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

Liz was a good companion. It's a shame she didn't stay longer. I'll bet it was the outfits she had to wear in "The Ambassadors of Death" that made her leave.

It was also a shame she didn't get an on-screen send-off. The last image we have of her is smiling inanely at the Doctor. Well, at least she didn't leave to get married.



She was actually pregnant during filming of Inferno.

My parents have finally acquired the greatest boon known to humankind, and naturally I directed them at once to this site. And dad, who has a bit of a Liz Shaw fixation thanks to the recent BBC2 repeats, started complaining that she is getting insufficient attention.

So...everyone is to discuss Liz Shaw immediately! What springs to mind for me is the way the Doctor considers her one of his accessories - 'I'll work for UNIT if I get a car, a lab, oh, and Miss Shaw here.' Do they bother consulting Liz about this? She made it clear she didn't want to run around with the Brig's bunch of action men even when she would be chief scientist. Why should she then stay on when - with no consultation whatsoever - HER job has been given to an interloper and she has to stand round handing him his test tubes?

And why is she 'Miss Shaw' instead of Dr or Professor Shaw?

By the way...dad said how civilised the site was! I didn't tell him that that was because we have a merciless and all-powerful moderator, plus a thingamajig which takes mortal offence even to the word s t u p i d. I'm just really glad I didn't tell him about radw...

Ahh, but does he know about the things that lurk in the dark?



I AM EVIL!!! BWA H HA HA HA AH AH AHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHA HA HA HAHAH

Has anyone seen the PROBE videos that have Liz Shaw in them and what were they like?
What possessed her to wear that white hat in Ambassadors?
Does anyone else feel they tried to make her more attractive as time went on?
Do you think her cameo in The Five Doctors was of merit? What about in Dimensions in Time?

No, I've never watched a PROBE video, but I've seen them in shops, optimistically labelled as 'The British X-Files'.

I don't know what possessed Liz with the hat OR the mini-skirts...I suppose the production team decided that, brain or no brain, Companions were simply not allowed to have a dress sense.

Dimensions in Time - well, Liz's appearance had as much merit as anything else in it - i.e. none whatsoever.

She puzzled me in Five Doctors - why were she and Mike trying to lure the Doctor forwards? I thought they were supposed to be sending him back.

There, there, Edje, don't worry. I'll explain to dad all about you and your medication.

How many explanations have there been for her leaving UNIT? In the books, short stories and so on...

And do you think Bessie was named after Liz?

Emily, I understand your dad's fixation, since I have it myself. She is very attractive and smart. I am sured she screamed during her job as companion (a job requirement), but for the life of me I can't remember when. I always felt that she could have done a good job as UNIT science advisor. Maybe she would have taken longer, but she didn't have the Doctor's experience of aliens, other planets, and really wild things. But you know, it was the 70's and the glass ceiling for women was a lot thicker back then.

Myself, I like to believe after she left UNIT she went back to University doing research, and eventually won a Nobel prize based upon something she came across when working for UNIT. Very few scientists got to work as close as she with the Doctor. Who knows, Earth's time travel research may have started with her.

Maybe I should write an ode for Liz.

Please do, Luiner. I'd love to read it!

Wasn't there a short story in the first Decalog that indicated Liz used some of the Doctor's knowledge and 20 years later, Earth was a fascist regime?

Due to popular demand (Sarah) I will shortly write one, after I reviewed all the stories with Liz in it.

You have been warned.

My theory is far, far barmier. Disillusioned with everything, the one-time-brainiac simply left UNIT and, in a pique of something we can but guess at, set up her own brand of high quality chocolates. If you look in the shops, even today, you will doubtless stumble across the make of 'Elizabeth Shaw' chocolates, in their exquisite golden boxes. And do you know, I'm not kidding. See for yourselves.

So, Luiner, I think another verse needs to be crowbarred in. And if you can form a couplet that pairs 'soft centre' without referring to 'Silurian-caused dementia', then I will be very surprised. Very. Especially since they occured at two very different points in her career and would destroy the ode completely.

Come on, Luiner, you've had a whole month and still no Liz Shaw ode...are you saying she's not an inspiring subject?

Chris, it never occurred to me that Liz and Bessie were the same name...maybe this says something deep and psychological about the Doctor. Or maybe Doctor Who writers are just somewhat stick-in-the-mud when it comes to names: of the Companions, we've got Ben and Benny, Vicki and Victoria, Sara and Sarah, not to mention two Wrights...

