Moderator's Note: This is Mike's original Dodo summary:

The aptly named companion, and a desperate bid to attract the teenagers. Not enough of her episodes exist to get a full impression, but I can't say that I thought much of her in "The Ark", "The Gunfighters", and "The War Machines." The writers must not have liked her much, either; she doesn't even get an on-screen goodbye.



What did happen to Dodo? I can't get to my books right now.

She was hypnotized by WOTAN during "The War Machines." After the Doctor broke WOTAN's control, she decided to stay in London, since they were back in her own time.

The last part takes place off-camera. Polly and Ben pass on Dodo's goodbyes to the Doctor. That's how they manage to be around to leave in the TARDIS.

According to Who Killed Kennedy?, Dodo took up with journalist James Stevens (I believe that's his name; it's been a while since I read the book) got pregnant by him, and had most of her head blown off by a bullet from the Master (or one of his goons). The Completely Useless Encyclopedia describes this as the true meaning of "dead as a Dodo." How considerate.

Dodo contracted an STD in the Missing Adventure "The Man In The Velvet Mask" (which is not fair coz she rules too. Although not as much as Vicki.) Anyway she got shot through the head (poor girl) in Who Killed Kennedy. Sorted.

I killed Kennedy.

You mean YOU were the one responsible for delaying the first ever Doctor Who episode by SEVERAL MINUTES? How DARE you!

In Who Killed Kennedy, which Doctor do you think it is with the rose at Dodo's grave - James Stevens bumps into him there.
My money's on the Seventh but it could be the Second.

Well, I haven't read the book, but my bet would be
on...none of them. Apart from Roz, the Doctor
isn't known for funeral-going or grave-visiting.
So why should he bother for a so-called Companion
who just walked out on him without even saying
good-bye?

The Doctor could hardly visit Adric's grave.

As for why... melancholy regrets from the past?

Well except for that time in Remembrance of the Daleks, Emily.

Ah, but he only visited the graveyard in Remembrance to rather sacriligiously bury the Hand of Omega there. When it came to the funeral at the end he scarpered.

Though I suppose he did hang around to attend that nutter's funeral in Black Orchid.

Chris, any regrets the Doctor has about Dodo would be more along the lines of 'Why the **** did I let that ghastly little twerp accompany me in the first place?' The only reason for him to visit Dodo's grave is if he made a habit of visiting the graves (if any) of every single Companion - going forward in time until he could be sure each one was safely dead, and then discovering where s/he was buried. Which would be a slightly sick thing to do, especially as with most of them he doesn't bother visiting when they're alive.

Actually, the Doctor could visit the grave of EVERY companion if he felt like it. He does have a time machine after all, and it would only take a few minutes. That's why I vote for the 7th Doctor as being the visitor; he had the most reliable TARDIS.

I think it's the Seventh Doctor as well because he seems to carry the weight of the world on his shoulders more.
He may have those thoughts Emily has described above but with each new incarnation would he perhaps view his past differently?

Yes, but why should he feel like it? Why not visit them alive instead, if he really feels like reliving those happy days when they screamed away at his side?

Anyway, it would take more than a few minutes. Since the space/time visualiser seems to be out of the picture, he'd have to land wherever he last dumped them, and follow a trail that could lead around continents (Jo), dimensions (the Brigadier), planets (Mel), into myth (Vicki), through time (Benny) - not even THINKING about how to track down the various Fitzes.

Besides, he might have had a few problems finding the mortal remains of Sara Kingdom, Katarina, Adric, Liz...

I forgot - the Doctor goes to inordinate lengths to rescue the Master's remains from Skaro, so maybe he WOULD go to all that trouble just to visit whatever's left of his Companions. Especially in Mel's case - who wouldn't want to dance on her grave? Who wouldn't want to check for themselves that the famous scream is finally silenced once and for all?

Of course, it could be a future Doctor at Dodo's grave.

Good point. What if he just happened to be passing by while off to bury his Hands of Omega and so on and noticed a companion's grave along the way? Is it possible he might stop for a few moments' reflection?

