| The following article is written from an In Universe perspective. |
Barbara Wright, was a companion of the First Doctor.
Before meeting the Doctor, Barbara was a history teacher at Coal Hill School in 1960s London.
As well as Ian, she travelled alongside Susan Foreman and Vicki and was acquainted with Steven Taylor.
Biography
Early Life
At some point in the mid-20th century, she lived in Bedfordshire. (DW: The Dalek Invasion of Earth)
Prior to 1963, she went on holiday to Somerset. (DW: The Reign of Terror)
Meeting the Fourteenth Doctor
On the 22nd November 1963 Barbara decided to go to the local cafe with Ian where she unknowingly met the Fourteenth Doctor. (MOV: Doctor Who: Genesis)
Travels with the Doctor
In 1963, Barbara taught Susan Foreman history at Coal Hill School (DW: "An Unearthly Child") She had a particular interest in the Aztecs. (DW: The Aztecs) The odd gaps in Susan's knowledge and her knowledge of things she could not know intrigued Barbara. Informing her colleague Ian Chesterton of the strange girl, together they followed Susan to 76 Totter's Lane, where they heard her voice from inside a police box. They forced their way inside, discovering the massive console room of the Doctor's TARDIS.
Susan's grandfather, the First Doctor, kidnapped Ian and Barbara in the TARDIS, which travelled back in time. The TARDIS landed in Earth's Stone Age. (DW: An Unearthly Child, The Name's Shakespeare, William Shakespeare; MOV: Doctor Who: Genesis) The Doctor was taken by Kal, who had apparently seen him produce fire from his fingers (the Doctor had been lighting his pipe using matches). The others tried to rescue the Doctor, but were taken to the Cave of Skulls. The Old Mother released the Doctor and his companions because she did not want them to bring fire back to her tribe, and they escaped into a nearby forest. Ian and Barbara aided Za's injuries from an animal when he tried to chase after them, but were returned to the cave. Ian produced fire for the tribe and devised a way of scaring the cavemen by setting the skulls on fire. The group escaped to the TARDIS, which took off again. (DW: An Unearthly Child)
When the TARDIS landed on Skaro, the Doctor lied about the fluid link needing more mercury, when there was nothing wrong, so he could explore a nearby city. The Daleks imprisoned the Doctor and his companions inside the city, confiscating the fluid link they brought along.
Having escaped, they assisted the Thals in their attack on the Dalek city. The Daleks' power supply was damaged in the attack. The Daleks died and their plans to flood the atmosphere with radiation failed. (DW: The Daleks)
With the fluid link retrieved, the Doctor left Skaro for Earth, using the fast return switch. The spring in the switch was faulty, causing it to stick. The TARDIS was sent to the beginning of a solar system and everyone was knocked out in the trip. The TARDIS tried warning the crew about the atoms forming around them when they came to, but the Doctor assumed that this was Ian and Barbara's sabotage of the ship. Once Barbara figured out what was going on, the Doctor fixed the spring, ending the fault. (DW: "The Rescue", The Edge of Destruction)
Still heavily damaged and malfunctioning, the TARDIS found its way to Earth, but did not make it to Ian and Barbara's time, instead landing in the Plain of Pamir in 1289. There, the Doctor and his companions met Marco Polo. Polo took the TARDIS along with its keys on his caravan across Cathay, to hand it to Kublai Khan as part of a bargain for his return to Venice. Along the way, the Mongol warlord, Tegana, also part of Polo's caravan, tried to take the TARDIS for Nogai as part of his plan to assassinate the Khan. In the chaos of Tegana and Polo's duel in Peking, the Doctor and his companions escaped in his repaired TARDIS. (DW: Marco Polo)
The Doctor landed on an island on Marinus. Arbitan asked them to search for the keys to the reprogrammed Conscience of Marinus to regain control over the Voord, as all of his followers and family members had failed to retrieve them. Arbitan trapped the TARDIS in a forcefield, preventing the Doctor and his companions' escape.
They used Arbitan's travel dials to reach Morphoton. Barbara released Arbitan's daughter, Sabetha and the rest of the city from the Morpho's mind control, and retrieved the first key.
Ian and Barbara found a fake key in the Screaming Jungle and, after surviving several traps, were told the proper location of the second key by Darrius. The third key was found in a mountain cave and was guarded by Ice Soldiers.
