Nyssa

Nyssa, also known as Nyssa of Traken, was a companion of the Fourth and Fifth Doctors.

A genius scientist, Nyssa assisted the Doctor in their fourth incarnation before joining him, Adric and Tegan as a travelling companion after becoming the last of her kind. Following Adric's death, a period of time alone with the Doctor and travelling alongside Brewster, Hannah, Marc and Turlough, Nyssa left the TARDIS to assist in the curing of those with Lazar's disease.

Nyssa assisted those harmed by the Time War and rejoined the Doctor, Tegan and Turlough before remaining in E-Space. She was eventually able to return and entered into a relationship with Tegan on Earth.

Early life
Nyssa was born on Traken (AUDIO: Primeval) circa 1961 (AUDIO: Cobwebs; TV: Logopolis) as the daughter of Consul Tremas and Lucina. (TV: The Keeper of Traken) Both of her grandfathers had died by the time she was born (AUDIO: The Toy) and her mother died in childbirth (PROSE: Empire of Death) or when she was young. (AUDIO: The Haunting of Thomas Brewster)

Having grown up in the harmony of the Traken Union, Nyssa was shielded from the horrors of the universe. (AUDIO: 1001 Nights) She was brought up to be altruistic and to always put others before herself, a rule that she abided by. (AUDIO: The Entropy Plague) As Trakenite nobility, Nyssa learnt the manners and behaviours expected of her, including dance, which she considered herself quite good at, (TV: Black Orchid) whilst the servants' children were able to share rooms and play in the grounds. (AUDIO: The Toy) Due to her father's position, Nyssa spent most of her time amongst older people and was starved of company of her own age. (PROSE: Doctor Who and the Keeper of Traken)

Tremas entered into a romantic relationship with Kassia (TV: The Keeper of Traken) and would play her a piece of Trakenite music when she was feeling low. Nyssa remembered the piece fondly. (AUDIO: The Entropy Composition) She had a number of teddy bears, namely a talking one called Big Bear who "guarded" her when she slept. (PROSE: Divided Loyalties)

Nyssa inherited her father's love of science. (PROSE: Doctor Who and the Keeper of Traken) She was a genius, with bioelectronics (TV: Castrovalva) and cybernetics as her strong points. (TV: Four to Doomsday) However, she knew very little about telebiogenesis. (TV: Castrovalva) She assisted in a minor role with surgical operations, meaning that blood did not tend to make her nauseous. (PROSE: Goth Opera)

She enjoyed tending a grove (AUDIO: Masquerade) and was once stung by a Lime Grove Wasp. (AUDIO: The Mutant Phase) She was able to let loose during the Autumn Festival, when her people hung paper lanterns on all the trees in the garden and carried all the fruits in, followed by singing and a food fight which included the consuls. It was undignified, but Nyssa loved it. (AUDIO: Spare Parts)

She recognised that she was very fortunate in her upbringing and had everything in her life handed to her on a plate. (AUDIO: The Peterloo Massacre)

Encounter with the Fourth Doctor
Nyssa attended Tremas and Kassia's wedding, after which she met the Fourth Doctor and Adric. Unbeknownst to her, planned to exploit the tremendous power of the Keepership, which her father was to inherit, by manipulating Kassia. Nyssa helped the Doctor and Adric prevent the Master from gaining the power of the Source, but was unable to prevent him from killing Kassia.

Afterwards, Nyssa and Tremas bid farewell to the Doctor and Adric. Nyssa told her father that he had to put everything back together again following the Master's actions, but did not witness her father being killed and taken over by the decayed Time Lord, (TV: The Keeper of Traken) although she did think she heard a distant echo of mocking laughter. (PROSE: Doctor Who and the Keeper of Traken) She sent a message to the TARDIS telling the Doctor of the Master's escape and Tremas's disappearance. (PROSE: Logopolis)

Joining the Doctor
After the Trakens' message had been received by the Doctor, Nyssa met the Watcher who took her to Logopolis to find, as she wished to know what he had done to her father. She was reunited with the Doctor and Adric and met Tegan Jovanka before the Master enslaved her mind and used her in his complex plan to conquer N-Space. The Doctor was able to break the Master's control over her and she learnt that he had killed and taken over her father's body.

Whilst the Doctor, Tegan and the Master went to Earth in the latter's TARDIS, Nyssa and Adric remained in the Doctor's TARDIS on Logopolis. The Watcher helped Adric pilot the TARDIS and take them to Earth. However, during the journey, Nyssa witnessed the apparent destruction of the entire Traken Union thanks to an entropy wave, leading her to believe that she was the last of her kind. She witnessed the Doctor's regeneration into his fifth incarnation, (TV: Logopolis) after which she helped get him back to the TARDIS. (TV: Castrovalva)

With Adric and Tegan
Nyssa helped the Doctor get to the Zero Room, which she accidentally jettisoned in order to save the TARDIS from being destroyed in Event One. Arriving at Castrovalva for the Doctor's benefit, Nyssa found it was a secondary trap by the Master to get rid of the Doctor by using Adric to make block transfer computations. However, they managed to escape Castrovalva with Adric and the Doctor stabilised. (TV: Castrovalva)

Upon leaving Castrovalva, the TARDIS materialised in the Psychodrome, which created four competing kingdoms based on each of the travellers' individual perceptions of one another and their own backgrounds. Nyssa's perception proved to be the most dangerous due to her trauma causing her to associate the Doctor with the Master, resulting in the creation of King Magus. They were able to leave after acknowledging their flaws and shortcomings and affirm that they accepted one another despite them. (AUDIO: Psychodrome)

In 2592, after the four travellers were locked out of the TARDIS, Nyssa and Tegan booked rooms at a hotel and met Chris Cwej, from whom Nyssa learnt that Serenity had survived the entropy wave that wiped out the Traken Union. Nyssa escaped from Adjudicators with Chris and assisted in his investigations into corruption within the force, disarming fusion bombs and eventually meeting up with the Doctor, Tegan and Patience. (PROSE: Cold Fusion)

