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Romana
(1979 - 1981 & 1983) |
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| Lalla Ward |
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| Lady Sarah Ward, better known
as Lalla Ward, was born in 1951 to Viscount Bangor
and his wife Marjorie. Lalla started out not only
wanting to act, but she also had a passion for painting
and drawing so she joined the Central School of
Speech and Drama in 1967. Within a month of leaving
drama school, Lalla was cast as the vampire Helga
in the 1971 movie Vampire Circus. Other films
followed including The Prince and the Pauper in
1977. She also appeared on television including Who
Pays the Ferryman? 1977. However, Lalla Ward
became familiar to the British public through her
role in the popular historical series, The Duchess
of Duke Street. Lalla Ward then joined Doctor
Who playing the part of Princess Astra in "The
Armageddon Factor". With Mary
Tamm leaving
Lalla was asked to become Romana's second incarnation.
She played the part for about two years before leaving
in 1980. Shortly afterwards she married Tom
Baker at the Chelsea Registry Office. Sadly,
their marriage was fated to end after only sixteen
months. She continued to work in various films including Hamlet,
Prince of Denmark with Patrick Stewart in 1980.
She has also pursued a career in writing and painting
including the illustrating several books. |
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 Following her departure from Atrios with The
Doctor, Romana - still in her first incarnation - decided to
regenerate into a new form, although the reasons for this transformation
vary from damage sustained by the Shadow’s torture, to
her transformation into the new sixth segment, to attempting
to prevent an ancient Gallifreyian evil gaining control of her
mind. Regardless of the reasons for her regeneration, having
settled upon a form for her latest incarnation, this new Romana
made a stark contrast to her predecessor, proving to be a far
different companion for The Doctor than her predecessor had
been.
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| Destiny of the Daleks |
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While the first Romana had
always had always stuck to a specific pattern of clothing in
the form of various elaborate
dresses
or other forms of finery, the second Romana adopted a far
more varying, casual style of attire, once adopting a pink-and-white
version of the Fourth
Doctor’s chosen attire ("Destiny
of the Daleks") and on another occasion wearing a schoolgirl-style
outfit ("City
of Death"), although she was known
to wear more elegant clothing ("The
Creature from the Pit"). In general, her clothing in this incarnation consisted
of an alternating style between elegant and casual; on one
occasion she was even seen wearing a variation of the Third Doctor’s chosen clothing of frilled shirts and velvet
jackets ("The
Well-Mannered War"), while another
adventure saw her donning a sailor-like outfit ("The
Leisure Hive"), her choice of clothing varying with no
apparent consistency between her reasons for choosing one
outfit over another.
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| City of Death |
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This Romana also found it easier to relate
to the people she encountered in their travels; while her
first incarnation had generally remained rather haughty and
assured of herself even when being held captive, the new Romana
was more willing to take the advice of others and work with
them, such as when she formed an alliance against the ruthless
Nimon with Sozem, a man who had been tricked into helping
them conquer his planet but had subsequently developed a weapon
against them ("The
Horns of Nimon"). Although sometimes
appearing more naive and less strong-willed than her previous
self - once being tricked into helping Scaroth, last of the
Jagaroth, into perfecting his time-travel technology, believing
that he simply wanted to stop his ship exploding without knowing
that explosion had actually triggered the evolution of life
on Earth ("City of Death") - Romana nevertheless
continued to demonstrate a strong sense of her own identity,
once throwing off the attempted ‘possession’ of
the notorious psi-killer Xais when Xais’s death-mask
- containing the killer’s personality - was placed on
Romana to allow Xaisto to possess her ("The
Romance of Crime").
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| Nightmare of Eden |
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Despite this adaptability in terms of her
ability to relate to people, Romana’s attitude continued
to be more closed-minded on some occasions; when she was accidentally
transported back to the date when a starship’s crew vanished,
she initially rejected the idea that she herself had caused
their disappearance by her own presence and awareness of events,
believing that an accident couldn’t cause itself to happen
("Festival
of Death"). While she occasionally displayed
greater technical knowledge than The Doctor - once managing
to create a sonic screwdriver that was so advanced The Doctor
attempted to switch it for his own ("The Horns of Nimon")
- The Doctor’s continued ability to think outside the
box continued to leave him with a significant advantage over
her, such as when he reprogrammed a Tachyon Regeneration Generator
with components from the TARDIS Randomiser ("The Leisure
Hive"), or when he managed to break a time loop the TARDIS
had become trapped in simply by repeating the events of the
loop before it began to repeat itself ("Meglos").
