|
|
 |
|
Jo
Grant
(1971 - 1973) |
|
Katy
Manning |
|
Katy Manning was born in 1946 and is the daughter of
the late sports columnist J. L. Manning. During
a time in America she was offered a 5 year contract
with MGM. However, she was persuaded to return to
England to study acting at the Webber Douglas drama
school. Then a year later she joined a Wolverhampton
repertory company. Her first job was in Man at
the Top at 1970. However, being only five feet
tall she found her height a disadvantage in theatre
so she moved to television. After a couple of commercials
she appeared in an episode of Softly, Softly:
Task Force before auditioning for Doctor
Who. She was very fortunate to get the part
of Jo Grant as she got lost on the way to the audition
and was very late. Luckily she impressed the present
producer, Barry Letts, who, along with script editor
Terrance Dicks, found the bubbly, scatter-brained,
short-sighted Katy Manning more endearing than the
more straightforward alternatives. The part of Jo
Grant was hers. After leaving Doctor Who she
presented, in 1973, the BBC crafts programme Serindipity.
She also appeared in the 1973 film Don't Just
Lie There, Say Something and she also returned
to theatre including Odd Man In with Lionel
Blair and Colin
Baker. Since 1982 she has been living and working
in Australia. She recently returned to the UK to
co-star in the 1998 Reeltime Pictures Production
video Doctor Who's Lust in Space and to publicise
her video Where on Earth is Katy Manning.
Katy Manning has also appeared nude with just a Dalek to
spare her blushes.
|
|
|
|
 Jo
Grant was a petite, scatty brained blonde with a love for mini-skirts
who had a knack of blundering into trouble. Her uncle was a
leading Civil Servant who managed to use his influence to get
her a job at UNIT as she had set her heart on being a secret
agent and had studied cryptology, safe-breaking and explosives.
She also claimed to have taken an 'A' Level in general science
(Although she was later forced into admitting 'I didn't
say I passed'). The Brigadier though is not sure what to do about
this new recruit to UNIT and so decided to palm her off on to
The Doctor.
 |
| Terror of the Autons |
|
The
Doctor was at first very sceptical about Brigadier
Lethbridge-Stewart's ability to choose another assistant for him after Liz
Shaw had left, despite The Brigadier commenting that Liz Shaw
had gone on record to say that all The Doctor needed in
an assistant was someone to pass him test tubes and praise
his intellect, tasks that The Brigadier felt the young Miss
Grant was well-suited for. The Brigadier eventually becomes
tired of The Doctor's arguments and so forces The Doctor
to pass on the bad news himself to Jo. However, The Brigadier
knows that The Doctor will be unable to tell her the truth
instead The Doctor tells her 'Thank you Jo. I can see
that you will be a great help to me' ("Terror
of the Autons").
She
was determined, clumsy and very accident prone and her knack
of rushing into things before thinking nearly always resulted
in her finding herself in grave danger or hindering those
around her, especially The Doctor, was immediately apparent.
Her first meeting with The Doctor was in his lab and resulted
in the ruining of one of his experiments when she covered
it in foam from a fire extinguisher when she thought it
was on fire and in danger of injuring The Doctor. She also
nearly blew The Doctor up in the very same episode when,
due to her fierce independence, she gets caught by The
Master,
who then hypnotises her to deliver a bomb to UNIT so that
he can kill The Doctor ("Terror of the Autons").
At
first Jo had a rather stormy relationship with The Doctor.
However, this soon mellowed when The Doctor came to accept
her eager-to-please manner. With her perky cheerfulness
she soon became very much part of the UNIT team and was
very devoted to The Doctor. Despite initially being more
of a hindrance then a help to The Doctor her confidence
and bravery grew over the time while she was in The Doctor's
company and working for The Brigadier and UNIT. This is
well demonstrated by the number of times that she ended
up coming to The Doctor's rescue and she was even willing
to sacrifice herself to save The Doctor in the story "The
Dæmons", the sheer illogical of such an action
caused the Daemon Azal to essentially self-destruct due
to his inability to comprehend Jo’s sacrifice. She
also demonstrated such diverse skills as riding a motorbike,
using karate, picking locks, abseiling, and even piloting
a helicopter, although The Doctor still took the lead when
the two of them were working together.
She
did feel on a number of occasions hard done by when she
wanted to follow The Doctor and be in the thick of the action.
