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Dr Grace
Holloway
(1996) |
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| Daphne Ashbrook |
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Daphne Ashbrook was born in Long Beach, California, United
States of America.
Television roles include an episode
of Knight Rider (1984), an episode
of The A-Team (1985), 4 episodes of Falcon Crest (1983 – 1988).
She is best known, though for her appearance in Star Trek: Deep
Space Nine (playing the
part of Ensign Melora Pazlar in the 1993 episode "Melora").
Since appearing Doctor Who Daphne Ashbrook
has appeared in 5 episodes of JAG (1995 – 2008), 5 episodes
of The O.C. playing the pivotal recurring role of Dawn Atwood
(2003 - 2006), CSI (2005), Crossing Jordan (2005), an
episode of Cold Case (2007) and the 2009
film The
Lodger.
She returned to Doctor Who in 2004 playing the part of
Perfection in the Big Finish Productions audio play "The
Next Life" with Paul
McGann. |
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 Grave Hollaway is widely remembered among
fans as The Doctor’s first recorded kiss, marking the first companion
whom it was ever even hinted that The Doctor was more than
just friends with, although their initial meeting left it unlikely that
they would
ever have that kind of relationship with each other.
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| The TV Movie |
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When
The Doctor first encountered Grace, she was a heart surgeon
at a San Francisco hospital, being brought in to
examine the Seventh
Doctor after he was shot by a gang when
the TARDIS materialised in the middle of their attempts to
shoot a young man called Chang Lee. Although the bullets
themselves hadn’t been fatal - one hitting his shoulder
and another two hitting his leg - The Doctor’s erratic
heartbeat caused The Doctors operating on him to assume that
there was something wrong with him, only for Grace to end
up killing him during her attempt to examine him due to her
unfamiliarity with Gallifreyian physiology, the anaesthetic
she’d been using delaying The Doctor’s regeneration
for several hours.
As Grace left the hospital the
next morning, outraged by her boss’s attempts to dismiss
the previous night’s
events - with the Seventh Doctor’s body having ‘vanished’ her
supervisor had decided to destroy the evidence - she was
met by the newly-regenerated and amnesic Eighth Doctor, who
attempted to ask for her assistance. Although she initially
dismissed him as a madman, when The Doctor pulled out the
probe that she’d been using to examine his heart the
previous night Grace proved more willing to listen to him,
taking him home - learning that her now-ex-boyfriend Brian
had left after she vanished in the middle of a date to operate
on The Doctor, taking most of his stuff - and examining his
hearts and blood.
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| The TV Movie |
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Generally a warm and compassionate person,
Grace had become frustrated with her life due to her inability
to hold back
death - the reason she became a doctor in the first place
- often putting on a cold front to protect herself. However,
although sceptical of The Doctor’s claims to be an
alien during her time with him, she came to appreciate his
eighth self’s enthusiasm for life as he recalled watching
a meteor storm with his father - possibly a reference to
Quences ("Lungbarrow") - as a child, even responding
to his kiss when he recalled his true identity. While she
resumed her original diagnosis of insanity when The Doctor
realised that The Master - having stolen the body of a paramedic
- had opened the Eye of Harmony with the intention of destroying
Earth and stealing The Doctor’s body, dismissing him
as a madman until she saw The Master in action.
Although
Grace aided The Doctor in stealing a vital piece of technology
needed to repair the TARDIS, subsequently helping
him prepare to program the ship to undo the damage caused
by opening the Eye, she was hypnotised by The Master and
used against The Doctor, only throwing off The Master’s
control at the last minute in time to put the TARDIS into
a temporal orbit - essentially ‘freezing’ time
in the moment before Earth was destroyed - allowing The Doctor
to defeat his enemy, The Master falling into the Eye during
the struggle. After materialising back on Earth, The Doctor
offered Grace the chance to travel with him, but she declined,
the two parting ways after sharing one last kiss.
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| The TV Movie |
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Although
Grace has never made an official return to the series, she
made a brief appearance in the short story anthology "Perfect
Timing" in the story "Doctor Patient Relationship:
Vampire Science - Second Draft Chapter 1", the original
first chapter for the novel "Vampire
Science",
where, after taking a trip to an alien planet with The Doctor
only to be unable to help an injured alien, Grace decided
to remain on Earth as she felt she could more easily make
a difference there. On another occasion, The Doctor invited her for a more peaceful trip to see the sights on various worlds ("Prisoners of Time"), but despite Grace helping him deal with an alien race who had brought peace to a warring planet simply to use the local population as organ donors, she still felt that the highs and lows of The Doctor’s life were too much for her (Particularly when she was subsequently abducted by future ex-companion Adam Mitchell as part of his revenge against The Doctor). However, it was implied in "So
Vile a Sin" that The Doctor’s relationship with Grace
progressed significantly further in an alternate timeline,
the novel featuring a reference to an alternate Doctor -
created by a Nexus into alternate realities created by multiple
human psis in one place - who lived in San Francisco with
his wife; although neither was expressly identified, the
implication that The Doctor’s wife was Grace seems
obvious.
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