And how likely is it that with aeons and universes to roam, the Doctor would just happen to bump into a Companion's gravestone?

Come to think of it...knowing the Doctor...very likely indeed.

Especially given his penchant for visiting the UK on Earth.

Doesn't Dodo sound like Jane Leeves (Daphne) in Frasier?

What does Jackie Lane do these days? Is there any current pics of her anywhere?

Come on Daniel, you must have some somewhere...

How could Dodo leave without saying good-bye to the Doctor, how COULD she?!

I think that she's now a Theatrical Agent, as is Janet Fielding...
(I'm not sure, though, if Jackie had Tom Baker on her "Book's" in the mid/late 80's ?)

I do have a recent picture of myself with Jackie Lane, but as I look quite insane I don't think it would help if I shared it with anyone.

Is there a particular reason you look "quite insane" in the picture? Just curious.

Cameras aren't kind to me.

Apparently, Dodo was going to sing in The Gunfighters but they discovered at the last minute that Jackie Lane couldn't sing a note. Hence why Dodo played the piano.

Would it be beyond the capabilities of the Who production team to ASK whether she could sing, sometime BEFORE the last minute...?

Apparently so.

Here's Nicholas Whyte's post on Dodo - http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/839561.html - good fodder for discussion.

Yeah, good article.

In particular, the circumstances of both Dodo's introduction to the series and her departure from it must rank among the clumsiest entries and exits for any regular character.

Still...at least she GOT an introduction, unlike Mel. And, OK, so that 'Don't worry, I'm an orphan' thing was embarrassing, but it's better than IGNORING what the parents are going through, as Ian and Barbara did.

a plan to replace the lead actor by stealth at the end of The Celestial Toymaker...was scotched when someone inadvertently sent Hartnell his renewed contract to sign before it had gone through all the proper channels.

Ha ha ha ha ha!

It's DESTINY, I tell you!

Can you IMAGINE how embarrassing it would be if the Doctor had to be turned invisible by a metaphysical being instead of just REGENERATING whenever he felt like it?

She had been approached to play Susan two years earlier, but turned it down because she did not want to be committed for a long period of time.

She WHAT!

I can't BELIEVE they gave her a second chance. I'd've killed her with a satsuma or something.

in The Celestial Toymaker it is she who tries to feel compassion to the Toymaker's evil minions

I don't think she TRIES. I think she genuinely IS that stupid.

we can be sure about the most striking point about Dodo: she wears a different costume in almost every story.

I'd hardly say that's a 'striking point'. Unless the writer grew up in the Davison era or something.

This seems to be the first time we as viewers are invited to really look at one of the regular supporting cast; up to now it has been the Doctor who visually dominates every scene he is in.

Oh, I'm not so sure about that. Barbara's hairstyle and infuriating blinking were pretty mesmerising.

TARDIS Eruditorum: 'The decision to replace Vicki, our Scouse revolutionary, with the bumbling and naive idiocy of Dodo [was] a jaw-droppingly harsh reconsideration of how to portray youth culture....she's played as stupid comic relief. She's not an icon of youth culture like Vicki. She's a vicious condemnation of contemporary youth. She's an explicit comment that they're stupid, ignorant and worthless' - ooh, that's a bit harsh. Dodo's...alright.

Nope, TARDIS Eruditorum is NOT getting any fonder of poor Dodo:

'Steven, the featureless chameleon and Dodo, the one where they forgot to have a concept for the character...With Ian and Barbara we could see mundane life in extraodinary people. With Vicki we could see a clear vision of the future. With Steven we have an effective character for plot resolution, and with Dodo we have... well... something very good at being kidnapped. We've gone from companions that set the tone of the show to companions that advance the plot'.

And as for 'It's not her monotone delivery of the explanation that she went and hung out with some friends so much as it is the idea that she has friends...that tips us off to the fact that she's under mind control...'

Maybe Dodo should have sung "I Shot the Sheriff"?

