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

Doctor Who's answer to Mister Spock, only without the interesting background. "Black Orchid" showed that Sarah Sutton could act, if given good lines. It's a shame she didn't get any other opportunities to shine.



But she was so gorgeous. I was in love with her from the start.

Love the name. Even if they do have a tendancy to pronounce it Nysser.
I liked Nyssa. She was a nice change - intelligent, brave, not much of a screamer. I thought she was a nice foil for the Doctor.

'WITHOUT THE INTERESTING BACKGROUND'?? Excuse me. This woman has just seen her entire planet, nay, her entire galaxy wiped out! The Master is walking around in her father's body!! How much more interesting do you want?

I agree, Mei, Nyssa was OK. If Tegan hadn't been there to monopolise the action and the arguments, Nyssa wouldn't have come across as such a wimp. Though I don't think she was much of a foil for the Davison Doctor, who was also a softie.

What I mean is someone who was shaped by their background. Sure Nyssa's world was destroyed, but her only reaction was to appear a bit miffed. Spock had this whole "clash of two cultures" thing going on that colored his whole character.

OK, fair enough. It has often crossed my mind that the early Davison era is remarkably free of anguish given that a) Adric lost his brother, b) Tegan lost her aunt, c) Nyssa lost her galaxy, and d) The Doctor was partially responsible for the destruction of several galaxies by bringing the Master to Logopolis, and by not previously exercising his umteen million chances to kill him.

Really good point. But isn't this somewhat typical English behavior, though, to repress those nasty emotions?

Okay, I'm braced for a particulary vigorous flame.....

What! You don't think I'm going to DEFEND the English do you? My one brush with patriotism was the aforementioned, and mercifully brief, reaction to the Spielberg movie.

Trouble is, 'typical English behaviour' isn't much of an explanation for the behaviour of a Gallifreyan, an Alzarian, an Australian, and a Trakenite.

You know, I realized that as soon as I posted. Plus, my experience to Australians is mostly limited to Who fan Chris Thomas, who exemplifies the "no worries" attitude. Tegan was always "lots of worries!", possibly the tensest Australian ever.

I'd never realized they were such a sorry lot, losing so many of their loved ones. Maybe when I get my stuff out of storage and I can watch all of the 5th Doctor in order... Do remember, tho, that Tegan did grieve for her aunt at least once (that I recall off-hand), in "Enlightenment."
I like Emily's listing of the nationalities. Altho we all know that Tegan was an Aussie, Americans tend to think of all the rest as British. I wonder if it has anything to do with their accents?

For all intents and purposes, the 5th Doctor's companions were British. The writers never did anything to make them seem alien, except maybe for Adric's hyper-healing, and Nyssa's furry jacket.

Even the 5th Doctor was very British; notice how well he fit in during "Black Orchid."

And remember how well Nyssa fit in during Black Orchid. When she said she came from Traken, they thought it was a British colony (or something). She didn't seem to have any problem with the etiquett or anything. Adric had problems, but then again, 1. he was younger, and 2. he wasn't from a "high" family.
You're right, tho. The creators never really tried to make them alien.

We might say "No worries" a lot but that's just our of coping with the huge amounts of worries we have - it's a facade, a relaxed projection making everyone think things are OK when really we're just as paranoid as the rest. As for Tegan - well, if someone gets an Australian's hackles up, we react!

Someone had to devote a website to her eventually: http://www.employees.org/~mrogers/CAA/Nyssa/

Speaking of Nyssa, I've been corresponding with someone who is actually called Nyssa! Her mother was watching Doctor Who when she was pregnant and liked the name. I think she's from Brisbane (which is where Tegan's supposed to be from, right?)
And then there was a Tegan I met working as a barmaid once...

Nyssa has always been my favorite of the Peter Davison companions. She and the Fifth Doctor were always compatable (as FRIENDS, nothing more!). I think it would have been best if they had left Tegan back on Earth and just had the Fifth Doctor and Nyssa having adventures. Nyssa is smart, compasionate, and always willing to help the Doctor. Compare the other Fifth Doctor companions:

Tegan-although she was okay later on, Tegan's initial actions did not endear her to me. She was whiny and bitchy, and always yelling in that irritating shrill voice of hers. If it had been me, and Tegan had pulled that stunt she did in "Four to Doomsday" (trying to take off in the TARDIS and leaving us behind), I would have booted her out the nearest airlock!

Adric-I have made my feelings on this jerk known before. The only productive thing Adric ever did was getting himself killed!

Turlough-another jerk the Doctor could have done without. Even after he was freed of the Black Guardian's influence, Turlough was not relyable. Whenever the going got tough, Turlough would always want to cut and run, the Doctor be damned! Would you want this guy watching your back?

Kamelian-not worth mentioning.

So in closing Nyssa was clearly the best choice of companion for the Fifth Doctor. Pity the writers didn't see it that way.

Peter Davisson agreed with you. He often said that he preferred Sarah Sutton to Janet Fielding. I can see why, too. Tegan's constant questioning of the Doctor undermined his authority, which only contributed to this Doctor's unpopularity.

After all the Doctor is always, always right. How dare the fiery vixen Tegan question his motives.
(wink wink)

However, it sometimes necessary for main characters to have conflicts to drive the story, and Tegan filled the role more than she should have to.

While I always prefer Tegan (we won't go into the hidden dark reaches of the psyche of my mind to explain why, after all I found an attraction to Mags, the lycanthrope of Greatest Show) I will always like Nyssa. She was smart, rarely whined or whinged, and managed to do right considering she lost everything, I mean EVERYTHING, and some dude masquerading as father topping all that off. She was a strong character.

Adric, however.......

Nyssa is as dull as a round of toast. Yes Tegan was too antagonistic for comfort, but I felt Nyssa was too the other way. (Alas, fellas, not in that way). You see, Nyssa was basically a robot in a dress. So she's an alien, not human and all that. But even so. In 'Land of the Dead' Sutton does her some justice, but she is constrained by being a bloody Traken and is by consequence stool-smearingly less dimensional than Kamelion. That's right - Kamelion!

You may say she is being demur, I say she is being a round of warm bread. Nyssa may have more brains than Tegan, but who'd win in a fight? My ten pound's on the mad antipodean.

Why is it call a round of toast when bread is square?

PJW could mean a round of warm bread as opposed to a round of single malt Scotch. Not only would that be boring, but maddeningly disappointing.

But I ramble.

"...smearingly less dimensional than Kamelion..."
What drugs are you on, PJW? And why aren't you sharing? I wouldn't say that of Adric or Mel. Your heights of exageration must deserve punishment. You will have to watch the Web Planet one hundred times until you learn your lesson or go mad, whichever comes first.

Surely it would take only two sittings. The second one just to make sure.

For one thing, Mel and Adric were not dull. Just irritating. The Doctor Who equivalent of nits. Although the pair of them do grate and goosepimple the skin, at least by definition they have character. Nyssa is more a Shandy. Probably smells nice and inviting, but ends up being too weak and wishy washy to put a warm glow on the face.

As for the roundness of certain unround things, I cannot say. A round of drinks could just as easily be rhomboid, and a round of golf also has no rigid shape as such.

I dare say that Kamelion probably doesn't smell nice and inviting. Weak definately. Much weaker than Nyssa. I've just watched Castrovalva, and the Visitation. The least you could say was that Nyssa was mobile. Not something I can say about Kamelion.

But this is nitpicking. Kamelion is by far the weakest companion.

I have never understood a round of golf. But then I don't golf. Seems such a silly game. Rather play darts or pool. At least the bar is a short distance away.

Well I would love to have Nyssa watching my back. She is intelligent and beautiful! She rocks!

Luiner, Nyssa rarely whinged, but that was because Nyssa rarely did ANYTHING. A little grief for her galaxy wouldn't come amiss. Though she was OK when she wasn't being overshadowed by dozens of other Companions. Unfortunately this amounts to her being OK for half of Arc of Infinity.

You bring up a point, Emily. The most popular companions seem to be those who work mostly alone with the Doctor. Ace, Leela, Romana 1 and 2, and Sara. I suppose Mel should be in that list, but she failed so miserably as solo companion. Nyssa and Adric have a hard time competing with Tegan's somewhat forceful personality. I guess it has to with screen time. Tegan had more than the others, and was solo with the Doc for a few stories. Whereas Adric may have had a single episode by himself, and Nyssa none whatsoever.

Oops, Nyssa did go solo in the first episode of Arc of Infinity, though if you get technical you could say three episodes until number four when she meets up with Tegan again. Tegan was around with Omega in 2 and 3.

Always fun to nitpick myself.

I originally wrote this in the Missing Adventure section, under Sands of Time, but decided to slap a copy of it here. It makes more sense.

Here we go.

It's too bad that Nyssa was just not developed as well as she could have been. I think part of the problem was that the whole time she was with the Doctor, there was always one or two other companions there too, so the action had to be split up between them.

I think that if they had decided not to bring Tegan back after Time-Flight, Nyssa could have grown as a character. She and the Fifth Doctor could have had the same close relationship the Third Doctor and Jo Grant had.

Nyssa did to shine a few times though. When the Doctor was "executed" in Arc of Infinity, Nyssa was close to losing it. When it was revealed the Doctor was still alive, she showed joy.

Nyssa was always one of my favourite companions. It's just too bad that she was overshadowed by Tegan, who had a tendancy to get on my nerves ("whine, whine, whine, I want to get to Heathrow! whine, whine, whine").

Maybe someday someone will write a Who novel where Nyssa can really shine as a character. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Well, never let it be said that Nyssa doesn't get a starring role in any novel she appears in. Sands of Time - see Nyssa turned into a 4,000-year-old Mummy! Zeta Major - watch Nyssa become Antiwoman after Antimatter crystals are sewn into her stomach! Goth Opera - meet the new, Vampire Nyssa! Cold Fusion - gasp as Nyssa interrupts Cwej in the shower! Asylum - watch Nyssa have a nervous breakdown! (admittedly the latter is an exceedingly boring experience.)

Well let's hope that one day we see a novel where Nyssa manages to make it through without being killed/tortured/brutalized/raped/mutated/etc.

How about they go after Tegan for a change!

I have to agree that, much as I found Nyssa to be pretty boring, she was a credible Companion in Arc of Infinity. She shot the bad guys, got whatshisname (Leela's husband?) to install a new time element in the TARDIS, got Hedin to let her in to see the Doctor, and generally thought and acted for herself instead of standing like wallpaper in the background while Tegan ranted at the Doctor and/or Adric. Too bad she only got the one chance.

Maybe she was better with the 4th Doc, but I didn't see those eps.

She wasn't up to much in Logopolis - getting fooled by the Master - but she was fine in Keeper of Traken (but then that WAS her home turf).

And no, the wimp Andred did NOT appear in Arc of Infinity. Praise the lord. Leela's own non-appearance was quite surprising, though. Didn't she care about her old friend enough to come and get him out of trouble?

Sharky, rape is one thing that hasn't happened to Nyssa, or any of the other companions that I know of. Which is surprising, when you think of all those scantily-clad helpless females wandering around so many war-torn, baddie-infested planets.

Barbara came close to being raped in Keys of Marinus, but was saved in the knick of time by Ian.

That's the only instance I can think of. If you don't count being chased by Nero, or nearly forced to become a part of a Harem. Barbara in both cases.

How did Nyssa leave the show. I have vague memories of a leper colony and and Nyssa being lowered on an electric lift. I don't have this episode and haven't seen it in years.

I think she fell in love with a guy in the episode Terminus and stayed while the Dr., Turlough, and Tegan left.

She most certainly did not! She was about the only female Companion who DIDN'T abandon the Doctor in the hope of getting a shag. Her motives were purely altruistic, i.e. she wanted to improve the rather hit-and-miss flood-'em-with-radiation method of curing Lazar's disease. And produce home-grown hydromel (the green stuff the guards needed) so that Terminus would be free of the Company. And use the skills she'd learnt on Traken.

Did she actually have the disease. I seem to remember a very somber Doctor as they were saying their "goodbyes"

Yep, she got the disease. It was she that discover that the intense radiation therapy cured her (and hence everybody else) of Lazar's disease.

I am not sure that this isn't one of those cures worse than the disease, though.

Yes - Terminus did imply that she may well die of radiation-induced cancer in the not-too-distant future. Unfortunately (in view of the direness of Asylum) she didn't, she ended up a university lecturer instead.

Not that the Doctor wouldn't have been pretty sombre anyway, dumping a Companion on some leper-infested ship with vampire-like guards, a silly monster, and a forthcoming Company invasion.

From what I can gather in Asylum, Nyssa was on Terminus for about 14 years. After which she spent another six years roaming the galaxy, until she settled on the planet she was living on when we see her in Asylum.

At least Nyssa survived.

::She most certainly did not! She was about the only female Companion who DIDN'T abandon the Doctor in the hope of getting a shag. ::Emily

oops...silly me! It's been at least 15 years since I last saw the ep! And, as you point out, it's a common occurrence - so please forgive my mix-up! :^)

Here's a little song piece that always stuck in my head about Nyssa - its to the tune of the Police song "Wrapped Around My Finger":

"Nyssa's skin turned white as alabaster....
When she found out Tremas was the Master..." :^)

If you want to continue the song..I guess you could sing "Whoooo'll be wrapped around his Tardis...." (but I admit it doesn't make much sense) :^)

(I apologize if I should have inserted a spoiler warning here - I'm not sure what the protocol is on this site re things like that).