I've just read that Decalog story, and it's the only half-decent thing in the entire book. Though it still doesn't really explain why Liz is leaving UNIT without giving the Doctor so much as a goodbye.

Talking of Liz and fascist regimes, why is Liz's hair dark brown in the alternative universe when it's red in the 'real' one?

Maybe she dyed it the alternative universe because the red hair would stand out too much if she were in battle?

Brilliant - why didn't I think of that? I was afraid that 'our' Liz was dying her hair, since Ms Obsessed-by-Mini-Skirts was a more likely candidate for personal vanity than an army officer in a fascist dictatorship.

I got sick and tired of waiting for the promised Liz Shaw ode, so I dedicated at least 10 minutes of my valuable time to producing a not-entirely-favourable one myself, in the hope that it will spur her devoted admirers to poetical defence...

You stuck up to the Brigadier
But you let the Doctor call you ‘dear’
Your clothes sense was despicable
Your skirts were not exactly full.

You screamed at a Silurian in a barn
Though it didn’t mean you any harm
You approved of blowing up their cave
Though instructions to the contrary the Doctor gave.

You tried to communicate with the Ambassadors of Death
Though you might as well have saved your breath
As Section Leader you sent the Doctor home
And died whilst he was free to roam.

How could you leave the Doctor in the lurch?
How could you let Jo steal your perch?
Though you were wise to leave before the Master came
You saved yourself a lot of pain.*

But at long last your time on Earth ran out
For Jim Mortimer is a ruthless lout
In Eternity Weeps you died in agony
Tee hee hee hee hee hee hee.

*Yeah, deciphering his nomes de plume week after week would have been a real bore.

The Pam Ayres of Fandom!

Who is Pam Ayres?

Who is Emily?

_I_ am Emily!

Luiner lurches in to the discussion. "Erp!" he belches, after downing a Guinness in one chug.
"And now," he says, "my ODE to Liz." He tries to focus his eyes on the screen. "••••, Emily beat me to it." Then he chugs on the Single Malt Whiskey Highland Park 12 years old brewed in the Orkneys. He may be crass, but he has taste.

Wow, Emily, that is far better than my bit of doggerel I was going to produce. But for the sake of curiosity, I will produce alternative lyrics to the Who song, Gypsy Queen. My apologies to Pete Townshend, The Who, Emily, and all mankind for this drivel. I have been listening to too much Who, if that is possible. This is based off a scene in the first Pertwee episode.

If the Doc ain't all he should be now
This girl will put him right.
I'll show him what he should do now.
I'm the miniskirt - the Science Queen.
Hear me before we start.
I'm the miniskirt - the Science Queen
And watch the Doctor depart

Give us a lab and close the door.
Leave me the tardis key.
Your Doc won't be your Doc no more.
The Brig can't hurt me.
I'm the miniskirt - the Science Queen
Hear me before we start.
I'm the miniskirt - the Science Queen
And watch the Doctor depart

No one can take my job, that's a fact
You must learn he needs to roam
Just as the miniskirt must do.
He's going to hit the road.

Oh dear, look at all the smoke.
He's is stuck here, this man from space
His head shakes, his Tardis is broke.
I'm second fiddle to this nut case.
I'm the miniskirt, the Science Queen
Hear me and believe
I'm the miniskirt - the Science Queen
to Cambridge I will leave.


Then of course, you have to finish the song with Pete's trademark windmill flourish, preferably on a Gibson SG guitar with P-90 pickups.

*Applauds wildly* Well done Luiner! You ought to get drunk more often. There are about thirty more Companions in need of odes...

I don't know if my liver can take it, Emily. That is a lot of companions, even after excluding the book ones.

i just thought of a reason why Liz Shaw in the alternate universe would have different coloured hair - genes. Just another difference between parallel realities, the gene for dark hair for *that* Liz Shaw was dominant over the gene for red hair.

But if alt-Liz naturally had different colour hair - and therefore different genes - from OUR Liz, that means they're not the same person. They'd be like sisters - having the same parents - but the 'wrong' sperm must have fertilised the egg, or something.

Not neccessarily, aren't dark-haired and blonde Sam just two sides of the same coin? I guess it all depends on your moral outlook on the difference between genotypes. How much of a difference would being born with different coloured hair make to your life? Then again, the different colour of the two Lizs' hair might not be genetic at all but instead an indication of phenotype (not a difference in genes, but a difference in looks, usually due to enviroment).

Then again, maybe the alternate Liz just dyed her hair.

