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Jo Grant
Josephine "Jo" Grant, later Jo Jones, is a fictional character played by Katy Manning in the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who. Jo was introduced by Barry Letts and Terrance Dicks in the first episode of Doctor Who's eighth season (1971) as a new companion of series protagonist the Doctor, in his third incarnation (Jon Pertwee). After the Doctor's previous companion Liz Shaw (Caroline John), a scientist and intellectual, the production team looked to introduce a less experienced companion to act as an audience surrogate. Jo appeared in 15 stories (77 episodes).
Within the series narrative, Jo is a junior civilian operative for United Nations Intelligence Taskforce, an international organisation that defends the Earth from alien threats, assigned as an assistant to the Doctor, who is initially stranded on Earth. Once he regains use of his time machine, the TARDIS, she accompanies him in travels across time and space. Jo departs the Doctor's company in the 1973 television serial The Green Death having fallen in love with a human professor. On television, she next encounters the Doctor over thirty-seven years later in the 2010 Sarah Jane Adventures serial Death of the Doctor.
Manning and Pertwee enjoyed a close working relationship; Manning felt this added to the success of the partnership between Jo and the Third Doctor. Though her character was criticised for not being a progressive interpretation of a woman, Manning felt both that feminism was not a contemporary concern and Jo had her virtues aside from her intelligence, such as her loyalty. The character's exit is generally considered one of the emotional high points of Doctor Who's 1963–1989 run; Russell T Davies felt pressure to remain true to this exit when re-introducing the character in 2010 for The Sarah Jane Adventures.[citation needed]
Jo first appears in the 1971 serial Terror of the Autons, having been assigned to the Doctor (Jon Pertwee) as a replacement for Liz Shaw (Caroline John). Apparently, she gained the assignment to UNIT because her uncle, a high ranking civil servant, had "pulled some strings". Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart (Nicholas Courtney) assigns her to the Doctor, who is initially dismayed when he finds out that she is not a scientist, but accepts her because he does not have the heart to tell her otherwise. An enthusiastic, bubbly and sometimes scatter-brained blonde, Jo soon endears herself to the other members of UNIT, especially Captain Mike Yates (Richard Franklin) and Sergeant Benton (John Levene). The Third Doctor is also particularly attached to her, and she is devoted to him, refusing to leave his side even where mortal danger is involved.
There is plenty of danger to go around as well, especially after the Time Lords restore the Third Doctor's ability to travel through time and space. Jo faces the hazards and wonders of travel with the Doctor with courage and plucky determination. Together with the Doctor and UNIT, she encounters such perils as killer daffodils, time-eating monsters, and renegade Time Lord the Master (Roger Delgado). She faces the Doctor's most prominent foes, the Daleks, on two separate occasions. She is miniaturised, hypnotised, flung through time, nearly aged to death, and menaced by giant maggots and ancient dæmons. Over time, Jo also grows more confident and mature, until she is independent enough to stand up to the Doctor, which she does in her last serial, The Green Death in May–June 1973. During the events of that story, Jo falls in love with Professor Clifford Jones (Stewart Bevan), a young, Nobel Prize-winning scientist leading an environmentalist group. At the end, she agrees to marry Jones and go with him to the Amazon to study its vegetation, the news of which the Doctor greets with a mixture of pride and sadness.
Jo Grant (now Jo Jones) returned in two episodes of the fourth series of The Sarah Jane Adventures in Death of the Doctor (2010), meeting her successor companion Sarah Jane Smith (Elisabeth Sladen) for the first time, and subsequently the Eleventh Doctor (Matt Smith). The two attend a memorial service for the Doctor, but later learn aliens faked his death in order to steal the TARDIS using Jo and Sarah Jane's memories. Jo is still married, has seven children and twelve grandchildren, and travels with her grandson Santiago (Finn Jones); she is envious of Sarah Jane for having had several Doctor encounters since her departure, but has herself led a fulfilling life travelling the world promoting humanitarian and ecological causes. Ultimately, Jo and Sarah Jane's memories of their time with the Doctor are what defeat an alien plot to steal the TARDIS. After returning her to London, the Doctor discloses to Jo that he secretly visited her during the events of "The End of Time," having checked on all of his previous companions before regenerating into the Eleventh Doctor.
Manning reprised the role of Jo for a cameo appearance in "The Power of the Doctor" (2022), as part of a support group of former companions that share their experiences of life with the Doctor.
The Seventh Doctor encounters an alternate version of Jo in the Virgin New Adventures novel Blood Heat in an alternate timeline where the Third Doctor was killed and the Silurians have conquered Earth (Doctor Who and the Silurians). A middle-aged Jo is featured in the spin-off novel Genocide, by Paul Leonard, where she and Jones have a son named Matthew and are divorced, Jo collaborating with the Eighth Doctor and his current companion Samantha Jones to avert a plot to erase the human race from history. Alternatively, text stories in a UNIT-orientated special issue of Doctor Who Magazine, written as in-universe articles, state that Jo, her husband Clifford and their eight-year-old daughter Katy "now" live in North Wales and she is standing for Parliament as a Green Party candidate. Jo's appearance in Genocide was highlighted in a trailer for the re-launched Doctor Who range which was included on a number of BBC videos in 1997–78. The trailer used a clip from Frontier in Space to illustrate Jo. She briefly appears in the novel Sometime Never... as one of several companions abducted by current villains the Council of Eight, who sustain themselves by draining energy from the potential timelines of the Doctor's friends, the novel depicting her abduction and return to Earth after the Doctor defeats the Council.