I think the reason why Nyssa fit in so well in Black Orchid was that she was from her planet's Upper Crust so they must've taught her a lot of similiar etiquette growing up.

There is a new Past Doctor Adventure novel coming out soon featuring the Fifth Doctor, Nyssa, and Tegan. It is called Fear Of The Dark. I believe it will be out next month sometime.

I've read it,& have decided to upgrade Emily's "Perils Of Nyssa" Tote Board Count.
In Fear Of The Dark, Nyssa Gets:-
1)Possessed By The Dark
2)Caught up in a Explosion, & Gets Concussed (Tegan gets away with Cuts & Bruises)
3)Suffers a Dark-Induced Heart Attack
4)Kidnapped at Gunpoint
5)Beaten Up By Kidnapper
6)Pistolwhipped with a handgun composed of Dwarf Star Alloy (By Said Kidnapper)
7)Gets Shot At By Kidnapper in Escape Bid
8) And Finally, vomits up the Dark in a pit filled with blood !
Personally, I Suspect, there's a "What can we do to Nyssa now, in this book" clause, in any Past Doctor Adventure.

If it's any consolation, I slightly prefer Nyssa when she's being hideously tortured (every book) to when she's just wandering around whinging and whining non-stop (every audio).

I don't understand how anyone can lift a gun made of Dwarf Star Alloy. In one of the Benny books someone has earrings made of the stuff, and considering it's heavy enough to collapse an entire reality, I hate to think what their ears look like by now.

Personally, from the description of the ammunition, (5 Very tiny "Dot" Rounds"), I Get the impression, It's like the "Jiminy Cricket" handgun, from Men In Black.
Besides, I used to Run/Play a Traveller RPG Campaign, & Depending on the Tech Level, you had
Superdense (Dwarf Star Alloy) Coherent Superdense (Monocrystalline Dwarf Star Alloy) & Bonded Coherent Superdense (Coherent with a added bonding enhancement generator inside the material) alloys available. As the handgun is powered by an unstable element, an anti-gravity generator, could be incorporated within the gun, to negate the mass of the Dwarf Star Alloy !
Yours,Mark

On Second Thoughts, Emily, I Checked the book, & found that I may have made a false logical assumption about the gun being composed of Dwarf Star Alloy. However, if you read the bits about said weapon that's given in the Book (Basically, It's Heavy, Fires Superdense "Dwarf Star Alloy" Bullets, & the person who has it calling it a DSA Gun ),you therefore,logically assume that it's made of "Dwarf Star Alloy"!
Mea Culpa
Mark

Could Nyssa now be considered the "Captain Scarlet" of Doctor Who companions, given what happens to her, in the Novelisations i.e She's "Indestructable" ?
To paraphrase the Intro/warning to Captain Scarlet "Nyssa of Traken is indestructable, you are not...!"
Just A Thought, Mark

Emily, according to Forbidden Planet's current list of future Dr.Who releases, Big Finish are releasing a 5th Doc/Nyssa audio adventure sometime in June/July, but the exact date is "To Be Confirmed".

And once again, I've decided to upgrade/update Emily's "Perils of Nyssa" tote board,
now that "Creatures of Beauty" has (finally) come out on CD.
This time around, she gets beaten up by the Velm Security Forces, while "Resisting Arrest", with the result, that she's hospitalised for 3 local days, with concussion ! (It does'nt help being at a "Murder" scene, holding a scalpel over a blood stained body, does it ?).

*Sigh* Why oh why oh why? Either _every single writer_ finds her more irritating than Mel and Adric combined, and is seizing the opportunity to get their revenge, or they're just thinking - in a non-malicious spirit of enquiry - 'Hey! So Nyssa doesn't bat an eyelid when her entire galaxy gets destroyed, so lets see if she reacts to THIS!' before smashing her in the face with dwarf star alloy, sewing anti-matter crystals in her stomach, turning her into a vampire and mummifying her for a few thousand years.

In regard to Nyssa, does the quote from Hamlet about "Suffering the Slings & Arrows of Outrageous Fortune" come to a writer's mind ? However, in Nyssa's case, the said quote would more likely be, "Suffering the Siege Artllery of Outrageous Fortune ", or more precisely "The Trebuchets & Ballastas of Outrageous Fortune"

Only we can't really blame fortune - or fate - as we know EXACTLY who's culpable. Paul Cornell, Justin Richards, Simon Messingham, Peter Darville-Evans, Trevor Baxendale, etc etc. I guess that - as with Ace getting her kit off in the early NAs, or Troughton doing a 'base under seige' story, or the Companion twisting her ankle - some bright author just came up with an idea, and all the others thought it was so great they'd like to join in the fun.

Will the next book featuring Nyssa,
(due in February 2004), succumb to the "Torments of Nyssa" syndrome, or will the author, David Bishop, be able to resist the tempatation ?
We just will have to wait & see....

Uh-oh. This is the bloke who shot Dodo dead in Who Killed Kennedy. And who gave Fitz the worst interrogation scene since Keith Topping produced the anal probe. Nyssa fans might care to give it a miss. In fact, EVERYONE should give it a miss.

Uh-Oh! (Dives for Cover)
Anyone prepared to take bets on what's going to happen to Nyssa, given the plot, from what I've heard, is about a Victorian-Era British Empire trying to "Annex The Afterlife", for the "Queen & Country" ?
The Book supposed's to come out in Feb.2004.
Will Eric Cartman turn up in a cameo, I wonder, given your reference to "Anal Probes", Emily ? (Sorry, but a surge of flippancy's just hit me ! Aaargh....Moo, Moo, Moo, Moo?)
Yours,Mark
P.S Apparently, there's a Nyssa's Nexus Group on Yahoo, that's just sprung up....

Well, it seems Emily, that Nyssa's Sanity/"Little Grey Cells"/Mind/(Delete as Applicable), is about to get another "Pummeling", in Empire of Death.
From The Synopsis I've read, (Courtesy of a Yahoo Dr.Who User Group), it seems that the "Ghost of Adric" will be used, somewhere,by the power/entity/paranormal force (Delete As Applicable), behind the unfolding events of "Empire Of Death" to attack The Doctor & Nyssa mentally, by using their emotional feelings about Adric against them.
(On a more irrevalent note, will a ancestor of Kenny McCormick from South Park make a cameo apperance, somewhere ?)

Judging by their reaction to his death at the beginning of Timeflight...Nyssa and the Doctor don't HAVE any emotional feelings about Adric. Tee hee hee.

What do you expect,given the dosage of drugs/medication She's currently self-administering...?
(For further information,about this, see the "Nyssa's on Drugs" sub thread on Polly Wright's thread)
Either that, or she's already given up her (Feeble ?) grip on her personal sanity ?

And It's time to update the "Torments Of Nyssa" tote board Again..
In "Empire Of Death" she gets shot in the chest, as the result of trying to communicate interdimensionally to the Doctor...
As for the mental torment, it's implied that she killed her mother during her birth,as apparently she (Nyssa) has a recessive gene for Psionic capabilities, which is very rare, for Trakenites, due to the "fact" that such Psi-capable fetuses are "terminated" before Birth.
(Has the author ever seen Urotskidoji 4 a.k.a "Inferno Road" Part 2 by any chance...? This does seems similar to the Neohumanity that the Chojin is breeding in this episode...?)
However, as this data is imparted, to her, by the inhabitants of the other Dimension involved, this must be considered "Unreliable" at best.
As for the "Nyssa's Going Nuts" hypothesis, the Doctor in "Empire..." now considers Nyssa to be suffering from the effects of extreme Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (not suprising...) & tries to do something about her condition.

PTSD? Gee, what was the Doctor's first clue (he said sarcastically)?

The fact she met Adric?

This has stopped being funny. God knows I wasn't expecting much from a David Bishop book, but now I realise I WAS expecting SOMETHING, viz. Nyssa not getting shot in the chest.

And whilst I've always campaigned for Traken to be recognised as the cesspit of corruption and violence it is, and not in any way, as the Doctor inexplicably claims, a place where people are terribly nice to each other, all this abortion stuff really doesn't ring true. And how on Earth would she manage to kill her mother? How did they miss that she had the psionic gene?

Re:My last comment
(Extracts size 11 Foot from mouth)
Er: He reads her Personal Journal/Diary after she faints on meeting the Medium, "James". As for the Doctor's PTSD diagonosis, it's mentioned on Page 114.
As For Emily's comment, later in the book, it's revealed that this explanation is a lie, told to Nyssa, by a Entity pretending to be her Mother, "Lucina" in order to keep her on the "other side" of the Dimensional Rift.
(The entities of the other dimension, generate a "Virtual" reality,(to keep her from interfering/as a act of courtsey (Delete as applicable)), involving her father & mother).
As such, the demise of Nyssa's Mother, is still "Open Ended".
As for the "Anal Probe" reference, you made in a earlier comment, Emily, it does indirectly turn up, in that the Medium "James" tells Nyssa of his life before, he's "sprung" by "Baroness von Luckner", at the Lock Asylum in Glasgow.
The "Baroness", tells the Doctor more explicity, about the conditions there, & the habit of using "Virgin" children to "cure" sexually transmitted diseases...
I do agree with you, Emily, in that I would not recommend this book to a casual "Who" reader,as it's very harrowing indeed.

Ah good, I see the Mods have deleted the porn fic that our anonymous friend posted here. Hopefully, this will send the message that such stuff is not welcome around here.

I have to admit, I was a bit put off as well. I didn't understand the point.

I don't think there was a point, Mandy. Some people just have WAY too much free time on their hands.

I do agree with you, Emily, in that I would not recommend this book to a casual "Who" reader,as it's very harrowing indeed.

Also very boring and stupid indeed.

Well, people...we have a winner! An audio in which...Nyssa doesn't get tortured at all! Who would have thought such a thing was possible? OK, so

SPOILERS for The Game:
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the bloke she'd been planning on deserting the Doctor to run off with got himself shot dead five minutes later, but hey, it's not as if they were in lurve or anything (Nyssa saw him as a father figure. Allegedly). So it's all in a day's work for a Companion.

"in lurve"? I think you mean in love

Wow, Nyssa planning on deserting the Doctor, that's something I'd never expect to see her do! The Audio Adventures are willing to take chances the series never did.

I'm glad to see Nyssa finally getting respect, character wise, by the writers. These Audio Adventures are giving the Nyssa character the development that the series didn't. Of course, now we don't have Tegan around to hog the spotlight!

"in lurve"? I think you mean in love

Yeah, that too ;)

Wow, Nyssa planning on deserting the Doctor, that's something I'd never expect to see her do!

That was DIFFERENT. Nyssa spent FOUR EPISODES wandering around being a leper, getting radiation treatment, removing her skirt etc - it's no wonder she decided there must be a better way of organising the whole Terminus thing. Whereas in The Game she just announced, with astonishing abruptness, that she was abandoning Mr Universe Saver in favour of the Utterly and Totally AND RETIRED Uselessness Carlisle for no readily apparent reason. (The CD notes make sense of this, in that they reveal it was originally supposed to be a Sixth Doctor adventure with a Carlisle/Evelyn romance, which obviously had to be abandoned in view of Arrangements for War. In the (fictional) circumstances, however, Nyssa waving a cheery goodbye to the Doctor - and then not seeming particularly upset when Carlisle promptly went kaput - just doesn't seem very plausible. At least in Terminus she had the twin incentives of Tegan and Turlough to push her out of those TARDIS doors.)

I'm glad to see Nyssa finally getting respect, character wise, by the writers.

Respect?! Look, I don't claim to be a genius...[insert name of Nyssa's scientific speciality here, cos I'm dammed if I can remember) from an advanced civilisation, but even _I_ - if I happened to discover a 'I'm a baddie and I want to prolong a war' piece of paper - wouldn't stroll up to the culprit and say 'Hey, you're a baddie who wants to prolong a war' without, say, taking any precautions against aforementioned baddie whipping out a gun and shooting me with it.

Re:Last Comment
It's Bioengineering, Emily.
Apparently MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) are now stsrting a course on the subject, according to a story in The Guardian newspaper...
It's supposed to be the "Next Big Thing" in the field of Biotechnological research...
I do agree with you, about your last part of your comment though....

What I meant was that at least Nyssa is not always getting shoved into the background, like she was on the show. Every time Tegan opened her BIG mouth, poor Nyssa lost lines and screen time. Now before the Tegan fans lynch me, I just want to say that I have nothing against Tegan, at least the Tegan from Black Orchid on (I HATED her in Four To Doomsday, it's a wonder the Doctor didn't shove her out an airlock after what she pulled in that story, the guy has got a big heart, I'll give him that). However, I just wish that she didn't get her screen time at the expense of Nyssa.

The problem was that there were just too many companions in the TARDIS at that time and not enough lines to go around. So it seemed that poor Nyssa was always the neglected one. I know the writers wanted to get rid of her early in Season Nineteen, but relented when Peter Davison objected. He felt, and I agree with him, that the Fifth Doctor and Nyssa could have been like the Third Doctor and Jo Grant were, back in the early 70's: A Doctor and Companion with rapport. Unfortunately, they never got that chance because Tegan, (or Adric and later, Turlough), were always around, like a third wheel.