FINN in Companions: New Series:

Clara Oswald section: If you want a truly useless companion that is also grating on the nerves, try Dodo

Hey! Dodo didn't grate on the nerves ALL the time. She was a lot braver and more eager to travel in space and time than Barbara and Ian. She was the smart observant one for the first half of The Savages (before degenerating into a screamer). She was the wizard of the ivory keys AND a gunslinger who got the drop on a notorious outlaw in The Gunfighters (before, um, swooning into his arms). She's also deeply compassionate (so deeply that she practically killed herself and Steven to look at the supposedly cut knee of the pathological liar who was trying to kill them in Celestial Toymaker, which admittedly was VERY ANNOYING INDEED).

Some really good novels and audios could have built on her strengths and rehabilitated the character, but no, we got Man in the Velvet Mask (Dodo catches a sexually transmitted disease involving brain-eating maggots), Salvation (Dodo nearly gets raped by a god), Who Killed Kennedy (Dodo goes insane before getting her brains blown out whilst pregnant) and NO AUDIOS WHATSOEVER. Hell, even DEAD Companions (Sara), brain-wiped Companions (Jamie and Zoe) and non-Companions (King Peladon, Jago and Litefoot) get Companion Chronicles but not poor old Dodo...

Jackie Lane has said that she hasn't been in a studio in nearly 50 years so she'd be uncomfortable doing Big Finish.

I don't care how 'uncomfortable' she'd be! Everyone ELSE has done it! Colin Baker after being SACKED as the Doctor! Matthew Waterhouse after his co-stars have spent decades dining out on stories about how dreadful he was! (Even though I sound more like Adric than he does now!) Hell, even BITTERLY DIVORCED Tom n'Lalla are doing a series together! (Albeit from separate studios...)

And Dodo has one great advantage over them all - it doesn't matter whether Lane can still do the voice! Dodo was LEGENDARY for her ever-shifting accents...

Dodo was good for about 90 seconds at the end of The Massacre when she wandered in off the street, Mancunian as your bottom and blathered away at Hartnell, just after tens of thousands of Hugenots had been murdered, Peter Purves had stormed off and Hartnell had done that touching soliloquy about how nobody understands and nobody stays. Dodo was really vivacious and "real" and believable and it sounded like we were in for a good time.
However in between the Ealing pre-filming for The Ark and them hitting the studio, some suit at the BBC decided they couldn't have this naughty Mancunian moppet jumping out of peoples' televisions, spoiling their manners, and so her character was neutered into a stupid PlaySchool presenter posh nitwit.

There's just NO WAY that Death in Heaven's 'Chaplet Funeral Home' ISN'T a fanboy tip-of-the-hat to this most obscure of Companions, is there. (Or at least to her fate in Man in the Velvet Mask and Who Killed Kennedy...)

About Time: 'Was she TARDIS-fodder even before she was born? We know that the Ship's telepathic, that it has some kind of desire to look after its owner, and that it often seems to make plans of its own. Given the Doctor's joy at having Dodo on board...did the Ship deliberately drop Steven in 1572 to "breed" a new companion? Put one bun in the oven, allow to bake for four-hundred years, et voila. As good a simulacrum of Susan as a TARDIS can possibly manage' - blimey. DODO as the Prototype River Song?!

And do we have to start blaming Moffat for ripping off Lawrence's non-fiction works as well as all his fictional ones?

They seemed to try to make Dodo younger and younger as she went on!

Was she TARDIS-fodder even before she was born? We know that the Ship's telepathic, that it has some kind of desire to look after its owner, and that it often seems to make plans of its own. Given the Doctor's joy at having Dodo on board...did the Ship deliberately drop Steven in 1572 to "breed" a new companion? Put one bun in the oven, allow to bake for four-hundred years, et voila. As good a simulacrum of Susan as a TARDIS can possibly manage

I don't think so, guys. Interesting theory though.

Interestingly, the flashback in the Celestial Toymaker was a photograph of Dodo in school uniform and school beret.

What flashback?

the Toymaker's memory mirror or whatever it's called.

My memory of this story is tragically bad. (Well, I say 'tragically'...)

