L is for... Leela

Companion to the Fourth Doctor. Leela was a member of the tribe of the Sevateem, who lived on an unnamed primordial planet. She was a descendant of the Mordee Expedition - colonists from Earth who crash-landed here generations ago.

Over the years the party became separated, a situation compounded by their ship's computer - Xoanon - which had been repaired by the Doctor using part of his own personality. The Survey Team evolved into the Sevateem - who lived a natural hunter-gatherer existence in the jungles - whilst the spaceship technicians became the Tesh - who remained within the vessel and maintained an ascetic existence.

Xoanon wished to conduct an experiment in eugenics with the two factions.

Leela spoke out against Xoanon, whom the tribe believed to be their god, held captive of the Tesh. For this she was sentenced to face the Test of the Horda (small flesh-eating creatures). When she hesitated from accepting this her father, Sole, took it for her and perished when he failed.

Leela was then banished into the jungle, where monsters were said to dwell. High Priest Neeva sent assassins after her. In the jungle she encountered the newly arrived Doctor, who had forgotten all about his previous visit. This had left a mark, however, as his face was now associated with the "Evil One" responsible for Xoanon's captivity.

Leela quickly came to realise that the Doctor posed no threat, and so decided to accompany him. At one point she was stabbed by a janis thorn. These plant spikes contained a deadly toxin which paralysed then killed within seconds. The Doctor was able to use discarded Mordee equipment to find an antidote. Leela employed these thorns as weapons - something which the Doctor greatly disapproved of, along with her skills with the knife and the crossbow.

After Xoanon had been repaired, Leela refused to become leader of a reunited Sevateem / Tesh society. Instead she pushed her way into the TARDIS and operated the dematerialisation circuit - joining the Doctor on his travels.

Their first destination was a bleak desert world where they encountered a mobile factory crewed by robots, with only a small humanoid command staff. Leela thought the Doctor's yo-yo was some sort of magic, which made the TARDIS travel. Over the course of their time together, she began to understand that the universe operated through science rather than magic. Leela used her hunting instincts to identify crew member Poul as concealing his true purpose on the Sandminer.

The Doctor next took Leela to Victorian London to see how her ancestors used to live, as part of his efforts to educate her. She dispensed with her usual animal skins to do appropriate period dress.

The Doctor excused her odd manners by claiming she had been found floating down the Amazon in a hat box. She swapped places with a captive of the deformed scientist Magnus Greel, and twice almost fell victim to his life-force draining machinery.

Another attempt to visit her ancestors saw Leela and the Doctor arrive on Fang Rock, a tiny island off the southern coast of England. Here she shocked the Edwardian crew and the survivors of a shipwreck by wearing male apparel. She took great pride in helping to kill the alien Rutan which had started killing everyone on the Rock. Curiosity caused her to watch the explosion of the Rutan mothership. The blast blinded her and she asked the Doctor to put her out of her misery. However, the effect was only temporary, though it did cause her eyes to change colour from brown to blue.

When the TARDIS came under attack by the Nucleus of the Swarm - an aggressive alien virus - Leela was unaffected as it was noetic, seeking out mental energy. Her lack of education meant she wasn't terribly cerebral, being more instinctive in nature. She and the Doctor were cloned and miniaturised in order to be injected into the Doctor's body to fight the Nucleus at its source. When this clone died, it passed natural antibodies into his blood stream, from which an anti-virus could be formulated. Leela was helped by Professor Marius' dog-shaped mobile computer K9 whilst the Doctor was unconscious. After the Nucleus had been defeated Marius announced that he was unable to take K9 home to Earth with him. Leela asked if it could be taken in the TARDIS. Before the Doctor could response, it entered the TARDIS by itself - just as Leela had done. K9 formed a closer bond with Leela than it did with the Doctor.

The Doctor continued to educate Leela whilst they travelled, including teaching her to read and write.

On Earth in the late 20th Century she also formed a bond with an old lady named Ma Tyler - recognising in her the 'Wise Woman' figure of her own tribal society.

On the planet Pluto she was captured by the authorities and sentenced to be steamed to death, but was rescued by the Doctor and his new allies. Leela as now using her knife to wound and disable enemies, rather than to kill, and she had dispensed with the janis thorns after their trip to Victorian London.

Leela was shocked one day to find the Doctor seemingly acting against her, after the TARDIS had rendezvoused with an alien spaceship. They then travelled to Gallifrey where the Doctor assumed the Presidency of the High Council. He had Leela ejected from the Capitol. In the wilderness she found a group of Gallifreyans who had rejected Time Lord society, and helped them form an army to retake the Capitol from Vardan invaders - and later Sontaran troops. The Doctor had been forced to send her away to stop the Vardans reading her mind. During the battle she met and fell in love with Andred, Commander of the Chancellery Guard. When it came time for the Doctor to depart, she elected to stay behind and marry Andred - and K9 announced that it would also be staying to look after her.

Leela was mentioned by the Doctor when he visited Gallifrey in his Fifth incarnation, at the time of the Omega crisis, though she was not seen in the Capitol at that time. Nor was she seen on the occasion when the five incarnations of the Doctor were transported to the Death Zone. 

When the Doctor was having his memories drained by the Daleks in order to create a replicant of him, he failed to imagine Leela amongst his companions. This may have been deliberate as he knew her to be on Gallifrey and might be able to identify and stop the fake Doctor had the Dalek plan succeeded. 

We do not know what - if any - her role was in the Last Great Time War, and with Gallifrey now destroyed by the Master, her ultimate fate is unknown.

Played by: Louise Jameson. Appearances: The Face of Evil (1977) to The Invasion of Time (1978).

• Initially, writer Chris Boucher actually developed the male character of Tomas to fulfil the companion role in The Face of Evil rather than Leela.
• Intended for one story only, it was decided to keep her until the end of the season, when a new Victorian character might replace her. 
• Keeping her on as the regular companion led to a dispute between Boucher and the production team over payments for the character. Normally the companion was developed by the production team and belonged to them, but she had wholly come out of a story and so belonged to its writer.
• She was named after the Palestinian hijacker Laila Khaled.
• Unhappy with having to wear red contact lenses to make her eyes appear brown (her name meaning "dark eyed beauty") Jameson insisted on ditching these as a condition for staying on for Season 15 - hence the incident at the conclusion to Horror of Fang Rock.
• Presumably the TARDIS was itself responsible for dematerialising with Leela on board in The Face of Evil. There is no way she could have found the right control straight away. The ship might help select companions when the Doctor is travelling alone.
• The production team considered killing Leela off in The Sun Makers.
• Graham Williams later claimed that her departure in The Invasion of Time was so poorly handled because he was very annoyed with Jameson for turning down another season.
• In order to ease viewers through the departure of Tom Baker, producer JNT asked Lis Sladen to return as Sarah Jane Smith. When she declined he then asked Jameson to reprise Leela. She also declined, but later admitted that she regretted this decision.
• Leela was eventually seen again - in Dimensions in Time, though it is actually Romana looking like Leela, or something...
• Leela has continued to be performed by Jameson on audio with Big Finish, in Fourth Doctor adventures as well as the Gallifrey spin-off.