I know that a lot of fans don't hold Arc Of Infinity in high praise. However, one thing they do agree on is that Nyssa really was given a chance to shine in this story, since Tegan was not around the TARDIS for much of it. Maybe they should have left Tegan on Earth and just continued on with the Fifth Doctor and Nyssa. In fact, I think Peter Davison would have much preferred it that way. However, good old JNT was not willing to share power with an actor (maybe he was afraid that Mr. Davison would virtually take over running the show, like Tom Baker did). Of course, JNT got his way, and Tegan came back, and then we got Turlough (ugh, this guy was almost as bad as Adric was, and DON'T get me started on Kamelion).

At least now it seems these Audio Adventures are proving that the team of the Doctor and Nyssa could work. It's a shame the show couldn't have done the same thing. It seems the writers have a lot more freedom now than they did back then.

Anyway, that's my opinion.

Every time Tegan opened her BIG mouth, poor Nyssa lost lines and screen time. Now before the Tegan fans lynch me

I don't think even the most devout Tegan fan (assuming such creatures exist) would lynch you for saying that. As their hero said herself, she's just a mouth on legs.

(I HATED her in Four To Doomsday, it's a wonder the Doctor didn't shove her out an airlock after what she pulled in that story, the guy has got a big heart, I'll give him that).

TWO big hearts...And yes, you'd think the least he'd've done is tell Tegan to keep her grubby hands off his TARDIS console in future, or else.

The problem was that there were just too many companions in the TARDIS at that time and not enough lines to go around.

Yup, am boringly in agreement. Once you're out of the 60s, three Companions is ludicous overkill - especially as Davison was in the habit of picking up temporary Companions in most of his stories (Shardavan, Todd, Mace, Chela, etc etc).

At least now it seems these Audio Adventures are proving that the team of the Doctor and Nyssa could work.

Yes, but - probably given that most of the Fifth Doctor/Nyssa audios are pretty bad - Big Finish hasn't managed to give them a revelationary rehabilitation, the way they did with the Sixth Doctor and even Mel.

Re:Emiliy's last comment
But will Big Finsh's latest, potentially Doctorless, 5th Doc/Nyssa adventure Circular Time work, though...?
Mind you, given examples such as The Game, which was to me,a badly reworked 6th Doc/Evelyn adventure, I would tend to agree with you, Emily...
(Could this be a new topic I ask myself, Companions Swapping Audio Adventures....?)

It's time to update the Perils of Nyssa tote board once again....
In the Latest 5thDoc/Nyssa adventure Renaissance of the Daleks, our hapless but potentially indestructible heroine, falls off the 150 foot parapet of Rhodes's defences at 1 Terran Gravity,(you can tell that Christopher Bidmead wrote a lot of the dialogue, can't you...), almost gets blown up by a Union land mine, during the U.S Civil War, inhales rather a lot of Agent Orange in 1968 Vietnam, & gets electrocuted while assisting the Doctor's attempt to get a "Toy Dalek" off the console....

Gee, I hope she didn't get a paper cut, because those things REALLY hurt!

Blimey, I forgot all about the whole Perils of Nyssa thing...pity, as I just spent the whole of Renaissance thinking WILL YOU STOP BLOODY WHINING ABOUT YOUR BLOODY POCKET INTEROCITER, WOMAN!

Re: Steve's post
In Nyssa's case, said paper cut would be dangerous to her because either :-
1) She suffers from the Trakenite version of Haemophilia, & as such, any cut, is potentially dangerous to her, without prompt medical attention...
2) The "Evil Villian" (tm) of said story, has had the paper treated with a potent anti-coagulant, in order to deter "interfering do-gooders" (tm), from "rooting around" in his/her (Delete as Applicable) private papers without permission, with the result as above....

Ha ha! Yup, that's EXACTLY what would happen...

Mind you, nothing particularly bad happens in Circular Time, does it? Sure, Nyssa gets threatened with death by bird-people, Isaac Newton, etc, but she DOES get some sex, marriage and even *shudders* a kid...

Ah, Nyssa, she helped get me through puberty

Anyways, I wrote an article about her a few years ago, called The Underappreciated Companion. Said article can be found at the Doctor Who Ratings Guide Site. However, I shall reproduce it here too.


Nyssa: The Underappreciated Companion

Throughout its twenty-six year run, Doctor Who has had many companions come and go through the TARDIS doors, most of them being attractive women. I have followed the fandom of many of these Companions over the years. You have your Sarah Jane Fans, Tegan Fans, Ace Fans, etc. However, I have noticed that one Companion does not seem to be getting the recognition she so richly deserves, that Companion is none other than Nyssa of Traken.

That's right, I said Nyssa of Traken!

As most Doctor Who fans probably know, Nyssa, played by the very lovely and talented Sarah Sutton, was introduced in the Eighteenth Season story, Keeper Of Traken. This was Tom Baker's second-to-last story. At that time, no one was sure whether Nyssa would continue with the show after that story was over. However, producer John Nathan-Turner decided that the character would remain as a Companion. His reason being that since Tom Baker (the Fourth Doctor), who had played the Doctor for the longest time in the shows run, was leaving, Mr. Nathan-Turner wanted a few Companions around to ease the transition into the next Doctor. We already had Adric, and Tegan was introduced in Tom Baker's last story, Logopolis, and then Nyssa was brought back and added to the group at the end of the second episode of Logopolis. So when Peter Davison became the Fifth Doctor at the start of Season Nineteen, we had a group of established Companions surrounding him.

However, this became a problem, because many of the shows writers felt that the TARDIS was too crowded. It was hard to split up the action and the dialogue with the Doctor and three Companions. Initially, the writers planned to write Nyssa off the show in Four To Doomsday, the second story of Season Nineteen, however, Peter Davison objected to this. He saw potential in the Nyssa character and convinced Mr. Nathan-Turner not to drop Nyssa. Subsequently, it was Adric who ended up getting written off the show, being killed off at the end of Earthshock, later in the season.

I've read a few interviews in which Peter Davison has stated that Nyssa was his favourite Companion and that he felt the relationship between the Fifth Doctor and Nyssa was not developed as well as it should have been. Well, I tend to agree with Mr. Davison on this one. I feel that the Fifth Doctor and Nyssa could have developed into the same kind of character rapport that the Third Doctor and Jo Grant had back in the early 1970's. However, the problem was that aside from Arc Of Infinity (the opening story of Season Twenty), the Fifth Doctor and Nyssa were never alone, Tegan was always there to steal the limelight. Now don't get me wrong, Tegan was okay. I grew to like her later on, once she stopped whining and being a moron all the time. However, it seems that Tegan got more airtime at the expense of Nyssa, and that is a shame. We never got to see just how far the rapport between the Fifth Doctor and Nyssa could be taken. At least the writers gave Nyssa a good exit by having her stay on Terminus and help find a treatment for Lazars Disease. I have no doubt that she eventually succeeded in doing so. Aside from a memory cameo in Peter Davisons last story, Caves Of Androzani, this would be Nyssas last appearance on the show.

It was not until the original Past Doctor Adventures novels and Audio Adventures came along in the late 1990's that Nyssa would appear again. I have read a few of these books and they are very good (unfortunately, I have not been able to acquire any of the Audio Adventures, I understand that a few were made set in the period between Time-Flight and Arc Of Infinity, when just the Doctor and Nyssa were in the TARDIS, anyone know how I can get a hold of these). The writers of the novels have much more freedom to explore the characters than could be done on the show. A few of the novels have explored the character of Nyssa in interesting ways. Examples include:

1. In the novel, Empire Of Death, Nyssa's habit of burying her feelings is tackled. The Doctor realizes that its making her physically ill and confronts her. He badgers her until she finally explodes, bursting into tears. While this may seem cruel, it does help Nyssa in the end. She realizes that showing her feelings, especially when shes in distress, is not a bad thing. After all, the Doctor is there, as a mentor and friend, to help her through it.

2. In the novel, Asylum, we see an older version of Nyssa. After being on Terminus for about fourteen years, and successfully curing Lazars Disease, Nyssa set out on her own. She spent the next six years roaming the galaxy, helping out in wars and other disasters. However, she finally had enough and settled on an unnamed planet, where she took a job as a University Lecturer. However, her life is not as serene as she had hoped. Her students are being somewhat difficult, the head of her department is hitting on her, and there is a possibility of her new home world being involved in an interstellar conflict. Nyssa is near breaking point, she just wants peace. Suddenly, the Fourth Doctor arrives (since the Fourth Doctor is alone in this story, it places the events, from his perspective, between the stories The Deadly Assassin and The Face Of Evil). The Fourth Doctor has been drawn to Nyssa by research she is conducting, which is now being changed by someone changing Earth's history. Even though this is a paradox for both of them, the Doctor in question not having met Nyssa yet in his time stream, Nyssa takes advantage of the situation to get away. She sneaks aboard the TARDIS and takes a jaunt to 13th Century Earth, where the source of the time change is taking place. Nyssa spends much of this story sitting in a garden, however, it seems to give her the therapy she needs. By the end of the book, Nyssa tells the Doctor to take her home, she is ready to face whatever lies ahead.

In closing, I would like to say that although the Past Doctor Adventure novels and Audio Adventures have explored Nyssas character in great detail, the show itself barely scratched the surface with her. Now that a new series is being made (I wrote this article before the new show began airing), and if Sarah Sutton is willing to return to the role, perhaps Nyssa could be brought back. Maybe then shell get the character development she so richly deserves.

I see it's time to update the Perils Of Nyssa tote board once again...
In the Companion Chronicle - The Darkening Eye, Nyssa gets stabbed in the heart, while talking to/reasoning with a fear-crazed female refugee, & dies in Tegan's arms...
However, thanks to a nearby Dar Trader, she's soon feeling much better...
Just to provoke a WTH ("What The Hell") moment, from Emily, Adric also gets stabbed in the chest beforehand, by the suave (Is there any other kind, one asks oneself ? Well, deadly might be more relevent, IMHO), & apparently indestructable assassin, Domasin Hyde...
He survives his stabbing due to his heart being on the other side of his chest, to most other species, but due to this, is effectively written out of most of the rest of the story...

Just to provoke a WTH ("What The Hell") moment, from Emily, Adric also gets stabbed in the chest

Sorry, that doesn't rate a WTH!!!!!! or even a raised eyebrow. After he's been Manuel the 500-year-old King of the Scorpion People from Barcelona, there is literally nothing that Adric can do to surprise me.

(Well, except appear in the new series, perhaps...)

Have to admit, Nyssa getting stabbed in the heart DID have me leaping out of my chair, though after years of the Perils of Nyssa Tote Board, I should really know better...

Re: Emily's last post
Said chronicle is set continunity wise, between the end of Black Orchid & the beginning of Earthshock...
Incedentally, Nyssa effectively gets tortured by the Dar Traders, as she gets placed in the equivalent of Star Trek's "Agony Booth", in order to determine her pain tolerance, as they use this to determine her species during their process of "cataloging".
Needless to say, Tegan & Adric do not undergo "cataloging"...

Of course! How silly of me to think that Nyssa getting knifed through the heart in any way constituted her share of torment for the day...

What is this Companion Chronicle? I thought the books had been discontinued (Past Doctor books that is).

They're CDs. As if the universe wasn't suffering enough with one godawful Who audio a month, Big Finish is now churning out The Companion Chronicles on the cheap - they don't need to pay actors, they just hire one out-of-work ex-Companion to read out an exciting adventure they once had with the Doctor (up to and including the memory-wiped ZOE HERIOT and personally I wasn't convinced by her allegedly recounting this weird dream to her shrink...).

Ah, thanks for the info, Emily.

Re: Companion Chronicles...
What Emily forgot to mention, is that they're also available as MP3 downloads from Big Finish's website, at about £1 cheaper than the physical CD...
As for the Chronicles themselves, they're variable, in that the stories can vary from "Good" via "Meh" to "My god, some fanfic's better written than this drivel".
The Chronicles themelves, were originally intended to showcase the first 4 Doctors, but with The Darkening Eye & The Prisoner's Dilemma, are now moving into the "Mainstream" of Big Finish'es output, in that said adventures are set in the 5th & 7th Doctor's era's respectively and are prequels to each other's stories, i.e The Darkening Eye is the prequel to the Death Collectors & The Prisoner's Dilemma is the prequel, to the Key2Time arc featuring the 5th Doctor...

It's a shame Sarah Sutton was born in 1961 - she would have been perfect for either of Lynne Frederick's or Fiona Fullerton's roles in "Nicholas and Alexandra" - well they all had a lot more of physical beauty then acting talent...

Of course, then she would have co-starred with Tom Baker, who played Rasputin

Re: The last couple of posts
Must we now descend into a "compare & contrast" session, regarding Fiona Fullerton's & Sarah Sutton's respective portrayals of Alice...?
In case you're wondering, Fiona Fullerton played Alice in the 1972 film version of Alice in Wonderland, while Sarah Sutton played Alice, in the 1973 James McTaggart T.V adaptation of Alice Through The Looking Glass...

