| The following article is written from an In Universe perspective. |
Leela, later known as Leelandredloomsagwinaechegesima, (DW: Lungbarrow) was a companion of the Fourth Doctor.
She was a warrior of the "savage" Sevateem, a tribe of regressed humans. She met the Doctor during his visit to her home planet and aided him against Xoanon. The two became friends and, despite being offered the possibility of becoming leader of her world's new society, she left to follow the Doctor. Although he initially rejected her request to go with him, she ran into the TARDIS and became his companion.
Leela's origins meant she had little understanding of the technological wonders to which her travels exposed her. She was educated by the Doctor, who attempted to instruct her on the nature of societies beyond her own. During one such trip, she met Henry Gordon Jago and George Litefoot, whom she would revisit a number of times thereafter. Despite the Doctor's misgivings, she remained quick to violence and her primitive edge never dissipated.
They were joined on their travels by K9. Having fallen in love with Andred, a member of the Chancellery Guard, Leela chose to leave the Doctor and live on Gallifrey. K9 decided to remain with her.
She married Andred and, taking the name Leelandredloomsagwinaechegesima, became embroiled in Gallifreyan politics as the bodyguard of Romana II.
She later became a representative for the Outsiders and was eventually reunited with her long lost daughter Kendara.
Leela was killed on board a Vex ship by Pryex.
Biography
Early life
Leela was a member of the Sevateem, descended from the human survey team of the Mordee expedition that followed the Great Breakout of the year 5000. (DW: The Invisible Enemy) She was the daughter of Sole and Neela. (DW: The Face of Evil)
Meeting with the Doctor
Leela argued against the tribe's shaman, Neeva, in his decision to attack the rival Tesh tribe - a purpose he claimed came from the Sevateem's god, Xoanon. Leela's blaspheming against this deity secured her banishment. Sole undertook the ritual Test of the Horda on her behalf and was killed.
While attempting to leave Sevateem land, Leela came into conflict with two men, sent by Neeva to kill her. She used a crossbow to slay one of her assailants while Tomas, her friend, killed the other. Leela instructed him to return to the tribe and, before going far, met with the Fourth Doctor. She believed him to be the Evil One - a figure from Sevateem religion who supposedly held Xoanon captive - due to the resemblance between him and the carved face on a cliff nearby.
The Doctor saved Leela from the psychic projections of Xoanon that resided in the jungle, earning her trust. After the Doctor was captured, she returned to the Sevateem village and helped him escape. Her use of janis thorns to paralyse and kill was criticised by the Doctor.
Calib used a janis thorn against Leela, and only through the Doctor's use of a bioanalyser was she restored from paralysis and saved from death. Leela then went with the Doctor to the base of the Tesh - in fact the spacecraft used by the expedition. There, the Doctor found the supercomputer Xoanon and set about trying to cure him of his insanity while Leela fended off the attacking Tesh, killing several. The Doctor was able to unify the mind of Xoanon, slipping into unconsciousness as he did so.
Leela cared for him for two days until he came to his senses. She followed him back to his TARDIS and requested that he take her with him. The Doctor protested, admitting that he liked Leela, but saying he could not take everyone he liked with him as they were too numerous. She walked past him into the TARDIS, he followed, and Leela's use of the console led to dematerialisation. (DW: The Face of Evil)
Travels with the Doctor
Leela and the Doctor visited Storm Mine 4. After Chub, one of the crew, was found dead, the pair were accused of murder by the commander, Kiy Uvanov. The Doctor suspected that the Sandminer robots were responsible and Leela and he were exonerated when this was proven. D84, a Dum class robot, approached Leela and revealed that it could talk. She agreed to keep it secret, but did tell the Doctor.
