Forgotten Heroes: Doctor Who’s Katarina

By Owen Quinn author of the Time Warriors and Zombie Blues

photo copyright BBC

I was recently made aware of just how many movies and television shows the younger generation have never heard of, never mind seen. So to that end, we look back at some characters you really need to see before you kick the bucket.

Long before Donna was brain wiped and Adric was blown up saving the Earth from the Cybermen, the first Doctor (William Hartnell) was having a traumatic time. It had been all peaches and cream up until the Dalek Masterplan when trauma and tragedy were the love children of chaos. If ever Doctor Who got dark then this was when kids all over the country got scared for very different reasons. They no longer hid behind the sofas after this story, they moved house.

In the previous story, The Myth Makers, companion Vicky (Maureen O’Brien) has stayed behind in Troy but not before she instructs one of the handmaidens of Trojan priestess Cassandra, Katrina, to help a wounded Steven Taylor (Peter Perves) back to the Tardis as Troy fell. Desperate to escape the Doctor took off with her on board. She thought the time machine was some sort of temple but she soon became familiar with her new environment.

The Tardis lands on Kembel where the Daleks have been plotting an all out invasion of the galaxy with Earthman Mavic Chen and an alliance of aliens. Earth agents are well aware of the invasion and must warn the authorities of the imminent attack. Brett Vyon (future Brigadier Nicholas Courtney) takes the Tardis crew aboard his ship when the Doctor steals the Taranium core of the Dalek weapon. The Daleks are in hot pursuit and force them onto the prison planet of Desperus where some prisoners try to hijack the ship. One convict, Kirksen, takes Katarina hostage in the airlock leaving the Doctor with an impossible choice. If he gives in the Dalek invasion will succeed. If he does nothing, then Katarina will die. Steven and the Doctor argue with Brett to take the ship back to Kembel but Vyon refuses. He cannot sacrifice everyone else just for one girl.

Katarina takes the choice out of their hands by opening the airlock and blasting her and Kirksen into space. Stunned, the Doctor hopes she has found her Place of Perfection and will always remember her as one of the daughters of the gods.

Katarina despite her short spell left an indelible impact on the show. Never before had a companion been killed. She was the first and not the only one in this story. The Daleks have never been so powerful and close to success than they were here in the Dalek Masterplan. Indeed the Master made a play on words for this story in the recent Power of the Doctor. Katarina is considered primitive by our standards yet she fully embraced the Doctor and Steven as allies. The Doctor in her eyes was a good man against a huge evil. With the fall of Troy still very much in her thoughts, the Dalek threat will see more people die in fire. The worlds of children will be torn apart by this new darkness. greeks or Daleks, it made little difference; they would come and destroy innocent lives for their own dark avarices. Their base needs will consume everything that is not like them and destroy it.

That’s the thing about looking back across history and thinking people at that time were primitive compared to what we have now. From their perspective, they were very modern and civilised. They were the epitome of what it was to be human at the time. That is what makes Katarina so special and should never be forgotten by fans or history. She was a simple handmaiden who met a man who opened her eyes to an universal truth. She recognised that it didn’t matter what time she was i; all that mattered was that each time had its own darkness to fight and it was up to us to tand up and fight.

Evil may be timeless but so is heroism.