At this point, since RTD seems compelled to bring back Rose, Martha, and even Donna ad infinitum, why not bring back EVERY former companion? Maybe we'll get an explanation for what happened to Dodo, Leela, Mel, and Ace? I know a few of the older companions have since passed on, but a visit to see Ian and Susan is long overdue. Heck, why not include Sgt. Benton and Mike Yates, too? Let's go crazy!

RTG mainly seems interested in his own regulars. Which is fair enough. (Well, OK, dragging Martha back AGAIN is stretching the definition of 'fair enough' to breaking point. But just IMAGINE what our lives would be like if he brought back Eccy for the grand finale...)

Well, if we get to see Nyssa again, fine by me. Maybe the Doc could pop by Terminus and see how things are going there. Since Ms. Sutton is twenty-five years older, the Doctor could arrive the same about of time later after his original visit.

And once again, it's time to update the Perils Of Nyssa thread...
This time, it's Castle Of Fear, in which nothing perilous happens to her...
The Doctor by contrast, has his brains (and the rest of his body) "racked by the Rutans"...

NOTHING happens to Nyssa?!

OBVIOUSLY you must be mistaken. Keep re-listening till you hear her sobbing quietly in the background or something.

She could be studying up on telebiogenesis?

"Keep re-listening till you hear her sobbing quietly in the background or something."


Well, if she thinks the Doctor is dead, that is to be expected. She's not a Vulcan, after all.

She certainly showed grief when she thought the Doctor was dead in Arc Of Infinity.

Sorry, Emily, but in said story, she supplies the Rutans with a energy matrix from the Tardis, but manages to con the Rutans, into installing it minus any safety interlocks/cutouts, thus causing the Rutan spaceship to self destruct, after the matrix overloads...
(They even thank her for helping the Rutan Empire, & their glorious cause, but comment that her "Underling Management" i.e The Doctor, skills does need some work...).
The Doctor's stream of incentive, concerning what he would like to do to the Rutans, when he believes Nyssa's dead, & he's talking to a Rutan "Clone" of her (Rutan "Cloning" is destructive to the "Donor"), makes one exactly wonder just what their relationship really is...
(Would The Doctor threaten to destroy the entire Rutan Empire, Rutan by Rutan, because Tegan, Turlough or Adric had been "cloned", I wonder...?)

Nope, I think we can safely say that the Doc's reaction to Adders going splat was more along the lines of 'Ah well...let's take a nice holiday to cheer ourselves up' than 'I swear eternal vengeance on the Cyberman race...'

has anyone noticed that in many of her early stories, Nyssa's make-up is very thick and unnatural - more Thatcher's Britain than Traken

Maybe it was a Trakenite tradition that Nyssa abandoned once she was living on the TARDIS.

Yeah - they were JUST the sort of people to slap on an inch of make-up over the gaping cracks in their 'terribly nice' faces (and/or civilisation).

Nyssa was just on the show at the wrong time. She was there when they were trying to recreate the "multiple companion" thing of the Hartnell-Troughton era (with mixed results). Had Nyssa appeared a few years earlier or later, she might have gotten better character development.

And once again, it's time to update the Perils Of Nyssa thread...
This time, it's Castle Of Fear, in which nothing perilous happens to her...

God, you weren't exaggerating. The worst thing that happens is stepping in some horse manure, which given what happens to Nyssa in every OTHER audio must be some sort of miracle...Mind you, going by the interminable extras, the author seems to be under the bizarre delusion that Nyssa (in that stupid phrase) 'wears the trousers' in her relationship with the Doctor, which might explain why her sidekick gets all the torturing for once...

Looks like they want to give her a break for a change.

And yet again, it's time to update the Perils of Nyssa tote board...
And this time, in The Eternal Summer, Nyssa's torment is to have her memories scanned, by the somewhat senile, & insane Lady of Stockbridge Manor, for her delectation & amusement...
Unfortunately for the Lady, the adsorption of Nyssa's memories by the Lady, results shortly after in her death, by the Lord of The Manor...
(At the risk of Spoilderdom however, does having your memories scanned by a alternate version of yourself even count as a torment...?)

Depends if it hurts, I guess.

Looks like they want to give her a break for a change.

No one EVER wants to give a born victim a break...

A born victim!? Come on, writers, you can do better than this.

Look at Arc Of Infinity for inspiration. Nyssa went through the Gallifreyan guards and really kicked some a**!

Yeah, BUT a) Gallifreyan guards are undoubtedly the most incompetent wimps in the history of the universe, b) all Nyssa REALLY did was wave a gun around, most disgraceful and unCompanionlike behaviour, and c) she fell at the last hurdle, i.e. handed over her weapon when the Doctor told her to instead of gunning down that godawful High Council AND Colin Baker and rescuing the Doc from vaporisation.

Re: Tim_m's March 26 2009 post
Well, Tim, this could well happen, in that the Big Finish's "Summer Trilogy", will feature the 5th Doctor, Nyssa, Tegan, & Turlough...
From what posters on Gallifrey Base can determine, the "trilogy" is set sometime in Season 21, for the Doctor, Tegan & Turlough, but for Nyssa, is set considerably some time after Terminus...

Sounds interesting.

Re: Nyssa's "Perfect Victim" status...
Nice Character biography, Emily, but what do you expect from the Doctor Who equivalent of a Star Trek "Redshirt", given she wears (for Season 19 at least), a Burgandy Red Blouse...

Except unlike the unfortunate red shirts, Nyssa survives.

Nice Character biography, Emily

Thanks. I didn't think anyone had even noticed the updated bios...(speaking of which, if anyone can think of a GOOD quote for Mike Yates I'd be much obliged.)

Except unlike the unfortunate red shirts, Nyssa survives.

True...of course, it's only so that they can torture her some more, but still...those books had a BAD habit of killing off Companions - Liz (Eternity Weeps), Dodo (Who Killed Kennedy), Ace (Loving the Alien), Mel (Heritage), Sarah (Bullet Time) and Romana (Ancestor Cell) spring to mind, not even counting the mass-TARDIS-crew-slaughter in Sometime Never...

Of course, since the New Series started, the books have been invalidated, so all those Companions are alive and well.

True...bless 'em...gods, has ANYONE died, then? (Well, aside from Vicki, from the standpoint of the twenty-first century...) The novelisation of The Wedding of Sarah Jane Smith made it very, VERY clear that poor Harry was a goner, but I don't think that made it onto the screen...

Time to add to the Perils/Torments of Nyssa thread, in that in Cobwebs, she almost gets executed by lethal injection, eaten by Caractid's, & gets briefly infected by Richter's Syndrome, a lethal disease that has killed 6 billion...

Don't forget the whole spotting-her-future-corpse thing, which I suspect is more traumatic than any of the above, given that NEARLY dying is all in a day's work, whereas being DESTINED to die is an entirely scarier matter.

Anyway, I'm not sure that any of it really counts, as the same happens to the Doctor, Turlough and Tegan - no one's really PICKING on Nyssa. For a change.

Of course, she does cause a plague that wipes out six billion people - and counting - but as she doesn't notice, that hardly counts as a torment either.

AND in The Whispering Forest Nyssa doesn't have a particularly hard time - oh sure, she gets attacked by ghosts and robots and homicidal mobs and so on, but so do all the others (with added death-by-decontamination threats for the Doctor and Tegan). Even when said mob chucks a stone which hits a Companion and nearly causes them to drown...it's Turlough who's the victim, not Nyssa, who's right next to him! And when the Mara comes back, Tegan's the victim! (Yes, I realise that makes logical sense, but don't tell me previous writers would have had the SLIGHTEST HESITATION in unblushingly claiming the Mara had jumped from Tegan's head to Nyssa's...)

Have the writers finally decided to stop giving Nyssa a hard time, or is this a temporary reprive while they have FOUR TARDIS regulars to play with - normal service will shortly be resumed...?

Yeah, let some other Companions take punishment for a change. Leave Nyssa alone.

It's too late. Now it just feels UNNATURAL when Nyssa doesn't take a good battering. I mean, this latest BF trilogy claims that she survived FIFTY YEARS post-Terminus without any mental or physical trauma! Even the PDA Asylum's ludicrous vision of her sweeping from lover to lover whilst engaged on aid work before having a nervous breakdown in medieval England with Tom Baker feels SLIGHTLY more plausible...

Hmmm, is there a Equal Oppoturnity Torment policy now in place...?
As for Cradle of the Snake, the only person NOT possessed by The Mara, during the story, is Turlough, i.e Nyssa does get possessed...
Anyway, I suspect that "normal service is due to be resumed" in the December 5th Doctor/Nyssa adventure

Oh. I THOUGHT I was joking about the Mara merrily skipping into Nyssa's head...

Poor Nyssa, they really have it out for her in the Audios for some reason.

Sure, she's the ultimate in punching-bags, but I can - almost - understand why. Nyssa spent an awful lot of her TV time doing nothing, but it didn't matter too much - when compared with Tegan and Adric, being quiet and intelligent-looking was quite attractive. Unfortunately it wouldn't come across quite as well on audio. The writers had to do SOMETHING with her, and instead of building on her brief flurry of pro-activity in Arc of Infinity, they went for the easier option of having someone torture the hell out of her every two minutes. Cos 'suffering' IS the cornerstone of Nyssa's character, even if it was never portrayed very well on-screen. (Sure, it would have got boring if she'd been perpetually wailing over Traken, but look how the Doctor's grief over Gallifrey was handled - hardly ever spoken of, but always lurking there, even when he was beaming all over his face.)

Well, the more recent audios have been kinder to her.

Well, having her say 'I finally realised what a self-righteous little prig I've always been. Embarrassing, really' in Cradle of the Snake isn't kind exactly, but compared with what they usually put her through, you have a point...

Is it true that Nyssa and the Doctor were alone for 10-15 years their time between Time Flight and Arc Of Infinity?

WHAT! Who said THAT?

Sure, it's theoretically possible, since neither of 'em necessarily age like a human, but still...

And surely Nyssa wouldn't take fifteen years to nag the Doc to fix the state of grace.

It was implied in several of the audios. However, I don't think it was said out loud.

It's possible, since (as Emily said) both the Doctor and Nyssa age much slower than us Earth people. Funny to think that only a year passed for Tegan but a decade or more for the Doctor and Nyssa. I guess this is one way to fit all those audios and Empire Of Death in there.

It's safe to say that when those stories were made, no one ever intended that anywhere near that much time passed between the stories. The only reason to suggest it comes from a non-canonical source retconning official continuity in order to accomodate more stories necessaitated by budget and the availability of actors.

So I chose not to believe it.

I rather like the idea that the Doctor & Nyssa got some peace & quiet for a few years away from the insufferable [Censored]. It even explains why they are so willing to take her back. In all that time they forgot how annoying she was & only remembered the good things* about her. ;-)

* What good things? Hell if I know.

The reactions from the characters are a little too underplayed. It's neither, "What have you been up to all this time?" nor "Doctor, how could you just dump me like that yesterday?" I think the amount of time between the two seasons is how much was intended to have passed. probably the same time for both parties, as that's how it usually works on TV Who.

Even that gives ample room for additional adventures. Mind you: if these stories aren't canonical, then fitting them into established continuity doesn't matter anyway.

That's just it, the opening of Arc Of Infinity broke away from the established pattern of mentioning events in the preceeding story, that had happened throughout Season 19. When we join the TARDIS in Episode One of Arc, neither the Doctor nor Nyssa make any reference to Tegan whatsoever. There is no "Doctor, we forgot Tegan, we have to go back for her" or anything like that, so clearly time has passed in the TARDIS, the question is just how much time.

Granted, when the episodes were made, no one thought that they would fit a bunch of new Doctor/Nyssa adventures in between Time Flight and Arc Of Infinity (referred to as Season 19A), but still it works. Since no mention is made of elapsed time by either the Doctor or Nyssa when Arc began, it was easy to say: "Yeah, they could have had a some adventures that were never chronicled until now, when Big Finish started making them."

Maybe ten to fifteen years is a bit much. However, it could have been five years. I guess it's up to the fans to decide.

When we join the TARDIS in Episode One of Arc, neither the Doctor nor Nyssa make any reference to Tegan whatsoever. There is no "Doctor, we forgot Tegan, we have to go back for her" or anything like that, so clearly time has passed in the TARDIS, the question is just how much time.

Could be as little as two minutes. THAT'S how long it takes the Doctor to suggest everyone shuts the hell up about that 'Adric' person...

As regards the Perils Of Nyssa: she's being eaten by an alien fungus in Heroes of Sontar. What with this being an audio, and her displaying her usual tedious lack of reaction - sorry, I mean her aristocratic stiff upper lip - it doesn't really seem to be much of a big deal.

Could be as little as two minutes. THAT'S how long it takes the Doctor to suggest everyone shuts the hell up about that 'Adric' person

Yeah, I think it was a little longer than that. As I said, this was the first time in the Fifth Doctor's tenure that the previous adventure was NOT referenced. This indicates a period of time had elapsed on the TARDIS since Time Flight.

Or it could just indicate that they FINALLY realised how bloody stupid they sounded, saying things like 'By the way...when you were enjoying 48 hours deep-sleep with the Delta Wave Augmenter, I was being POSSESSED by the MARA!!'