Blonde Sam had her biodata quite thoroughly messed up by persons unknown to make her into the perfect Companion (I won't comment on the Doctor's penchant for dumb blondes). So the cases aren't the same. I'm no expert on genetics, but surely different coloured hair implies different genes - I can't think of any environmental factors in Britain that would make anyone change hair colour so drastically.

Come to think of it, it's a pretty amazing coincidence that the Brig, Benton, Liz, Stahlman, Greg, Petra etc all find themselves working for Project Inferno when their lives - not to mention the fate of the entire country - have been so drastically different.

Yeah, parallel universe science-fiction is like that - it's all a little TOO coincidental.

Phenotype is a real thing, people can have different coloured hair without having different genes. This is how identical twins can sometimes look different when they've been seperated at birth and kept apart in different areas of the world.

The point about Sam was that if her biodata could be changed to show an *alternative* Sam (one that has different hair colour) than an *alternative* Liz Shaw can have different coloured hair as well.

Ooooh- I'm all inspired now
here's MY ode to Liz sung to Deep Purple's "Smoke On The Water" (with apologies to purple fans around the world)

Liz Shaw came out to UNIT
When they needed to stop the Spearhead,
To make killers out of plastic,
huh, she didn't have much time.
Kicking butt with the Doctor,
She soon put them down in flames,
Those ztupid little dummies,
regret that that had heard the names.......

Doctor and Liz Shaw,
the greatest team around,
Doctor and Liz Shaw.

They blew up the reptile base,
It died with a crappy sound.
Brigiadier was blowing it all up,
he was, keeping them in the ground.
When it all was over,
She helped the Doc go into space
Despite her ztupid hat,
she knew she couldn't lose the race

Doctor and Liz Shaw,
The greatest team around,
Doctor and Liz Shaw

[guitar solo]

They ended up at Infernooooooo
It was fairly close to hell,
but with Doctor off in another time,
Liz was left all alone,
With a madman, the brigadier,
She kept all the wolf things at bay,
No matter what she did after this,
I know, I know that we'll always say

Doctor and Liz Shaw,
the greatest team around
Doctor and Liz Shaw
the greatest team around

You're a sad, sad man, Rodney.....

well gee Mike, soooooorrrrrrry!

I think Mike meant that sarcastically ... right?

Anyway, Rodney, I thought it was quite creative!

Thanks Daroga, at least SOMEONE appreciates my effort.

I was kidding, Rodney. D*mn my lack of smileys!

Blimey. For a Companion who's attracted more odes than any other, we've certainly been neglecting poor old Liz for the past eight years. No one even felt like celebrating SJA: Death of the Doctor's happy revelation that she had not, after all, dissolved excruciatingly painfully into a pool of acid in 2003.

Anyway...how OLD is Liz these days? I mean, she must have been older than she looked in Season Seven if she had fourteen degrees (how could she possibly have had fourteen degrees, including medicine which takes seven years? The Brig MUST have been exaggerating - and if so, why? Presumably Liz knew how many degrees she had. And that (no pun intended) degree of exaggeration wouldn't exactly help his 'little green men exist, honest' case).

Anyway, the point is...even with the leeway granted by the nightmare of UNIT dating...wouldn't Liz be a bit OLD to be on a Moonbase?

Well, Caroline John, who played her, is 70. I'm assuming Liz is the same age.

As to how she got so many degress, she must have been the Doogie Howser of her time!

HAHA! I'd forgotten I'd done that!

Mayhaps it's a rebuilt moonbase from Apollo 23, and thus transit isn't too rough? Besides, I doubt Liz would let something like being 70 stop her from going to the moon! :-)

There is a functioning Moon Base on Earth-Who? Does UNIT run it?

I wish I lived on Earth-Who!

Well, Caroline John, who played her, is 70. I'm assuming Liz is the same age.

SEVENTY! To think I thought sending the Brig to Peru all the time was pushing it.

HAHA! I'd forgotten I'd done that!

You and me both.

Mayhaps it's a rebuilt moonbase from Apollo 23, and thus transit isn't too rough?

I doubt it. That was reached by magic (quantum thingamijig. Whatever.) and the magic isn't working any more. And the only point of that moonbase was to experiment on prisoners, I don't see Liz having anything to do with THAT.

Besides, I doubt Liz would let something like being 70 stop her from going to the moon! :-)

Pah. If she gave a toss about travelling in space she should have gritted her teeth and stuck it out with the Doc for a few more years (he did, after all, kinda get the TARDIS console working in Inferno).

And whatever HER feelings on the matter, what would any responsible government/secret paramilitary organisation mean by unleashing massive g-forces (or, um, whatever happens when you go to the moon) on someone THAT ancient? I bet even UNIT has Health and Safety Executives these days...

