Katarina
Katarina
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Katarina was acompanion of theFirst Doctor.
Ahandmaid toCassandra, she joined the Doctor andSteven Taylor inthe TARDIS after the fall ofTroy. Her travels were cut short when she sacrificed herself on theSpar to save her friends. A collision between the First andSecond Doctors' TARDISes meant that she spent three more months with them in a timeline that was later averted by her own choice to defeat theDalek fleet.
The first of the Doctor's companions to die whilst travelling with him, her death weighed heavily on his mind.
Biography[[edit] |[edit source]]
Early life[[edit] |[edit source]]
Katarina belonged to a poor family who lived nearTroy. As they had little money and stopped being able to feed her, she wanted to be ahandmaid to apriestess. She told this to theSeventh Doctor when he met her as a young girl in1240 BC, after which he gave her agoldcoin in exchange forwater to alleviate her family's poverty. (PROSE:An Unfulfilled Dream[+]Loading...["An Unfulfilled Dream (short story)"])
She went on to fulfil her ambition and become handmaid toCassandra, who chose her because she predicted that she would die. (PROSE:Scribbles in Chalk[+]Loading...["Scribbles in Chalk (short story)"]) She was little more than aslave and, when she told her mistress of hervisions of the future, Cassandra told her that she would be put todeath should she bring it up again. (AUDIO:Daughter of the Gods[+]Loading...["Daughter of the Gods (audio story)"])
Travels in the TARDIS[[edit] |[edit source]]
Meeting the Doctor[[edit] |[edit source]]
Katarina was sent by Cassandra to spy on theFirst Doctor,Steven Taylor andVicki Pallister, with the particular aim of gathering evidence that Vicki was aGreek spy. She befriended Vicki, who sent her to help the Doctor get Steven back tothe TARDIS after he was injured by aspear. She tended to his wounds and joined him and the Doctor on their travels whilst Vicki remained behind. (TV:"Horse of Destruction"[+]Part ofThe Myth Makers,Loading...{"namedep":"Horse of Destruction (4)","1":"The Myth Makers (TV story)"})
Brief adventures[[edit] |[edit source]]
In search ofmedicine for Steven, the Doctor landed on aplanet that went through a temporal anomaly and where they met theLakhotha tribe.Drinks-Pools-Dry showed an interest in Katarina. She and hercompanions enjoyed ameal there before they all began to violently transform intoanimals andplants due tothe Conduit, although Katarina and Steven transformed more slowly. They rushed to the TARDIS where the twohumans lost theirmemories of the events and Steven's wounds returned, prompting them to leave in search of help once more. (PROSE:Scribbles in Chalk[+]Loading...["Scribbles in Chalk (short story)"])
In theTime Vortex, the TARDIScollided with a future version of itself, preventing the crew from landing onKembel and instead materialising onUrbinia. Katarina, the Doctor and Steven spent three months there due to the damage sustained by the TARDIS, during which Katarina hadnightmares about herdeath and believed that her descent to theUnderworld was overdue.
Katarina met theSecond Doctor,Jamie McCrimmon andZoe Heriot duringan attack by theDaleks and learnt that her beliefs about her overdue death were correct. She and the Second Doctor discussed their options and she reached the conlusion that she had to die in order to prevent the invasion. She was aboard the Second Doctor's TARDIS when he prevented the temporal collision, erasing her three months with the Doctor and Steven and setting them back on the course to Kembel. (AUDIO:Daughter of the Gods[+]Loading...["Daughter of the Gods (audio story)"])
After landing on Kembel, Katarina remained in the TARDIS with Steven whilst the Doctor looked outside fordrugs. She administeredtablets to Steven atBret Vyon's instructions and fled with the two men into thejungle when Daleks surrounded the ship. The Doctor joined them and they went to thespaceport where they stole theSpar and crash-landed onDesperus. Katarina and Steven made sure to prevent intruders from boarding the ship, butKirksen managed to stow away. (TV:The Daleks' Master Plan[+]Loading...["The Daleks' Master Plan (TV story)"])
Death[[edit] |[edit source]]
TheSpar took off forEarth and Katarina checked to see if a door was secure, upon which Kirksen emerged and held her hostage, pulling her to anairlock to blackmail the Doctor into returning the ship to Kembel. To save her friends, she activated the airlock door and expelled herself and Kirksen intospace. (TV:The Daleks' Master Plan[+]Loading...["The Daleks' Master Plan (TV story)"]) As she fell through space, struggling to breathe, she thought of how thegods likedsacrifices before dying. (POEM:Skipping Song[+]Loading...["Skipping Song (poem)"])
Post-mortem[[edit] |[edit source]]
Katarina's body was recovered from space byRiver Song and subsequently stolen bythe Nine for his collection of the Doctor'scompanions. When he attempted to scan Katarina'smind to determine her identity, the residualartron energy in her body gave her enough mental strength to distract the Nine at a crucial moment, allowingCharlotte Pollard,Liv Chenka,Helen Sinclair andBliss to defeat him. (AUDIO:Companion Piece[+]Loading...["Companion Piece (audio story)"])
Afterlife[[edit] |[edit source]]
