Loving the Thirteenth Doctor? Check Out These 5 Other Time Ladies

Bobbie goodman
TV Doctor Who
TV Doctor Who

The BBC made history last year when it cast Jodie Whittaker as the Doctor, a role that’s been held by many different men over the past 50 plus years. Even though female Time Lords — dubbed Time Ladies — have been in the Doctor Who universe since the show’s inception, we’re only now getting a female Doctor. So, to celebrate the Thirteenth Doctor’s spectacular first series, here are five other Time Ladies to check out while geeking out over Jodie Whittaker’s Doctor.

Susan Foreman

Susan Foreman Doctor Who

Though Time Ladies seem like a somewhat new addition to Doctor Who, they’ve been around since the very beginning. Susan, the Doctor’s granddaughter, was one of the first characters to appear in Doctor Who, predating her granddad by a few minutes. She accompanied the First Doctor on many adventures alongside fellow companions Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright.

During her early adventures with the Doctor, she longed to be a normal Earth teen. She enrolled at Coal Hill School, meeting future companions Ian and Barbara. Together, the four enjoyed many exciting adventures. She fell in love with a man named David Campbell, leaving the TARDIS and her grandfather for the vast remainder of her life. Sadly, she’s thought to have died during the Time War along with much of the Doctor’s family.

Romana

Romana Doctor Who

Romanadvoratrelundar, or “Romana” for short, was a companion of the Fourth Doctor, joining him in his quest for the Key of Time. Following the completion of their quest, she stayed with him and enjoyed more adventures, even taking part in a regeneration. Romana is best known for being the first non-relative Time Lady to travel with the Doctor for a prolonged period. Though less eccentric, she has an equal intelligence to the Doctor.

Together with the Doctor and K9, Romana went on many different adventures and encountered many of the Doctor’s greatest foes, including the Daleks. Although she eventually left the Doctor, her story didn’t end. She later became Lady President of Gallifrey, the most powerful position on the Time Lords’/Ladies’ homeworld. She held this position through another regeneration, but her overall fate is unknown. However, Rumors exist that she survived the Time War.

Jenny

Jenny Doctor's daughter Doctor Who

Jenny, derived from “genetic anomaly,” came into existence following a forcefully taken skin sample from the Tenth Doctor on the planet Messaline. The sample was used in a progenation machine that created soldiers for a small group of humans who had been in a seven-day war with the Hath. Though the Doctor was extremely apprehensive to trust her due to the nature of her creation, he eventually chose to trust her at the encouragement of Donna Noble and Martha Jones.

The Doctor and Jenny worked together throughout his unintentional involvement in the human-Hath war. She was briefly unsure what side to take, but she eventually chose to side with the Doctor and assisted him in making peace between the two sides. Sadly, she got caught in the crossfire before the situation was resolved and died. Unknown to the Doctor, she regenerated shortly afterward, stealing a spaceship (not unlike her father with the TARDIS) to set off on her own exploration of the universe.

River Song

River Song Doctor Who

This one might be cheating a bit considering River is part-human, part-Time Lord, but she still counts as a Time Lady in our books. River, whose given name is Melody Pond, was the daughter of Amy Pond and Rory Williams as well as the Doctor’s wife. Because of her and the Doctor’s counter-directional timestreams, she always seemed to know more about the Doctor than he did of her. Regardless, the pair still fell in love and married with an alternate reality crumbling around them.

River Song first met the Tenth Doctor in the Library, a planet-sized archive of every piece of literature in the universe. Sadly, River sacrificed herself to save the Doctor and Donna. However, due to their opposing timestreams, she and the Eleventh Doctor enjoyed many more adventures after/before her death, encountering the Weeping Angels and the Silence. The Twelfth Doctor and River later met shortly before her death and spent a 24-year-long “night” on Darillium. Because of their convoluted timestreams, this was the last meeting where they both fully knew each other.

Missy

Missy Doctor Who with a Dalek

Short for “Mistress,” Missy is the nineteenth incarnation of the Master, one of the Doctor’s oldest friends and foes. She came about after she fatally stabbed her previous incarnation and forced him to regenerate into her. Though she has a very cruel and ruthless personality, she seems oddly more enamored with the Doctor then many of her previous forms. Like her previous incarnations, she isn’t above resorting to manipulation to get her way.

Her first meeting with the Twelfth Doctor came after he and Clara Oswald were trying to find Clara’s boyfriend, Danny Pink, following his death. Although she initially seemed friendly, her true plan was to convert all of earth’s corpses into Cybermen. After her plan was foiled, she later went with the Doctor and Clara to a recreated Skaro to meet Davros. She attempted to trick the Doctor into killing Clara, but her plans were once again foiled. Despite her deception and imprisonment within the Vault under the Doctor’s watch, she eventually gained his tentative trust. Unfortunately, this trust was short-lived, and she met her end with her betrayal of the Doctor and Bill Potts and her death at the hands of her previous incarnation soon after she stabbed him.