The TARDIS landed on Isopterus, where the crew saved the humanoid survivors from giant termites. (PROSE: On the Planet Isopterus) Nyssa lost consciousness in the 1950s due to the presence of an intelligence which she and the Doctor later took to Otho. (PROSE: First Born)

On Monarch's spacecraft, Nyssa was, unlike Adric, appalled by the Urbankans' plans and was determined to oppose tyrants following her encounters with the Master. Because of this, she was taken away to become an android. She was rescued by the Doctor and Bigon but, after the TARDIS dematerialised, she fainted (TV: Four to Doomsday) due to Kwundaar afflicting her with evil. (AUDIO: Primeval) Whilst the Doctor initially believed that she had suffered a mild mental disorientation, he later believed that it was a sign of post-traumatic stress resulting from the death of her father. (PROSE: Empire of Death)

After Nyssa collapsed a second time, the Doctor built a delta wave augmenter. Although she claimed that she was alright, she admitted that she was having difficulty concentrating and used the augmenter, sleeping for days and eventually waking up apparently fully recovered. (TV: Kinda)

In 1666 London, Nyssa found evidence of the use of an alien weapon inside Sir John's house and headed to the TARDIS to build a sonic booster to defeat the Terileptils' android, something that she did with some assistance from Adric. She successfully used it to destroy the android, after which the pair tried to use the TARDIS to travel back to the house. (TV: The Visitation)

Nyssa and Adric instead arrived in the future, near the Mississippi River. They helped James escape his slave masters and restored power to Doc Ashberry's TARDIS (PROSE: The Dark River) before returning to 1666, where they were reunited with the Doctor and Tegan and attempted to extinguish what would become the Great Fire of London. (TV: The Visitation)

The Celestial Toymaker gave Nyssa dreams of Traken, her father and the consuls. She was angry with the Doctor when he agreed to help separate the Toymaker from Rallon, not understanding why he could not have done the same for her father and the Master. Whilst she remained unhappy, the two discussed the matter and she remained strong, something that Tegan admired. (PROSE: Divided Loyalties)

Believing Udilf's people to be threatened by aliens, Nyssa and Tegan assisted them in making weapons and armour. However, they learnt from the Doctor and Adric that the aliens were actually U'thai's people, after which Nyssa preferred a peaceful solution, something that Tegan and Adric disagreed with. (PROSE: The Immortals)

Due to a communication node disguised as a toy, Nyssa had recurring nightmares of her father on Traken. The telepathic call led her to a room where she saw a vision of the First Doctor and the Master on Gallifrey, the Doctor later telling her that the node had been locked away so that it could not be used to track himself and Susan. (AUDIO: The Toy)

Whilst the Doctor and Tegan left Gallius Ultima to investigate the Larger Magellanic Cloud, Nyssa and Adric stayed behind and watched the autopsy of the crew of the previous expedition to the cloud. She saw Rovus begin his attack and, when the Star Men invaded, she was sent to their universe for a time. (AUDIO: The Star Men)

At the Contingency in 1864, Nyssa escaped from Edward with Adric and encountered Marjorie Stonegood, who helped them leave via the tube tunnels. They discovered an underground bathhouse, within which grew a number of Edwards. (AUDIO: The Contingency Club)

Nyssa and the Doctor traced Adric and Tegan to Zaltys after they disappeared from the console room. Gevaudan detected Nyssa's psychic capabilities and used them to magnify his own, allowing him to defeat the vampires. (AUDIO: Zaltys)

In the 1920s, Nyssa encountered the Master again and was taunted about the destruction of her planet by him. He hypnotised her, something that Tegan sympathised with after being controlled by the Mara and the Terileptils. (AUDIO: Smoke and Mirrors)

On Cicero Prime, the Doctor was mistaken for the Scorpion and Nyssa for his assistant, taking on the alias of "Nyssa the Destroyer" to avoid being imprisoned and executed. The two eventually reunited with Adric and Tegan and helped protect Miranda from the real Scorpion. (AUDIO: Kingdom of Lies)

Nyssa and Adric were attacked by an invisible force in 17th century Yorkshire. Using a displacement generator, the Doctor sent Nyssa to 1738 where she was accused of being a witch before being saved and cared for by Matthew Doyle. However, her rejection of his love caused him to side against her when the villagers demanded that she be drowned, a fate that she was saved from by the Doctor. (AUDIO: Ghost Walk)

Nyssa disliked Argentia, finding it excessively decadent. She was tasked with finding out the species of the snake which attacked Galgo whilst he was investigating the murder of Angelo Mazzini. (AUDIO: Serpent in the Silver Mask)

On a Rutan weapon test field, Nyssa, Adric and Tegan were kidnapped by Adam Mitchell. (COMIC: In Their Nature) They and numerous other companions of the Doctor were saved from death by Frobisher and later rejoined their Doctor. (COMIC: Endgame)

In 1952, Nyssa met and befriended her doppelgänger, Ann Talbot. Ann supplied her with a costume identical to her own, allowing the two to play a trick on the guests at Cranleigh Hall as nobody was able to tell them apart, confusion which Nyssa was able to prolong thanks to Tegan having taught her how to Charleston. However, their resemblance led to George Cranleigh kidnapping Nyssa by mistake, although he eventually released her upon realising his mistake. (TV: Black Orchid)

The travellers celebrated Christmas in the TARDIS, but Nyssa was angered when Adric and Tegan's antics resulted in their Christmas tree falling over. She stuffed the pudding that Adric had created using Block Transfer Computation up Tegan's nose. (PROSE: In the TARDIS: Christmas Day) On one occasion, they spent Christmas aboard the TARDIS with Iris Wildthyme. (AUDIO: Excelis Dawns)

Nyssa and her companions watched the Freedom Day celebrations on Lemaria, including a reenactment of the rescue of the planet by the First Doctor and Susan. After the actor playing the First Doctor took out his sonic screwdriver to defeat the Megrati, Nyssa realised that the actor was himself an incarnation of the Doctor. (PROSE: The Constant Doctor)

