Dodo Chaplet
Portrayed by: Jackie Lane
Doctor(s): First Doctor
Tenure: 6 stories, The Massacre of St. Bartholomew’s Eve (Feb, 1966) to The War Machines (July, 1966)
Background: We know very little about Dodo when she literally wanders into the TARDIS right before it takes off, thinking it’s a police box. We do find out her grandfather is French, letting viewers hope that potential Companion Anne Chaplet from The Massacre of St. Bartholomew’s Eve survived the slaughter of the Huguenots. Dodo, short for Dorothea, is a British teen from 1966, making her contemporary for when her stories aired.
Family: She has a strained relationship with her great-aunt, with whom she lives, and she states she doesn’t think she’ll be missed.
Personality: Dodo is a very laid back girl, surprisingly unshaken by her accidental kidnapping and her adventures throughout the universe. She breezes into and later out of the TARDIS, the only Companion to not get a goodbye scene.
Special Skills: Easy-going, sunny disposition
Best Story: The Celestial Toymaker, The Gunfighters. This is Doctor Who at some of its most creative and experimental.
Worst Story: The Savages is entirely missing, but the reconstructions make it seem like an interesting story, so perhaps The Ark? Dodo is a nothing character, but her six stories are all pretty solid.
Highlights of tenure: Singing for her life in The Gunfighters and battling the clowns in The Celestial Toymaker’s obstacle course
Lowlight of tenure: Her non-goodbye. C’mon, writers.
Other notes: Dodo’s cold infecting Steven and becoming a problem for the differently-immune systemed humans from the future in The Ark is one of the few times germs and the spread of disease through time is addressed during the series.