 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.
However, 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.
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| Terror of the Autons |
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The
Doctor is at first very sceptical about the Brigadier
Lethbridge-Stewart's ability to choose another assistant
for him after Liz
Shaw had left. 'What you need Doctor is as Miss Shaw
often remarked is someone to pass you your test tubes and
to tell you how brilliant you are. Miss Grant will fulfil
that function admirable.' 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
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.
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| The Dæmons |
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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
("Colony
in Space"). This meant that her initial
fears quickly gave way to natural curiosity and she was
able to accept and even taken advantage of the new and alien
surroundings she found herself taken to.
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. 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.
Most
of her time with The Doctor was spent on Earth due to his
enforced exile. However, she did get the opportunity on
a number of occasions to travel with him in the TARDIS.
During these alien excursions she ended up disappointing
a number of would be suitors including the King of Peladon
and a Thal called Latep, but she rejected both of them because
she recognised that her place was on Earth. 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.
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 we hear
of Jo is, while on an exploration trip to the Amazon with her fiancee,
she returns the blue crystal from Metabilis 3 that The Doctor had
earlier given to her.
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| The Sea Devils |
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The
last we hear of Jo on the TV show is, while on an exploration
trip to the Amazon with her fiancee, she returns the blue
crystal from Metabilis 3 that The Doctor had earlier given
to her. Despite this, it is clear that The Doctor retained
a strong affection for her; when the Fifth Doctor met The
Brigadier 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.
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, 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 after he cordoned
off Kilgai Gorge in Africa, Jo was sent back in time along with
Hynes after making contact with a ‘time tree’ - a
tree whose fruit, when eaten, allowed the user to travel back
in time - subsequently learning that Hynes intended to destroy
humanity by unleashing a virus that would prevent the human race
from ever evolving. 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 learned that Hynes had
been manipulated by the Tractites, horse-like aliens whose homeworld
had been destroyed in a war with humanity in the distant future
and had subsequently come back in time to try and erase them from
existence. Hynes was eventually killed by an enraged Neanderthal
after his attempt to infect the man with a virus failed, Jo subsequently
destroying the Tractites with one of their own laser cannons after
one of them fired at her and Sam, allowing The Doctor to take
her back to her own time (Although The Doctor was uncertain if
Jo had simply panicked or if she had deliberately killed the Tractites
in order to return home). |
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Jo
Grant
(1971 - 1973) |
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Katy
Manning
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Katy Manning was born in 1951 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.
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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.
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