Nyssa was told by the Dar Traders that she should be dead, which was later revised to her having a strange connection with death due to being a Traken. She was stabbed and died for three minutes, after which she awoke in Tegan's arms having been brought back by the Dar Trader. (AUDIO: The Darkening Eye)

Working with Adric, Nyssa attempted to fly the TARDIS, which resulted in the ship materialising on Fleming's Island, the TARDIS falling off a cliff after the four left. Nyssa found herself briefly overwhelmed by the psychic presence of the I Predator, which they later managed to trap. (AUDIO: Iterations of I)

Nyssa and Adric played chess outside of the TARDIS, but she got fed up of his grumbling and left him on his own. She was able to coax him out of his bedroom days after the Doctor saved him from becoming a Melkur-like statue on a lifeless world, promising him that he could return to the planet in a matter of months as she knew that he would not wish to do so. (PROSE: Hearts of Stone)

Following another argument between the Doctor and Adric, Nyssa spoke to the both of them. She remained in the TARDIS with Professor Kyle after they saved her from Cyberman androids and destroyed a lieutenant when the Cybermen entered the ship. With the Doctor and Tegan, she watched Briggs's freighter crash into Earth with Adric aboard. (TV: Earthshock) She asked the Doctor if the TARDIS could go back and save him, but the Doctor refused. (TV: Time-Flight) Otherwise, she showed little reaction to Adric's death, something that the Doctor later believed was due to post-traumatic stress. (PROSE: Empire of Death)

The crew returned the freighter's personnel to their own time and, instead of landing at the the Great Exhibition as the Doctor intended, landed at Heathrow. Nyssa, the Doctor and Tegan investigated the disappearance of a Concorde and found themselves transported to 140,000,000 BC where Nyssa's psychic powers came to the fore. Upon defeating the Master once more, Nyssa and the Doctor left Tegan at Heathrow in a hurry to avoid providing an explanation to Douglas Sheard, unaware that Tegan wished to remain with them. (TV: Time-Flight)

Alone with the Doctor
After Adric's death and leaving Tegan at Heathrow, Nyssa began to keep a journal which she entitled Observations and Analysis, A Journal. The Doctor told her that he would take her to the Great Exhibition as he had originally intended, but they encountered what claimed to be the ghost of Adric and instead went to 1863. She eventually broke down and admitted to the Doctor and to herself that, on some level, she blamed him for the deaths of her father, her world and Adric. (PROSE: Empire of Death)

Nyssa remained in the TARDIS, mourning Adric whilst the Doctor had an adventure at a school. (PROSE: Long Term) At some point, the two met P. G. Wodehouse. (AUDIO: Autumn)

In 1945 Maine, Nyssa and the Doctor investigated the phenomenon of the Truth Tellers and met Jonny Heftklammern and Nettie Washington, who declined the Doctor's offer to join them in the TARDIS. (PROSE: Tip of the Tongue) In Wales in the 1980s, she suggested that she and the Doctor visit Tegan and found herself trapped in Ellen Carter's games. (PROSE: Past Reckoning)

Nyssa and the Doctor were rescued from the ocean of Lethe by the crew of the Lung of Heaven. She was later taken captive aboard the Parliament of Rats before being rescued by the Doctor and Constantine. (PROSE: The Parliament of Rats) On Earth, Nyssa and the Doctor ran from one of Nicholas Carnon's creatures to his manor, where she cried for the first time since the death of her father and the extinction of her people. (PROSE: The Eternity Contract)

After losing the lottery, Nyssa and the Doctor went to Monitoring Base XL-7 on a planet that the Doctor had once won. They met Sebastian Musgrove, who tried to sacrifice them to Telxzana. Upon learning that Telxzana was dying, the travellers promised to send a survey ship to the base to pick up Sebastian. (PROSE: Lonely Days)

The TARDIS materialised above Alaska in 1964 before almost colliding with a light aircraft, after which it travelled to the same spot in 1994. Nyssa experienced headaches and encountered the Permians, whom she helped kill by burning down the house built by Monica Lewis. (AUDIO: The Land of the Dead)

Nyssa was transported to Switzerland by the Doctor's Spillager detector, where she became embroiled in poltergeist activity at a boarding school. When the Doctor arrived, she reluctantly helped him investigate and they discovered Spillager scouts using the pupils' psychic abilities to open a gateway for an invasion. Nyssa was forced to use her nascent telepathic powers to close the gateway. (AUDIO: Winter for the Adept) Unbeknownst to her, her growing abilities were due to Kwundaar's manipulations. (AUDIO: Primeval)

Whilst Nyssa was repairing the TARDIS, it was thrown into a time corridor to Kansas in 2158 where she met the Daleks for the first time and helped research and avert the Mutant Phase. She questioned the Doctor about why he was able to use time travel to save the Daleks but not to save Adric. (AUDIO: The Mutant Phase)

On a mission for the Time Lords, Nyssa and the Doctor went to convince Cardinal Zero to rejoin the High Council of Gallifrey. Nyssa interfered in Redklaw's trial and, after being taken before Cardinal Zero, learnt from him of the fact that the Doctor was exiled from their planet. (AUDIO: Spring) An attempt by Nyssa to repair the TARDIS's chameleon circuit resulted in the craft turning into a whale, which the pair then had to recover. (AUDIO: The Deep)

Having succumbed to Kwundaar's influence, Nyssa collapsed and was taken by the Doctor to Traken in the Primeval Times to be cared for. She befriended Sabian whilst she recuperated and was cured as part of a deal between the Doctor and Kwundaar, who died after he took control of the Source and Nyssa cleansed it of corruption. She elected not to remain on ancient Traken but to continue travelling with the Doctor, her psychic powers once again dormant. (AUDIO: Primeval)

The TARDIS landed on Mondas where Nyssa met Yvonne Hartley and helped save her father. She had an affection for the Hartleys and was frustrated when the Doctor told her that they could not interfere in events as they were pivotal to the creation of the Cybermen. Nonetheless, they attempted to improve the future of the Mondasians by pouring wine into the nutrient feed of the Central Committee. (AUDIO: Spare Parts)