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Jo Grant
Josephine "Jo" Grant, later Jo Jones, is a fictional character played by Katy Manning in the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who. Jo was introduced by Barry Letts and Terrance Dicks in the first episode of Doctor Who's eighth season (1971) as a new companion of series protagonist the Doctor, in his third incarnation (Jon Pertwee). After the Doctor's previous companion Liz Shaw (Caroline John), a scientist and intellectual, the production team looked to introduce a less experienced companion to act as an audience surrogate. Jo appeared in 15 stories (77 episodes).
Within the series narrative, Jo is a junior civilian operative for United Nations Intelligence Taskforce, an international organisation that defends the Earth from alien threats, assigned as an assistant to the Doctor, who is initially stranded on Earth. Once he regains use of his time machine, the TARDIS, she accompanies him in travels across time and space. Jo departs the Doctor's company in the 1973 television serial The Green Death having fallen in love with a human professor. On television, she next encounters the Doctor over thirty-seven years later in the 2010 Sarah Jane Adventures serial Death of the Doctor.
Manning and Pertwee enjoyed a close working relationship; Manning felt this added to the success of the partnership between Jo and the Third Doctor. Though her character was criticised for not being a progressive interpretation of a woman, Manning felt both that feminism was not a contemporary concern and Jo had her virtues aside from her intelligence, such as her loyalty. The character's exit is generally considered one of the emotional high points of Doctor Who's 1963–1989 run; Russell T Davies felt pressure to remain true to this exit when re-introducing the character in 2010 for The Sarah Jane Adventures.[citation needed]
Jo first appears in the 1971 serial Terror of the Autons, having been assigned to the Doctor (Jon Pertwee) as a replacement for Liz Shaw (Caroline John). Apparently, she gained the assignment to UNIT because her uncle, a high ranking civil servant, had "pulled some strings". Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart (Nicholas Courtney) assigns her to the Doctor, who is initially dismayed when he finds out that she is not a scientist, but accepts her because he does not have the heart to tell her otherwise. An enthusiastic, bubbly and sometimes scatter-brained blonde, Jo soon endears herself to the other members of UNIT, especially Captain Mike Yates (Richard Franklin) and Sergeant Benton (John Levene). The Third Doctor is also particularly attached to her, and she is devoted to him, refusing to leave his side even where mortal danger is involved.
There is plenty of danger to go around as well, especially after the Time Lords restore the Third Doctor's ability to travel through time and space. Jo faces the hazards and wonders of travel with the Doctor with courage and plucky determination. Together with the Doctor and UNIT, she encounters such perils as killer daffodils, time-eating monsters, and renegade Time Lord the Master (Roger Delgado). She faces the Doctor's most prominent foes, the Daleks, on two separate occasions. She is miniaturised, hypnotised, flung through time, nearly aged to death, and menaced by giant maggots and ancient dæmons. Over time, Jo also grows more confident and mature, until she is independent enough to stand up to the Doctor, which she does in her last serial, The Green Death in May–June 1973. During the events of that story, Jo falls in love with Professor Clifford Jones (Stewart Bevan), a young, Nobel Prize-winning scientist leading an environmentalist group. At the end, she agrees to marry Jones and go with him to the Amazon to study its vegetation, the news of which the Doctor greets with a mixture of pride and sadness.
Jo Grant (now Jo Jones) returned in two episodes of the fourth series of The Sarah Jane Adventures in Death of the Doctor (2010), meeting her successor companion Sarah Jane Smith (Elisabeth Sladen) for the first time, and subsequently the Eleventh Doctor (Matt Smith). The two attend a memorial service for the Doctor, but later learn aliens faked his death in order to steal the TARDIS using Jo and Sarah Jane's memories. Jo is still married, has seven children and twelve grandchildren, and travels with her grandson Santiago (Finn Jones); she is envious of Sarah Jane for having had several Doctor encounters since her departure, but has herself led a fulfilling life travelling the world promoting humanitarian and ecological causes. Ultimately, Jo and Sarah Jane's memories of their time with the Doctor are what defeat an alien plot to steal the TARDIS. After returning her to London, the Doctor discloses to Jo that he secretly visited her during the events of "The End of Time," having checked on all of his previous companions before regenerating into the Eleventh Doctor.
Manning reprised the role of Jo for a cameo appearance in "The Power of the Doctor" (2022), as part of a support group of former companions that share their experiences of life with the Doctor.
The Seventh Doctor encounters an alternate version of Jo in the Virgin New Adventures novel Blood Heat in an alternate timeline where the Third Doctor was killed and the Silurians have conquered Earth (Doctor Who and the Silurians). A middle-aged Jo is featured in the spin-off novel Genocide, by Paul Leonard, where she and Jones have a son named Matthew and are divorced, Jo collaborating with the Eighth Doctor and his current companion Samantha Jones to avert a plot to erase the human race from history. Alternatively, text stories in a UNIT-orientated special issue of Doctor Who Magazine, written as in-universe articles, state that Jo, her husband Clifford and their eight-year-old daughter Katy "now" live in North Wales and she is standing for Parliament as a Green Party candidate. Jo's appearance in Genocide was highlighted in a trailer for the re-launched Doctor Who range which was included on a number of BBC videos in 1997–78. The trailer used a clip from Frontier in Space to illustrate Jo. She briefly appears in the novel Sometime Never... as one of several companions abducted by current villains the Council of Eight, who sustain themselves by draining energy from the potential timelines of the Doctor's friends, the novel depicting her abduction and return to Earth after the Doctor defeats the Council.