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Astrid Peth
(2007) |
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| Kylie Minogue |
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| Kylie Ann Minogue was born in May 1968. The eldest of
three children, Kylie's acting career began early, but it
was her role as Charlene in the Australian soap Neighbours (1986-1988)
which established her as an international star. Her singing career began
shortly afterwards
when she signed with PWL Records and hit-makers Stock/Aitken/Waterman
in 1987. Five albums and a greatest hits compilation followed,
and she made history by having more than 20 consecutive top ten hits
in the UK.
Her motion picture debut came with the starring role of Lola
in The
Delinquents in 1989. She left PWL Records in
1992 to follow a more mature musical direction. In 2005 she provided
the voice of Florence in the film version
of The Magic Roundabout. Then in 2007 she played the part of
Astrid Perth before returning again to pursue her pop career. |
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 Like Katarina and Claire Aldwych, Astrid Peth
will always be remembered by The Doctor as one of the companions
that never was, being a young woman who had the potential to be a
loyal long-term companion and dear friend if it weren’t for
her sacrifice during their first meeting.
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| Astrid With The Doctor |
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A native of the planet Ston - a planet with an apparently human-like
species as the dominant life forms, although operating on a far superior
technological level to Earth in the twenty-first century -, Astrid
met The Doctor when she was working as a waitress on the Starship Titanic for Max Capricorn Cruise Liners, designed as a duplicate
of Earth’s most famous ship (The tour guides’ knowledge
of Earth history was limited, to the extent that they believed England
went to war with Turkey on Christmas Eve to eat the people of Turkey
for Christmas dinner, to say nothing of the lack of knowledge of why the Titanic was famous). Having spent three years waitressing
at a space-port diner, Astrid had always wanted to travel the stars
and experience more than what she had encountered so far, but was
only able to go anywhere while still waiting tables on the ship.
While in orbit around Earth, Astrid encountered the Tenth
Doctor - the TARDIS having run into the Titanic while he was repairing the
ship after The Master cannibalised it to make a Paradox Machine (The
Sound of Drums/Last of the Time Lords"), The Doctor decided
to check the Titanic out in more detail out of curiosity - when he
helped her pick up a broken glass, the two quickly bonding over their
mutual desire for travel, to the point where The Doctor participated
in a trip down to Earth just so that Astrid could see another planet.
Unfortunately, the trip was cut short when the teleporters that took
the passengers to Earth were shut down - the tour group being automatically
recalled to the ship -, followed by the Titanic shields being lowered
just in time to be struck by a meteor storm, destroying most of the
ship and killing several passengers.
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| Astrid |
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With the TARDIS falling to Earth after the destruction of the section
it had materialised in, and the Titanic’s engines rapidly losing
power, The Doctor was forced to lead a small group of survivors to
the bridge, determined to save them and stop the Titanic from crashing
into Earth as its nuclear storm-drive would destroy all life on the
planet if it detonated. As the passengers fought to escape death
at the hands of the Host - the angel-like robots that served as information
sources, now apparently programmed to kill all surviving passengers
-, The Doctor grew more attached to Astrid as he witnessed her compassion
for a cyborg despite her peoples’ prejudice against them. Further
drawn to The Doctor after his admission that Earth had become his
new home after the loss of his original one, Astrid not only expressed
a wish to continue travelling with The Doctor after this crisis,
was over but even gave him a kiss for luck as he departed to confront
the Host’s master.
Armed with an EMP generator salvaged from a cyborg passenger who
had given his life to save the others, Astrid was able to lead the
rest of their group to safety. Despite the risk to herself, Astrid
convinced the others to provide her with a working teleportation
bracelet to allow her to help The Doctor, witnessing his confrontation
with Max Capricorn - the controller of the Host, reduced to a cyborg
life-support system and attempting to stage a disaster to bankrupt
his company after being voted out by the board by crashing Titanic and destroying Earth -, subsequently driving Max into the ship’s
engines with a fork-lift truck to save The Doctor, sacrificing herself
in the process.
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| Kissing The Doctor |
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Although The Doctor was able to subsequently save the Titanic and
the remaining few passengers - thanks in no small part to the Host
now regarding him as the controller with Max’s death having
left him the highest source of authority on the ship, allowing him
to reach the bridge and use the heat of re-entry to fire up the ship’s
secondary engines -, his attempts to rescue Astrid by using the emergency
recall circuit in her bracelet failed, the system being too badly
damaged to fully reconstitute Astrid’s body and mind. With
no way to save her physically, The Doctor instead used the sonic
screwdriver to disperse the last of Astrid’s consciousness,
sending her out to wander the universe forever as she’d wanted.
Although he regretted his inability to save her life, The Doctor
was comforted by the advice of fellow survivor Mr Copper, who noted
that The Doctor would be a monster if he could choose who lived and
died, The Doctor helping Mr Copper start a new life on Earth - there
being nothing for Mr Copper back on his homeworld - before he departed,
both of them promising each other that they would always remember
Astrid’s sacrifice.
Even after regenerating and experiencing other losses, The Doctor continues to remember Astrid; when the Eleventh Doctor faced The Shroud ("Shroud of Sorrow"), a being that fed on grief by manifesting as the faces of deceased loved ones to torment its victims, it first appeared to him by manifesting Astrid’s face in a reflection in a pool of water in the TARDIS, demonstrating the scale of her impact on him even after experiencing other losses since then.
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