I think my theory makes much more sense, considering that you now have to accomdate all those audios.

Oh, I gave up trying to accomodate all those audios at about the time 'Master' claimed the child-Doctor smashed another kid's head in and sold the child-Master to the goddess Death.

But yes, of course I'm just arguing for the hell of it.

No doubt this is why all those audios were set during this period, because the amount of time for the Doctor and Nyssa between Seasons 19 and 20 was never mentioned onscreen

On the other hand, the books and audios are shamelessly happy to shoehorn themselves into non-existent gaps. Like Lords of the Storm and Imperial Moon allegedly occuring after Resurrection, despite the fact the Doctor's ranting about Tegan and Daleks at the start of Planet of Fire...

Well, that's the good thing about Season 19A, you CAN fit it into the gap between Time Flight and Arc Of Infinity.

How many audios have the Doctor and Nyssa been in now?

I make it 23 at a quick count. (Including the freebie where she and the Doctor return to the Web Planet to watch Zarbi having sex. But not including any other freebies, all of which were so unmemorable I don't know if they had Nyssa in.) Most of 'em recent as if she's suddenly come into fashion.

Happy Birthday to Sarah Sutton, who turned 50 today.

50?

But she's the YOUNG companion!

Hard to believe it's now been thirty years since she rode the TARDIS.

Yeah. The pretty teen from Traken is a teen no longer.

Why does Nyssa wear a "fairy" skirt at first and then switch to pants?
What was wrong with the skirt?
Was it Sarah Sutton's choice or did the producers force the change upon her?

I suppose she thought that trousers would be better at protecting her legs as she hacked her way through jungle (or whatever she expected to be on Castrovalva). Not that practicality has exactly been Nyssa's watchword when it comes to clothing.

Should I show a little girl a Nyssa story?

for starters, I would like to see her reaction to the "fairy" skirt and how they veer from plastering Nyssa in lipstick and eyeshadow to letting her look natural.

Ooh yes, Keeper of Traken would be great. MAYBE Castrovalva, if she's already a Fan and therefore her idea of the Best Time Ever is spending a couple of episodes wandering around the TARDIS. OBVIOUSLY you can't bore the poor thing's brains out with Logopolis.

To update the Perils of Nyssa tote board:

She only goes and gets herself rejuvenated in The Emerald Tiger! Sure, she goes through a bit of a rough time FIRST, including being convinced that Tegan's dead, and being turned into a tiger thanks to a rabid bite but hey, SOMEONE is FINALLY trying to make amends for the years of relentless suffering inflicted on the poor woman...now she'll have DECADES more life to enjoy those traumatic memories!

So now Nyssa is young again.

I guess this proves that the Audios take place in a different reality than the New Series. Should Nyssa turn up meeting the Eleventh Doctor, she will clearly be middle aged (Sarah Sutton will be turning 51 this year).

So now Nyssa is young again.

Though as the first thing she does with her new-found youth is get engaged to Magnus Greel, you might not want to get the champagne out just yet.

I guess this proves that the Audios take place in a different reality than the New Series. Should Nyssa turn up meeting the Eleventh Doctor, she will clearly be middle aged (Sarah Sutton will be turning 51 this year).

Yeah, the books rejuvinated the Brig in Happy Endings/Shadows of Avalon but when he gloriously (if briefly, and only-in-SJA) appeared on our screens, he was PRETTY OLD.

Though as the first thing she does with her new-found youth is get engaged to Magnus Greel, you might not want to get the champagne out just yet

Yes, because she was secretly trying to stop him. It's not like she actually loved the guy.

Sarah Sutton is generally considered the prettiest of the female companion actresses. It's a shame she didn't stick with the fairy skirt or she'd be the most feminine of the female companion actresses, too.

she was secretly trying to stop him. It's not like she actually loved the guy.

Excuses, excuses...

Even after she was unmasked as a spy, Nyssa still ran after dear old Magnus, insisting he had some good in him or some such nonsense.

Terminus: 'I've enjoyed every moment of my time on the TARDIS' - what, even that moment you looked at the scanner screen and said 'Oops - where's Traken'? Even that moment you were plummeting back in time to the Big Bang while your father's possessed face laughed at you? Even that moment dear old Adder's freighter crashed into the poor old dinosaurs?

So Nyssa's reaction to hearing some footsteps is to crouch in the middle of the corridor with her arms over her head?

'NO! Others are worse than me!' - anyone else get the distinct impression that Nyssa's not so much altruistically insisting on her comrades getting cured first as insisting on them being fed to the monster first?

Terminus: 'I've enjoyed every moment of my time on the TARDIS' - what, even that moment you looked at the scanner screen and said 'Oops - where's Traken'? Even that moment you were plummeting back in time to the Big Bang while your father's possessed face laughed at you? Even that moment dear old Adder's freighter crashed into the poor old dinosaurs?

I think she was generalizing here.

You say 'generalizing', I say 'LYING'.

Hell, it's not as if she looked like she was enjoying any of her OTHER TARDIS moments, either...

Happy Birthday to Sarah Sutton, 51 years young

Sarah Sutton in DWM: 'We'd seen [Nyssa] grow up over the two years and turn from a very protected and aristocratic young lady into a mature and well-balanced woman.' - we HAD?? WHEN!!

'I think she was in for a lot of fun, actually - stuck on a space ship with a lot of men!' - yes indeedy, which of us HASN'T fantasised about having a Lazar/Vanir orgy?

Um, well, ME, for starters.

so Nyssa was planning to be the Lady Jennifer Buckingham of Terminus?

My god, what did Lady Jennifer get up to?!

I meant the only woman on a planet/ship of men...

Well, there are female patients there.

Ah, the Nyssa/Vanir/Kathy Burke orgy we've all been waiting for...

They must think us fools!!!

Who the smeg is Kathy Burke!?

***a quick trip to Wikipedia later***

Never mind


Maybe the Doctor and Clara can drop by to see how Nyssa is coming along on Terminus. It would be another nice 50th Anniversary thing. You listening, Moff?

I know it's probably not gonna happen, but it would be nice if Nyssa (and other pre-2005 Companions) were to be in the 50th Anniversary show.

If The Moff can't be bothered to have pre-2005 DOCTORS he's hardly gonna bother with the Companions...

...Still, we might get a few clips of 'em inserted, a la Name of the Doctor. Nothing suitable is springing to mind for Nyssa, though. No point in having her pop up to say 'I know so little of telebiogenesis' or something...

I think Tim's dream is to have Nyssa back.. but in just bra and panties... and the age Sutton was 30 years ago.

I'm sure the bra and panties are just optional. ;-)

***goes off to take a VERY cold shower***

I'm not sure whether to add Prisoners of Fate to the Perils Of Nyssa Tote Board Count. On the one hand, she lost her husband, and both kids, AND spent 25 Doctorless years getting REALLY bitter.

On the other hand, the Doc nipped back to spare her those 25 years so they never happened. Sure, she still lost her husband and kids but, let's face it, this is Nyssa - SHE DIDN'T CARE.

On the other hand, the Doc nipped back to spare her those 25 years so they never happened

Wouldn't that create a paradox? Another good reason to banish the Audios to an alternate reality.

Should the Moff chose to bring Nyssa back, I don't think he'll bother with the Audios, he'll just have her still on Terminus.

Wouldn't that create a paradox?

I just don't think the universe could be BOTHERED. Even NYSSA wasn't particularly bothered, either way. It's wasn't exactly a heartrending moment, a la the end of The Girl Who Waited.

Should the Moff chose to bring Nyssa back, I don't think he'll bother with the Audios, he'll just have her still on Terminus.

Oh, she CAN'T still be on Terminus, thirty years on. It SURELY wouldn't take her long to whip up a cure, after which she'd surely want to move to more sabubrious surroundings for more do-gooding.

Good point, Emily.

What I meant is that if the Moff should decide to bring Nyssa back, I can't see him sitting down to listen to all the Audios beforehand. He'll thus be confirming that they take place in an alternate reality.

Check out the picture of Nyssa here:

http://www.rassi.com/doctor-who.html


***goes off to take another very cold shower***

Nyssa: a robot, boring as toast and more unpalatable than cold tea.

she's only really used as eye candy and an invitation to the young males in the audience to imagine themselves having sex with her.

She's not a robot: she just comes from an alien, traditional, highly-repressed society. If this was New Who we'd've seen a delightful character development whereby she eventually became a Wild Young Thing, but as it is, we only get extremely occasional and vague indications that her iron self-control is slipping, even though HER ENTIRE GALAXY HAS JUST BEEN DESTROYED AND THE MASTER'S WALKING AROUND IN HER DAD'S BODY. She's mildly upset to see the Master gloating as he destroys the TARDIS, she's mildly upset that the High Council have vaporised the Doctor, and she's HOPPING MAD for some reason that Davison lifts her down from a step in Snakedance.

And practically ALL the females in Old Who were there as eye-candy, so I don't see why Nyssa is particularly culpable in THAT regard. Except that I suppose, being considerably prettier than the rest of 'em, she's more successful?

Thanks for taking care of this, Emily.

I have to agree with Tim--I would have loved it if she had gotten more chances to shine.

Sadly what we got was Tegan,Tegan, and more Tegan!!!

Does anyone here know why(was she sleeping with the boss,or did she have some good dirt on someone)????

The reason is because Tegan was groomed as THE Companion for the Fifth Doctor (the Rose Tyler of her day). Everyone else was just along for the ride.

That is why Nyssa got the shaft, character wise. That "mouth on legs" was always hogging the smegging spotlight (except in Arc Of Infinity, too bad the Fifth Doctor and Nyssa team didn't last beyond that, novels and audios notwithstanding).

Happy Birthday to Sarah Sutton, who turns 52 today

I'm sure Sutton fans wish it was 1986 so those numbers could be transposed and Sarah was a purdy young thang again...!

Alas, we all get older, Judi.

Tim:The reason is because Tegan was groomed as THE Companion for the Fifth Doctor (the Rose Tyler of her day).

Then they should have made her easier to like(morre like Rose as well).

What I mean is come on--both Emily and I hate her. How often do the two of us agree on ANYTHING?????

I don't HATE her! I just...don't bother having much emotion either way about her. To be honest, that's the case will a hell of a lot of Old Who Companions.

Nyssa should have been the Fifth Doctor's main Companion. Anyone disagrees with me, I'll fight them to the death!

Well, if the Master had kidnapped Nyssa rather than Adric and put her in the web?

Wouldn't have sounded the same though...

"I once was stuck with a gobby Trakenite trying to her back to her home planet which was destroyed..."

Enough about your travels with Emily Carter, Rodney. Now what about the Doctor and Nyssa?

A nice Christmas gift for me: Nyssa is waiting for me by the Christmas tree when I got up in the morning

...And then you woke up and it was all a dream?

I doubt it. Tim's not the one to find Nyssa in the shower like some U.S. TV soap opera.

Of course, Frances, Emily will probably have no idea what you're talking about.

I like young Nyssa of the tv series. Nyssa's voice and personality is definately much riper in Big Finish.
It was almost painful in the early audios where Sutton tried to sound 19 again

Well, they did try to solve the problem by having Five, Tegan and Turlough meet up with Nyssa decades (for her) since they'd dumped her with some lepers. But then, of course, BF just couldn't help rejuvinating her...

Tim: ...Must not kill Judi...Must not kill Judi

They should have gone all out with Nyssa... a real Sharaz Jek/Borad figure after her..

It puts the lotion on its skin or it gets the hose again!

HUH???

I had to watch Silence of the Lambs for media class in school.

Well, they did try to solve the problem by having Five, Tegan and Turlough meet up with Nyssa decades (for her) since they'd dumped her with some lepers. But then, of course, BF just couldn't help rejuvinating her...

Not canon, doesn't count.

I wonder if Tim McCree does an Amy Pond and has his girlfriends dress up in Nyssa's velvet blouse and fairy skirt?

the ultimate Nyssa question: what was better? Fairy skirt or trousers?

Fairy skirt, definitely. The trousers were just the beginning of a VERY slippery slope for Nyssa, fashion-wise...

Aside from the McDonald's outfit of Snakedance, Nyssa dressed just fine.

'Nyssa is crestfallen when the Doctor doesn't notice her sexier new outfit, and responds rather overdramatically when he grabs her to pull her over a ravine...As a maturing young woman, Nyssa seems to have a bit of a crush on the Doctor' - Gareth Roberts in DWM. Look, I'm hradly in a position to judge people for having a bit of a crush on the Doctor, but...we're talking DAVISON. It's one thing for Rose (and me) to fall madly in love with the Doctor all over again when he turns from Eccy to Tennant, but NO ONE who has known THE FOURTH DOCTOR can possibly fall for the puffing blandness of the Fifth.

Oh, and interesting new usage of the words 'sexier' and 'ravine'.

The Doctor knew Nyssa was spoken for, by ME!

Would you accept Ann Talbot as a consolation prize, Tim?

Ooh, good question!

This is going to end on the roof of a stately home, isn't it?

Would you accept Ann Talbot as a consolation prize, Tim

Nah, she's married, or soon will be.

I'll take the real thing, Nyssa!

Nah, she's married, or soon will be.