On these occasions she would seek out either Captain
Mike Yates or Sergeant
Benton for a shoulder to cry on even though
she knew that they would always advise her to follow The
Brigadier's orders. During a brief reunion between The Doctor
and her ‘predecessor’ Liz Shaw ("The
Wages of Sin"), Jo and Liz had particular difficulty getting
along due to their differing opinions of Rasputin, with
Liz initially regarding Rasputin as the monster history
would portray him as while Jo - after meeting with Rasputin
himself - quickly recognised that it was only Rasputin’s
enemies who had written him as such. Despite this disagreement,
the two eventually became friends, working together to track
down the stolen TARDIS and escape being framed for Rasputin’s
murder, although both regretted that they were unable to
save him from his destined fate.
 |
| The Dæmons |
|
Regardless
of the occasional personal conflict, Jo instantly liked
her posting to UNIT and especially being able to work for
The Doctor. She soon came to terms with the fact The Doctor
was not only an alien but he was willing to share his experiences
with her, showing a great deal of appreciation and wonder
when she first travelled to another planet in the TARDIS
after overcoming her initial shock at the discovery (Although
her lack of preparation should be taken into account when
considering the fear she initially displayed at what had
happened to her) ("Colony
in Space"). This meant
that her initial fears quickly gave way to natural curiosity
and she was able to accept and even take advantage of the
new and alien surroundings she found herself taken to, to
the point where she sometimes proved more adaptable than
The Doctor himself, enjoying the dress she was given to
wear during their trip to Atlantis ("The
Time Monster")
and being more accepting - albeit still reluctant - than
The Doctor of the need to cut their hair during a trip to
the planet Caresh, where the native’s hair never grew
longer than a few millimetres ("The
Suns of Caresh").
Jo
was feisty and brave but was also not too proud to scream
if scared. She was very resourceful and was never too afraid
to have a go, once managing to rally The Doctor into action
to try and save the planet Caresh from an approaching neutron
star even when The Doctor believed that he had missed his
chance to do so, Jo’s words inspiring The Doctor to
come up with another solution ("The Suns of Caresh").
As she adapted to working for The Doctor and his travelling
she quickly lost her insecurity. In fact during her final
encounter with The Master she informed him that she could
withstand his hypnotic attacks and she was confident enough
to prove it, reciting nursery rhymes as he attempted to
hypnotise her to block his attempts to control her ("Frontier
in Space").
Most
of her time with The Doctor was spent on Earth due to his
enforced exile, with Jo not fully accepting The Doctor’s
tales of his prior travels through time and space until
she first entered the TARDIS and found herself unexpectedly
accompanying The Doctor on a mission for the Time Lords to stop The Master acquiring control of an ancient doomsday
machine ("Colony in Space"). Although she joined The Doctor in subsequent travels when the Time Lords sent him on various missions and after his exile was lifted, Jo nevertheless made it clear that she considered herself a member of UNIT first and The Doctor’s companion second, clearly seeing her trips in the TARDIS as just trips rather than the opportunity to leave Earth for a longer time. During her time in
the TARDIS - both when assisting him during Time-Lord-assigned
missions and after The Doctor’s ability to travel
freely was restored to him -, she ended up disappointing
a number of would be suitors including the King of Peladon
and a Thal called Latep, recognising that her place was
on Earth regardless of how fond she was of them. She also
apparently had a significant impact on a native of the planet
Karfel ("Timelash"), given that, even over a century
after the Third
Doctor’s visit, a native retained
a picture of her that had been given to a relative of his
during the trip in question.
Jo
and Captain Mike Yates were very good friends even though it was
clear that Mike would have liked their relationship to go further;
the two were once set up on a dinner date by Sergeant Benton and
Corporal Bell, but the ‘date’ never happened when the
two invited The Doctor along as well and he offered to take them
on a couple of trips in the TARDIS instead ("Speed
of Flight").
But she also ended up disappointing him as well when she finally
fell in love and decided to get married to conservationist Professor
Clifford Jones. She saw him as a much a younger version of The Doctor
and thus she left a very sad Doctor to drive off alone in Bessie
after her engagement party. It was during this parting that The Doctor
showed one of his few bursts of real emotion as he realised the extent
of his fondness for her now that he was losing her. The last time
the audience heard from Jo, she was on an exploration trip to the
Amazon with her fiancé, returning the blue crystal from Metabelis
3 that The Doctor had given to her earlier because their native guides
regarded it as ‘bad magic’. Despite this, it is clear
that The Doctor retained a strong affection for her; when the Fifth
Doctor met The Brigadier after his retirement from UNIT in "Mawdryn
Undead", Jo was one of the first people he asked about,
and
Peri Brown - who travelled with the Fifth Doctor and Sixth
Doctor - mentioned in "Timelash" that she
had seen pictures of Jo at some point during her time in the TARDIS.
 |
| The Sea Devils |
|
Jo’s
later life was eventually seen during the events of "Genocide",
where it was revealed that she and Cliff, after having a son called
Matthew (Although later evidence revealed that she and Cliff had
seven children; presumably at the time of the divorce the other seven
were either old enough to be on their own or stayed with their father),
separated at some point between "The
Green Death" and 1997, Jo retaining custody of Matthew while
living in a two-bedroom flat in Hackney and trying to maintain two
jobs, although she remained in contact with at least Benton from
her old days in UNIT. Having been asked to look into the actions
of UNIT Corporal Hynes by a friend of hers, Jo was sent back in time
along with Hynes when she stumbled across his plan to destroy humanity
by unleashing a virus in the past, having been manipulated by the
horse-like Tractites as revenge for humanity’s destruction
of their world in the future. Aided by the Eighth
Doctor and Samantha
Jones - who had learned that history had been changed after landing
on Earth in the new timeline - Jo was able to undo this timeline,
Hynes being killed by a Neanderthal after his attempt to infect the
man with a virus failed, and Jo subsequently destroying the Tractites
with one of their own laser cannons after one of them fired at her
and Sam (Although The Doctor was uncertain if Jo had simply panicked
or if she had deliberately killed the Tractites in order to return
home).
