J is for... Jones, Tish

 

Letitia "Tish" Jones was the older sister of Martha Jones, who travelled with the Tenth Doctor. 

She was just outside the Royal Hope Hospital, where Martha worked, when she saw that the rain falling on the building appeared to be going upwards rather than falling down. She was on the phone with Martha at the time, and warned her of this. She then saw the hospital vanish - transplanted to the Moon by the Judoon.

It returned a few hours later, and Tish met up with her sister at little brother Leo's 21st birthday party that night. The next day Tish took up a new job working as a publicist for Professor Richard Lazarus. She featured on TV alongside the scientist at a press conference, which the Doctor and Martha saw - prompting them to attend Lazarus' demonstration that evening. The professor attempted to woo Tish, first as an old man, and then as a younger man after taking part in his rejuvenation experiment. 

When Lazarus mutated into a savage monster, Tish accompanied Martha and the Doctor to the nearby Southwark Cathedral, where the creature was destroyed. 

Lazarus' work was being financed by the politician Harold Saxon, and Tish very quickly found herself being employed by him at Downing Street following his landslide election victory. However, Saxon was really the Master, and he had employed her purely in order to make her capture easier. He arrested the whole family, as a means to get at Martha and the Doctor. Tish and her parents were held on the Valiant aircraft base of the Master for a year, forced to work as his servants. She helped Captain Jack Harkness escape in a failed attempt to free the Doctor. The whole year was wiped out of history by the breaking of a temporal paradox - except for those who, like Tish, had been at its heart.

Martha left the TARDIS in order to help Tish and the rest of her family cope with the trauma of their imprisonment.

Played by: Gugu Mbatha-Raw. Appearances: Smith and Jones, The Lazarus Experiment, The Sound of Drums, Last of the Time Lords (2007).

• Like many actors who first came to prominence in Doctor Who, Mbatha-Raw has gone on to a successful career in the USA, including a role with Marvel in the Loki TV series.