Romana

Romanadvoratrelundar, better known as Romana, was a Time Lady historian who travelled with the Doctor after being assigned to him as an assistant by the White Guardian during the search for the Key to Time. Having parted from the Doctor to free the Tharils of E-Space from slavery, she would later ascend to the presidency of Gallifrey.

Romana's first incarnation

Romana's second incarnation

Early life

As a "Time Tot," she had a copy of the nursery book Our Planet's Story. At her induction ceremony into the Time Academy, she mouthed the words of the pledge "like everyone else." ("Shada")

On her seventieth birthday, she received the present of an air car. She learned that by realigning its magnetic vectors and fitting a polarity oscillator it would get twice the speed for half the energy. (DW: "The Pirate Planet")

She spent a period working in the Bureau of Ancient Records where she came across a reference to the Record of Rassilon in an old data book. While at the Academy, she studied the life cycle of the Gallifreyan flutterwing. Graduating with a triple first, she had not yet completed her thesis when she was sent on a mission to recover the Key to Time by the Lord President of the Supreme Council, who was actually the White Guardian adopting the real President's form. (DW: "State of Decay", "The Pirate Planet", "The Ribos Operation", "The Stones of Blood")

Appendices

Appearances

• Doctor Who:
  • "The Ribos Operation"
  • "The Pirate Planet"
  • "The Stones of Blood"
  • "The Androids of Tara"
  • "The Power of Kroll"
  • "The Armageddon Factor"
  • "Destiny of the Daleks"
  • "City of Death"
  • "The Creature from the Pit"
  • "Nightmare of Eden"
  • "The Horns of Nimon"
  • "The Leisure Hive"
  • "Meglos"
  • "Full Circle"
  • "State of Decay"
  • "Warriors' Gate"
  • "Logopolis" (archive footage only)
  • "The Five Doctors"
  • "Resurrection of the Daleks" (archive footage only)
  • "The Day of the Doctor" (photograph)
  • "The Zygon Inversion" (photograph)
• "Shada"
• Meanwhile in the TARDIS: "Scene 2" (visual record)
• Destiny of the Doctor: "Babblesphere"
• "Clara and the TARDIS" (visual record)

References

• Doctor Who:
  • "Castrovalva"
  • "Earthshock"
  • "Arc of Infinity"

Background

In producer Graham Williams' 10 October 1977 character outline of Romana, the following is written:

"For the next season of Doctor Who, the Doctor will have a new Companion to assist in his quest for the Key to Time. She will be allocated to him by a Guardian of Time, initially against his own will and better judgement. She will, however, as the season progresses, prove her worth.

"Romanadvoratrelundar, to give her full name, will not enjoy the full use of that name when she is with the Doctor. She will initially be furious at his insistences on the diminutive 'Romana' and even more furious at his sometimes mischievous further foreshortening to 'Romy.'

"This will however provide part of the key to the developing relationship which will form between Romana and the Doctor.

"Romana is an acolyte Time Lord (Time Lords still refuse to admit to an official title, Time Lady) who has been brought up to believe entirely in the Time Lords' principles of non-intervention and academic observation. She has been firmly placed in the Gallifreyan Groves of Academe and knows nothing of other worldly matters. She will, at first, be horrified at the Doctor's dismissal of the Codes of Practice which have been instilled into her education. As the season progresses, however, she will grow to appreciate the Doctor's sense of commitment and his breadth of vision. He, in turn, will be reminded of the youthful approach to problems and situations which, on occasion, will slip by his more sophisticated approach. He will be sometimes surprised, and even annoyed, at her knowledge of later techniques than were available to him during his undergraduate years.

"Physically, Romana is a beautiful girl with an earthly appearance of about twenty years - she may, at the end of the season, be due for her first regeneration, which would make her, in Gallifreyan terms, a mere hundred and forty year old slip of a girl. She possesses the virtues of youthful impetuousness, courage, agility - and an agility not only of body, but also of mind. She can therefore be expected to overcome the hidebound nature of her upbringing and slowly adapt to new patterns of thought and behaviour. Hence her selection by the Guardian. She will, for example, eventually see the sense in the Doctor's rather biting criticisms of her wearing the full-length dress as being somewhat impractical and will, to his astonishment, hack it off above the knee to give herself more freedom of movement.

"The Doctor will, as always, mistrust anyone's judgement but his own. He may, therefore, not give Romana the full facts of any situation, but try, even, to mislead her. As he grows to know and respect her through her own powers of logic and deduction he will combine his own formidable powers with her latent talents.

"Whilst her vulnerability will be born of inexperience, that same inexperience provides her with a freedom of temperament which, when unleashed, makes her actions as unpredictable and mischievous as the Doctor's. She is, in short, the perfect foil to the Doctor in any situation throughout Time and Space.