In theafterlife, Katarina found herself without acoin and thus unable to cross theRiver Styx. Thanks to the intervention of the First Doctor, or her idea of him, she was able to find her way not only toAsphodel, where thesouls of those who had done neither good nor evil went, but to theElysian Fields, the abode of the blessed. (PROSE:Katarina in the Underworld[+]Loading...["Katarina in the Underworld (short story)"])
Legacy[[edit] |[edit source]]
Katarina's death weighed heavily on the Doctor's conscience. TheFirst Doctor said that he would always remember her as one of the daughters of the gods (TV:The Daleks' Master Plan[+]Loading...["The Daleks' Master Plan (TV story)"]) and theSecond Doctor said that he would never forget her. (AUDIO:Daughter of the Gods[+]Loading...["Daughter of the Gods (audio story)"]) Inside the inner landscape of theSeventh Doctor's mind in a hell haunted by his guilt,Ace came across the ghost of Katarina in the form of an eternally frozen girl of ice. (PROSE:Timewyrm: Revelation[+]Loading...["Timewyrm: Revelation (novel)"]) The Doctor also once saw Katarina, withSara Kingdom andAdric, amongst his past guilts. (COMIC:The Last Word[+]Loading...["The Last Word (comic story)"])
Steven Taylor never forgot Katarina despite not having known her for very long. After learning thatSaudade had landed onDesperus, he toldArva Morneth that Katarina had been a "sweet girl" and swore that he would not lose anyone else to theplanet. (AUDIO:The Living Darkness[+]Loading...["The Living Darkness (audio story)"])
OnRibos, the Seventh Doctor mistookMelanie Bush for Katarina when she woke him up. (AUDIO:The Ribos Inheritance[+]Loading...["The Ribos Inheritance (audio story)"])
On the ruined world ofAdeki, the Seventh Doctor found one of severalGwanzulums, beings who used theirshapeshifting powers to pass themselves off as some of the Doctor's past companions, including Katarina. Before he realised the ruse, the false Katarina tried to have him take her off the planet. (COMIC:Planet of the Dead[+]Loading...["Planet of the Dead (comic story)"])
The TARDIS, in an attempt to warn the Seventh Doctor about the threat of theTimewyrm, projected one of his memories of Katarina on thescanner. (PROSE:Timewyrm: Genesys[+]Loading...["Timewyrm: Genesys (novel)"])
While in theDivergent Universe, theEighth Doctor was shown an illusion of Katarina by theKro'ka. He stated that he regretted taking Katarina from her own time and giving her hope, only for her to be killed shortly afterwards. (AUDIO:The Last[+]Loading...["The Last (audio story)"])
The Lost mentioned Katarina to theTenth Doctor as one of the many losses the Doctor had endured during his life. (AUDIO:The Lost[+]Loading...["The Lost (audio story)"])
Aphoto of Katarina was present in theBlack Archive. (TV:The Day of the Doctor[+]Loading...["The Day of the Doctor (TV story)"])
Personality[[edit] |[edit source]]
Katarina did not believe that she was special nor worthy of recognition. As a result, she believed that she would go to thePlace of Perfection where those who had not accomplished great deeds or had not been especially noteworthy would go.Jamie McCrimmon challenged this, telling her that she was better than that. (AUDIO:Daughter of the Gods[+]Loading...["Daughter of the Gods (audio story)"])
She asked very few questions, preferring to watch and learn, something that the First Doctor believed that Steven could learn from her. (TV:The Daleks' Master Plan[+]Loading...["The Daleks' Master Plan (TV story)"]) Despite the Doctor's protestations, she believed that he wasZeus and that the TARDIS was atemple transporting them to theafterlife. (TV:"Horse of Destruction"[+]Part ofThe Myth Makers,Loading...{"namedep":"Horse of Destruction (4)","1":"The Myth Makers (TV story)"},The Daleks' Master Plan[+]Loading...["The Daleks' Master Plan (TV story)"]) She continued to use the TARDIS as a place ofprayer regardless of what the Doctor said. (AUDIO:Daughter of the Gods[+]Loading...["Daughter of the Gods (audio story)"])
She followed the Doctor's instructions to the letter and was anxious when she went against the Doctor in the interests of aiding Steven's recovery. She had no knowledge of more technologically advanced ages. As a result, the Doctor educated her on some of these items, for example the purpose ofkeys. She told him that she felt safe with him.
She was certain that she was doomed to die, as had been foretold. She deliberately brought about her own demise to save the lives of the First Doctor, Steven, Bret Vyon, and "perhaps the lives of all the other beings of theSolar System". (TV:The Daleks' Master Plan[+]Loading...["The Daleks' Master Plan (TV story)"])
Appearance[[edit] |[edit source]]
Katarina was a striking, (PROSE:The Myth Makers[+]Loading...["The Myth Makers (novelisation)"]) elfin, dark-haired girl. (PROSE:Mission to the Unknown[+]Loading...["Mission to the Unknown (novelisation)"])
Behind the scenes[[edit] |[edit source]]
- ProducerJohn Wiles and his production team decided to write out Katarina as soon as possible to get around the writing challenges of a character so very unused to modern concepts, and to whom the Doctor would have had to explain everything — for example, Katarina did not even know what akey was. They decided to do so in the most dramatic way possible.
- Katarina was the firstcompanion ofthe Doctor to die; she would be followed bySara Kingdom later in the same serial. However, the first long-term companion to die on-screen would not be untilAdric's death inEarthshock.
- Only one episode featuring Katarina — namely the second episode ofThe Daleks' Master Plan, "Day of Armageddon" — currently exists in theBBC Archives.
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