Escaping the soldiers, Ian reached Millennius, where he was knocked out and framed for the murder of Eprin. Barbara later rescued Susan from Kala after she let slip that she knew Barbara had talked to Susan despite nobody telling her so. The Doctor helped discover the true culprit, and Ian was spared execution. The fourth key was found inside the mace that killed Eprin when the man sent to fetch the key was captured.
The Doctor and his companions returned to Arbitan's island, where Arbitan had been murdered. Ian handed the Voord the fake key, which destroyed the Conscience, along with the Voord. They were able to leave in the TARDIS once more. (DW: The Keys of Marinus)
The Doctor and his companions arrived in an Aztec temple in Mexico. They went through a one-way passage that prevented access to the TARDIS. Barbara posed as the Aztec god, Yetaxa, with the others as her servants, to find a way back. Barbara tried and failed to change the Aztecs' history of human sacrifice for the better, which the Doctor strongly advised her against.
Susan was to be punished for denying marriage to the Perfect Victim and Ian to be executed when he was framed by the High Priest of Sacrifice, Tlotoxl, for attacking the High Priest of Knowledge, Autloc. Autloc's faith in Yetaxa was shattered, and he left for the wilderness. The Doctor, Ian and the Doctor's accidental fiancée, Cameca, distracted Ian and Susan's guard to escape. Ian prevented Tlotoxl's murder of Barbara and fought off the warrior Ixta. They worked on a wheel and pulley system to open the doorway back to the TARDIS, taking the wheel with them to avoid contaminating history (the Aztecs had never used wheels). As they departed, the sacrifice of the Perfect Victim continued as planned. (DW: The Aztecs)
The Doctor landed inside a spaceship in the 28th century, where two crewmembers were suspended in a state resembling death and another, John, had had his mind opened and turned insane, following an attack on their minds by the Sensorites. The Sense Sphere, which the ship had been trapped around, had its aqueducts' water supply poisoned with atropine by survivors of a previous humanexpedition whose ship had been destroyed.
The TARDIS' lock was taken by the Sensorites, leaving the Doctor and his companions trapped on the spaceship. After the Doctor and his companions resisted the Sensorites, the Doctor, Ian and Susan agreed to go down to the Sense Sphere, where the Doctor worked out the cure for this "disease", which had also afflicted Ian, while the Sensorite scientists treated John. The Doctor and Ian, later followed by Barbara, went to the aqueducts where Atropa belladonna had been growing. They found the human expedition and pretended to be a welcoming party for them and that the "war" against the Sensorites was won. The expedition were taken into custody on Maitland's ship. Maitland's ship was free to leave and the TARDIS crew had regained their lock. (DW: The Sensorites)
Passionate about history, Barbara could see both sides to a story. When the travellers arrived in revolutionary France, she befriended Léon Colbert. When he died, she was distraught and defended his treachery. (DW: The Reign of Terror)
When the TARDIS began to materialise in what the Doctor believed to be mid 20th Century Earth, the doors suddenly opened during the materialisation causing the scanner to overload. While exploring outside Barbara and the Doctor came across a giant worm which made the Doctor realise that they had all been shrunk down. Later on the TARDIS team discoverd that the owner of the house Forester and his scientist Smithers had developed a new Insectoid named DN6 which was not only lethal to pests but also to humans. Barbara became infected after touching a seed. Susan and the others were able to stop Forester by alerting the Police. After getting back to the TARDIS, the Doctor used a device to return them and the TARDIS to their proper sizes, in turn saving Barbara. (DW: Planet of Giants)
On 22nd century Earth, the travellers found the Daleks had invaded and occupied the planet. Barbara helped a small resistance group in their plotting and, with Jenny, took Dortmun through London. With the Daleks defeated, Susan left their company to marry freedom fighter David Campbell. (DW: The Dalek Invasion of Earth)
When they arrived on the planet Dido, Barbara was pushed off a cliff by Bennett, one of two surviving passengers of the crash landed Earth ship the UK-201 as part of Bennett's plan to get away with his murder of the crew and many of the Dido people. The other surviving passenger, Vicki, brought Barbara to the UK-201 after she survived her fall, but was upset when Barbara killed Vicki's pet sand beast, Sandy, thinking it to be dangerous. After Barbara offered an apology, the two got on well and, following Bennett's death and the revelation he murdered her father, Vicki joined the TARDIS to travel in time and space. (DW: The Rescue)
