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The Shadow in the Glass
(Justin
Richards & Stephen Cole) |
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 Name: Claire Aldwych.
Format:
Book.
Time of Origin: 2001.
Appearances: "The
Shadow in the Glass"
Doctor: Sixth
Doctor.
Fellow
Companions:
The
Brigadier.
History: Claire Aldwych is one of The Doctor’s
most tragic companions, having the potential to be a modern-day Sarah
Jane Smith - a comparison that was even made by The Doctor himself when he first
met her -, only for her time with him to be cut tragically short before
it could progress further than one adventure.
When
The Doctor met her, Claire worked as a journalist for the Conspiracy
Channel, depressed at some of the outlandish stories she found herself
sent on while nevertheless intrigued about the reality of what happened
behind the camera rather than the idea of illusions being created
in front of it, which was why she went against her mother's wishes
for her to become an actress. However, Claire’s career was
changed forever when she investigated the village of Turelhampton,
abandoned in 1944 after a plane was apparently shot down and crash-landed
in it, the town still being under military control in 2001; when
the tape she had made was examined in the aftermath, mysterious demon-like
creatures were visible around Claire that hadn’t been seen
when she had been at the village herself, prompting her to hand the
tape over to Captain Palmer of UNIT when he came to investigate her
presence at the base.
Still
reeling from recent events, Claire was shocked to receive a call
from her colleague, Brian Goldman, who, remembering a documentary
she did on the last days of Adolf Hitler, wanted to alert her to
a Nazi ceremony he’d just discovered led by a man who appeared
to be Hitler. Although Brian was killed, he was able to mail the
tape to Claire before his death - killing himself to stop the Nazis
torturing him to reveal his contacts -, prompting Claire to call
UNIT for protection. With UNIT itself occupied with containing Turelhampton
- the crashed ship revealed to be a Vvormak ship, now forced to contain
a nuclear explosion that had been detonated during their investigation
-, Claire was left in the ‘custody’ of The
Brigadier and the Sixth
Doctor, who had been called in to advise on the situation.
Although
bemused by the strange turn her world had taken, Claire came to easily
bond with her two new friends. Although she reflected The Doctor’s
dress sense suggested that he either deliberately shunned normality to
find somewhere to fit in or merely genuinely thought he looked good, she
decided that she liked him instantly. She also developed a strong affection
and respect for The Brigadier, recognising in him a commanding presence
that could be father, brother, mentor and friend to his men when he was
in the army, as well as a man who, while good at giving orders, would only
take them if he was certain they were the right thing to do at the time.
After watching Brian’s tape of the Nazi ritual, The Doctor recognised
the ‘scrying glass’ they were using to see the future as a
Vvormak ocular celluprime - used by the navigator to see the future and
avoid obstacles -, prompting him to travel back in time to investigate
the Nazi raid that had resulted in them acquiring the celluprime while
The Brigadier and Claire followed up her original research on Hitler to
determine if it was possible for him to have survived his ‘death’.
During their investigation, The Brigadier’s briefcase was stolen
by a Nazi agent, but he managed to acquire skull fragments and bodily fluids
taken from the corpses of Hitler and Eva Braun by the Russians after their
deaths, Claire tracking the briefcase thanks to a webcam she had installed
to determine that the Nazi base was somewhere snowy.
With
the skull fragments and bodily fluids now in their possession - The Doctor
and The Brigadier going back to 1942 to acquire blood samples from Hitler
and Eva to confirm their authenticity -, the three companions were able
to confirm that Hitler had died in the bunker, but that Eva Braun had been
smuggled out of Berlin due to her pregnancy, her son - Adolf Hitler Junior
- being raised to venerate his father’s memory and prepare The
Fourth Reich for war. Thanks to research she had done for an earlier documentary,
Claire correctly guessed that the Nazi base was in Antarctica, but when
the three travelled to the base in the TARDIS, they were captured by Hitler
Junior and his men. Despite the danger of their current location, The Doctor
arrogantly dismissed Hitler Junior’s philosophy as barren and antiquated,
stating that the reason he had remained in hiding to ‘plan’ for
so long was that he knew there was no place for his ideas in the modern
world while mocking his faith in the ‘scrying glass’. Outraged
at The Doctor’s defiance, Hitler Junior took him and his companions
to observe the next ritual... which showed The Doctor taking Hitler Junior
back in time to meet his father, a prediction that was fulfilled when Hitler
and his associate Hanne threatened to shoot Claire.
Having arrived in the past, The Doctor took Hitler Junior
into the bunker to meet his father, leaving The Brigadier and Claire as
Hanne’s hostages. Despite his age, The Brigadier managed to escape
from Hanne, subsequently poisoning her with cyanide he found in the base
with the hope that she would be used as the double for Eva Braun, The Doctor’s
prior contact with Hitler helping him create the impression that Hitler
Junior was only a lunatic, culminating in Hitler shooting his son in the
head and the body being dumped in the nearby water tower (The presence
of a double of Hitler in that location had been noted by The Brigadier
and Claire during their earlier research, a casual comment made by The
Brigadier inspiring Hitler to use that solution). Unfortunately, Claire
had sneaked away to explore the bunker while The Brigadier dealt with Hanne,
briefly tempted by the opportunity for such a ground-breaking story before
she accepted that she couldn’t betray her friends. Just as she was
returning to the TARDIS, however, she was caught by party secretary Martin
Bormann, Bormann killing her and using her body as the substitute for Eva
Braun. Although The Doctor and The Brigadier were able to return to the
present and convince the Vvormak to leave Earth without retaliating for
being shot down, subsequently using the information gathered from the Nazi
base to break up the remaining Nazi sleeper cells, it is clear that each
of them would remember Claire’s death as a true tragedy, The Doctor
regarding her as an innocent victim caught in the crossfire of his ‘war’ on
time and The Brigadier mourning the senselessness of the death of such
a good, innocent person for such a vile purpose. |
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