Leela became friends with Lish Toos, treating her injury and comforting her after she was attacked by V6. They hid inside a hopper together, narrowly avoiding detection by the robots. Taren Capel, who had inspired the robot revolution was on board. The Doctor had Leela hide inside a vent and release helium when Capel entered the room. It changed the tone of his voice so that SV7 did not recognise his commands and killed him. (DW: The Robots of Death)
As part of the Doctor's efforts to teach Leela about her ancestors, he brought her to Victorian Londonin 1889. She saved the Doctor from an assailant, a member of the Tong of the Black Scorpion, by killing him with a Janis thorn.
Leela found the hypnotised Teresa and took her clothes, allowing her to gain access to the 51st century war criminal Magnus Greel's laboratory. She attempted to prevent the death of a woman, but the catalytic extraction chamber Greel used had already drained her.
As she fled, the Doctor saved Leela from a giant rat by shooting it with a Chinese fowling gun. She then went to the home of George Litefoot where she was attired in clothes bought by her host on the basis that they were fashionable. Leela wore them to accompany the Doctor to the Palace Theatre.
Greel attacked Leela in Litefoot's home. She pulled off his mask and saw his disfigured face. The Doctor negotiated with Greel to have the unconscious Leela left behind while they went to the House of the Dragon. Leela infiltrated the building, killing one member of the Tong as she did so. She attacked Greel, but was seized by his men. When Mr Sin turned on Greel, she used a firearm for the first time, destroying the dragon statue's weapon capabilities. Greel was killed by the chamber.
Litefoot gave Leela some instruction on how to drink tea before he and Jago said goodbye to the travellers. (DW: The Talons of Weng-Chiang, The Name's Shakespeare, William Shakespeare)
While trying to get to Brighton, the Doctor and Leela found themselves on Fang Rock in the 1900s. They visited the lighthouse there. With reports of a "fireball" and Ben Travers dead, the Doctor suspected alien involvement. Leela sighted a creature in the waters and had to be persuaded that it wasn't the mythical Beast of Fang Rock.
Aside from the lighthouse keepers, they were also joined by the crew of a steam yacht that crashed in the fog. One of the passengers, Adelaide Less age, irritated Leela with her screams and swooning in the face of their alien aggressor. Leela hit Lessage across the face to silence her.
The creature was a Rutan and Leela helped the Doctor prepare a makeshift weapon to kill it. They put various items from their pockets into a telescope. Leela lit it and it fired the contents at the Rutan scout, killing it. She suggested that the Doctor modify the lighthouse and he did so, fitting it with a carbon oscillator, which he used to destroy the Rutan mothership. (DW: Horror of Fang Rock)
Travels with the Doctor and K9
In 5000, the Swarm brought the Doctor to the Bi-Al Foundation, which they took over. As the Doctor fell into a self-induced coma to fight off the influence of the Nucleus, he sent a shrunken clone of Leela and himself inside his brain to fight the infection. Absorbing Leela's clone unleashed her antibodies into the Doctor's system, saving him.
With the help of K9, Leela killed some of the Titan Base workers who were infected with the Swarm. She urged the Doctor to blow up the hatchling Swarm, to which the Doctor finally agreed. Leela begged him to accept Professor Marius' offer of K9 as a gift. K9 entered the TARDIS of his own accord, joining them on their journeys. (DW: The Invisible Enemy)
The Doctor and Leela went to Earth in search of the cause of a Relative Continuum Displacement Zone, knowing the time scanner being used could result in a direct continuum implosion. They landed in Fetchborough and came across Ted Moss, whom Leela held prisoner, believing him hostile. He told them about Dr Fendelman's work at Fetch Priory before they parted.
While circling the perimeter of the priory, Leela wandered from the Doctor and came across a cottage. Moss, who was within, fired a gun through the doorway, but Leela pressed herself against the outside wall and avoided harm. She overpowered Moss and threatened him with the gun, but surrendered the weapon to Jack Tyler, believing the cane he pressed against her back to be a firearm.