Admittedly at the end of Black Orchid (and for the duration of the Sands of Time MA) Ann DOES look as if she's still planning on committing incest with a pathological liar, but don't underrate your chances of changing her mind, Tim. She was probably just terrified of ending up a spinster if she had TWO broken engagements...

Incest does not apply in the case of Ann Talbot and Charles Cranleigh, they are not siblings.

However, as I said, I'll take the real Nyssa, thank you.

Incest does not apply in the case of Ann Talbot and Charles Cranleigh, they are not siblings.

Yeah, but she WAS engaged to his brother, so marrying him would for centuries have been regarded as incest, at least until the Pope had been paid an AWFUL LOT OF MONEY for a dispensation...

However, as I said, I'll take the real Nyssa, thank you.

The implication was that the REAL Nyssa had cruelly neglected you...

...In which case, would you settle for Ann?

The implication was that the REAL Nyssa had cruelly neglected you...

Nyssa neglect me!? Never gonna happen.

I actually MEANT to say 'rejected' (gods my BRAIN these days - I suspect Ruby White has moved in down the road) but luckily 'neglected' will do quite well instead...except that it does imply that at SOME point in your lives, Ms O'Traken DID bother to give you the time of day...

What Nyssa and I do in our private time is our business

Who the smeg is Ruby White?

An evil brain-sucking senility-inducing alien who moved in down the road from Sarah in SJA: Season Four: Goodbye, Sarah Jane Smith.

When I marry Nyssa, I won't ask her to take my last name if she doesn't want to (it's the 21st Century, after all).

However, she doesn't have a last name, so what would she call herself? I guess Ms. O'Traken is as good as anything.

Re: that famous Logopolis publicity still of Master and Daught... sorry Ainley and Sutton, has Sutton with pink lipstick and strong purple eyeshadow. I hope she remembered to take it off that night or else her pillow will have looked like Barbara Cartland exploded over it.

The extreme make up must have been a Trakenite thing. Nyssa dialed it down once she was part of the TARDIS crew.

My Nyssa needs no make up to be beautiful.

I can just imagine Nyssa's reaction to Tim McCree:

"the Melkur has made you mad!"

John Lang has Deanna Troi, I have Nyssa

Nyssa was sixteen when she first met the Doctor (and Sarah Sutton was eighteen)

When does it say on-screen that she's sixteen?

I think its in one of the books or novelisations that she was sixteen in The Keeper of Traken. On-screen in Keeper she's treated as a non-adult so definately younger than Sutton.

Oh, a NOVELISATION.

What the hell do THEY know about anything?

They once had the Doctor peeing over a shelf...

JNT, in his character write up of Nyssa, said she was eighteen. Since Johnny Byrne, Nyssa's creator, okayed it, I'm gonna assume it was true.

But would that be Traken years, or Earth years?

But would that be Traken years, or Earth years?

I don't think that was ever specified.

Sutton was still 18 when she started filming Keeper in late 1980. She's a December baby.

Yep, she was born on December 12th, 1961.

Nyssa seems to be the Doctor Who universe's punching bag. (the male punching bag is Adric.)

Anyone tries to hurt Nyssa, they're gonna answer to ME!

Where the hell were YOU when she was getting anti-matter crystals sown into her stomach?

I got trapped in the time vortex

Well, I'm sure she'll forgive you.

She always does.

It's just not HEALTHY. She should hit people with cricket bats whilst shrieking 'TWELVE YEARS AND FOUR PSYCHIATRISTS!' (or Trakenite equivalent). It would do her good.

If only RTD or the Moff were in charge when Nyssa rode in the TARDIS.

I mean the modern Companions from Rose Tyler through Clara Oswald got the kind of character development poor Nyssa could only dream about.


She should hit people with cricket bats

Missing scene from Four To Doomsday...


Adric: You're not a woman.

Nyssa: I'm not?

Adric: In his smug voice. No, you're only a girl.

Nyssa: Is that so!?

Adric: Yes, now be quiet, you silly little girl.

Nyssa picks up a cricket bat and WHACK! Knocks Adders out cold.

Tegan: Hey, Nys, can I have a go at him next?

Well, at least Four to Doomsday offered us the pleasure of seeing Tegan knock Adric unconscious. It's a LOT better than nothing.

Tim:Nyssa picks up a cricket bat and WHACK! Knocks Adders out cold.

Somehow I don't think that would be anywhere close to what Adric deserves!!!!!

(Of course the truth is that the beating that I'd want to see would get a NC-17(or worse) for graphic violence and bloodshed. Oh well, I can always dream.)

Hey, Jep, welcome back. Haven't seen you here in quite some time.

What did Adric do to deserve such hate? He seemed to be a nice, if bland type of guy. Turlough is the one you should think about using a cricket bat on.

Perhaps his being an obnoxious twit had something to do with it. His smug "I know more than you do." attitude just bugged people the wrong way.

The Doctor Who Ratings guide said it best: Nyssa's wheels tended to turn silently. Adric's were all too noisy.

Yeah, I would use a cricket bat on Turlough. Because of him, Nyssa was written off the show. That would be reason enough for me.

What did Adric do to deserve such hate?

I too spent DECADES wondering that. I was quite fond of him first time round (in my defence, I was about eight). And ahhh, those silent credits over that broken badge for mathematical excellence...heart-breaking!

But then I rewatched him gratuitously SNEERING at women in Four to Doomsday and he started getting on my nerves quite fast.

To be scrupulously fair, OK, he wasn't that great but neither were most Old Who Companions. It's just FUN to join in a universal pastime like Adric-bashing.

Yeah, I would use a cricket bat on Turlough. Because of him, Nyssa was written off the show.

That's REALLY how it happened?

Yeah, I would use a cricket bat on Turlough. Because of him, Nyssa was written off the show.

That's REALLY how it happened?

Well, she leaves the next story after he's introduced.

Apparently, Peter Davison was not to happy with Nyssa leaving. He said she was his favourite Companion. You're not alone there, Mr. Davison.

Yeah, I know he saved her before when the penny FINALLY dropped that there were WAY too many people in the TARDIS. So I very much doubt they'd •••• off Davison by sacking Nyssa just to bring in TURLOUGH.

Well, it's too bad really. We had the team of the Third Doctor and Jo Grant, we had the Fourth Doctor and Romana. We could have had the Fifth Doctor and Nyssa.

Why couldn't they have left Tegan on Earth for a few more stories. Have the Fifth Doctor and Nyssa have a few adventures, then they could have brought Tegan back for the Five Doctors.

That's actually...a really good idea.

As long as we had Snakedance sooner or later...

My idea is that the Fifth Doctor and Nyssa would have the TARDIS to themselves for all of Season 20. They would pick up Tegan again in the Five Doctors (Borusa would have time scooped her into the Death Zone, like he did Sarah Jane).

Snakedance would then take place in Season 21.

I am personfully struggling to think of all the marvellous things we'd miss by Tegan not being in Season 20, but...absolutely nothing is springing to mind.

Plus your way would avoid that awful coincidence of the Doctor bumping into her in Amsterdam (which, just to add insult to injury, we couldn't even blame on Sexy's matchmaking tendencies. Or (as with Donna) on universal predestination).

Yeah, without the "mouth on legs" around, Nyssa might have gotten some decent character development. Arc Of Infinity showed what a good character she was, when the spotlight was on her for a change.

On the other hand, she and Davison get a lot of BF audios together and - give or take Spare Parts - they're as much of a waste of space as every OTHER BF audio, including the ones where she has to share the limelight with Tegan, Adric, and/or Turlough.

Maybe, but you're comparing the TV production crew and writers of the 1980'S with what is basically fan fiction on audio in the 21st century.

They're not, though. Night of the Doctor canonised 'em, Spare Parts was so great that New Who begged for its own version - ditto for Jubilee - the Sixth Doctor and Mel Bush (of all people) were thoroughly rehabilitated by 'em...BF COULD have been Five and Nyssa's great chance to prove themselves together (albeit in a tragically pictureless fashion), but...they blew it.

Night of the Doctor canonised 'em

It did nothing of the sort, at least not all of them. At most, it canonized only the Paul McGann ones. Since McGann's only canon appearances were his first story (the TV Movie) and his last story (Night Of The Doctor), one could pack a number of adventures he might have had in the time between.

As far as the Fifth Doctor and Nyssa are concerned, the only place one could pack in a bunch of Audio adventures is in the time between Time Flight and Arc Of Infinity, as they originally did. Since it was never revealed how much time had passed for Five and Nyssa (and some speculate that it could be as long as ten years), they could have had a lot of adventures we never saw. We're now just hearing about them.

At most, it canonized only the Paul McGann ones.

There's a domino effect. Night of the Doctor canonised Charley, who also accompanied the audio Sixth Doctor, and - in Light at the End - Docs One-to-Eight AND their various audio Companions...

Hey, there is a city in Oregon called Nyssa!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nyssa,_Oregon

Perhaps I should make the pilgrimage.

Yeah, I know it wasn't named for MY Nyssa, but it's still cool.

Let me guess, Judi posted something here that got nuked.

Judi posted something stolen from another internet site without attribution here that got nuked. Yes.

The first article I submitted to the Doctor Who Ratings Guide was called Nyssa: The Underappreciated Companion.

That was in 2005, ten years ago. Where does the time go?

Nyssa Is A Hot Babe

(sung to the tune of Good Time)


Woah-oh-oh-oh
Nyssa is a hot babe,
Woah-oh-oh-oh
Nyssa is a hot babe,

Woke up feeling like travelling in time.
Not something I just do on the dime.
Hands up if you agree with what I have to say.
Nyssa is a hot babe.

Don't wear normal clothes, why should I care?
Her dress makes me feel lighter than the air.
I'm in if she's down to date up today.
Nyssa is a hot babe,.

I'm going to ask her.
I'll bring her a fine fur.
Everyone's okay.
I'll say it every day.
Nyssa is a hot babe.

Woah-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh
Woah-oh-oh-oh
Nyssa is a hot babe,
Woah-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh
I'll say it every day.
Nyssa is a hot babe.

Freaked out, I fell down onto the floor.
Sweet Nyssa just came in through the door.
Hands up, if you're down to date up tonight.
Nyssa is a hot babe.

It's kind of easy to say.
Can't keep my feelings at bay.
It's serious Nyssa loving time.
My pants are getting kinda tight.
Nyssa is a hot babe.

Woah-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh
Woah-oh-oh-oh
Nyssa is a hot babe,
Woah-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh
I'll say it every day.
Nyssa is a hot babe.

Doesn’t' matter where.
Nyssa is a hot babe there.
Doesn't matter when
Nyssa is a hot babe then.
Let's say it all hooray.
Nyssa is a hot babe.

Woah-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh
Woah-oh-oh-oh
Nyssa is a hot babe,
Woah-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh
I'll say it every day.
Nyssa is a hot babe.

So...um...not PLATONIC devotion, then...?

Well, Nyssa did help get me through puberty, thirty-four years ago

Happy 54th Birthday to Sarah Sutton

She's older than Doctor Who!!!!

(Glitz) only by a few years... (/Glitz)

Yeah, nowadays all the Companion actors are younger than Doctor Who.

Heck, I've been a Who fan longer than most of that lot have been alive!


Sarah Sutton was born in 1961, only two years before Doctor Who started.

Eh, though Nyssa's the best, I quite like them as a team, especially Tegan. She's a bit "gobby" (as the Eleventh once referred to her), but she was an okay foil to the Doctor compared to someone more demure and less openly critical like Nyssa. As for Adric, I've always regarded him as a bit of a comic relief character. Not even the Doctor seems to buy into Adric's "teen genius" pretentions. :D

Eh, though Nyssa's the best, I quite like them as a team, especially Tegan.

Tegan and Nyssa do go remarkably well together, it's just a pity you've got Adric/Turlough/the Fifth Doctor to spoil the dynamic.

Not even the Doctor seems to buy into Adric's "teen genius" pretentions

Oh, the Doc does occasionally toss him a maths question to give him the chance to show off. Before checking it on the computer and saying 'He's very nearly right...'

Of course, Adric's CREATOR pointed out that he was only supposed to be a maths-genius by the standards of the sparsely-populated and frankly rather stupid Starliner...

It was script editor Eric Saward who disliked Nyssa more than JN-T. Even though he'd already written her fairly well in The Visitation. But he clearly never saw The Keeper of Traken, where Nyssa is pretty ruthless and forceful - more entitled and arrogant than naive and innocent.

It might be just as well. Who knows how many people Saward would have had Nyssa gunning down if he'd realised she WASN'T a wimp.

Both Nyssa and Princess Leia took the destruction of their respective homeworlds a little too lightly.

To be fair, so did the Eleventh Doctor. And he was the one wot dunnit, unlike Nyssa (dunno about Princess Leia).

Princess Leia's home planet Alderaan gets destroyed by a planet blower-upper gun.

And the people responsible for Alderaan's destruction? Her dad & Doctor Who. ;-)

Man JNT was ripping Star Wars in an oddly subtle way! 8-o ;-)

Yes, Peter Cushing was Governor Tarkin in Star Wars.

Maybe Roberta Tovey should have been Princess Leia?

She can be anything she likes as long as she stops pretending to be the Doctor's granddaughter.

