 Following her departure from Atrios with The
Doctor, Romana - still in her first incarnation - decided to
regenerate into a new form, although the reasons for this transformation
vary from damage sustained by the Shadow’s torture, to
her transformation into the new sixth segment, to attempting
to prevent an ancient Gallifreyian evil gaining control of her
mind. Regardless of the reasons for her regeneration, having
settled upon a form for her latest incarnation, this new Romana
made a stark contrast to her predecessor, proving to be a far
different companion for The Doctor than her predecessor had
been.
While the first Romana had
always had always stuck to a specific pattern of clothing in
the form of various elaborate
dresses
or other forms of finery, the second Romana adopted a far
more varying, casual style of attire, once adopting a pink-and-white
version of the Fourth
Doctor’s chosen attire ("Destiny
of the Daleks") and on another occasion wearing a schoolgirl-style
outfit ("City of Death"), although she was known
to wear more elegant clothing ("The Creature from the
Pit"). In general, her clothing in this incarnation consisted
of an alternating style between elegant and casual; on one
occasion she was even seen wearing a variation of the Third Doctor’s chosen clothing of frilled shirts and velvet
jackets ("The
Well-Mannered War"), while another
adventure saw her donning a sailor-like outfit ("The
Leisure Hive"), her choice of clothing varying with no
apparent consistency between her reasons for choosing one
outfit over another.
This Romana also found it easier to relate
to the people she encountered in their travels; while her
first incarnation had generally remained rather haughty and
assured of herself even when being held captive, the new Romana
was more willing to take the advice of others and work with
them, such as when she formed an alliance against the ruthless
Nimon with Sozem, a man who had been tricked into helping
them conquer his planet but had subsequently developed a weapon
against them ("The Horns of Nimon"). Although sometimes
appearing more naive and less strong-willed than her previous
self - once being tricked into helping Scaroth, last of the
Jagaroth, into perfecting his time-travel technology, believing
that he simply wanted to stop his ship exploding without knowing
that explosion had actually triggered the evolution of life
on Earth ("City of Death") - Romana nevertheless
continued to demonstrate a strong sense of her own identity,
once throwing off the attempted ‘possession’ of
the notorious psi-killer Xais when Xais’s death-mask
- containing the killer’s personality - was placed on
Romana to allow Xaisto to possess her ("The
Romance of Crime").
Despite this adaptability in terms of her
ability to relate to people, Romana’s attitude continued
to be more closed-minded on some occasions; when she was accidentally
transported back to the date when a starship’s crew vanished,
she initially rejected the idea that she herself had caused
their disappearance by her own presence and awareness of events,
believing that an accident couldn’t cause itself to happen
("Festival
of Death"). While she occasionally displayed
greater technical knowledge than The Doctor - once managing
to create a sonic screwdriver that was so advanced The Doctor
attempted to switch it for his own ("The Horns of Nimon")
- The Doctor’s continued ability to think outside the
box continued to leave him with a significant advantage over
her, such as when he reprogrammed a Tachyon Regeneration Generator
with components from the TARDIS Randomiser ("The Leisure
Hive"), or when he managed to break a time loop the TARDIS
had become trapped in simply by repeating the events of the
loop before it began to repeat itself ("Meglos").
Although The Doctor’s eccentric attitude meant that his
explanations for his actions could sometimes appear strange,
such as when he claimed to be a representative of Galactic Salvage
when the TARDIS landed on two spaceships that had just collided
as a result of a hyperspace accident ("Nightmare of Eden"),
Romana’s attempts to explain her presence were regularly
fairly basic and unimaginative; her most elaborate story - that
she and The Doctor were agents of Intergalactic Espionage seeking
information about events on the spaceship Cerberus - only being
conceived as a result of her and The Doctor experiencing that
encounter in reverse (Romana having met the person she was trying
to convince after the worst of the crisis was resolved and learning
about the story she would use before she went back in time to
use it) ("Festival of Death").
Although Romana was eventually summoned back
to Gallifrey, she expressed a strong dissatisfaction with
this order, having grown beyond the other Time Lords during
her time with The Doctor and preferring to continue exploring
the universe rather than return to her old world. However,
the matter was taken out of their hands when the TARDIS, on
its way back to Gallifrey, travelled through a CVE - a Charged
Vacuum Embodiment - into the ‘parallel universe’ of
E-Space, a smaller universe with negative spatial coordinates
(“Full Circle”). Having helped The Doctor defeat
the Great Vampire ("State of Decay"), an old enemy
of the Time Lords who had escaped death by hiding in E-Space,
Romana decided to remain in E-Space to help the time-sensitive
Tharils escape slavery, resolving to be her own Romana. After
spending time in E-space helping the Tharils redevelop to
the point where they had discovered space travel, Romana had
them take her back to the vampire planet to try and arrange
peace between the peasants and the remaining human Lords,
only to be reunited with The Doctor when the Seventh
Doctor,
aided by his current companions Ace and Bernice
Summerfield, found himself
pitted against the ruthless immortal Agonal, who sought to
resurrect the Great Vampire and his followers. With the aid
of private eye Tom Dekker, The Doctor, Romana, Ace and Benny
managed to kill the resurrected vampires, Romana subsequently
returning to Gallifrey with The Doctor after helping him defeat
Agonal.