After Moss left, Martha Tyler came home, visibly shocked, and speaking of something "hungry for [her] soul". Leela left to seek the Doctor's assistance. At Fetch Priory, she found him in contact with the Fendahlcore, Eustace, and broke the connection by toppling his chair. When the Doctor explained what the skull had been doing, using appropriate genetic material to recreate itself and draining his life, Leela told him what Martha had said about seeing something "huge and dark" and its hunger for souls. The Doctor asked Leela to take him to Martha. At the Tyler cottage, Leela and the Doctor revived Martha by appealing to the commonplace and she told them about the being she had seen in the woods. Martha gave Leela a charm before she left.
Using the TARDIS, the Doctor and Leela went in search of Planet 5 – the homeworld of the Fendahl. Leela fell asleep and, having dreamt she was being pursued, drew her knife on waking and almost attacked the Doctor. They found that Planet 5 had been placed in a time loop by the Time Lords, making it and its records invisible.
Back at the priory, Leela recalled her dream and she, Martha and Jack found they could not move their legs – their muscles being controlled psychotelekinetically. The Doctor - unaffected - used Jack's shotgun, loaded with rock salt, to kill an approaching Fendahleen, breaking the Fendahl's hold on Leela and the Tylers.
The Doctor explained that the Fendahleen was created out of pure energy while the skull was restructuring Thea Ransome's brain, turning her into the Fendahl core. The Doctor and Leela went down to the cellars, where Maximillian Stael had conducted a ritual with his coven. There, they freed Adam Colby and the Doctor tasked Leela with getting him to safety, warning them not to look into the transformed Thea's eyes.
In Fendelman's lab, Leela suggested, as the Doctor had been able to kill one Fendahleen with rock salt, the rest could also be killed. As the creature was incomplete, it being comprised of twelve Fendahleen and a core, and there only being ten with one Fendahleen and Stael dead, the Doctor told her that there was a chance of defeating it. He asked Leela to go with Jack, who was armed with more cartridges filled with rock salt. Thea and a Fendahleen appeared before the pair in the corridor beyond the lab. Having already gazed upon it, Jack told Leela he couldn't shoot so she knocked him down and took the gun herself, firing and killing the creature.
The Doctor instructed the Tylers to return to their cottage and asked Colby to give him and Leela enough time to get down to the cellars, then set off the scanner beam, allowing them to take the skull in the confusion this would put the core into. He told Colby to allow it to run for two minutes and then to leave as he had rigged a controlled explosion that would destroy the priory after a further three minutes. Leela asked why they could not leave the skull to the inferno, but the Doctor told her it could reappear anywhere and begin the process again.
In the cellars, Leela and the Doctor came across the core and they threw vials of salt, collected by Martha Tyler, at it. The Doctor placed Eustace in a lead-lined box and they left, passing through an apparition of the core on the way out, avoiding its eyes as they did so. As they ran across the grounds, Fetch Priory was engulfed in flames. Leela asked what they were to do now, and the Doctor told her they would leave, assuring her that Colby and the Tylers would be fine. Back in the TARDIS, the Doctor told Leela he would find a supernova in order to destroy the skull. (DW: Image of the Fendahl)
On Pluto, Leela was captured by Megro guards and was sent to the steamer, but the Doctor rescued her. She then took part in the Citizens' Revolution that overthrew the Company. (DW: The Sun Makers)
She and the Doctor later landed on the R1C, a Minyan spacecraft commanded by Jackson searching for the lost Minyan ship P7E. When they arrived on the P7E, Leela helped the Doctor and the "Trogs" defeat the Oracle and its guards. (DW: Underworld)
Parting with the Doctor
As part of the Doctor's attempt to double-cross the Vardans, the Doctor was inducted as Lord President of the Supreme Council of Time Lords on Gallifrey. After the Doctor had been attacked by the Matrix, he banished Leela to Outer Gallifrey. She left with the Time Lord Rodan as the Vardans invaded Gallifrey. Out in Outer Gallifrey, Leela persuaded the Outsiders, led by Nesbin, to help fight against the Vardans. They managed to make their way to the President's office where the Doctor used K9 to send the Vardans back to their planet and time loop the planet.