I wish I lived on Earth-Who!

Yeah, I wish that ALL THE TIME.

And then I remember that they don't have Doctor Who on television! LOSERS!

'You've been agitating for a new assistant ever since Miss Shaw went back to Cambridge' - what an insult to poor dear Liz. You didn't notice Tennant demanding a new Companion within two seconds of his Bad Wolf Bay farewell to Rose...(alright, so he GOT one, but that TOTALLY wasn't deliberate).

'Caroline John...proved fighting just wasn't her scene, man, by refusing to fire a prop gun, as she didn't think it was right to use a deadly weapon while carrying a life inside her' - Space Helmet for a Cow. What a pretentious idiot. Guns are FAR less risk to the future of the human race than BABIES. (Plus, she WAS waving a gun around as Section Leader Shaw, wasn't she. And I don't think she told anyone in the Who Production Team she was pregnant so how could she use that excuse?)

Incidentally, I've long been amused that my mother's name is Elizabeth Shaw. She claims she spent the 70s as a typist at a solicitors, not fighting alien invasions, but I've never seen any proof.

She also claims she stopped watching Doctor Who after Tenth Planet, out of loyalty to Hartnell, so never realised she shared a name with a companion, but how believable is that? Surely someone in the solicitors where she supposedly worked would have said something.

To think I found encountering Elizabeth Shaw Liqueur Chocolates in the supermarket to be mind-meltingly confusing...

Hang on - OUT OF LOYALTY TO HARTNELL?

Come OFF it!

If I carried on watching after Tom - MY TOM! - went jumping off radio telescopes, NO ONE ELSE IN THE UNIVERSE has ANY excuse (bar 'It's the Colin Baker Era', obviously) for stopping watching Who. EVER.

And yeah, there is SIMPLY NO WAY that SOMEONE wouldn't have commented on that name.

Your mother is obviously IN DENIAL about SOMETHING, possibly secret Troughton-and-Pertwee watchings, possibly BEING WHISKED OFF ROUND TIME AND SPACE IN A BLUE BOX...you must TORTURE her to ascertain the truth!

Come OFF it!

Exactly. Some things just aren't believable, even in a world which holds killer petals, undersea vampires, and dimensionally transcendental boxes.

you must TORTURE her to ascertain the truth!

Torture my beloved mother? I thought I'd made my feelings on family loyalty very clear, while nitpicking the Sarah Jane Adventures.

Still, she does keep her loft padlocked, and doesn't allow anyone else inside, not even my dad. She claims it's because she's worried about us accidentally putting our feet through the floor, but I'm sure we can all think of other explanations.

Perhaps I should learn lock picking, and see what's really up there. Maybe she's got a secret stash of Dr Who tapes or a high tech secret base from which she fights aliens.

Of course, if I do find anything family loyalty means I won't be able to do more than drop vague hints without her permission.

I thought I'd made my feelings on family loyalty very clear, while nitpicking the Sarah Jane Adventures.

Quite, QUITE clear but I was kinda hoping you were over that nonsense by now.

Of course, asking you to torture your mother is perhaps not the most tactful way of ascertaining this...

You call family nonsense? Clearly you weren't living in Yorkshire in the 80s, when family bonds let us endure the crushing weight of the Thatcher government as it tried to grind us into the mud.

Anyway, if some top-hatted Tory toff has you chained to the wall in his palace of pain, and is gloating about how his bribes to the police keep him safe from the law, you'd be wishing you had a family like mine to rely on.

You call family nonsense?

Just the idolisation of family to the exclusion of all else including cats and Time Lords.

... to the exclusion of all else including cats and Time Lords.

Hardly. I love them both immeasurably, but I have never yet met a cat willing to lift a paw to help me, however lavishly I feed them, and I have little hope of the Doctor bounding into my life.

No, in a crisis such as the one I described above the only people I can be sure I can rely on are my family, which is why they are so precious to me.

I have never yet met a cat willing to lift a paw to help me, however lavishly I feed them, and I have little hope of the Doctor bounding into my life

You obviously have NO IDEA how much listening to a Precious purr lowers your blood-pressure you ungrateful walking-tin-opener.

And, OK, let's face it, Himself is never gonna choose US to whizz round time and space with but the joy he gives us by deigning to appear on our TV screen is infinitely greater than that bestowed my some mere humans who happen to share our DNA (don't we share LOADS of DNA with chimps and lettuce and stuff as well?).