Nyssa and the Doctor continued their repairs to the TARDIS which proceeded to drift into the Veln system and have an accident with a Koteem ship, causing the dyestrial poisoning of Veln. Nyssa waited with the TARDIS as the Doctor went off to warn the people of the dangers of using dyestrial, but she heard a scream and found Veline's body. She was charged with her murder and was to be executed before she was saved by the Doctor, Quain and Forleon. (AUDIO: Creatures of Beauty)

Nyssa and the Doctor were locked in the Tower of London after the Doctor gave her incorrect currency to pay their tavern bill. Isaac Newton deduced that they were time travellers and eventually let them go after they told him tales of the future and of his continued legacy, although Nyssa could not understand why the Doctor would admire the man. (AUDIO: Summer)

Maya gave Nyssa and the Doctor an illusionary adventure at the end of which the Doctor told Nyssa that he would not be going with her, telling her that she would have to be the Doctor from then on. In tears, she returned to the TARDIS and entered the code that the Doctor gave her to remove his telepathic link from the TARDIS, which she then learnt actually strengthened his connection to the ship and rescued him from Maya. (PROSE: Confabula)

Nyssa took issue with Surrender, Earthlings! and was appalled when the Doctor became addicted to it, later joining with the Provisional Wing of the National Viewers and Listeners Association to attack the BBC and end the transmission. Meeting up with the Doctor, they ensured that the programme received zero ratings, defeating the Xyz. (PROSE: Not So Much a Programme, More a Way of Life)

On Cray, Nyssa found Darzil Carlisle for the Doctor and, after learning that he had been taking credit for the Doctor's peacekeeping efforts, chose to leave the TARDIS and stay with him in order to help him use his influence to do good. However, following Carlisle's death and the escape of Morian and Faye Davis, she left with the Doctor, asking him not to meet Carlisle again until she had left his company. (AUDIO: The Game)

Nyssa and the Doctor interviewed the team members of the fifty-seventh Fraternity research station after the appearance of a duplicate of Ian Bird, for whom Nyssa felt sympathetic due to his status as the sole member of his kind. The Doctor suggested that he take Nyssa for a holiday after the duplicate killed Stuart Gorey before vanishing, his fate uncertain. (PROSE: The 57th)

The Doctor took Nyssa to Saturn where they met Hel and Keet in a café. Nyssa went with the couple after the Doctor was deported to Titan and was saddened by the Saturnites' society, being reminded of her own planet and missing her family. She and the Doctor were eventually reunited and left the planet, with Nyssa remaining unaware of why Hel and Keet would accept never meeting their son per the Saturnite customs. (PROSE: Saturn)

Nyssa and the Doctor met a tribe of gypsies in 12th century Lebanon and learnt of a superstition stating that the dead appeared in the church to those responsible for their deaths. Nyssa and Ioanna sneaked into the church, where Nyssa saw an apparition of her father. She and the Doctor escaped from the church after the villagers and gypsies set it alight with them inside, believing that they were to blame for the manifestations. (PROSE: The Church of Saint Sebastian)

For a holiday, the Doctor took Nyssa to Stockbridge where she began writing a novel about Traken. She shared her first kiss with Andrew Wittaker, who took her to Traken Village under the belief that that was where she came from. She contemplated living on Earth after finding that she had fallen in love with Andrew, but she realised that she did not like his lack of regard for consequences and departed, leaving him her completed novel. (AUDIO: Autumn)

For a short while, Nyssa undertook a solo expedition to 13th century Rhodes whilst the Doctor visited Stockbridge in the 20th century. During that time, she communicated with the Doctor across time and space through a pocket interocitor. Due to the Daleks' manipulation of time and space, she and a knight called Mulberry were transported to the middle of the American Civil War. Following her rescue by the Doctor, (AUDIO: Renaissance of the Daleks) the pair visited Vortis where they helped the Menoptera against the Zarbi. (AUDIO: Return to the Web Planet)

With Brewster
During a power cut in the TARDIS caused by temporal phenomena, Nyssa was sent to 1867 London by a Death Wraith but was soon reunited with the Doctor, who had arrived in the TARDIS twelve months earlier. She was kidnapped from 107 Baker Street by Thomas Brewster, who stole the TARDIS key that the Doctor had given her and left in the ship, leaving Nyssa and the Doctor stranded until they were able to find a version of the TARDIS from an alternative timeline created by the Wraith. After averting said timeline and removing Brewster's psychic link, Brewster stole the TARDIS a second time. (AUDIO: The Haunting of Thomas Brewster)

Nyssa and the Doctor were stranded on Earth for five months before they tried to use Block Transfer Computation to bring back the TARDIS, an attempt which transported Nyssa to the City of Excellence where she encountered an aged Adric. She rebuffed him, denying having loved him and refusing to become his bride, but Adric ended up joining her and the Doctor and ended his plans for revenge. Returned to 1868, Nyssa mourned Adric when he died once more and returned to the TARDIS after he helped Brewster pilot it back to them. (AUDIO: The Boy That Time Forgot)

Although Nyssa initially believed that she and the Doctor had merely got themselves lost in the TARDIS, they learnt that Brewster had sold some of the ship's parts, including the conceptual geometer. The Doctor traced the parts to a time reef where Nyssa and Brewster saved a Rukh and the removed instruments were recovered from Commander Gammades, allowing them to restore the TARDIS. (AUDIO: Time Reef)

Per Brewster's request, the Doctor piloted the TARDIS to 2008. Nyssa believed that Brewster might have changed time to bring about a utopia, a suggestion that the Doctor gave no credit as he could not believe that any alteration to the timeline could bring about such universally benign effects. When they learnt that reality had been altered by Phil and Trev, Nyssa asked them if they could put things right, after which she was surprised by Brewster's decision to remain in 2008 with Connie Winter. (AUDIO: A Perfect World)

