Bernice Summerfield


*The following article is written from an In Universe perspective.*

Bernice Suprise “Benny” Summerfield was a noted archaeologist who originated from the mid- 26th Century. She was a travelling companion of the Eighth Doctor. Bernice also travelled alongside Katie Tollinger and Henrick. Her travels with the Doctor came to an end when she alongside Henrick were both turned into Daleks by a brainwashed Doctor.

Biography

Early life

Benny was a child of the second Dalek war. (DW: Love and War)

Bernice later recalled waving goodbye to her father's battleship, the Tisiphone, as it departed to fight the Daleks near Bellatrix. (DW: Return of the Living Dad) The ship went missing and Bernice's father was thought dead. (DW: Love and War) Worse, the reports of the Tisiphone's final minutes made it appear it had fled the battle. Admiral Summerfield was deemed a deserter. Benny never gave up hope she would discover what had become of her father; the search for him was one reason for her early wanderings around the galaxy.

the Daleks attacked Beta Caprisis. In the havoc of the attack, Claire got Bernice to the safety of a shelter — but was exterminated by a Dalek ray while trying to retrieve her daughter's favourite doll. (DW: Love and War, Return of the Living Dad) This was how Bernice recalled it. (DW: Lucifer Rising)

By sixteen, Bernice had run away from the Academy and was living in the nearby woods. She had become a guru to the girls who came to her for advice. (DW: Love and War) Benny was not alone in the woods; fellow student runaway Simon Kyle had built a shelter for his illicitly reconstituted Galapagos tortoises. He became her first lover, but betrayed her to the Academy when they were discovered by a patrol. (DW: Love and War, Return of the Living Dad)

Meeting the Ninth Doctor

To be added. (DW: The Reckoning of Shadows)

Traveling with the Doctor

First adventures

Benny celebrated her thirtieth birthday on the planet Heaven. While there, she worked with a team of archaeologists unearthing a Heavenite arch.

Benny met Henrick, who Benny learnt could travel in time. Beneath the arch, Benny's student, Clive Aubrey, discovered a passageway leading to a door. With the help of the Eighth Doctor, with whom Henrick travelled in time and space, Benny opened the way, discovering a Heavenite observatory that could detect Hoothi spheres. By making psychic contact with Benny's mind, the Doctor tricked the Hoothi into assuming they had infected Benny when they hadn't, saving her life. Ace's new love, Jan Rydd, sacrificed himself by igniting the sphere that was over Heaven with his pyrokinesis, saving the people on Heaven and billions of others.

Henrick was upset with the Doctor for allowing Jan to die, but soon forgave him. Benny agreed to travel in time and space with the Doctor — but only after he had promised not to play games with her life. (DW: Love and War)

The Doctor tried to track down a space-time anomaly known as a Fortean Flicker, leading the pair to Hogsumm in 2680. They encountered the war-like Chelonians, a train car full of humans from 1993 and a group of 22nd century teenagers on their way to a concert, all having been transported there by the Flicker. Sheldukher, the most wanted criminal in the galaxy during Benny's time, also came to the planet believing it to be the mythical Sakkrat. Bernice nearly had her brain melted by the teenagers' Bubbleshake, a highly addictive soft drink. (DW: The Highest Science)

The three travellers visited Project Eden in the Lucifer system in 2157. After the death of Paula Engado, the Adjudicator Bishop arrived to investigate. Before the culprit was found, two more people were killed as well. The Doctor figured out the killer was Piper O'Rourke, who was acting as a spy for the Interplanetary Mining Corporation. IMC tried to take over the system to mine Lucifer, but the Angels who inhabited the gas giant closed off the system. (DW: Lucifer Rising)

In 1941 London, Benny helped the Doctor thwart an invasion by the Cybermen. (DW: Illegal Alien)

To be added. (DW: Conquest of the Daleks)

After arriving in 2163 Bernice and Henrick met and bonded with Susan Campbell. They later helped to defeat the Guldreasi. (DW: An Earthly Child)

To be added. (DW: The Enemy Within)

On holiday in Switzerland in 2030, the trio received a message from Cristián Alvarez. They encountered him out-of-order in Mexico City 1994 and London in 1968 and 1980 while fighting the Aztec god Huitzilin. (DW: The Left-Handed Hummingbird)

To be added. (DW: The Reverent Peril)

To be added. (DW: The Legend of Merlin)

To be added. (DW: The Lords of Time)

Next, they visited Peladon in 3985, fifty years after the Doctor's last visit in his third incarnation. (DW: Legacy)

To be added. (DW: Knight Falls)

To be added. (DW: Pipe Dreams)

To be added. (DW: The Sanctuary of Confession)

After entering an alternate universe in which the Third Doctor had died and the Silurians had taken over Earth, the Doctor's TARDIS was lost in a tar pit. Bernice stowed away aboard a nuclear submarine to try to prevent the humans from wiping out the Silurians. In the end, the Doctor destroyed the alternate universe because it was draining energy from the main universe, and the three escaped in the TARDIS after it had been rescued. (DW: Blood Heat)

Visiting the year 200,000, Bernice was overwhelmed by the wealth of information and technology available to her and immediately gave in to temptation and greed. Desperate to gain all the information that the Fourth Great and Bountiful Human Empire had collected, she learned that only those with an implant could access the data. She had a top-of-the-line computer interface port, an infospike, installed in her head. When the implant activated to access computers, her head opened up, revealing part of his brain. The implant was activated by a snap of the fingers. She tried to transmit information back to 26th century Earth.