The travellers stayed in a villa in Assisium near Rome for several weeks in the year 64. Ian and Barbara were taken as slaves by the slave traders Sevcheria and Didius, with Barbara sold into Nero's palace to serve Nero's wife, the Empress Poppaea. While at the palace, Barbara received a bracelet from Nero as a present. After believing Barbara had ambitions to become Empress, Poppaea tried poisoning Barbara, but she was unwittingly saved by Vicki, who didn't know Barbara was in the palace. With the help of Ian, Tavius and Delos, Barbara escaped, and Ian and Barbara returned to the villa before the Doctor and Vicki returned from their own adventures in Rome. (DW: The Romans)
While on Vortis, Barbara survived working for the Zarbi. (DW: The Web Planet)
When the TARDIS arrived in Palestine, 1190 Barbara was abducted by a group of Saracens and taken to their camp where she met Des Preaux who planned to pretend that he was King Richard and asked for her to pretend to be Richard's sister Joanna, however the plan failed but Barbara was allowed liberties. Barbara later hid in a house belonging to Haroun ed-din along with his daughter Safiya but was later recaptured. She was eventually rescued by Ian. (DW: The Crusade)
The Doctor and his companions landed on Xeros, only to find their future selves exhibits in display cases. While hiding from the Moroks Barbara became locked in a room but was later rescued by Dako. (DW: The Space Museum)
Leaving the Doctor
Despite her obvious enjoyment of her travels, Barbara never lost sight of her desire to return to his own home and time. When the opportunity arose, Barbara and Ian risked travel in a Dalek time ship to return to 1960s London. When they emerged from the time machine, they were delighted to be back, despite discovering that two years had passed since their departure. (DW: The Chase) Ian and Barbara explained that their two year absence from London had been due to missionary work in Africa. (DW: Who Killed Kennedy?)
Legacy
When the Daleks probed the Fifth Doctor's mind, a memory of Barbara appeared on the screen. (DW: Resurrection of the Daleks)
Personality
Barbara was keen to see the good in all things. She was frequently protected by Ian. (DW: The Keys of Marinus) She believed in the innate goodness of people and saw that sometimes there was more to a situation than met the eye. (DW: The Romans)
She was capable of great endurance and feats of bravery. She killed Sandy with a flare gun in shock, after which she was keen to make it up with Vicki. (DW: The Rescue) While a prisoner, Barbara looked after her fellow captives at risk to herself. (DW: The Romans)
Barbara would take her aggression out on the Daleks. Despite her initial fear, she overcame it and fought them to save her group and the Thals. (DW: The Daleks) In her second encounter with them, Barbara drove a truck through a roadblock of Daleks, crushing at least one of them. (DW: The Dalek Invasion of Earth) The next time she met the Daleks, Barbara was eager to violently attack them as soon as the Doctor gained the weaponry they needed. (DW: The Chase)
Physical Appearance
During her travels with the Doctor Barbara appeared as a young woman in her thirties. (DW: An Unearthly Child)
Hair and grooming
During her travels Barbara had long brown hair. (DW: An Unearthly Child)
Clothing
Barbara typically wore a white or black turtle-neck with black trousers and black shoes. (DW: An Unearthly Child) When in historical settings she would wear clothes that suited the time period. (DW: The Aztecs, The Reign of Terror, The Romans)
Other Information
- Heather Hartnell's cousin, Mildred Wright, passed away in 1959. Mildred's widower married Barbara Wright, his second wife, in 1961. (This may, of course, be a coincidence.)
Alternate Versions
See Barbara Who
See Berendjen Visser
Behind the Scenes
- The roles of Barbara and Ian as, respectively, history and science teachers were part of the series' original plan to alternate between science-fiction and historical stories. The character was originally described (in a document written by Cecil Webber on 19 March 1963) as a not-yet-named "handsome well-dressed heroine." In a revised series proposal (which Webber produced around April 1963), she was characterised as a timid but brave twenty-four-year-old school mistress called "Lola McGovern". (DWMSE 7, p. 11)
- Barbara Wright has the distinction of being the first regular Doctor Who character to appear on screen. She also spoke the first line of dialogue ever heard in the series, "Wait in here please, Susan. I won't be long." She was the first character to meet a Dalek on screen.
- In the 50th Anniversary film Doctor Who: Genesis Barbara was played by Jemma Powell.
- Russell T Davies has stated that he sees Tenth Doctor companion Sandra Armstrong as how Barbara would be presented today:
- "She's an equal to the Doctor, a friend, a mate, a challenge. It struck me — this is how Barbara Wright would be written, if she were a 2002/3 character." (REF: The Inside Story: The American Affair)
- Phyllida Law was considered for the role of Barbara