'In fact, Lane had been told she was being written out while her debut story was being broadcast; according to Gerry Davis, part of the problem was the camera picked up the fact she was an older woman. ("Well since you put it like that, that's fine," said Lane)' - Space Helmet for a Cow. Poor doomed Dodo. She never stood a chance, did she, even BEFORE Daniel O'Mahony got his hands on her...

Would it be cruel to point out that Dodo has EYE WRINKLES? this is Luke Perry-level adult teenagery.

She's had a VERY HARD LIFE. Mum and dad dropping dead, thrown on the mercy of an aunt who doesn't care whether she lives, dies or disappears off the face of the Earth*, accidentally almost-wiping-out-the-human-race...A few wrinkles are only to be expected. She's lucky not to end up in a lunatic asylum.**

*Sure, a few weeks of Hartnell's company and she's GAGGING to get back to said aunt, but, y'know...HARTNELL.

**Oh. Yeah. She did. (Who Killed Kennedy)

I thought it cruel that the little children laugh at her behind her back
And she never wore a mack in the pouring rain.
Very strange.

...?

that was supposed to be in a quote box. friends Facebook post on Dodo after one of my friends realised that Jackie Lane is now in her mid seventies.

Wasn't Dodo distantly related to Anne Chaplet that Steven had a crush on in one of the historical episodes ? I think that could explain why Steven decided to be easier on Dodo, despite all her cluelessness.

Steven leaps to the conclusion - for no readily apparent reason - that Dodo's a descendant of Anne (and therefore, possibly, of HIM, depending on whether or not you believe certain prurient speculation). This didn't stop him practically biting Dodo's head off when she left the TARDIS without explicit male permission in The Ark, though, so I don't see why it would make him so inhumanly tolerant of her attempts to get them both killed in Toymaker.

Following Big Finish's recasting of Katarina, I'm wondering if Dodo will be next. Jackie Lane is still alive but a) if she hasn't cracked in twenty years she's unlikely to be tempted by the legendary BF lunches now and b) BF have no compunction about recasting still-alive people LIKE IAN AND SUSAN DAMMIT.

The great advantage of recasting Dodo is, of course, that you could get in any actress on the planet and it wouldn't matter if she sounded nothing like Dodo cos Dodo literally changed accents in every story...

Dodo is not the dumbest person in the world but she'd better pray they don't die.

Who doesn't die?

The dumbest person in the world.

Ah, I SEE.

Wasn't Dodo the one who saw through the whole Elders-cannibalistic-evil stuff while Steven was telling her she's off her head and Hartnell was saying 'Not now, dear'? Plus, she adapted to TARDIS-travel way quicker than Steven, Ian or Barbara AND she outdrew Doc Holliday.

She was only really lobotomised for The Celestial Toymaker (War Machines doesn't count cos, y'know, hypnotism and stuff) so don't let THAT be your enduring memory of our Plucky Cockney* Orphan.

*Other accents also available.

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Dodo was at Sarah Jane's funeral.

Why? They never met.

I guess *heavy sigh* the implication was that they bumped into each other alien-hunting at some point. (Hell, she could even have been the Dorothy running A Charitable Earth mentioned in Death of the Doctor - at least until At Childhood's End had Sophie Aldred snagging that one.) At least Dodo was SUPPOSED to be living in modern-day London (assuming she didn't get her brains blown out, as of course she did in Who Killed Kennedy) - unlike, say, Nyssa...

Sarah did say she tracked down some of the Doctor's companions, didn't she?

Yeah, but Dodo wasn't on her list.

Mind you, at least she was wandering around London so should be easier to spot than Ben and Polly, who returned the day they left and were quietly running an orphanage (for human children, one assumes) in India.

she could even have been the Dorothy running A Charitable Earth mentioned in Death of the Doctor

Dodo's name is Dorothea, not Dorothy.

Besides, the clue was right there A Charitable Earth.

I know, but neither of those facts is conclusive. (And neither, is seems, is Dodo getting her brains blown out.)

Dodo was at Sarah Jane's funeral.

Why? They never met.

Dodo and Sarah met in the short story 'Ships' (DWM No. 185, 1992).

Hartnell addressed her as "Dorothea" at the start of The Ark.