Romana II

Romana II
Main aliases:	Romana
Place of origin:	Gallifrey
Appearances:	Full List of Appearances
Main actor:	[[actor::Lalla Ward|Lalla Ward]]

Incarnations of Romana
Alternate timelines

In this incarnation, Romanadvoratrelundar (or Romana for short), continued to travel with the Doctor until she chose to stay in E-Space. Later, she returned to the main universe and eventually assumed the office of Lady President of the High Council of Gallifrey.

Biography

Regeneration

Romana decided to regenerate into a form identical to Princess Astra. She later speculated that the torture she had endured from The Shadow had somehow resurrected the influence of Pandora - memories repressed by Braxiatel through hypnotism - and the only way to regain full control was to voluntarily regenerate. (BFG: Lies) The Fourth Doctor protested she had no right to assume the likeness of another person, so she went briefly through other forms, only to settle back on Astra's. She also initially chose a style of dress that mimicked the Doctor's. The Doctor soon became accustomed to her new form. He found this new incarnation easier to get along with than the last, at one point implying he considered her his best friend. (DW: Destiny of the Daleks)

Travels

Romana met the Daleks and their creator, Davros, on Skaro. Here, she helped prevent either the Daleks or Movellans gaining an advantage in their war against the other. (DW: Destiny of the Daleks) On Chloris, she was captured by a party of bandits. (DW: The Creature from the Pit)

Romana visited the Leisure Hive where she was present at the attempted rebirth of Argolin civilisation. (DW: The Leisure Hive)

On Tigella, Romana freed herself from the harassment of the Bell Plants before she was captured by Gaztaks. She bluffed the Gaztaks by claiming she was leading them to the TARDIS before taking them around in circles. She eventually lost them by leading them into the Bell Plants. (DW: Meglos)

The Doctor, Romana and K9 Mark II spent an indeterminate period of time together, possibly quite long given the Doctor and Romana's longevity as Time Lords.

E-Space

Romana screamed when she believed herself under Tharil attack. (DW: Warriors' Gate)

After forgetting all about the matter, the Doctor received a message from the Time Lords asking him to return her to their home planet of Gallifrey now that she had helped him find the segments to the Key to Time. Romana, having tasted a life of adventure with the Doctor and bonded with him, didn't want to go back. She went to her room to sulk. En route, the Doctor's TARDIS entered a Charged Vacuum Emboitment, left the universe (N-Space) and entered another, smaller universe, E-Space.

Once there, they landed on the planet Alzarius. Romana was infected by an Alzarian spider. Its venom controlled her, having her complete tasks to help the Marshmen. The Doctor restrained her and she soon recovered. (DW: Full Circle)

Romana and the Doctor began searching for a CVE to return home. They came across a planet and landed upon it. They found an Alzarian, Adric, had stowed away on-board. Romana was taken by a group of vampires as a sacrifice to the King Vampire. The Doctor rescued her and they resumed searching. (DW: State of Decay) The Doctor was injured and Romana placed him in the Zero Room to recover. The TARDIS was captured by Ballustrans. Romana was questioned by Marni Tellis in a murder enquiry. However, a Farrian attack lifted suspicion from her. Romana kept the Farrian talking long enough for the Doctor to destroy their CVE entrance. They were unable to follow and so continued their search. (CC: The Invasion of E-Space)

They arrived at the Gateway. With K9 damaged by the time winds, the regular universe remained inaccessible to him. Romana decided to stay with him in E-Space and to help the enslaved Tharils release themselves from captivity. (DW: Warriors' Gate)

Romana fought for Tharil rights for many years. She began to consider a return to N-Space. (CC: The Invasion of E-Space)

President of the High Council

Romana and K9 eventually did return to N-Space and to Gallifrey, where Romana ascended to the Presidency. (MA: Goth Opera, NA: Happy Endings) Soon after taking office, however, she was abducted by the Daleks and spent more than two decades in captivity before finally escaping with the aid of the Doctor, now in his sixth incarnation. (BFA: The Apocalypse Element) Upon returning to Gallifrey, she resumed her position as president.

The manner of Romana's ascendancy is unclear. One source claims Romana ran against Flavia in an election and won. (NA: Happy Endings) Romana recalled that she had invoked a 'right of challenge' against her predecessor as President of the High Council, just as Darkel later challenged her. (BFG: Insurgency) However, Braxiatel stated that no-one had held the role of Lord Chancellor "for many years", not since Romana's "predecessor quelled his predecessor's less-than-stellar stewardship"; while Romana said she had been "asked to become President after the coup that overthrew Flavia's inauspicious reign", in spite of her lack of political experience - suggesting another President ruled in an interim. (BFG: Lies)

President Romana on Gallifrey. (WC: Shada)

It seems Braxiatel supported and guided Romana's appointment partly because it was inevitable and he wanted to monitor her closely for any return of the Pandora influence. (BFG: Lies) Braxiatel was named High Chancellor and given responsibility for Romana's experiments with the Time Lord Academy, allowing off-world students to enter the academy.