The Sontarans followed the Vardans to invade Gallifrey after the force field had been opened in order to trap the Vardans, and the Sontarans gained access to the TARDIS. Leela and the Outsiders attacked and killed the soldiers, leaving only Stor, whom the Doctor erased from time with the De-mat Gun. Leela decided to stay on Gallifrey, having fallen in love with Andred. When the Doctor was ready to leave, he indicated his intent to Leela. She told him she wanted to remain and when he asked why, Andred took her hand. The Doctor assured Andred that Leela would look after him, saying she was "terribly good with a knife". K9 chose to stay too, in order to look after "the mistress". (DW: The Invasion of Time)
Life on Gallifrey
She spent the next decades in the Capitol. Andred and Leela married (DW: Arc of Infinity) and conceived a daughter whom they named Kendara, the first born on Gallifrey for millennia. (Pythia had long ago made the Gallifreyans a sterile race.) However due to the taboo against half-Gallifreyan children she was put up for adoption with her life-signs masked to make her appear fully Gallifreyan. (PAN: Gallifreyan Equity)
To be added. (DW: Lungbarrow)
To be added. (DW: The Lords of Time)
Leela and K9 joined the Rogue and the Rani on their covert intelligence mission to the Bannermen's homeworld in order to discover if they had any plans that might endang Gallifrey. Leela helped fight off several Bannermen as the group escaped. (PAN: The Dice Has Been Cast)
Aiding the Eleventh Doctor
To be added. (DW: Lord President of Gallifrey)
To be added. (DW: The Order of Rassilon)
To be added. (DW: War of the Poplne)
To be added. (DW: Forgotten in Time)
To be added. (DW: Trust is a Lie)
To be added. (DW: The Enemy Uncovered)
To be added. (DW: The Battle of the Strong)
To be added. (DW: The Resistance)
To be added. (DW: Peace in Our Time)
To be added. (DW: The Oncoming Storm)
To be added. (DW: In the Mouths of Men)
To be added. (DW: Evolution of the Matrix)
To be added. (DW: Return to Earth)
Battling the Resistance
To be added. (RZ: For the Good)
To be added. (RZ: The Darkest Reservation)
To be added. (RZ: Desperate Times, Desperate Measures)
To be added. (RZ: On the Eve of War, Here I Am)
To be added. (DW: Everlasting War)
To be added. (DW: Auribus Teneo Lupum)
During Franc's presidency
To be added. (DW: The Winner's Protector)
To be added. (DW: May Fortune Favour the Bold)
To be added. (DW: Behind the Looking Glass)
To be added. (DW: The Sharper the Knife)
To be added. (DW: Demons of the Past)
To be added. (DW: The Noble Sacrifice)
To be added. (DW: May the Truth Be Damned)
To be added. (DW: The Confrontation of the Wicked)
Dealing with the Master
To be added. (MOV: Doctor Who: Revelation)
As Representative of the Outsiders
To be added. (PAN: Period of Adjustment)
War with the Bannermen
To be added. (PAN: Period of Adjustment)
To be added. (PAN: War is Only as Good as Your Leader)
To be added. (PAN: Nature's Gift)
To be added. (PAN: Gallifreyan Equity)
To be added. (PAN: The Eternal Flame)
To be added. (PAN: The Death of Peace)
To be added. (PAN: The Birth of War)
To be added. (PAN: Operation: Regeneration)
To be added. (PAN: In the Name of the Cause)
To be added. (PAN: How Little Does Wisdom Rule the Universe?)