After fifty-three years I'm still struggling to accept SUSAN in this role...

'Intelligent and nice' should not be a character's only trait, but it's all Nyssa ever got and it's doubly boring when her co lead has those traits too.
There's a reason every writer on TV stuck Nyssa in the TARDIS and every spin-off turns her into a monster or gives her space plague. She has no personality, there is nothing to write.

And yet, weirdly enough, the only time in the Davison Era the TARDIS Team actually FELT like a TARDIS Team was during the first half of Arc of Infinity, when it was just intelligent-and-nice-and-boring Five n'Nyssa running around together. Away from the loudness/ghastliness/weirdness of her fellow Companions, Nyssa was actually in danger of developing a character. Another few stories with just the two of them and who knows, she might even have got a bit upset about her whole galaxy blowing up...

Arc was one of Nyssa'a best stories, IMO.

Of course, her creator, Johnny Byrne, wrote it.

She shouldn't have meekly handed over that staser when the Doctor told her to, though.

Let's face it, you can NEVER go wrong just GUNNING DOWN GALLIFREY'S ENTIRE HIGH COUNCIL.

Tim, has it ever occurred to you that maybe Nyssa and Ann permanently swapped places during Black Orchid?

No, me neither, but Wotcha! in the latest DWM makes a convincing case.

Well, an amusing case, anyway.

That is highly unlikely. There is NO way Ann could have perfectly impersonated Nyssa, nor was their time for Nyssa to brief her in the time they had.

An amusing idea, but that's all it is.

Yeah, and i doubt that Lord Cranleigh would want to find that Nyssa is Action Man in that department - panties and a trademark.

There is NO way Ann could have perfectly impersonated Nyssa

Wotcha!'s claim is that Ann DIDN'T perfectly impersonate Nyssa ('Who are you trying to kid, Talbot? You've never synthesized an enzyme in your life' not to mention 'Instead of saying "It's the Master's TARDIS," Nyssa (or rather Ann) utters the thoroughly bizarre line "What comes from it killed my father"...it's actually just Ann Talbot not realising that Tegan knows perfectly well who the Master is').

nor was their time for Nyssa to brief her in the time they had.

Of course there was! They spent DAYS hanging around waiting for the serial killer's funeral, in a way the Doc didn't bother to for, say, THE DAUGHTER WHO'D DIED FOR HIM's funeral.

Yeah, and i doubt that Lord Cranleigh would want to find that Nyssa is Action Man in that department - panties and a trademark.

There's no evidence to suggest this, people on Traken do (er, did) reproduce SOMEHOW. Plus there's sweeping from lover to lover in the PDAs plus plenty of pre-marital sex, marriage AND children for Nyssa in the audios (it has to be admitted I'm a bit sceptical about the kids, one of them is 'Tegan' one minute and 'Neeka' the next and, even less convincingly, the other is 'Adric' ALL THE TIME).

Anyway, what Lord Cranleigh wants has nothing to do with it, it's what Nyssa wants (getting her silver-spoon existence back) and what Ann wants (getting a life of wild adventure instead of settling down with the boring lying younger brother of her wild adventurous fiancé) that's important here.

If anyone is gonna see Nyssa in her panties, it's gonna be me!

What is this "Wotcha!" thing anyway??

Anyone in a Christmassy mood and keen to see a young Sarah Sutton wrestling with a small, method-acting black kitten might like to check out the opening moments of this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5AtRyCB_jzQ

What is this "Wotcha!" thing anyway??

A very amusing and bizarrely Black-Orchid-obsessed column in Doctor Who Magazine written by the Watcher. (Or, almost certainly, someone just pretending to be the Watcher. I've heard rumours that it's Gareth Roberts.)

a young Sarah Sutton wrestling with a small, method-acting black kitten

Did she just call that adorable cutie a WICKED LITTLE THING?

Blame Lewis Carroll.

Don't be silly, I'm blaming Nyssa.

Or would if the nasty little brat looked ANYTHING LIKE her.

Just be thankful I didn't send you any links to Deborah Watling in 'H.G. Wells' Invisible Man' back in the 1950s.

Did she just call that adorable cutie a WICKED LITTLE THING?

Well, the kitten was played by a young Tim McCree. ;-)

Don't remember a character named "Nyssa" appearing in Alice In Wonderland...

A very Happy 55th Birthday to Sarah Sutton

If she appears in the New Series, it hopefully won't be like the Curse of Fatal Death Master ("Wait for me! Wait for me!")

I would love to see Nyssa in the New Series. The Doctor should swing by Terminus and see how things are getting on, 33 years later.

Sarah Sutton was a beautiful young woman and she's still beautiful even now.

I couldn't agree more

I would love to see Nyssa in the New Series. The Doctor should swing by Terminus and see how things are getting on, 33 years later.

You're SO determined Nyssa isn't gonna have sex with anyone but you that you'd leave her stranded on a leper colony for THIRTY-THREE YEARS?

Considering what the Alternate Reality Nyssa (henceforth to be referred to as ARN), from the Audios has been through, Nyssa Prime got off easy.

Oh, I dunno...I'd choose lepers over offspring any day, but I gather I'm quite unusual in this regard...

Hopefully, by the time Capaldi drops by, Nyssa has Terminus ins much better shape.

And has even acquired a new skirt.

I think it's safe to assume that Nyssa has NOT been running around in her undies for he last three decades (not that I would mind, of course).

Up Next: Tim runs around with Nyssa while she's in camisole knickers! Can't wait ;)

This isn't Torchwood, Natalie

True. Nyssa and Tim After Dark would be much better written than Miracle Day...

Yeah, you can say that again.

I was watching Logopolis and I have to shake my head at the make-up artist. Sarah Sutton really suffers as a result. You're supposed to be breaking for Nyssa during the "he killed my step-mother and then my father..." speech but the viewer is distracted by how much lipstick and eyeshadow and blush that she is wearing.

Yeah, I don't usually notice anyone's appearance but MY GOD someone had really gone to town on poor Nyssa's face.

Could have been done deliberately to illustrate that she is from a different planet and culture. Nyssa I mean, not Sarah.

So why the red cheeks and lips and the mauve round the eyes? If they'd done it the other way round, now THAT would be an alien culture...

from the "would the boys on the TARDIS spy on naked Nyssa with TARDIS CAM", we never did find out how big Nyssa's chest was, did we?
Of course if The Doctor/Adric/Turlough wanted it bigger, I'm sure the TARDIS had a machine to achieve that...

Um, I'm fairly sure the TARDIS DIDN'T have a machine to achieve that.

Half the time it didn't even seem to have a food machine, wardrobe, database, spare bedroom, medical bay or library...

The Tardis can probably find someone with a machine that can do that. Alternately, if she's feeling sneaky she can take her thief and his pets to a planet where one of the local fruits happens to have that effect.

The companions might notice that all the local women were unusually attractive, but they'd never guess that this was the result of eating the strange chocolate-flavoured purple fruit dangling from every tree, so the female companions would be quite surprised when their breasts went up two sizes in the next week.

Too bad Johnny Byrne didn't write more Nyssa episodes.

She shines in his episodes, of course, he created her.

Too bad Johnny Byrne didn't write more Nyssa episodes.

I dunno, if the fall in quality was as drastic between his second and third stories as it is between his first and second, even YOU might have to admit that even a kick-arse Nyssa would just not be worth the unholy mess that surrounded her...

If you're referring to Warriors Of The Deep, my August 14th post in that thread pretty much sums up my position on that.

Since Nyssa was originally only supposed to appear in Keeper Of Traken, Mr. Byrne, as the writer of that episode, owned the copyright on her.

When JNT decided to keep Nyssa on, Mr. Byrne was paid a fee for all her appearances.

If you're referring to Warriors Of The Deep, my August 14th post in that thread pretty much sums up my position on that.

OK, have duly reread said post and it's extremely convincing but alas it just slipped out of my mind like Pertwee slipping away from Jo's engagement party and all I could remember was Warriors of the Deep is ••••, not It's totally Saward's fault that Warriors of the Deep is ••••.

*Apologetic shrug* Feel free to keep reminding me till the message sinks in, especially as the novelisation is next on my reread list, if and when I ever finish Daleks Masterplan Book Two...

That's okay, Emily, it happens.

Have you listened to Big Finish's A Heart on Both Sides? It's a Short Trip story with Nyssa and the Eight Doctor during the Time War and it's absolutely wonderful.

Nope, can't say that I have.

A very Happy 56th Birthday to Sarah Sutton

Wonder how Sarah would fare if she woke up as Nyssa in Nyssa's first episode? Aside from the changes involved in being sent from an almost sixty year old body to Nyssa's eighteen year old one, would Sarah remember enough of the plot to not mess things up for the Doctor and Adric?

And no doubt Nyssa will find herself in Sarah's body, wondering why people are coming up to her and asking for autographs.

Would Sarah fare well in Nyssa's body? she might get Nyssa killed if she refuses to let the Master put the bracelet on her arm. The Whoniverse doesn't have any director saying "cut" and the Master won't be as stupid and as accommodating as he is on BBC tv.

Perhaps, as Phil would say, she read the script

I'd love to see a MASH version - Alan Alda learned a lot of medical things but i doubt he could perform the complex surgery Hawkeye is expected to do.

Love to take Nyssa to Wrigley's Pleasure Planet.

Moderator's Note: moved from the Television Spin-Offs: The Sarah Jane Adventures: Season Five: General Discussion thread:

And I'm sure you'll have EVERY BIT as much fun sitting on Earth listening to Nyssa say 'I know so little of telebiogenesis' as I'll have whizzing round the whole of space and time with the Tenth Doctor and the New Earth kittens we'll adopt together...

Naah, Nyssa'll say "I know so little of this earth thing called sex" and Tim's utterly crestfallen face!

Ah, what a dilemma for poor Tim. There is, actually, considerable evidence to suggest that Nyssa DOES know all about sex - her husband and two kids in the audios, her sweeping from lover to lover in the novels (well, one novel anyway). Of course, Tim is in utter denial of any of this (which is fair enough, even I don't believe a word the novels and audios say any more) but he's gonna be hard-pressed not to refer to 'em if she says THAT to his face...

And then there are the slash ficcers who insist Nyssa is a lesbian... tough break, Tim. ;-)

What Nyssa doesn't know, I'll be happy to teach her.

Hands on experience. Know what I mean, wink, wink, grin, grin, nudge, nudge!

Do bear in mind, Tim, that Nyssa refused to have sex with her own fiance in The Butcher of Brisbane.

Admittedly said fiance was Magnus Greel, but still...

I'm sure Tim would love Nyssa, Lady Ann Talbot and Sarah Sutton sharing an abode with him

Do bear in mind, Tim, that Nyssa refused to have sex with her own fiance in The Butcher of Brisbane.

Admittedly said fiance was Magnus Greel, but still...

That doesn't count, that was the ARN, not Nyssa Prime.

Nyssa Prime DEFINITELY never has sex.

Tim, have moved these posts in Nyssa section as requested. You'll be gratified to know that she now has 341 - um, 242 now - posts of her own - almost a hundred more than her closest Old Who rival (the TARDIS!) and almost fifty more than her closest New Who rival (Clara).

YAY!

Go, Nyssa, go Nyssa, go Nyssa

I'm writing a fanfic set during Season 9 of the new series with Ashildr if she was played by Sarah Sutton.

The Sarah Sutton as she is now, or the Sarah of 35 years ago?

Sarah as she was when she rode the TARDIS on TV. Sarah was 18 when filming Keeper and Maisie Williams was 18 when she was Ashildr.

Oh yeah, that's right!

Because of the makeup artist in "Logopolis", Nyssa looks more 1980s British girl than alien aristocrat. All that stuff on Sarah's face really distracts from her acting.

How could you know what an alien aristocrat should look like? Even on Earth, aristocrats from different times and societies look very different from each other.

I don't care what Nyssa is, or not, wearing

I always thought Sarah Slutton would make a good name for a call-girl if Tim ever has to write one for one of his stories.

If I ever do write such a character, I would choose a different name than insult an actress who plays a character I like.

it's a long time Doctor Who fandom joke about Sarah's name, i just borrowed it.

Yeah, I know where it comes from.

Happy 57th Birthday to Sarah Sutton

Sarah Sutton or Lucy Benjamin? Which Nyssa is for you, dear posters?

Sarah Sutton WAS Nyssa!

Lucy Benjamin was the child Nyssa in Mawdryn Undead. She was blonde so she was made up to resemble Sutton through a brunette wig.

That Nyssa-kid was even freakier than that Old-Nyssa.

Hey, Chibbers, how about Nyssa making an appearance?

Nyssa being my favourite is not exactly a state secret.

Yeah, and when you've just generously agreed to stop dwelling on this fact quite so much it's odd that Judi is now raising the issue.

Actually, I agree to stop making lustful posts about her. However, here I'm just confirming that she's my favourite character. That's all.

And this is her thread, after all

Happy 58th Birthday to Sarah Sutton

Big Finish cast Sarah Sutton in fellow time travel series Timeslip:
http://massmovement.co.uk/nasty-nyssa-timeslip/?fbclid=IwAR3OAM0ja1mpTc2YWD39C5xAKPu5oVrLic8ijH2bPqaiwO0gNkqUZKmpjbc

I assume this is unrelated to the Eric Saward story.