Romana and her bodyguard Leela later encountered Pandora again, this time taking the form of Romana's first incarnation. Pandora told Romana that she engineered her return to Gallifrey from E-Space and her appointment as President, in order to fulfill her grand plan. As a result of the Pandora creature, Braxiatel had to leave Gallifrey for exile, and the Academy reforms fell apart under his successor Chancellor Valyes. Romana started to exhibit some symptoms of Pandora's influence - she apparently murdered Andred while possessed, and continued to consult Pandora for advice on her political moves. At Pandora's suggestion, Romana declared herself Imperiatrix of Gallifrey in response to Darkel's challenge for the Presidency, but as she crowned herself with the coronet linking her to The Matrix, Pandora became corporeal in the form of the first Romana, declaring herself Imperiatrix. Freed by her chancellery guards, Romana destroyed much the city's infrastructure in the resultant civil war, in response to Pandora's psychic control of the Capitol. She was eventually able to contain Pandora within the Matrix once again, and to kill her by destroying the Matrix completely.

Romana as President of Gallifrey. (BFG: Appropriation)

Romana was greatly weakened by her struggle with Pandora, and Chancellor Valyes became acting President. Valyes appointed Matthias as Lord Cardinal before resigning and naming Darkel as his successor. Romana and Matthias both made counter-claims to the Presidency. After Darkel and Matthias agreed to the arrest of Romana for high treason, Braxiatel turned up and made a superior claim for the Presidency, freeing Romana. He immediately resigned and named Matthias his successor, to the surprise of Romana. However, Braxiatel had hatched a scheme to preserve the Time Lord biodata archive, containing the genetic patterns of all Time Lords, past and present, in the hopes of reconstructing Gallifrey after its inevitable fall. As the Free Time Dogma Virus ravaged Gallifrey, Matthias nominated Romana to find the cure, then go into exile. Romana followed the trail, only to find Braxiatel. He had nominated Matthias knowing that whoever was President would be doomed to fall to the Dogma virus. He also noted that, ironically, Pandora would have had the ruthlessness to crush the 'great threat' facing Gallifrey, but Romana would not. The only cure for the virus was to end the regeneration capabilities of the Time Lords. With the help of K9, Braxiatel used a Time Scoop to collect the biodata archive. He then asked Romana to decide whether to administer the cure, or to let Gallifrey die and then rebuild it using the biodata. Her decision is not known. (BFG: Panacea)

Romana boldly initiated diplomatic relations with the Time Lords' enemy, the Daleks (NA: Lungbarrow) and a peace treaty was signed: the Act of Master Restitution. (DWAN: Doctor Who Annual 2006)

Prior to the destruction of Gallifrey, Romana had regenerated into a third incarnation. (EDA: The Shadows of Avalon) Romana claimed that she needed to regenerate to become a more effective leader of Gallifrey, and her third incarnation was noticeably more ruthless than her second. (EDA:The Ancestor Cell)

Personality

This incarnation of Romana seemed to respect the Doctor more. She also seemed to have settled into her name. (DW: Destiny of the Daleks) She was fearful upon occasion but remained quick to react. (DW: Meglos) Romana was initially resentful of how Adric had forced himself upon them in joining their travels. However, she soon came to like him. (CC: The Invasion of E-Space)

Appearance

Romana wears a frilled dress on Tigella. (DW: Meglos)

Romana regularly donned a pink version of the Doctor's coat. (DW: Destiny of the Daleks) She also wore a number of dresses, carrying on her previous incarnation sense of style. (DW: The Androids of Tara, The Creature from the Pit) On Tigella, she wore a frilled dress. (DW: Meglos) Once she returned to Gallifrey, she wore traditional Time Lord dress.

Behind the scenes

• It is only assumed that this is Romana's second incarnation, as there is nothing in any televised episode to indicate this to be the case. She is never actually called "Romana II" in any story, televised or otherwise. The nomenclature comes from repetition across several non-fictional reference books, such as Companions of Doctor Who, that have been written throughout the years.
• BBV Productions released two original audio adventures which featured Lalla Ward as Romana II, with K9. Since they had the rights to K9 but not Romana or E-Space, she has no name other than "Mistress" in the audio plays, while the characters refer to E-Space as "the pocket universe".
• Although a relationship was never explicitly shown or intended by the writers, many fans have found the signs of a romantic relationship particularly evident in the story City of Death, perhaps reflecting the real-life romance between Tom Baker and Lalla Ward which reportedly blossomed during the production of that story and led to their brief marriage. In 1980, Ward and Baker made a series of television commercials in Australia for Prime Computers; performing as Romana and The Doctor. The advertisements feature a romance between the two characters, culminating in the Doctor proposing marriage to Romana. (These commercials are not considered canonical).
• In City of Death, Romana says she is 125, but in The Ribos Operation, she claims to be nearly 140, so her age cannot be accurately placed without further information.
• The status of Romana during the events of The Five Doctors depends upon which version is viewed. In the original 1983 broadcast version (and four-episode rebroadcasts), she is trapped in the vortex with the Fourth Doctor when the Time Scoop malfunctioned (as evidenced by an image of the two of them that appears on Borusa's monitor). For the 1995 Special Edition, only the Fourth Doctor is visible in the vortex image. According to production notes on the 2008 DVD release, Romana is not trapped with the Doctor in the Special Edition version. However, in WC: Shada, Romana remembers being taken out of time along with the Doctor.
• Three alternative 'physical' forms of Romana seen in Part One of Destiny of the Daleks were played, uncredited, by Lee Richards, Maggy Armitage and Yvonne Gallagher.