To be added. (PAN: Adams and the Bannermen)
A threat to Time Lord society
To be added. (DW: Inquisition)
Gregori returns
To be added. (MOV: Doctor Who: Vengeance; PAN: Vengeance Part I, Vengeance Part II)
To be added. (PAN: Colour of Your Life)
A new threat emerges
To be added. (PAN: Slipping Through My Fingers)
To be added. (PAN: When All is Said and Done)
To be added. (PAN: Maybe It's Imaginary)
Death
To be added. (PAN: Only Teardrops)
Legacy
Alternate timelines
Personality
Leela told the Doctor it was clear to her he could not control the TARDIS. When he objected, she told him "don't cry about it". When the TARDIS and its occupants were endangered by a Relative Continuum Displacement Zone, Leela was quick to assert that she "meant no disrespect" and that she may have been wrong in suggesting the Doctor was unable to control the "old machine", as she had labelled it. When it righted itself, she asked if it could understand her. The Doctor replied "she just generates a low intensity telepathic field, and obviously primitive thought patterns like [Leela]'s appeal to her". Initially cheered, Leela became somewhat dismayed when she understood the full meaning of this.
Leela had sympathy with the Doctor when he claimed to have been frightened by a "mythological horror" in his childhood. (DW: Image of the Fendahl)
Leela retained the mindset that life among the primitive and superstitious Sevateem had imprinted upon her. She took the noises of a ship on the River Thames for the attack sound of a swamp creature. When a Chinese man she had implicated in a crime refused to talk, Leela insisted that he be tortured into speaking. While in the home of George Litefoot, Leela displayed her savagery to the host, tearing meat off the bone with her teeth. (DW: The Talons of Weng-Chiang)
The Doctor described Leela as "a huntress, a creature of instinct". She felt better suited to the wastelands of Gallifrey than the Capitol. Nevertheless, Leela was confident she could "survive anywhere". Her single-mindedness convinced the Doctor that she would be susceptible to Vardantelepathy, so he ordered that she be banished from the Capitol. (DW: The Invasion of Time)
The sociology of the tribe instilled Leela with the belief that the only way to learn was by listening to the wisdom of elders. Leela maintained that the "fate of the old and crippled" was to be slain and asked the Doctor to kill her when she thought she was blind. She did not consider herself to be a lady. To this end, she had no umbrage with stripping down to change clothes in the presence of others. (DW: Horror of Fang Rock)
Leela rejected the belief that Xoanon was a god. She referred to the phantoms that supposedly resided in the lands beyond Sevateem territory as "feast fire stories". (DW: The Face of Evil) She abandoned her belief in magic, telling Adelaide Lessage "I too used to believe in magic, but the Doctor has taught me about science. It is better to believe in science". (DW: Horror of Fang Rock)
Leela quizzed the Doctor on how the Fendahl came to Earth. She compared the method of passage the Doctor described the way in which lightning travelled, a simile the Doctor partly approved of. She thought that the use of a time loop to make Planet 5 and its records invisible was "very clever"; the Doctor considered it criminal. (DW: Image of the Fendahl)
Leela did not hesitate to use the weapons she kept about her person, despite the Doctor's disapproval. (DW: The Robots of Death) He didn't berate her for saving his life through violence. (DW: The Talons of Weng-Chiang) Leela boasted over the wounded Rutan scout on Fang Rock, telling it "[she] enjoyed killing [it]". She believed it was "fitting to celebrate the death of an enemy", a point the Doctor disagreed with her on. (DW: Horror of Fang Rock)
She claimed to have no fear of death. (DW: The Talons of Weng-Chiang)
Leela was concerned for K9 when he was dysfunctional, asking the Doctor if "he would be okay" and insisting, when he used the pronoun "it", that his use of "she" to describe the TARDIS gave her the right to use "he". After the destruction of Fetch Priory, the Doctor commented that he should return to "repairing him", with the use of the word greatly pleasing Leela. (DW: Image of the Fendahl) Leela became angry with K9 after he failed to provide her with information, telling him to "shut up". When K9 started to sulk, she apologised, saying she was sorry and assuring him that she "didn't mean to shout". K9 chose to stay on Gallifrey with Leela to look after her. (DW: The Invasion of Time)