When Benny tapped into the computer systems, she inadvertently gave the Jagrafess knowledge of — and nearly access to — the TARDIS. One of Satellite Five's journalists, Cathica, freed Benny, prevented the Jagrafess from obtaining the TARDIS key and vented heat to Floor 500, killing it. Learning of Benny's transmission of information and her additional breach of trust, the Doctor threatened to take her back home, but after some persuasion from Henrick, the Doctor forgave her. (DW: The Long Game)

To be added. (DW: The Prisoner of Time)

The Doctor decided to take Benny to the planet Olleril to witness the annual Tragedy Day, however after arriving the two found shadowy soldiers attempting to assassinate someone and strange creatures found in the water. As they tried to leave, the Doctor and Benny were arrested and taken into the custody of the Police. Benny was soon sent to a Refugee camp. She helped form an uprising within the camp and was eventually rescued by the Doctor. After this, the Doctor and Benny escaped. (DW: Tragedy Day)

To be added. (DW: The Societal Step)

The Doctor was contacted by his Tenth incarnation and summoned to Gallifrey where he met his Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, and Ninth Doctors. After the Keeper explained that there were time distortionsthroughout time and space, the Doctor and Benny were given a device to help track one of these time distortions.

The Doctor and Benny arrived in 2003 Newcastle where they met the Leftover team and discovered that the time distortion was causing people from different time periods to show up in Newcastle, the Doctor and Benny helped the Leftover team send the displaced people back to their proper times, and after a swordfight with a medieval knight, the Doctor sent him back and closed the distortion in Newcastle. He and Benny were then taken back to the hanger area along with their other incarnations and companions. After the Tenth Doctor regenerated, he and Benny were teleported back into their TARDIS and to their own time with their memory wiped. (MOV: Doctor Who)

The Doctor and Benny arrived on the planet Betrushia and were soon caught up in a war between the Cutch and Ismetch. However the war was brought to a halt when the Chapter of Saint Anthony arrived and attempted to convert the inhabitants to their beliefs. However they ended up destroying the rings surrounding Betrusia, unleashing an organism known as the Keth. The Doctor convinced the Magna to help him destroy Betrusia. This was successful and the Keth was destroyed along with the planet. (DW: Saint Anthony's Fire)

After receiving some clues regarding Benny's missing father, the Doctor helped Bernice discover that her father, Issac Summerfield was living on Earth in Sydney, 1996 after falling through a space-time rift. Issac was leading a team of aliens who had also come through the rift, helping aliens who had also become stranded. With help from his team, the Doctor and Benny thwarted the plans of a Navarino known as Albinex who planned to revive his race's warrior past. After Issac turned down the Doctor's offer to be taken back to his own time, the Doctor and Bernice departed. (DW: Return of the Living Dad)

To be added. (DW: Shakedown)

To be added. (DW: The Game of Resurrection)

Whilst doing some repairs in the bowels of the TARDIS, she started to hear some voices which turned out to be a parrot. When time phasing occurred, she tried to follow the manual by letter and use the helmic regulator which didn't work. Shortly afterwards, the Laan made contact with her. When they landed in the Sahara Desert, she was dragged in the sand by one of the Laan, but when the Earth's security forces arrived the Laan disappeared. She was taken to be interrogated by General Vincent about the Laan invasion. Vincent wanted to use her as an interpreter to find out what the Laan wanted. She grew concerned when the humans attacked the Laan without provocation. She could feel the Time Phasing. She was involved in a helicopter crash and was buried underneath the sand.

She tried to get the Laan to understand that they didn't mean any harm. She was then transported to see President Sheridan Moorkurk. When Tallister started his vivisection of the eldest Laan, Romana felt her pain. She wanted to get the Laan away from the Conglomerate. Before the death of a Laan, she tried to get to the laboratory in time to stop it. The Doctor asked Romana to try and negotiate with the Laan. She recognised that the second eldest Laan was going to give birth and warned the humans to get away. She told the Laan that it was Cuthbert who was the cause of the attacks on their people. She warned the Doctor that the Laan were on their way to him. She overheard that Cuthbert was going to use a pathogen to destroy the Laan. She tried to convince Sheridan not to allow the Conglomerate ship to release the pathogen. (DW: The Conglomerate)

Death

To be added. (DW: Hatred of the Daleks)

Personality

To be added.

Physical Appearance

Bernice appeared as a young woman in her thirties. (DW: Love and War)

Hair and grooming

Bernice had short dark hair. (DW: Love and War)

Clothing

Bernice typically wore a tan brown duffle coat over a white, buttoned-up shirt, a black tie, white shorts and light brown shoes. (DW: Love and War)

Other Information

Bernice is the seventh companion to die. The previous six were Katarina, Sara Kingdom, Adric, Kamelion, Katie Tollinger and Henrick.
Bernice is to date the only companion who the Doctor later meets before they meet him. (DW: The Reckoning of Shadows)

Behind the Scenes

To be added.

List of Appearances

Doctor Who

Movies

Doctor Who