 |
| Death of The Doctor |
|
Jo
again returned to The Doctor’s life when she met with
her immediate successor as The Doctor’s companion - journalist Sarah
Jane Smith - in response to claims that The Doctor had
died, the alien race known as The
Shansheeth apparently arranging
his funeral, Jo being accompanied by her grandson Santiago Jones,
she and Cliff having apparently reconciled since "Genocide" (Although
he was now away picketing an oil rig), commenting that her thirteenth
grandchild was on the way. Although the two had never met before,
Jo had apparently heard about Sarah from her other UNIT colleagues,
the two exchanging tales while Santiago bonded with Sarah’s
friends Clyde Langer and Rani Chandra, although she was saddened
to learn that Sarah had seen The Doctor again when he had never
come back for her (Why Jo appeared not to remember the events
of "Genocide" is unknown, although the history-changing
nature of their last encounter, coupled with the subsequent
historical upheavals caused by the Time War, may have changed
Jo’s history enough to erase that meeting). When the Eleventh Doctor returned to Earth - the Shansheeth having faked his death
to try and gain access to the TARDIS -, Jo wondered if The Doctor
thought she was stupid for leaving when she got married, and
was hurt at the idea that he’d never come back to see
her, but The Doctor pointed out that she’d spent so long
travelling over the last few decades that he’d never been
able to pinpoint her location, assuring her that he was proud
of what she’d accomplished in her life. Having defeated
the Shansheeth’s attempts to recreate the TARDIS key,
The Doctor took Sarah, Jo and the children back to Sarah’s
house, Jo grateful for the chance to see her old friend and
mentor again.
Jo's brief encounter with UNIT may have indirectly contributed to a renewed investment in her old career, when she returned to Britain to attend Benton's retirement party and ended up being essentially 'reactivated' by UNIT when a group of Silurians were woken up by a Silurian Grand Marshall with a particularly grim reputation. While participating in the test of a new submarine, Jo became part of Jastrok's plans when a UNIT soldier Jastrok had brainwashed attempted to provoke a lost Sea Devil colony into attacking humanity, with Jo managing to convince the colony's leader that humanity as a whole were not the Sea Devils' enemies ("UNIT: Assembled - Tidal Wave"), later taking temporary charge of UNIT-UK with Yates and Benton when the current senior staff were trapped in Europe as the Silurians attacked the country ("UNIT: Assembled - United"). Maintaining a friendship with UNIT's current scientific advisor, Petronella Osgood, Jo was thus alerted when temporal rifts began to appear in Dorset, with UNIT files stating that The Doctor dealt with a similar threat in the 1970s but that it had required Jo Grant to sacrifice herself ("The Legacy of Time 3 - The Sacrifice of Jo Grant"). Naturally puzzled at this news, Jo joined the investigation, which resulted in her and Kate falling through a rift and being sent back to the 1970s, where they met the Third Doctor during his exile (Jo's past self dealing with other matters back at UNIT HQ). Although aware of the potential for temporal paradoxes, Jo greatly appreciated the chance to see 'her' Doctor again, telling him about the life she would have after leaving him and assuring him that she had enjoyed every moment of their time together. Outside forces (implied to be the Sirens of Time ("The Sirens of Time")) attempted to escalate the danger posed by the rifts, forcing Jo to apparently sacrifice herself by taking a machine into the rifts to destroy them from within, but The Doctor was able to use the temporally-spanning nature of the crisis to arrange for Osgood to receive instructions in the future that would allow her to retrieve Jo from the Time Vortex.
Jo,
with her short skirts and many rings, was definitely a product
of the culture and fashion of the early 70's. She reflected
a return to the more traditional early companion and played
off The Doctor in the traditional way. Jo screamed, got
into trouble, and got captured, the time-honoured role of
all good companions. She made an excellent foil for Jon
Pertwee's strong, action-hero Doctor, and it is no wonder
that she had one of the most touching departures in Doctor
Who while remaining popular among fans to this day. Even
when she reappeared in her sixties, she retained her usual
enthusiastic approach to life, talking at length about the
flowers she had brought for The Doctor’s apparent
funeral and eagerly exchanging tales of her old travels
with fellow companion Sarah Jane. When a temporal rift allowed her another chance to talk with the Third Doctor about her future, The Doctor expressed great pride in the woman that she had become and the life she would live, even arranging to bend the Laws of Time to ensure that Jo could be saved from her apparent final sacrifice. |
|
|
