Jo Grant

Jo Grant, full name Josephine Grant, is a fictional character played by Katy Manning in the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who. A junior civilian operative for UNIT (United Nations Intelligence Taskforce), an international organisation that defends the Earth from alien threats, she was a companion of the Third Doctor and a regular in the programme from 1971 to 1973.

Jo first appeared in the 1971 serial Terror of the Autons, having been assigned to the Doctor as a replacement for Liz Shaw. Apparently, she had gotten the assignment to UNIT because her uncle, a high ranking civil servant, had pulled some strings. Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart then assigned her to the Doctor, who was initially dismayed when he found out that she was not a scientist, but accepted her because he did not have the heart to tell her otherwise.

An enthusiastic, bubbly and sometimes scatter-brained blonde, Jo soon endeared herself to the other members of UNIT, especially Captain Mike Yates and Sergeant Benton. The Third Doctor was also particularly attached to her, and she was devoted to him, refusing to leave his side even where mortal danger was involved.

There was plenty of danger to go around as well, especially after the Time Lords restored the Third Doctor's ability to travel through time and space. Jo faced the hazards and wonders of travel with the Doctor with courage and plucky determination. Together with the Doctor and UNIT, she encountered such perils as killer daffodils, time-eating monsters, renegade Time Lords, was miniaturized, hypnotized, flung through time and menaced by giant maggots and ancient dæmons.

Over time, Jo also grew more confident and mature, until she was independent enough to stand up to the Doctor, which she did so in her last serial, The Green Death . During the events of that story, Jo fell in love with Professor Clifford Jones, a young, Nobel Prize-winning scientist leading an environmentalist group. At the end, she agreed to marry Jones and go with him to the Amazon to study its vegetation, the news of which the Doctor greeted with a mixture of pride and sadness.

Her life after she left the Doctor and UNIT was not explored in the programme. Jo was briefly mentioned in the serial Planet of the Spiders, when she sent a package back to UNIT from the Amazon. A middle-aged Jo was featured in the spin-off novel Genocide, by Paul Leonard, where she and Jones had a son named Matthew and were divorced.

While Manning has not reprised the role of Jo in the series, she has provided the voice for the renegade Time Lady Iris Wildthyme in several audio plays for Big Finish Productions.

• Travelled from: Terror of the Autons to The Green Death