Although The Doctor’s eccentric attitude meant that his
explanations for his actions could sometimes appear strange,
such as when he claimed to be a representative of Galactic Salvage
when the TARDIS landed on two spaceships that had just collided
as a result of a hyperspace accident ("Nightmare
of Eden"),
Romana’s attempts to explain her presence were regularly
fairly basic and unimaginative; her most elaborate story - that
she and The Doctor were agents of Intergalactic Espionage seeking
information about events on the spaceship Cerberus - only being
conceived as a result of her and The Doctor experiencing that
encounter in reverse (Romana having met the person she was trying
to convince after the worst of the crisis was resolved and learning
about the story she would use before she went back in time to
use it) ("Festival of Death").
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| State of Decay |
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Although Romana was eventually summoned back
to Gallifrey, she expressed a strong dissatisfaction with
this order, having grown beyond the other Time Lords during
her time with The Doctor and preferring to continue exploring
the universe rather than return to her old world. However,
the matter was taken out of their hands when the TARDIS, on
its way back to Gallifrey, travelled through a CVE - a Charged
Vacuum Embodiment - into the ‘parallel universe’ of
E-Space, a smaller universe with negative spatial coordinates
("Full
Circle"). Having helped The Doctor defeat
the Great Vampire ("State
of Decay"), an old enemy
of the Time Lords who had escaped death by hiding in E-Space,
Romana decided to remain in E-Space to help the time-sensitive
Tharils escape slavery, resolving to be her own Romana. After
spending time in E-space helping the Tharils redevelop to
the point where they had discovered space travel, Romana had
them take her back to the vampire planet to try and arrange
peace between the peasants and the remaining human Lords,
only to be reunited with The Doctor when the Seventh
Doctor,
aided by his current companions Ace and Bernice
Summerfield, found himself
pitted against the ruthless immortal Agonal, who sought to
resurrect the Great Vampire and his followers. With the aid
of private eye Tom Dekker, The Doctor, Romana, Ace and Benny
managed to kill the resurrected vampires, Romana subsequently
returning to Gallifrey with The Doctor after helping him defeat
Agonal.
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| Shada |
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Having returned to N-Space, Romana began
a career of providing assistance for her fellow Time Lords as
a more active agent, her time with The Doctor leaving her with
a great deal of practical experience and valuable knowledge that
she could use for Gallifrey’s benefit. Following a couple
of brief out-of-sequence encounters with the Fifth Doctor when
she sent him valuable information while confronting the vampire
Time Lady Ruath ("Goth
Opera") and when her status as
a segment of the Key to Time was revealed (The Key 2 Time: "The
Chaos Pool") - the segment’s essence being ‘transferred’ back
to Astra, who had been unintentionally draining the life energy
of her people after she lost the power of the segment to sustain
herself - Romana began to introduce a more liberal policy of inviting
non-Gallifreyians to become Time Lords, the first such candidate
being the sentient Tracer Amy, who had accompanied the Fifth
Doctor on his search for the Key and subsequently saved Romana’s
life. Following this, Romana began a rapid rise to power that
culminated in her becoming President of the High Council after
the deposition of her predecessor Lady Flavia, although she was
subsequently abducted by the Daleks and held prisoner for twenty
years shortly after the election.
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| The Leisure Hive |
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This captivity began her descent into a darker
persona, the soul-numbing repetition of her life leaving her
so callous that she displayed a significant lack of concern
for the death of her fellow slaves upon her escape, although
she then went on to aid the Sixth
Doctor and his companion Evelyn
Smythe in defeating the Dalek invasion of Gallifrey ("The Apocalypse Element ").