That's Slipback.

So she won't be playing Nyssa then.

Painful when they prostitute themselves in Lesser Programmes, isn't it.

This year will mark the 40th Anniversary of Nyssa becoming a Companion.

Just saying.

Is it 2021 already?

Although they aired in 1981, Keeper Of Traken and part of Logopolis was filmed in 1980. So, technically, I'm correct.

Or just write it off as timey-wimey thing.

Certainly not.

Nyssa is obviously a cat person.

Admittedly I regard EVERYONE as a cat person, even if they have one of those...non-cat creatures it's obviously only a matter of time before they see the error of their ways.

I wonder if she and Tegan have any cats.

Course they do. Stroking a cat lowers your blood pressure and is OBVIOUSLY the only way Tegan's survived, all these years...

As a life long cat owner, I agree.

Owner?

OWNER??!!

Whoops, my bad!

Uh, servant?

I tend to regard myself as Mummy-Slave but I s'pose Servant will do, after all, if Wolsey regards Benny as Human Servant Woman...

I'm sure Nyssa and Tegan took in quite a few cats.

Not THAT many though, or Tegan would be too busy serving her fluffy masters to waste her time campaigning for Aborigine rights.

(NB: I'm not being racist against Aborigines, here. I'm being racist against humans.)

I'm sure the cats in question are happy with their pet human and Trakenite.

I dunno, their hearing is SO superior to mere humans' that sometimes Tegan's shrieking would be almost painful, poor darlings, still, they'd no doubt put up with such inconveniences and accept the devotion of their slaves, the little furry SAINTS.

Cats rock

They really are the Supreme Beings Of The Universe, I just don't understand why the Doc picks up almost all her/his Companions from Earth, Earth, bloody Earth all the time instead of NEW Earth...

You should have made it clear that a lot MORE people would get their arms broken if Precious wasn't returned to you...

Nyssa and Tegan can do couple's night with Vince and Sally.

By markvthomas on Wednesday, January 29, 2003 [in the Companions: Classic Who: Polly section]
Re:Nyssa's on Drugs
If Nyssa's on sedatives/anti depressants, then She's on a very high dosage, indeed.
Either that, or she's going slowly mad (Catatonia/Autism/Schitzoid)as some fanzine writers have implied.

Does marrying Tegan make the drugs/insanity theories more or less likely...?

More.

Look at how annoying Tegan is. Who in their right mind would hitch themselves to that for a lifetime?

I think Nyssa was the reason Tegan became more likeable.

I mean there has to be reason why Tegan suddenly decided that she wanted to stay on the TARDIS at the start of Black Orchid. I believe that might have been the point that she and Nyssa hooked up.

That's my theory and I'm sticking with it.

A few weeks(?) ago I wrote a Lines You'd Never Hear On Doctor Who revealing that the 'Nyssa' Tegan married was really a drug-addled lookalike groomed into pretending to be Nyssa and thought, "Wow! I really captured Tegan's personality there."

Here is a collage of Nyssa that I made a few months back:

https://i.imgur.com/qTf55Lh.jpg

Happy 60th Birthday to Sarah Sutton

https://www.tumblr.com/blog/peoplesrepublicoftraken

I seem to have accidentally named something after Traken again!

Also, I realized both "Nyssa" and "Traken" are place name puns. Sort-of.

Traken is german for Trakai (a town in Lithuania) and Nyssa was the name of various towns in Anatolia\Turkey, which refers to water nymphs.

Well technically Romana's name is also a pun on "Romana divora tre lune" AKA "roman devours three moons". (Earth's moon plus Gallifrey's two moons makes three.)

I don't know if Johnny Byrne, Nyssa's creator, ever said where he got the idea for the names from.

Most are propably just names made to give a "feel" to the planet.

Traken's an elven world that looks a bit tropical (although everyone seems dressed for cold weather) and it's also a bit steampunk. It also seems to have much less water than Earth as it has no seas (although it does have an archipelago in its southern hemisphere), but it does look Earth-like. Hence it was given the name to sound steampunk\elven-esque.

Alzarius and Trion seem to have more typical sci-fi feels to them instead, with Alzarius' landscape being similiar to Earth and Traken, meanwhile Trion looks completely different than Earth, Traken, or Alzarius, with more of a red\purple color scheme. (Yet Turlough does'nt seem to look that much different than the rest of Team Fivey)

But Nyssa is an actual name, and it comes from the Anatolian place name.

When the hell did we see Trion?

We did'nt see it in the TV show but we saw it in audios and novels.

It's also said to be a gaseous, tropical planet.

We did'nt see it in the TV show but we saw it in audios and novels.

Obviously Turlough and the Earthlink Dilemma has been wiped from my brain for the sake of my sanity.

Whereas I seem to remember that godawful Kiss of Death audio was set on, um, Turlough's summer palace asteroid or something rather than Trion.

yes it was set on Vektris.

There is also a city in Oregon called Nyssa:


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nyssa,_Oregon


Perhaps that's where Johnny Byrne got the name from. Mind you, I'm guessing here. Unless an interview turns up in which he reveals where he got the name "Nyssa" from, all we can do is guess.

The Anatolian ones had the name first.

Yeah, but we still don't know if that is where Johnny Byrne got the name from. Guess we'll never know.

On the TV show, Krypton, there was a character named Nyssa Vex. DC Comics has a character called Nyssa al Ghul. I don't know if either were named for Doctor Who character though.

For al Ghul, they propably had the Anatolian "Nyssa"'s in mind.

Also, I had a dream in which Sarah Sutton was president of a garden made to resemble Traken.

I had a dream in which Sarah Sutton was president of a garden made to resemble Traken.

I've had my own dreams of Nyssa over the years.

Aledi: I moved your list of dreams to the Ask the Matrix: Being a Fan: Doctor Who Dreams thread because OF COURSE we have such a thread.

Tim: Don't worry, Nyssa's 406 entries still wipe the floor with every other Old Who Companion's score...

Tim: Don't worry, Nyssa's 406 entries still wipe the floor with every other Old Who Companion's score...

All's right with the world.

*Sigh of relief that Tim didn't pounce on the use of the word 'Old' in that sentence*

Just so happy about Nyssa's lead.

Usually I see it referred as "Classic Who"

Also if Nyssa's lead persist, we might end up getting an actual Nyssa forums!

Like a whole board dedicated to our favorite princess of Traken.

Or Nyssa could go into a second page here.

Like a Classic Who: Nyssa (1) and Classic Who: Nyssa (2)?

Or maybe like a Classic Who: Nyssa who is its own category with subsets.

Don't think this site is capable of such things.

However, you can start a second page, and said page would just be called "Nyssa".

Yeah makes more sense, but then the other companions have one page each.

Also I basically realized Traken is pretty much "Art Nouveau the planet".

https://see-me.co/n1/?n=Nyssa%20of%20Traken-

A good New Year from Nyssa!

Yeah makes more sense, but then the other companions have one page each.

Yeah, but their pages are not as big as Nyssa's is.

Some of their pages are also quite hefty.

Well, Emily is the one to talk to in regards to starting second pages.

Have a "Swamp Nyssa"!

https://i.redd.it/ghfbjsz5lhd81.png

Good gods.

I thought it would be nice to have more alien-looking versions of the Space Teenagers.

Holy cr*p on a cracker!

Yeah

I like redesigns, what you can say.

Yeah, I prefer Nyssa as she is, beautiful.

I think the swamp nyssa i made is also kinda beautiful in a way.

Depends on how one defines beauty, I guess.

I like to think "what if trakentites\alzarians\trions\gallifreyians didnt look the same as humans".

It would increase the makeup budget quite a lot

Yeah and depending on how alien they look they might not be able to pass unnoticed, expecially in earlier eras, in present day you might think they were cosplaying or they were artists who had a wacky style.

I think the next alien companions wouldn’t look fully human, maybe something like the Kahler that could pass as an human with funny birthmarks.

Meanwhile a drahvin or merry galel you’d think they were wearing odd makeup.

A Drahvin or a WHAT!

Merry Galel, the queen of years.

Oh. HER.

As I said, Nyssa is fine as is.

https://www.ncls.it/unigaia/2022/08/23/nyssaur/

https://preview.redd.it/njeueuel7hj91.png?width=768&format=png&auto=webp&s=0c2981ab2be1f0a36bf7a001ad49409c59e326c3

Ok, you got the same mental picture that I did.

https://www.ncls.it/unigaia/2022/08/29/incontro-con-nyssa/

And so we finally met.

That's different.

Yeah, because I did'nt actually meet Sarah Sutton, it's just a crossover photomanip thing.

Some ship Nyssa and Adric
Some ship Nyssa and Tegan

But the best idea is for her to take both an husband and a wife
Trakenites should be a polycule species

Lucina/Seron/Tremas and Kassia/Tremas/Seron too

Some ship Nyssa and Adric
Some ship Nyssa and Tegan

But the best idea is for her to take both an husband and a wife

An...interesting new use of the words 'best idea'...

I never said it’s the best idea for you then again it can get the three sprogs out of the way!

https://i.imgur.com/cM07r0r.png

Pick your goth Nyssa.

Are those AI created images?

yes

Sarah Sutton never went goth of course

You should post this over at Gallifrey Base too, Gaia.

I am currently banned there.

You can make a thread of the things I did while banned.

Does Nyssa just stay home and do the cooking while Tegan gallivants around the globe?

Was even a mention of Nyssa too much like work, Chibby?

It really, really didn't sound like Tegan had a happy housewife at home awaiting her return...

'You'd keep [the mini-Cyberman] so close to you because you have nothing else' - the Master.

'I have spent the past thirty years living like a nomad. I have done land mines, coups, I have been hijacked, and I've nearly drowned trying to help people. I've seen off two husbands, and somewhere out there is an adopted son who hasn't called me for six weeks' - Tegan.

Guess watching Farewell, Sarah Jane was too much like work. Even one his way out the door, Chibby drops the ball one last time.

Guess the only logical in universe answer is that Tegan was keeping Nyssa a secret from UNIT for reasons yet unknown.

If she WAS they shouldn't have turned up for Sarah's UNIT-heavy funeral together...

I think that, just like how the moment knew the doctor was going to meet Rose, the narrator knew the future and knew Nyssa was gonna be with Tegan... but didn’t know Tegan hadn’t done so yet.

In fact, Tegan would most likely still be with William Haybourne by this point. So the things are either:

1) Unreliable narrator.
2) timey wimey narrator.
3) Tegan nicknames William Haybourne “Nyssa”.
4) Tegan dates someone named Nyssa in between Michael and William.
5) the timeline changed. Each time the Doctor travels to the past, the future changes.

Who in the dead gods of Krypton is William Haybourne!?

Tegan's husband: https://tardis.fandom.com/wiki/William_Haybourne

--"It really, really didn't sound like Tegan had a happy housewife at home awaiting her return...
'I have spent the past thirty years living like a nomad. I have done land mines, coups, I have been hijacked, and I've nearly drowned trying to help people. I've seen off two husbands, and somewhere out there is an adopted son who hasn't called me for six weeks' - Tegan."
--"Was even a mention of Nyssa too much like work, Chibby?"

The logical explanation is that since 'Farewell, Sarah Jane' is just 13 minutes long and it's only on the internet, and not broadcast as a TV episode on the BBC, it's not canon. You're trying to fit a square peg into a small circle. It may be well written and a fitting tribute to Elisabeth Sladen, created by Russel T. Davies, but there's a minimum of acting involved where otherwise Jacob Dudman is just standing in a room narrating the short story.
It's comparable to 'Shakedown', 'Dimensions in Time', 'Wartime', 'The Zero Imperative', 'Auton', and 'P.R.O.B.E.', which were all small-time Who-related productions, starring some members of the cast (who actually acted and moved about on locations, not standing in front of a camera) or written by another producer of the series, John Nathan-Turner ('Dimensions'), but none are considered canon.
We were given some background of what Tegan has been up to the past 30 years, and it didn't include Nyssa (since by canon standards, she's not even in the same time period, helping people on Terminus).
Also, Tegan states she hasn't seen the Doctor 'in four decades', which sounds like 'Resurrection of the Daleks', so how did they wind up together? I'm sure you guys will explain it, but I doub t if it's canon, if it's in any book. They don't count, any more than DWM's comic strips.

Any good writer worth their salt can find a way to get Nyssa to Earth and reunited with Tegan, without having the Doctor involved. I myself did so, in my Fan Fictions.

Just takes a little imagination, which Chibby apparently has none. I'm sure most Who fans are happy to be seeing the back of him.

Yup of course TERMINUS IS A TIME TRAVELLING SPACE STATION

Also: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0jWzF7Q7Y07qMxbIPlfGJH?si=1c09a5d5883b407b&nd=1

In my version of the Whoniverse - all Companions live between their OG times\places, after-Companionship times\places, and Present-Day Earth.

https://64.media.tumblr.com/a15f904669021bc1f2079333bdcdaabc/7d54005dccd38116-38/s2048x3072/f16e86d0895bd3271d4bd76da9b67ea81dedb1bc.pnj

Nyssa but it's Ione from Animal Crossing!