Barbara Wright (Doctor Who)

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Doctor Who character

Jacqueline Hill as Barbara Wright
Barbara Wright
Affiliated with First Doctor
Race Human
Home planet Earth
Home era 1963
First appearance An Unearthly Child
Last appearance The Chase
Portrayed by Jacqueline Hill
Jennie Linden (film)

Barbara Wright is a fictional character in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who and a companion of the First Doctor. She was one of the programme's very first regulars and appeared in the bulk of its first two seasons from 1963-65, played by Jacqueline Hill. In the film version of one of the serials, Dr. Who and the Daleks (1965), Barbara was played by actress Jennie Linden, but with a very different personality and backstory — she is also a granddaughter of "Dr Who".

Contents

[edit] Character history

Barbara Wright is a history teacher at the Coal Hill School, working with science teacher Ian Chesterton. One of their students, Susan Foreman, the granddaughter of the Doctor, shows an unusually advanced knowledge of science and history. Attempting to solve the mystery of this "unearthly child", Ian and Barbara follow Susan back to a junkyard, where they hear her voice coming from what appears to be a police box. When they investigate further, they discover that the police box exterior hides the much larger interior of a time machine known as the TARDIS, and are whisked away on an adventure in time and space with the Doctor and Susan.

Barbara is a strong-willed woman and provides a maternal figure to Susan. She is frequently the only person who can stand up to the First Doctor's cantankerous personality. The chemistry between Ian and herself is also evident, although the nature of their relationship is never made explicit in the television series.

In the serial The Aztecs, Barbara is hailed as the reincarnation of the ancient high priestess Yetaxa by the Aztec civilization. Despite the Doctor's protests that she cannot change history, she attempts to turn the Aztecs away from their practice of human sacrifice. In The Reign of Terror, she establishes a friendship with Leon Colbert and is distraught when he is killed. After many travels, Ian and Barbara eventually use a Dalek time machine to get home, albeit two years after their disappearance and presumably with much explaining to do to their friends and families.

[edit] Appearances in other media

Since 1994, the character has appeared in several Doctor Who novels from Virgin Publishing and BBC Books. In the BBC Books novel, The Face of the Enemy by David A. McIntee (1998), the story of Ian and Barbara, now married to each other, is picked up in the early 1970s. In this book, they have a young son named John. Many of the novels mention a 1980s pop star named Johnny Chester or Johnny Chess, intended to be the same character. Chess was idolised by the Seventh Doctor's companion Ace and appears to have been romantically invoved with the Fifth Doctor's companion Tegan.

In the novelisation Doctor Who in an Exciting Adventure with the Daleks by David Whitaker, Barbara and Susan have just been in a car accident when they first meet Ian. After entering the TARDIS, the remainder of the story largely follows the events of The Daleks.

In the movie Dr. Who and the Daleks, Barbara is Susan's older sister, the granddaughter of the eccentric human scientist Dr. Who, and girlfriend of the bumbling Ian Chesterton. In Daleks - Invasion Earth 2150 AD Barbara is replaced by Louise, who serves much the same role. No mention is made as to the fate of Barbara.

[edit] List of appearances

[edit] Television

Season 1
Season 2

[edit] Films

[edit] Audio dramas

Doctor Who Unbound series (outside normal Doctor Who canonicity)

[edit] Novels

Virgin Missing Adventures
Past Doctor Adventures

[edit] Short stories

[edit] Comics

  • "A Religious Experience" by Warwick Gray and Colin Andrew (Doctor Who Yearbook 1994)

[edit] External links

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