Victoria Waterfield


 * For other meanings, see Victoria.

Victoria Waterfield was the daughter of Edward Waterfield. Her father, and his colleague Theodore Maxtible had experimented with time travel and accidentally established a link between Maxtible's house and the Dalek city on the planet Skaro. The Daleks had used Victoria as a hostage in order to control her father and Maxtible. Having been taken prisoner, and eventually moved to Skaro, Victoria became stranded on the alien planet - her father having died to save the Doctor's life. Drawing on this experience, Victoria became prepared to encounter more advanced civilisations then her own. With her father's death, Victoria was now an orphan. Having no family to return to, she decided to join the Doctor and Jamie McCrimmon on their travels - a decision made more through necessity than choice (DW: The Evil of the Daleks).

Biography
Victoria Waterfield was born in 1852. When she was five years old, she was photographed by Charles Dodgson. Her mother, Edith Rose Waterfield, died on 23rd November 1863. (MA: Downtime)

Victoria always tended to look for the humanity of the circumstances she found herself in. Rather than wonder at the TARDIS, Victoria worried about the Doctor's age! (DW: The Tomb of the Cybermen)

Until her abduction by the Daleks, Victoria apparently led the sheltered life that accompanied women from wealthy British families in the 19th century. She was, however, quite capable of looking after herself, and certainly held her own in a verbal spar with Captain Hopper (DW: The Tomb of the Cybermen). She also coped well with Jamie's teasing.

Moreover, Victoria's sheltered life before encountering the Doctor had not made her gullible. She was a clever, and intelligent, young woman, who got the better of Kaftan twice after having been tricked into drinking a drugged coffee. Her first ploy had been to scream as if a dead Cybermat was attacking again, and the second was to tell Kaftan and Eric Klieg that the testing room - where the Doctor's group had been locked in - contained another weapon. Kaftan believed her each time, as Victoria appeared to be such a naive and innocent young woman. (DW: The Tomb of the Cybermen)

Although Victoria loved the Doctor and Jamie, and enjoyed their company, she missed her home and father. Since she had joined the TARDIS crew only as a result of her father's death, she was somewhat of an unwilling adventurer. Having told the Doctor this, he taught her a way to remember her past while remaining in the present (The Tomb of the Cybermen). Her gleeful recollection of the recipe for Kaiser pudding when working in Salamander's kitchen was a manifestation of her longing for home (DW: The Enemy of the World).

Right from the start of her adventures, Victoria was defiant, and could show great courage. Despite being frightened of the Daleks who had held her captive she had defied their orders and continued to feed the pigeons - 'flying pests' - at the window of her room. She was also curious, which made her travels with the Doctor and Jamie more bearable. Victoria could be stubborn, and when offered the opportunity of safety with the Monks in Tibet, she refused - perhaps her courageous spirit also had a hand in this (DW: The Abominable Snowmen).

Victoria may have been courageous, but she was certainly a screamer. Never afraid to scream at danger, it was this which, ultimately, provided the solution to the Weed Creature on the Euro Sea Gas refinery which the travellers visited. Unsurprisingly, Victoria took her first opportunity to settle down with an established, caring, family. Having no family to return to, and realising that her travels had changed her outlook and expectations, Victoria decided to stay with the Harrises, rather than continue her travels with the Doctor and Jamie (DW: Fury from the Deep)

However, at some point, she rejoined the Doctor and Jamie during their period as Celestial Intervention Agency agents. (DW: The Two Doctors)

In 1980, she would return to Tibet in later years and encounter the Great Intelligence for a third time. It manipulated her into forming the New World University and preparing the way for it to manifest in Earth's computer networks. In 1995, its plan almost came to fruition; a ghostly version of Professor Travers was able to get Victoria to realise she was being manipulated, and she joined the fight against the Intelligence's plan. (Downtime)

Victoria settled down in the 20th century, marrying an unknown man, having several children and as of, presumably, 2008, one of her children is expecting her first grandchild. (CC: The Great Space Elevator)

Quotes
"We used to have a lovely pudding at home, with lots of almonds, eggs, lemon peel, candy peel, oranges, cream and, oh it was lovely... It's quite simple, really. You sort of whoosh it all up together." (DW: The Enemy of the World)

"Why is it that we always land up in trouble?"

"I don't really like being scared out of my wits every second."

"I wouldn't be at ease back in Victorian times. I have no parents or family left there anyway." (DW: Fury from the Deep)