On Gallifrey, Leela met Rodan. The Time Lady advised her to put her knife away, lest she hurt herself, which Leela said was something the Doctor often remarked. When Rodan allowed a fleet to pass and told Leela it was probably going to "blast some part of the galaxy to dust", Leela told her she ought to have stopped them, but Rodan explained that the non-interference policy forbade such action. Leela mocked Rodan's manner of speaking, saying "one must, one must, yes". Rodan only replied "I knew I'd like you" and turned off the force field that separated the pair. (DW: The Invasion of Time)
At their parting, Leela told the Doctor she would miss him. He made an admission in kind only when alone in his TARDIS, saying "I'll miss you too, savage". Leela left him in order to be with Andred, whom she fell in love with. (DW: The Invasion of Time)
Abilities
Leela was skilled in combat, both armed and otherwise. She was particularly adept with knives, which she used as throwing weapons. (DW: The Robots of Death) Leela was able to hit a Sontaran's probic vent with a thrown knife and the Doctor congratulated her, calling the act "prodigious" and "amazing". (DW: The Invasion of Time) Leela was once found by a policeman to be strangling her opponent with his own pigtail. She had never used a handgun until her visit to London in 1889, but managed to utilise it effectively against Mr Sin. (DW: The Talons of Weng-Chiang) Leela told the Doctor that good marksmanship was not a matter of luck. After she knocked out Jack Tyler and used his shotgun to kill a Fendahleen, all the time being unable to look at her target lest it influence her, the Doctor agreed with her. (DW: Image of the Fendahl)
Leela was skilled with a bow and displayed her talent for archery to the Outsiders on Gallifrey. (DW: The Invasion of Time)
Leela wrote with her left hand, but threw her knife and performed other actions with her right. (DW: The Invisible Enemy) During her travels with the Doctor, he taught her to read and write. (DW: The Invisible Enemy)
The Fourth Doctor told James Skinsale that "Leela's senses [were] particularly acute" when explaining how she had sensed a change in temperature that eluded everyone else present. Leela also believed she had a keen sense of hearing. (DW: Horror of Fang Rock) She could sense an evil about the Swarm and was able to tell that a communique from Titan Base had a non-human source. (DW: The Invisible Enemy) Leela told the Doctor, after breaking the connection between him and Eustace, that she had felt something was wrong and had followed the feeling allowing her to find him. (DW: Image of the Fendahl)
After taking Ted Moss prisoner, she told him that "your Council should choose its warriors more carefully. A child of the Sevateem could have taken you". Later, she was able to move swiftly to avoid harm when Moss fired a gun at her, pressing herself against the outside wall of the Tyler cottage when he fired through the doorway from within. She disarmed Moss and turned the weapon on him, telling him the shot would be his last, and only surrendering the weapon when she believed Jack Tyler had a gun to her back. Moss told Leela as he left that he would see her later, to which she replied that he should get some practice first. (DW: Image of the Fendahl)
Physical Appearance
Leela was tall and strong. She had a broad, clear forehead and a firm chin. Her skin was tanned and smoothly muscular. Leela initially had dark eyes, (DW: The Face of Evil) but due to pigmentation dispersal, her eyes became blue. (DW: Horror of Fang Rock)
By the time of Gregori's first term as Lord President, Leela appeared more middle-aged. (DW: The Lords of Time)
Hair and grooming
During her time with the Doctor, Leela had long reddish-brown hair. (DW: The Face of Evil)
By the time of the Eighth Doctor's first visit to Gallifrey, Leela had cut her hair, but left the back long. (DW: Lungbarrow)
By the time Will Adams came to Gallifrey, Leela's hair had turned a light-brown colour with patches of grey in it. Her hair was now completely short and frizzy. (PAN: Period of Adjustment)
Clothing
Leela usually dressed in animal skins and armed herself with a knife and janis thorns. (DW: The Face of Evil) She once accompanied this outfit with the Doctor's hat. (DW: The Invisible Enemy)
While in London in 1889, the Doctor had Leela wear a less conspicuous outfit, befitting the time. Leela thought these alternate clothes were ridiculous. In order to affect a disguise, she took and dressed in Teresa's clothes.