Returning to her role as President, Romana continued to lead
the Time Lords - as well as helping the Seventh Doctor and the Eighth
Doctor deal with the rescue of The Doctor’s old family
home ("Lungbarrow")
and the paradoxical survival of his current companion Charley
Pollard ("Neverland" and "Zagreus")
respectively - opening Gallifrey up to other species for the
first time as non-Gallifreyians were at last given the opportunity
to become Time Lords on a large scale. As rogue time travellers
formed the ‘Free Time’ organisation to oppose Romana’s
attempts to monopolise time travel, Romana also found herself
facing opposition from Inquisitor Darkel, prompting her to ‘hire’ The
Doctor’s other former companion Leela as her bodyguard
(The Doctor being currently exiled to another universe after
he was contaminated by anti-time ("Zagreus")) while
she fought against those Time Lords opposed to her more liberal
policies.
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Princess Astra and Romana
(The Armageddon Factor) |
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As well as facing opposition from those Time
Lords in favour of their past plans of isolation, Romana’s
presidency faced a more direct threat when an old legacy from
her past emerged in the form of Pandora, a ruthless ruler
from Gallifrey’s past whose entire reign was erased
from history when she attempted to turn Gallifrey into a conquering
empire. Aided by information from Cardinal Braxiatel - a Time
Lord who was in constant contact with his past and future
selves to acquire artefacts for his future self’s collection,
rumoured by some sources to be The Doctor’s brother
- Romana learned that she had taken on the ‘Imperiatrix
Imprimatur’ during an excursion into the Matrix in her first incarnation. The Imprimatur had been sealed in her subconscious thanks to a hypnotic lock imposed by Braxiatel's future self, but the lock was subsequently damaged when Romana was tortured by the Shadow ("The Armageddon Factor"), prompting her to regenerate to protect herself. Despite Romana's best efforts, Darkel's attempts to discredit Romana resulted in Pandora managing to escape from the Matrix in a body based on the biodata of Romana's first incarnation, using the Free Time virus - a virus that infected Time Lords and made them susceptible to the beliefs of Free Time after regeneration - to win support for herself even among Romana's former allies. Although Pandora was defeated at the cost of both the Matrix and the mental manifestation of the First Romana, Darkel continued to pursue her own agenda, attempting to take the presidency in an election only to be killed when the remnants of Pandora devoured her mind, leaving Romana to cope with another crisis as the Free Time virus was unleashed on a devastated Gallifrey. With this virus now essentially corrupting the infected into a zombie-like state, the only apparent way to stop the virus was to deprive Time Lords of the ability to regenerate - thus removing its trigger - and then recreate the species using the biodata archive.
Stuck for options, Romana and Leela, accompanied by K9 and former CIA Coordinator Narvin, used Braxtiel's access to the pan-universal Axis to travel to various alternate Gallifreys to find a solution, visiting worlds such as a reality where Romana never travelled with The Doctor, a world where the vampires won their war with the Time Lords - forcing Romana to destroy that reality -, and a world where Romana was a ruthless dictator with the Sixth Doctor as her key enforcer. The travellers eventually settled on a Gallifrey where time travel was never developed, Romana replacing her deceased counterpart to try and initiate various social reforms after confirming that this Gallifrey wasn't socially ready for time travel and the Rassilon of this world had used the prototype Eye of Harmony to trap a dangerous telepathic species in the event horizon of the black hole. Eventually Romana was able to find a cure for the Free Time virus in the DNA of these Gallifreyans, but she only returned to her world after the Daleks gained access to the Axis and tried to attack other realities, Romana, Leela and Narvin defeating this threat but using the opportunity to fake their deaths. It would have still taken centuries to rebuild Gallifrey at this time, but the reconstruction was aided by Trey, Romana's future incarnation, who had come back to her past to essentially give Romana and the others access to the future Gallifrey she had 'already' rebuilt. Trey subsequently helped Romana, Leela and Narvin restore the Time Lords in a state spared from the Free Time virus before she apparently erased her specific timeline, allowing Romana to continue leading a restored Gallifrey.