Continued adventures alone
Nyssa and the Doctor went to Stockbridge to celebrate Christmas, choosing to go to 1899 so as to avoid bumping into Andrew. After watching a play about the Doctor, the pair went to 1199 and encountered the Rutans, who attempted to absorb Nyssa's knowledge and for whom she supplied unlimited energy knowing that it would prove to be their undoing. They returned to 1899 and boarded a Rutan ship to end its influence over Osbert's descendants, initially unaware that the ship was in poor condition and about to explode. (AUDIO: Castle of Fear)

Awakening in a time bubble created by the ship's explosion, Nyssa met a possible future version of herself known as the Lady of the Manor. She and the Doctor stopped the bubble from expanding to include the whole of Earth, preventing them from becoming the Lord and Lady, but they were unable to escape from the bubble in time as it exploded. (AUDIO: The Eternal Summer)

Nyssa and the Doctor found themselves in 45th century Stockbridge where she, Lysette Barclay and Rinxo Jabbery were taken captive by the Daleks. The two travellers attempted to save Lysette as Stockbridge was destroyed, but to no avail. Following Stockbridge's destruction, Nyssa attempted to comfort the Doctor and suggested that they go off to happier times and places. (AUDIO: Plague of the Daleks)

Nyssa and the Doctor visited London during Christmas 1539, where they had to ensure Henry VIII's marriage to Anne of Cleves, (PROSE: God Send Me Well to Keep) saved Earth by obtaining an album capable of enslaving the human race from Alan Collins (PROSE: Tweaker) and visited the SS Hermes. (PROSE: Curiosity)

On 1665 Earth, Nyssa tricked the Speera into becoming the "human mean" before also taking on characteristics of herself and the Doctor, resulting in fatal anomalies which killed them. (AUDIO: The Demons of Red Lodge) They encountered the Entropy Sirens on Concordum, (AUDIO: The Entropy Composition) visited Folly (AUDIO: Doing Time) and worked on Doctor Demonic's Tales of Terror, with Nyssa posing as a European actress. (AUDIO: Special Features)

The Entity had Nyssa and the Doctor attempt to pass its test, but they failed. (AUDIO: Seven to One) They also visited the Miaxa's prison, (AUDIO: My Brother's Keeper) 1892 Norwood, where Nyssa was infected by Interplanetarian, (AUDIO: The Interplanetarian) Fabula (AUDIO: Smuggling Tales) and a country where she was forced to tell stories of her adventures to a sultan. (AUDIO: 1001 Nights)

In an alternate 1963, Nyssa helped the Doctor defeat Lenny Kruger, who had been using the Common Men to gain power. (AUDIO: 1963: Fanfare for the Common Men) On 23 November of that year, Nyssa and the Doctor visited Bob Dovie, whose parents' corpses Nyssa found shrunk by. (AUDIO: The Light at the End)

Nyssa and the Doctor landed on Traxana's moon, where Nyssa was kidnapped by the Cell-Spiders. She met Theebe and learnt that the spiders had been made by the Daleks for their war against the Movellans. Nyssa and the Doctor were both captured by the Daleks (AUDIO: Alien Heart) and taken to Mojox, but they quickly managed to escape. Unbeknownst to her the Daleks created a duplicate of her. (AUDIO: Dalek Soul) They later visited Snittlegarth in 1357. (AUDIO: The Second Oldest Question)

With Hannah
Visiting the hunting grounds of Nathaniel Whitlock in 1911 Suffolk, Nyssa and the Doctor met Hannah Bartholemew and became aware of the presence of Vartas on the planet. Nyssa stood guard whilst the Doctor and Silver Crow entered the Ghost Dance to trap Vaatus once again and later departed with him in the TARDIS, (AUDIO: Moonflesh) unaware that Hannah had stowed away on board.

The TARDIS landed on an Arrit tomb ship where Nyssa, the Doctor and Hannah defeated the Arrit-Ko. Although the Doctor set the coordinates to return Hannah home following the adventure, he said that that would most likely be the last place that the TARDIS would land. Thus, Hannah was accepted as a companion. (AUDIO: Tomb Ship)

On SORDIDE Delta, Nyssa was trapped in a virtual reality where the Doctor was her guardian and Hannah was her 18th century tutor. Hannah was able to save both Nyssa and the Doctor but lost all of her emotions in the process, prompting her to leave the TARDIS and remain on the space station to help the survivors. (AUDIO: Masquerade)

Tegan's return
When Nyssa and the Doctor were taken to Gallifrey, Nyssa forcefully stood up to the High Council in an attempt to save him from being executed to prevent Omega's escape from the anti-matter universe. She and the Doctor escaped Gallifrey and travelled to 1983 Amsterdam where they bumped into Tegan, who helped them to stop Omega from returning. Tegan joined the TARDIS crew once more (TV: Arc of Infinity) and went with them to the Rijksmuseum where they discovered that Rembrandt had drawn functional spacecraft. This led to the team learning of and defeating the Nix. (AUDIO: The Waters of Amsterdam) After Nyssa and Tegan spent some time together holidaying in Amsterdam, the Doctor returned for them.

The Doctor took Nyssa and Tegan to Florana where they found that the High Priest was a Dalek. Nyssa was temporarily brainwashed by the Elite academy to follow their philosophy, but the Doctor reversed the conditioning and they defeated the Dalek. (AUDIO: The Elite) The day after leaving Amsterdam, the team visited Akoshemon's moon where they fought the Dark, who influenced Nyssa for a time. (PROSE: Fear of the Dark) To recover after Florana, the trio spent a few days in Brisbane, later encountering the Hexagora. (AUDIO: Hexagora)

Nyssa, the Doctor and Tegan visited Sirius after the TARDIS's temporal scanner picked up a message during one of Nyssa's experiments. (AUDIO: The Children of Seth) She remained in the TARDIS whilst the Doctor and Tegan explored Aronassus 49 (PROSE: Danger Down Below) but helped them defeat Vi'Al, (PROSE: The God Machine) Voorvolika, (PROSE: The Armageddon Chrysalis) Carnak, (PROSE: The Haven) the Dren (PROSE: The Penalty) and, in 1982,. (PROSE: Night Flight to Nowhere)

