Mother of the Doctor's companion Donna, and daughter of Wilf Mott, Sylvia was also the widow of Geoff Noble. Following his death, she and Donna shared a home with Wilf.
She first came into contact with the Doctor when Donna was transported from her wedding at a Chiswick church to the orbiting TARDIS. She and Geoff went ahead with the reception, despite the absence of the bride.
Sylvia could have a domineering personality, imposing her will on both her daughter and her father. She failed to support Donna in both her romantic and employment aspirations, believing she should set her sights more realistically. She did not want her to join the big city firm of HC Clements, thinking that a post in a local office was more her level.
This event would later be manipulated by the Trickster, using a Time Beetle, to change Donna's timeline.
Instead of attending the HC Clements interview, Donna never got to meet the Doctor - who met his death fighting the Racnoss. In this timeline, Sylvia saw London destroyed whilst she, Donna and Wilf were on a country hotel break. They were relocated as refugees to Leeds, having to share a small terrace house with two other families.
Despite brief moments of respite, the experience totally wore Sylvia down. Fortunately, this alternate timeline was corrected by the intervention of that universe's Rose Tyler and UNIT.
When Donna met the Docor again, when both were investigating Adipose Industries, Sylvia was to witness an alien intervention first hand. One of her best friends was taking the Adipose weight loss pills. On one of their weekly girls' nights out, the Adipose birth cycle was activated and Sylvia saw her friend begin expel the baby creatures.
Later that night, Donna went off in the TARDIS, leaving her mother to retrieve their abandoned car.
A short while later, the planet came under attack by the Sontarans and Sylvia was confronted by the Doctor - recognising him from the aborted wedding reception. She discovered that Wilf knew about her travels but had kept it secret from her - knowing she would never have approved.
She and her father then experienced the removal of the Earth to another part of the cosmos - and an invasion by the Daleks. She went out on the streets with Wilf, who was armed with a paint-gun, knowing that Donna might be out there, in danger. Both were saved by the arrival of Rose Tyler, come from the "Pete's World" dimension. Rose wanted to participate in a video conference, but Wilf explained that his daughter had banned him from having a web-cam.
When Donna was returned home after having her memories wiped, due to the human / Time Lord metacrisis, the Doctor was quite sharp with Sylvia - telling her to appreciate her daughter a lot more.
She and Wilf were informed of the danger to Donna should she recall any of her time with the Doctor.
When the Master replaced the entire population of the Earth with versions of himself, Sylvia was one of those affected - along with her soon-to-be son-in-law Shaun Temple.
The Doctor later attended the marriage, at a discreet distance. He gave Donna a winning lottery ticket for a wedding present - bought with money borrowed from Geoff Noble.
Many years later, Sylvia was shocked when the Doctor came back into their lives on the night a spaceship crashed in Chiswick. In the interim, Donna had given all her winnings to various charities. She was still with Shaun, who drove a taxi for a living, and they had a grown-up daughter named Rose.
Wilf was now in sheltered accommodation.
Sylvia was naturally worried about the metacrisis, and witnessed their home being destroyed by aliens, but it transpired that the birth of Rose had actually corrected the issue. Its effects had been shared and could be harnessed by the pair - as they demonstrated by the defeat of the Meep.
Following the Doctor's bigeneration, the original Doctor decided to settle down on earth for a while - becoming part of the Temple-Noble family - his previous fractious relationship with Sylvia now happily resolved.
Played by: Jacqueline King. Appearances: The Runaway Bride (2006), Series 4 - various (2008), The End of Time (2008/9), The Star Beast, The Giggle (2023).
- King quickly became an ambassador for the series. She has narrated audio-books and appeared in Big Finish productions, as well as chaperoning young visitors to events at Cardiff.
- She and the late Bernard Cribbens partnered up for a celebrity edition of quiz show Pointless. They won, with King donating her half of the prize money to Northumbrian life boats - a charity her father had supported. She herself had once been saved by an RNLI lifeboat.
- She was offered a role in the unofficial Sil spin-off The Devil Seeds of Arodor, but turned it down.
- In 2017 she portrayed ex-PM Theresa May in a TV drama.
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