Having returned to N-Space, Romana began
a career of providing assistance for her fellow Time Lords as
a more active agent, her time with The Doctor leaving her with
a great deal of practical experience and valuable knowledge that
she could use for Gallifrey’s benefit. Following a couple
of brief out-of-sequence encounters with the Fifth Doctor when
she sent him valuable information while confronting the vampire
Time Lady Ruath ("Goth
Opera") and when her status as
a segment of the Key to Time was revealed (The Key 2 Time: "The
Chaos Pool") - the segment’s essence being ‘transferred’ back
to Astra, who had been unintentionally draining the life energy
of her people after she lost the power of the segment to sustain
herself - Romana began to introduce a more liberal policy of inviting
non-Gallifreyians to become Time Lords, the first such candidate
being the sentient Tracer Amy, who had accompanied the Fifth
Doctor on his search for the Key and subsequently saved Romana’s
life. Following this, Romana began a rapid rise to power that
culminated in her becoming President of the High Council after
the deposition of her predecessor Lady Flavia, although she was
subsequently abducted by the Daleks and held prisoner for twenty
years shortly after the election.
This captivity began her descent into a darker
persona, the soul-numbing repetition of her life leaving her so
callous that she displayed a significant lack of concern for the
death of her fellow slaves upon her escape, although she then
went on to aid the Sixth
Doctor and his companion Evelyn
Smythe in defeating the Dalek invasion of Gallifrey ("The Apocalypse Element ").
Returning to her role as President, Romana continued to lead the
Time Lords - as well as helping the Seventh Doctor and the Eighth
Doctor deal with the rescue of The Doctor’s old family
home ("Lungbarrow")
and the paradoxical survival of his current companion Charley
Pollard ("Neverland" and "Zagreus")
respectively - opening Gallifrey up to other species for the first
time as non-Gallifreyians were at last given the opportunity to
become Time Lords on a large scale. As rogue time travellers formed
the ‘Free Time’ organisation to oppose Romana’s
attempts to monopolise time travel, Romana also found herself
facing opposition from Inquisitor Darkel, prompting her to ‘hire’ The
Doctor’s other former companion Leela as her bodyguard (The
Doctor being currently exiled to another universe after he was
contaminated by anti-time ("Zagreus")) while she fought
against those Time Lords opposed to her more liberal policies.
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Romana
(1979 - 1981 & 1983) |
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| Lalla Ward |
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| Lady Sarah Ward, better known
as Lalla Ward, was born in 1951 to Viscount Bangor
and his wife Marjorie. Lalla started out not only
wanting to act, but she also had a passion for painting
and drawing so she joined the Central School of
Speech and Drama in 1967. Within a month of leaving
drama school, Lalla was cast as the vampire Helga
in the 1971 movie Vampire Circus. Other films
followed including The Prince and the Pauper in
1977. She also appeared on television including Who
Pays the Ferryman? 1977. However, Lalla Ward
became familiar to the British public through her
role in the popular historical series, The Duchess
of Duke Street. Lalla Ward then joined Doctor
Who playing the part of Princess Astra in "The
Armageddon Factor". With Mary
Tamm leaving
Lalla was asked to become Romana's second incarnation.
She played the part for about two years before leaving
in 1980. Shortly afterwards she married Tom
Baker at the Chelsea Registry Office. Sadly,
their marriage was fated to end after only sixteen
months. She continued to work in various films including Hamlet,
Prince of Denmark with Patrick Stewart in 1980.
She has also pursued a career in writing and painting
including the illustrating several books. |
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As well as facing opposition from those Time
Lords in favour of their past plans of isolation, Romana’s
presidency faced a more direct threat when an old legacy from
her past emerged in the form of Pandora, a ruthless ruler
from Gallifrey’s past whose entire reign was erased
from history when she attempted to turn Gallifrey into a conquering
empire. Aided by information from Cardinal Braxiatel - a Time
Lord who was in constant contact with his past and future
selves to acquire artefacts for his future self’s collection,
rumoured by some sources to be The Doctor’s brother
- Romana learned that she had taken on the ‘Imperiatrix
Imprimatur’ in her first incarnation, only for it to
be locked away by a hypnotic lock imposed by Braxiatel’s
future self, the lock being subsequently damaged when Romana
was tortured by the Shadow ("The Armageddon Factor")
and prompting her to regenerate to protect herself. Despite
Romana’s best efforts, Darkel’s attempts to discredit
Romana resulted in Pandora managing to escape from the Matrix
in a body based on the biodata of Romana’s first incarnation,
using the Free Time virus - a virus that infected Time Lords
and made them susceptible to the beliefs of Free Time after
regeneration - to win support for herself even among Romana’s
former allies. Although Pandora was defeated at the cost of
both the Matrix and the mental manifestation of the First
Romana, Darkel continued to pursue her own agenda, attempting
to take the presidency in an election only to be killed when
the remnants of Pandora devoured her mind, leaving Romana
to cope with one last crisis as the Free Time virus was unleashed
on a devastated Gallifrey, the only apparent way to stop the
virus being to deprive Time Lords of the ability to regenerate
- thus removing its trigger - and then recreate the species
using the biodata archive.
The Free Time virus having been averted through
as-yet-unspecified means, Romana resumed leadership of her
people until she learned of the Future War, a war that would
be waged in the future between the Time Lords and an as-yet
unidentified Enemy. Despite her darkened attitude after leading
the Time Lords against Pandora, Romana concluded that her
current incarnation lacked the necessary strength and ruthlessness
to effectively lead her people in this war, regenerating once
again into a new incarnation that would prove to be far more
ruthless than her other selves, leading her into a conflict
with the Eighth Doctor that would have far-reaching consequences
for all of Gallifrey…
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