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Doctor Who character
Sara Kingdom
Affiliated with	First Doctor
Race	Human
Home planet	Earth
Home era	4000
First appearance	The Daleks' Master Plan
Last appearance	The Daleks' Master Plan
Portrayed by	Jean Marsh & May Warden

Sara Kingdom is a fictional character played by Jean Marsh in the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who. A security officer for Mavic Chen from the 41st century, she would later join the First Doctor and Steven to work against Chen's interests. She is sometimes classed as a companion of the First Doctor by unofficial sources^[1], yet the BBC itself is notably reluctant to afford her such recognition^[2].

She appeared onscreen only for parts four to twelve of the twelve-part 1965 serial, The Daleks' Master Plan.

Contents 1 Televised history 1.1 Within Doctor Who 1.2 Proposed use after Doctor Who 2 Literary appearances 3 Jean Marsh in Doctor Who 4 References

[edit] Televised history

[edit] Within Doctor Who

Sara is a Space Security Agent, the sister of Bret Vyon, another agent who is aiding the Doctor in trying to defeat the Daleks. Told that Vyon is a traitor by Mavic Chen, the Guardian of the Solar System (who was in league with the Daleks) and ordered to kill whoever is working with him, she shoots her brother and is about to do the same to the Doctor and Steven when they are transported across space to the planet Mira. There she learns, to her horror and grief, that her unquestioning obedience has not only led her to unjustly kill her brother, but also that by doing so she has prevented Vyon from warning Earth of the Dalek plot. She then joins the Doctor in his fight, briefly travelling in the TARDIS to several different locations in space and time as the Doctor and Steven try to return the ship to Kembel for a final confrontation with Mavic Chen and the Daleks.

When the Doctor activates the Time Destructor — a device that accelerates time — as part of his plan to stop the Daleks, he orders his companions back to the TARDIS for their protection. However, Sara follows him, not knowing the nature of his plan but concerned it might fail. As a result, she is caught in the field of the Time Destructor as it rapidly ages everything around it. While the Doctor, being a Time Lord, can withstand the effects, Sara, being human, cannot. As Steven and the Doctor watch helplessly, Sara ages (and is portrayed as an old woman by May Warden) and dies, her remains aging to dust.

Sara is by turns aggressive, independent and ruthless in her pursuit of what was right, a single-mindedness that blinded her to the larger implications of her orders. Meeting the Doctor changes that, and she turns her formidable skill and intellect to the defeat of the Daleks.

The character was created largely because the production team decided that the character of Katarina, introduced in the previous serial The Myth Makers, would not work as a regular. Thus, Sara has some of the attributes and narrative function of a traditional Doctor Who companion. However, the official BBC website cites as "myth" the notion that Sara was created as a companion to replace Katarina. There were no plans to have Sara continue as a character beyond The Daleks' Master Plan. ^[3] This assertion is further borne out by the official site's listing of cast credits for The Daleks' Master Plan. There, the BBC gives only Steven and Katarina the top billing companions consistently receive across their episode guide. The credit for Sara is given amongst an alphabetized list of other guest stars.

[edit] Proposed use after Doctor Who

According to The Official Dr. Who & the Daleks Book, however, Sara Kingdom was originally devised by Terry Nation as a supporting character in a proposed American-produced spin-off of Doctor Who that would have focused on Kingdom and her colleagues fighting the Daleks. A 30-minute script titled The Destroyers was created for a potential pilot episode which was never produced.^[4]

[edit] Literary appearances

Sara's first use in tie-in material was in The Dalek Outer Space Book (cover dated 1966), the last of three Dalek annuals containing short stories and comic strips licensed by the BBC between 1963 and 1965.

John Peel's two-book novelisation of Master Plan indicates that some six months elapsed between the seventh and eighth episodes of the serial, during which Sara, Steven and the Doctor travel together and have other adventures; Peel stated that this was in order to allow future writers to develop stories involving Sara. Sara subsequently appears in the short stories "The Little Drummer Boy" by Eddie Robson (published in the collection Short Trips: Companions) and "The Last Song I'll Ever Sing" by Simon Exton from the charity anthology Missing Pieces.

A ghost-like illusion of Kingdom, alongside Katarina and another deceased companion, Adric, appears in the Virgin New Adventures novel Timewyrm: Revelation by Paul Cornell. This sequence takes place largely inside the Seventh Doctor's mind, showing that the Doctor still bears the guilt of some of certain deaths.

A race of shapeshifters known as the Ganazalum impersonates various companions, dead and living in the Doctor Who Magazine comic strip Planet of the Dead (DWM #141-#142), Kingdom among them. Generally, the canonicity of the various Doctor Who spin-off media is unclear.

[edit] Jean Marsh in Doctor Who

Jean Marsh had previously appeared in Doctor Who playing King Richard's sister, the Princess Joanna in The Crusade. Marsh would return to the programme in the 1989 serial Battlefield, playing Morgaine, coincidentally with Nicholas Courtney as Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart. Courtney also played Bret Vyon in Master Plan.

[edit] References

1. ^ Outpost Gallifrey overview of the First Doctor era
2. ^ BBC Doctor Who site's list of companions
3. ^ The Television Companion
4. ^ John Peel and Terry Nation. The Official Doctor Who & the Daleks Book. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1988 (ISBN 0-312-02264-6), pp. 195-196

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001	002	003	004	005	006	007	008	009	010	011	012	013	014	015	016	017	018	019	020	021	022	023	024	025	026	027	028	029
Susan										Vicki										Sara	Dodo
Ian																			Katarina							Ben→
Barbara																										Polly→
															Steven