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| Warriors' Gate |
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Based on available evidence, despite Romana seeking a more peaceful Gallifrey, things changed when she became aware of the Future War, a war that would be waged in the future between the Time Lords and an as-yet unidentified Enemy. Despite her darkened attitude after leading the Time Lords against Pandora, Romana concluded that her current incarnation lacked the necessary strength and ruthlessness to effectively lead her people in this war, regenerating once again into a new incarnation that would prove to be far more ruthless than her other selves. The subsequent third incarnation of Romana ended up in conflict with the Eighth Doctor when his companion Compassion was mutated into the Type 102 TARDIS that would be of use in the Future War, as The Doctor refused to let Compassion be reduced to breeding stock even as Romana was committed to the visions of the Future War ("The Shadows of Avalon"). When The Doctor, Compassion, and his other companion Fitz Kreiner arrived on Gallifrey ("The Ancestor Cell"), the influence of time-travelling voodoo cult Faction Paradox led to Gallifrey being attacked by a branch of the Faction led by Grandfather Paradox, a future version of The Doctor who had been infected with the Paradox biodata virus to corrupt him to their way of thinking. Thanks to the TARDIS containing the timeline where The Doctor had been infected, The Doctor was able to erase the timeline where he would succumb to the virus, but this was only possible by draining the TARDIS's energies by firing off its weapons systems, the subsequent blast destroying Gallifrey itself, with Romana being apparently killed in the process. However, years later The Doctor discovered that he had managed to save Gallifrey by downloading the Matrix into his subconscious mind at the cost of erasing his own memories ("The Gallifrey Chronicles"). From available evidence, The Doctor was subsequently able to find a way to restore the Time Lords, Gallifrey, and his own memories, The Doctor apparently taking steps to restore Romana in the form of her more compassionate second incarnation rather than the third Romana who had been prepared to enslave Compassion.
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Gallifrey - Enemy Lines
(David Llewellyn) |
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Having returned to Gallifrey, Romana and her allies continued their efforts to avert any further future war, to the extent that another version of the 'Trey' incarnation of Romana sent a message to her past self to prevent Omega escaping his anti-matter universe ("Gallifrey: Intervention Earth") while also preventing Romana's regeneration into that incarnation ("Gallifrey: Enemy Lines"). On the advice of Irving Braxiatel, Romana resigned the presidency while appointing herself the new head of the Celestial Intervention Agency, 'demoting' Narvin to her deputy so that they could both retain influence over Gallifrey while hopefully changing history enough to prevent the darker possible futures Braxiatel had witnessed. Unfortunately, despite their efforts, Gallifrey was eventually forced to engage in a Time War with the Daleks, with the conflict swiftly escalating as Braxiatel arranged for the Seventh Doctor's companion Ace (currently a freelance operative for the Agency) to be sent back to Earth to protect her from what was to come, while Leela was lost in the Time Vortex after Romana sent her on a mission with The Master ("Gallifrey: Time War 1 - The Devil You Know").
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Gallifrey: Time War 4 - Homecoming
(Matt Fitton) |
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Things became so bad that the Time Lords resorted to resurrecting Rassilon to lead them by using his memories in the Matrix to restore a version of Rassilon to life in the body of a descendant, believing that only Rassilon had the strength to lead them in this war ("Gallifrey: Time War 1 - Desperate Measures").
After Rassilon erased an inhabited planet from history because it had resources that could have been used by the Daleks even when Romana and her allies were trying to evacuate some of the population ("Gallifrey: Time War 2 - Collateral"), Romana tried to discreetly assist in a plan to assassinate the President, but when that failed she and Narvin were forced to flee Gallifrey ("Gallifrey: Time War 2 - Assassins"). They were able to reunite with Leela, but were separated again when Romana stayed behind to try and buy Leela and Narvin time to escape from a Dalek attack ("Gallifrey: Time War 3 - Unity"), only for Braxiatel to rescue her ("Gallifrey: Time War 4 - Beyond"). While Braxiatel offered to take Romana to another timeline where the Daleks never existed, Romana chose not to abandon her current timeline, being briefly captured by the Daleks before she was rescued by Leela after sabotaging a Dalek attempt to destroy Gallifrey with null time weapons. The two were subsequently captured by Rassilon, with Leela forcibly conscripted back into the War while Romana was imprisoned in a pocket dimension where she would serve as an archivist, documenting her own past glories ("Gallifrey: Time War 4 - Homecoming"). Romana's subsequent fate in the war is unclear, particularly given at least one 'sighting' of the 'Trey' version of Romana's third incarnation as the War escalated ("Luna Romana").
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