The trio visited the Necropolitan to view a memorial to Adric and ended up solving a murder. (PROSE: Wake) They saved the universe from potential destruction by a cyclotron (PROSE: Lackaday Express) and, after Nyssa was kidnapped, the Doctor had Ann Cranleigh pretend to be her to foil a plot. (PROSE: The Sands of Time) She found herself transformed into a feral monster for a time thanks to anti-matter on Morestra. (PROSE: Zeta Major) On an Earth colony, neither Nyssa nor the Doctor were as affected by Anna as Tegan was due to their not being human. (PROSE: Soul Mate)

On F-four, Nyssa and the Doctor carried out biological tests, causing Tegan to feel left out. Nyssa's work was invaluable to the colonists. (PROSE: No Exit) They met Flavius Theodoric in 493 Ravenna (PROSE: Goths and Robbers) and both Nyssa and Tegan were chased by Endovorms disguised as stone lions in Trafalgar Square in 1843. (AUDIO: The Lions of Trafalgar) Nyssa found herself a part of The King of the Dead in 1982 (AUDIO: The King of the Dead) and helped solve a murder in Mistpuddle. (AUDIO: The Mistpuddle Murders)

The TARDIS team encountered dinosaurs and a number of other creatures in the Sahara Desert, (PROSE: Great Snakes!) the TARDIS, (PROSE: Crocs!, 'Gators, Caimans and Gavials, The Great Irish Elk, Horses Through the Ages) Siberia, (PROSE: Woolly Mammoth) Kenya, (PROSE: Elephant Hunt, Face to Face with Early Man, On Safari, Elephant Dance) Los Angeles during the Ice Age, (PROSE: Sabre-toothed Tiger, The Great Irish Elk) Loch Ness (PROSE: The Loch Ness Monster) and Dorset, where they witnessed Mary Anning's discovery of the Ichthyosaurus. (PROSE: Amazing Fossil Fish)

Marc joins
The Doctor took Nyssa and Tegan to 63 BC Cumae so that he might meet Cicero. The three travellers were put through a series of tests by Tartarus, along with Cicero and his slave Marc, to identify a leader for the Zorth. Whilst in Tartarus's world, Nyssa invited Marc to join them in the TARDIS, an offer that he accepted. (AUDIO: Tartarus)

On Proxima in the 30th century, Nyssa helped defeat Professor Kalu. (AUDIO: Interstitial) In 19th century Ireland, Nyssa was influenced by the Spae Wife and led a carnival, hoping to get access to the TARDIS. Tegan reminded Nyssa of who she was in order to remove the Spae Wife's influence. (AUDIO: Feast of Fear)

Landing on Samotis, the TARDIS crew were drafted into the race. (AUDIO: Warzone) Nyssa cared for Marc in the TARDIS after he was partially cyber-converted and was, with the Doctor, able to hack the mainframe and reverse all mental programming, restoring each Cyberman's memories and restoring Marc. Afterwards, the Doctor left his companions on Callanna with a great deal of money, feeling guilty over Marc's conversion. (AUDIO: Conversion)

Nyssa enjoyed the tranquillity of Callanna and did not share Tegan's worries about the planet's relaxing effects. She, Tegan and Marc worked with Steppa Westma Cotter-Thatch Slitheen to stop Bella and Grumma, after which the Doctor returned for them, telling them that they needed to talk. (AUDIO: Madquake)

After Marc
Travelling with just the Doctor and Tegan once more, Nyssa visited Prague where they helped Szlth'TOK and Abloran reach a settlement. (PROSE: Men of the Earth) Influenced by the Mara, Tegan then caused the TARDIS to materialise on Manussa, where Nyssa and the Doctor released her from the Mara's power. (TV: Snakedance)

Shortly after, the trio visited 1993 Tasmania where Nyssa was bitten by a vampire. (PROSE: Goth Opera) They were later summoned to Gallifrey to investigate a vampire cult. When the vampire Hemal infected Tegan, he forced the Doctor and Nyssa to take him to Earth, however Nyssa subtlety adjusted the time of their landing, resulting in him being destroyed by daylight upon opening the doors, freeing Tegan. (COMIC: Blood Invocation)

Aboard the HMS Aquitaine, Nyssa was separated from her travelling companions and was the first to discover that there were people aboard other than the robot Hargreaves. (AUDIO: Aquitaine) They visited Manchester again, in 1819, at the time of the Peterloo Massacre. Nyssa attended the protest with Cathy Roberts and witnessed her son Peter's death, which enraged her. (AUDIO: The Peterloo Massacre)

With Tegan and Turlough
Nyssa mistook Mawdryn for the Doctor, believing that he had gone through a gruesome regeneration and was infected by his disease. The Doctor nearly gave up his remaining lives to save her and Tegan, but Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart's Blinovitch Limitation Effect allowed for another cure to be found. Vislor Turlough joined Nyssa, the Doctor and Tegan, who were all unaware that he was an agent of the Black Guardian. (TV: Mawdryn Undead)

Just after Turlough joined them, the TARDIS team arrived in the Gardens of the Dead where the companions had to work together to save the Doctor. Nyssa told Turlough about how her father had been taken over by an evil being. (AUDIO: Gardens of the Dead)

Nyssa and the others met Ophiuchus in the Cloisters of the Capitol and, with Tegan, convinced the Doctor to save him rather than let him die, saying that he was not a monster like the Master. After Ophiuchus regenerated into a woman, the Doctor explained Time Lord gender to Nyssa. (COMIC: Ophiuchus)

Departure
After the TARDIS attached itself to Terminus, Nyssa found herself lost on the leper ship and infected with Lazar's disease. She left a trail of her own clothes so that the Doctor might be able to find her and was eventually taken prisoner and cured by the Garm. Knowing that she could synthesise the Hydromel, Nyssa chose to stay aboard Terminus in order to help the Garm and cure those with Lazar's disease.