In order to accompany the Doctor to the Palace Theatre, Leela wore a fashionable dress selected by George Litefoot. She was pleased by the comments the pair made, with Litefoot labelling it as "quite delightful" and the Doctor saying he would "be proud" to take her the theatre "looking like that". (DW: The Talons of Weng-Chiang)
Leela dressed in a skirt and wore a boater hat for a trip to Brighton. When she found herself on Fang Rock instead, she changed into men's clothes belonging to the lighthouse keepers. The explosion
While on Fang Rock, James Skinsale commented that Leela was "not a bad looker", but Adelaide Lessage thought her "perfectly grotesque". Skinsale told her he had learnt to "appreciate nature" during his time in India. (DW: Horror of Fang Rock)
Leela had skins in various tones and occasionally wore her hair in a bun. (DW: Image of the Fendahl)
On Gallifrey, Andred helped Leela to choose an outfit. She went through many clothes, rejecting them all, much to Andred's annoyance. He asked her what outfit she would like and she replied: "a quiver, a bow, a pouch of Janis thorns and my knife back". While with the Outsiders, she wore a fur cloak over her other clothes. (DW: The Invasion of Time)
Other Information
Leela ranks as one of the most violent companions, regularly threatening or using deadly force against other humanoids (often to the Doctor's disgust as in The Invisible Enemy, but occasionally not as in Underworld). Although other companions sometimes killed (for example, Romana I shot a guard in The Pirate Planet.
Along with the Rani, the Rogue, Francs and Fen Don'el she is one of only five characters to play a major role in two spin-off series: Rebel Zero and Panopticon.
Katarina - the first television companion who can be considered primitive - was axed almost immediately by the production team to avoid the exposition that would necessary with a character that knew nothing of modern society.
Behind the Scenes
Creation of the character
Leela was first conceived by producer Philip Hinchcliffe and script editor Robert Holmes. They wanted someone in the mould of Eliza Doolittle from George Bernard Shaw's play Pygmalion: a bright but unsophisticated primitive who would learn from the Doctor. Writer Chris Boucher had submitted a story proposal entitled The Mentor Conspiracy. It featured a character named Leela which fitted Hinchcliffe and Holmes's ideas.
Although The Mentor Conspiracy was not produced, Boucher reused the character of Leela for The Day God Went Mad (later renamed The Face of Evil), seeing her as a mixture of Emma Peel from The Avengers and Leila Khaled. Boucher was asked to write two endings to the story, in one, Leela left with the Doctor and in the other she stayed behind. The decision to have Leela become a companion was made soon after. Initially, Leela was to have only appeared in three stories. It was decided later she would stay for the remainder of season 15. One consequence of this decision was a plot contrivance added to Horror of Fang Rock to allow the character's eye colour to change, so actress Louise Jameson would not have to wear uncomfortable coloured contact lenses.
Jameson felt that Doctor Who's writers sometimes neglected to write for Leela as an individual, instead writing her as a stereotypical "Doctor Who girl." For example, in Underworld, the script originally had Leela screaming when overwhelmed by poisonous gas. Jameson declined to do this, pointing out that it was not in character for the warrior Leela. (INFO: Underworld) In fact, Leela screamed in only one television story, The Talons of Weng-Chiang, when her leg was being gnawed by the giant rat — a scream which Jameson felt was justified. (DCOM: The Talons of Weng-Chiang)