Flavia

Flavia was a Lord Chancellor in the High Council of Time Lords, and later Lady President.

Biography
She met with the fifth incarnation of the Doctor when Borusa summoned the Doctor's other selves to the Death Zone. She was sympathetic towards him and following Borusa's defeat and entombment in the Dark Tower, the High Council granted Flavia the power to make the Doctor President of the High Council. The Doctor used his emergency powers to place Flavia in charge, appointing her Acting President until he returned, and then escaped from his homeworld of Gallifrey, evading the responsibility of assuming the office of Lord President. (DW: The Five Doctors)


 * Flavia stated that "once again" she had the honour of pronouncing the Doctor President, a strange statement given that she had never said this to him before. Unless she was speaking figuratively, referring to the Doctor's brief earlier stint as President, presumably she referred to an untold adventure of the Doctor's. (DW: The Invasion of Time) Although when Tegan asked why he was running away from his own people, the Doctor said "Why not? After all, that's how it all started." This could be the reason that he ran away in the first place.

Flavia later assumed the office of President, but was deposed in favour of the political non-entity Niroc as the Celestial Intervention Agency needed a President that they could control more easily in order to conceal the recent theft of important data from the Matrix. Although the Doctor was put on trial during this period, a Committee of Inquiry was opened into the trial, thanks to the actions of the Eighth Doctor and a temporal duplicate of the Sixth Doctor – created when the Valeyard tried to 'force' an alternate timeline where the Sixth Doctor was found guilty and executed – the Eighth Doctor awakening Borusa once again to quell the riots while the Sixth Doctor fought the Valeyard and the Master in the Matrix. (EDA: The Eight Doctors; DW: The Trial of a Time Lord: The Ultimate Foe)

When the Seventh Doctor was captured by the Committee of Three, his companions escaped and warned President Flavia of the danger. (NA: Blood Harvest)

Shortly afterwards, Ruath shot Flavia with a stunner to gain access to the Time Scoop. (MA: Goth Opera)

On learning that the Eighth Doctor was visiting his past seven selves for unknown reasons, able to bypass all traditional security protocols preventing such interaction, Flavia, despite the protests of the unscrupulous Time Lord Ryoth, decided to allow these visits to continue until such time as they were proven to be a danger to Gallifrey. Once the visits were concluded, Flavia reflected that she wished the Doctor well in his future adventures. (EDA: The Eight Doctors)

Later, Romana challenged Flavia for the role of President and won. (NA: Happy Endings)


 * The manner of Romana's ascendency is unclear. One source claims Romana ran against Flavia in an election and won. (NA: Happy Endings) Romana recalled that she had invoked a 'right of challange' against her predecessor as President of the High Council, just as Darkel later challanged her. (BFG: Insurgency) However, Braxiatel stated that no-one had held the role of Lord Chancellor "for many years", not since Romana's "predecessor quelled his predecessor's less-than-stellar stewardship"; while Romana said she had been "asked to become President after the coup that overthrew Flavia's inauspicious reign", in spite of her lack of political experience – suggesting another President ruled in an interim. (BFG: Lies)

Behind the scenes

 * The character of Flavia filled in for that of Thalia, who had appeared in the earlier story Arc of Infinity. The production team decided not to simply recast the role using the excuse of regeneration and made up a new character.
 * According to various commentaries on the Series 1 and 2 DVDs, Russell T Davies refers to the lilting female vocal in the musical score as 'Flavia's Theme'.
 * The character of the Inquisitor is never referred to by name during her appearances in the fourteen-episode The Trial of a Time Lord arc. Although the name Darkel has been assigned to her by spinoff media, it is also speculated that the Inquistor might have been a regenerated Flavia. However this is highly unlikely as Time Lords tend to recognise each other after regenerations. (DW: The Twin Dilemma, The Armageddon Factor, The Five Doctors)