1, set in 2010, describes Jo as "60, a bit bohemian in a wraparound shawl"
- ↑ The Comic Strip Companion: 1964 – 1979 by Paul Scoones, page 300
- ↑ The Comic Strip Companion: 1964 – 1979 by Paul Scoones, page 457
External links
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