Nyssa said farewell to her travelling companions and gave the Doctor a kiss on the cheek. She hugged Tegan and told her that she would be okay as, like Tegan, she was indestructible. (TV: Terminus)

Life after leaving
Nyssa worked tirelessly to cure Lazar's Disease and to create a vaccine against it, one which she helped to distribute. In the course of doing so, she travelled from laboratories to makeshift clinics to election meetings and had a number of lovers, after which she proceeded to leave Terminus in search of other challenges. Venturing out into the galaxy, she embarked on microbiological research to defeat a deadly fungus, diplomacy to avert a war and fundraising for medical supplies following a flood. (PROSE: Asylum)

Some time after leaving the Doctor, Nyssa was transported to the Death Zone where she met Ian Chesterton, Steven Taylor, Sara Kingdom and Polly Jackson and was reunited with the Fifth Doctor, who had already travelled with her older self in his personal timeline. (AUDIO: The Five Companions)

Following the destruction of Exanos, Nyssa decided to find a place free from war and became a technography lecturer at a university. There, she was reunited with the Fourth Doctor, who had not yet met her, and joined him in an adventure in the 12th century, in the course of which she fought back against a killer and realised that she needed to once again choose to enjoy her life. The Doctor returned her in the TARDIS, promising that he would pretend not to recognise her. (PROSE: Asylum)

During the Time War, Nyssa operated a hospital ship known as the Traken and assisted planets that became caught up in the war. She met a man who called himself Dr Foster and became her assistant, although she came to suspect him of being a Time Lord saboteur. In truth, the saboteur was Dr Isherwood. Dr Foster departed after giving Nyssa a kiss on the cheek, reminding her of how she had said goodbye to the Doctor on Terminus. (AUDIO: A Heart on Both Sides)

Aboard the Varnomium, Nyssa attempted to cure the plague threatening the Stagnant Protocol and was joined by, whose identity she realised only after helping him develop a deadlier strain. The Master left her trapped aboard the quarantined ship with no apparent way of escaping. (AUDIO: The Orphan)

Nyssa married Lasarti and had two children: Neeka (AUDIO: Winter) and Adric, whom she told stories of her travels in the TARDIS. (AUDIO: Prisoners of Fate) She was reunited with the Fifth Doctor once more when she assisted with his regeneration into his next incarnation. (AUDIO: Winter)

Nyssa set about attempting to find a cure for Richter's Syndrome. She had an android called Loki whose hard drive she once had to erase after it was corrupted by his fear of his own shadow. (AUDIO: Cobwebs)

Reunion with the Doctor, Tegan and Turlough
In 3530, after losing contact with the Helheim facility attempting to cure Richter's Syndrome, Nyssa travelled to the planet with her android Loki. She was reunited with the Doctor, Tegan and Turlough, whom she had not seen in fifty years, and joined them on the condition that they take her home to continue her work. She accepted, however, that that might take some time and went to find her old bedroom. (AUDIO: Cobwebs) She had to keep from the Doctor her knowledge of his regeneration into his sixth body. (AUDIO: Heroes of Sontar)

The crew travelled to Chodor in the 28th century, where they encountered the Takers, (AUDIO: The Whispering Forest) and returned to Manussa, this time during the reign of the Manussan Empire, after Tegan confided in Nyssa that she had the mark of the Mara on her arm. (AUDIO: The Cradle of the Snake) She encountered the Sontarans again on Samur, but did not remember previously meeting them in the Death Zone. (AUDIO: Heroes of Sontar)

Nyssa helped defeat the Trion Rennol his mercenaries and the Morass on Vektris, (AUDIO: Kiss of Death) as well as a Rat King on 1982 Earth which attempted to exploit Nyssa's anger for. She was tempted to help the rats create a non-lethal plague in return for help with curing Richter's Syndrome. (AUDIO: Rat Trap)

Further adventures took Nyssa to the comet Eight slash Q Panenka, (AUDIO: The Jupiter Conjunction) a monkey house in a zoo (AUDIO: The Monkey House) and 51st century Earth where she and Turlough spent a year training in Reykjavik and helped defeat Magnus Greel. (AUDIO: The Butcher of Brisbane) She also helped defeat Eldrad (AUDIO: Eldrad Must Die) and had an adventure in Mercia. (AUDIO: The Lady of Mercia)

During an adventure in India on 31 December 1926, Nyssa was rejuvenated and had her youth restored, making her look physically similar to how she had during her original adventures in the TARDIS. (AUDIO: The Emerald Tiger) This meant that Adric, whom they came across on Valderon, believed that she was a past version of his mother. Nyssa learnt that twenty-five years had passed since her mission to Helheim and that she was presumed dead, whilst Lasarti was dead and Neeka was in suspended animation after being infected with Richter's Syndrome. She and Adric managed to develop a cure and planned to meet in one month's time to cure Neeka, but Adric never saw her again. (AUDIO: Prisoners of Fate)

E-Space and departure
Shortly after leaving Valderon, the TARDIS was diverted into E-Space when it passed too close to a Charged Vacuum Emboitment. Whilst searching for a way out, the TARDIS landed on Alzarius where Nyssa and Turlough were almost killed by Alzarian spiders. (AUDIO: Mistfall) They then visited the ice world of Isenfel where she was interested in why the society wanted to be in equilibrium. (AUDIO: Equilibrium)

The TARDIS crashed on Apollyon where Nyssa began dying due to entropy. She also had the rejuvenation that she experienced in India removed due to making contact with the Sandmen, returning her to her older appearance. She chose to remain in E-Space in order to power a portal back to N-Space for her friends to use to return home. (AUDIO: The Entropy Plague)

Later life
Nyssa lived for at least another decade, spending a number of years treating the sick and teaching others how to do the same before retiring to tend a garden, much as she had on Traken in her youth. Despite the Doctor's concerns about entropy, Nyssa saw a new star emerge in the sky, hinting that there was still new life in E-Space. (AUDIO: The Entropy Plague)

According to one account, Nyssa eventually came to live in 21st century Australia with Tegan. The pair attended Sarah Jane Smith's memorial one spring day where they mingled with other companions and friends of the Doctor's, as well as assisting them in fighting the Jackals of the Backwards Clock to foil the Trickster. Clyde Langer described them as being a couple. (WC: Farewell, Sarah Jane)