You obviously have NO IDEA how much listening to a Precious purr lowers your blood-pressure

I've got a very good idea, having spent many happy hours doing just that, but I also have a good idea how much more helpful relatives can be than cats.

One of my elderly aunts has five beautiful cats and no husband. One Saturday morning, several years ago, as she was going downstairs to feed those cats she tripped, landing sprawled at the bottom of the stairs with a broken hip, unable to move.

Her cats didn't purr. They just kept prowling round her, head-butting her in an attempt to get her to feed them, not exactly helpful.

Fortunately, one of my uncles phoned this aunt soon after. When he got no reply, he sent his son round, who saw my badly injured aunt through the window and phoned for an ambulance.

Five of my uncles took one of my aunt's cats in each while she spent a few days in hospital, but she soon fully recovered, and was reunited with her cats.

Would any of your cats have been as helpful, if you'd been in my aunt's position, or would you have had to wait until your boss noticed you hadn't arrived for work the next Monday, after two days of agony?

Well, it's a massive relief that the poor darlings didn't have to wait TOO long to get fed because their Walking Tin-Opener had the inconsideration to fall downstairs.

I'd recommend one of those neck-alarm-things only a friend of mine's mum nearly got throttled by hers when she had her accident...

FIVE uncles? It's your bloody family's absurd desire to propagate its overvalued DNA that's led to the population explosion that's going to DESTROY this planet -

- Ah, right, sorry, I keep forgetting that SOMETHING ELSE has arrived to destroy this planet before overpopulation can complete the job. The Shaws can just...carry on, though how anyone can live with themselves bringing a child into a world like this...

...Quite apart from EVERYTHING ELSE, I mean, CHIBNALL as the next showrunner...

I'd recommend one of those neck-alarm-things only a friend of mine's mum nearly got throttled by hers ...

Besides, this is Yorkshire. You probably haven't noticed, living down south, but it can take a few years for the latest gadgets to get up here. My parents and their friends and family all agree this is because the bloated Tory toffs of London like to keep all the best things for themselves, not allowing them to reach the North until they have something even better themselves.

Thus, those neck-alarms weren't available up here when this happened.

FIVE uncles?

My father's parents were both on their second marriage, their first spouse having died on them. They each had two children with that first spouse, then another two after they remarried, thus giving me five pairs of aunts and uncles on my fathers side, plus one more on my mothers side of the family. Between them all, I've got about eighteen cousins, all of whom will help me in a crisis.

The Shaws can just ...

I'd have thought you'd know better than to make that assumption. When my mum married, her husband took her name, not vice-versa. My dad's family were the Longs, but my mum's brother told her being called Liz Long would make her sound like one of Superman's girlfriends, so she kept her maiden name of Shaw, and talked my dad into changing his name to match hers.

I've got about eighteen cousins, all of whom will help me in a crisis.

I can't help but think that a LOT of people YOU have to help whenever THEY have crises...

I'd have thought you'd know better than to make that assumption. When my mum married, her husband took her name, not vice-versa.

Your mother is my new Living God but unfortunately given the statistics on women-degrading-themselves-upon-marriage THESE days never mind in those prehistoric times, I DON'T know better than to make such assumptions.

(Or maybe I was just assuming that OF COURSE your father took her name and the rest of his family had the sense to follow suit.)

I can't help but think that a LOT of people YOU have to help whenever THEY have crises...

But with so many other people to share the load, that's not a problem. Besides, every hour I spend with a relative, helping them in their hour of need, is an hour I can spend explaining to them the merits of Dr Who, and how glorious cats are.

every hour I spend with a relative, helping them in their hour of need, is an hour I can spend explaining to them the merits of Dr Who, and how glorious cats are

Well, if they're lying there groaning with a broken leg they're certainly in no position to stop you putting a kitten on top of them and sticking on City of Death right in front of their weeping eyes, but...it's a high-risk strategy.

Incidentally, I've long been amused that my mother's name is Elizabeth Shaw.

Robert, you have the same name as the actor who played Quint in the movie, Jaws

...it's a high-risk strategy.

None of them have ever complained, but this is Yorkshire, not London. As you may have gathered, we do things a little differently up here.

Robert, you have the same name as the actor who played Quint in the movie, Jaws

Apparently, the midwife asked if I was being named after him, the day I was born, but my mother had never heard of that actor. She actually named me after her maternal grandfather.

Apparently, the midwife asked if I was being named after him

I thought the same thing myself. I see the name "Robert Shaw" and in image of Quint pops into my mind!

Liz did it all in skirts that made Amy's outfits look like nuns habits.