Undated events
At some point, an image of Nyssa was obtained by UNIT and kept in the Black Archive as a record of her having been a companion of the Doctor. (TV: The Day of the Doctor)

Alternate timelines
At some point, while she was travelling alone with the Fifth Doctor, they visited Bob Dovie at 59A Barnsfield Crescent in Totton, Hampshire on 23 November 1963. There, she and the Fifth Doctor discovered Bob's odd behaviour, including him talking on a phone that was disconnected from the wall. After finding Bob's family killed by the Master using a Tissue Compression Eliminator, Nyssa and the Doctor took Bob into the TARDIS causing the Master's conceptual bomb to explode. This timeline was eventually erased when the Doctors' other selves were able to render the conceptual bomb useless. (AUDIO: The Light at the End)

Personality
Nyssa was pleasant, friendly (PROSE: Doctor Who and the Keeper of Traken) and selfless, with Tegan remarking that she was "too good for this world" (AUDIO: Aquitaine) and the Fifth Doctor describing her as "terribly nice". (AUDIO: Alien Heart) Her gentle and trusting nature meant that she was not adept at detecting deception, (TV: Mawdryn Undead) but she was skilled at negotiating an effective balance between strong personalities. (TV: Earthshock, AUDIO: The Game) Tegan noted that Nyssa preferred to "care and share." (PROSE: Goth Opera)

Despite her gentleness, Nyssa was willing to use and threaten violence where necessary, destroying on separate occasions a Terileptil android (TV: The Visitation) and a CyberNeomorph (TV: Earthshock) in addition to threatening to shoot Time Lord guards. (TV: Arc of Infinity) She was driven to rage after the death of Cathy Roberts's son in the Peterloo Massacre (AUDIO: The Peterloo Massacre) and initially wanted to kill for the murder of her father, although she managed to forgive him. (AUDIO: The King of the Dead) She also argued on occasion with the Doctor, such as when he broke her trust on Valderon. (AUDIO: Prisoners of Fate)

She considered Tegan to be her best friend (AUDIO: The Emerald Tiger) and Tegan held her in the same esteem. (AUDIO: The Waters of Amsterdam) However, she also "never quite understood" why so many of the Doctor's friends were human. (AUDIO: The Boy That Time Forgot)

Nyssa generally did not use a surname, referring to herself only as Nyssa. (TV: Castrovalva, Four to Doomsday, etc.) The Doctor introduced her to the Time Lords as "Nyssa of Traken", (TV: Arc of Infinity) a name that she sometimes used herself. (AUDIO: Spare Parts, etc.) Whilst posing as a human actress, she used the name "Nyssa Traken". (AUDIO: Special Features)

Appearance
Nyssa was a slender (PROSE: Doctor Who and the Keeper of Traken) and beautiful (AUDIO: Creatures of Beauty) girl with brown curls, a pale face, serious, round eyes (PROSE: Logopolis) and fine features. (PROSE: Kinda) She had an unearthly quality of remoteness and aristocracy (PROSE: Castrovalva) but she had a hardness in her face that bespoke experience. (PROSE: The Parliament of Rats)

During her earliest travels in the TARDIS, she wore a flowing, gauzy dress (PROSE: Doctor Who and the Keeper of Traken) but later started to wear a plum-coloured velvet trouser-suit with elaborately puffed sleeves. (PROSE: Four to Doomsday, Earthshock) She eventually stopped wearing Traken clothes, wearing a blouse with a striped skirt and knee-length shorts on Manussa (TV: Snakedance) and a blue mini-dress until her departure on Terminus. (TV: Terminus) Following Adric's death, she took to wearing a bracelet of Trakenite gold. (PROSE: Goth Opera)

Behind the scenes

 * Nyssa was originally meant to have appeared only in The Keeper of Traken as a supporting character. She was, therefore, the sole creation of writer Johnny Byrne, to whom royalties had to be paid when the character was used. Like the Brigadier and K9, she is a rare example of a series regular to whom the BBC does not enjoy sole copyright.
 * Peter Davison was known to have preferred Nyssa over any of his other companions. He intervened on several occasions when John Nathan-Turner attempted to write the character out of the series.
 * Perhaps in deference to Davison's affection for Nyssa and in part because of Janet Fielding's long reluctance to appear in audio dramas, Big Finish Productions greatly expanded Nyssa's role. They built a network of stories in the televised gap between Tegan's departure in Time-Flight and her return in Arc of Infinity which was very much greater than it had appeared on television. Starting with The Land of the Dead, the Fifth Doctor began a long series of audio adventures with Nyssa as his sole companion. Consequently, Nyssa is one of the most frequently appearing companions in the history of performed Doctor Who stories.
 * Like the Fifth Doctor, Adric and Tegan, Nyssa was given a "costume" rather than a basic "look" by producer John Nathan-Turner. Nyssa's original costume narratively originated on Traken. It suggested her highborn status. It consisted of a maroon velvet jacket, a diaphanous, iridescent skirt and multi-pastel, high-heeled shoes. It was accessorised with an ornamental hair comb and a woolly purse. This look persisted through the end of part two of Castrovalva. However, long before this episode was filmed, it was determined the actor needed more practical clothing for the physical demands of her now-co-starring role. She exchanged her skirt for a pair of maroon trousers, lost the purse and began wearing lower-heeled shoes. According to production notes on the DVD release of the preceding story, Logopolis, the second iteration of Nyssa's "royal Traken" look was inspired by a rehearsal in which actress Sarah Sutton wore Nyssa's top, but her own corduroy trousers. She also lost her hair comb. She completely abandoned the "royal Traken" look in Snakedance and changed her look every story thereafter until her departure in Terminus. Famously, her costume for her final story was mostly just the slip she had been wearing under her Mawdryn Undead dress.
 * Images of the older version of Nyssa on cover images for the audio arc in which she rejoined the TARDIS crew were based on contemporary photos of Sarah Sutton.
 * Discounting the ambiguous status of various UNIT personnel, Nyssa is the first companion to be introduced in one story and established as a companion in another.
 * She is the first companion to kiss the Doctor on-screen.

Nyssa