Caroline John

Caroline John played companion Liz Shaw in Doctor Who during its seventh season.

Unlike many of the preceding female companions of the Doctor, Liz Shaw was a scientist and understood much of the Doctor's technobabble. As the essential role of the companion in Doctor Who is to ask a lot of questions which the viewer might be asking themself, incoming producer Barry Letts, who had "inherited" her from his predecessor, considered her character unsuitable and decided against renewing her contract. As Caroline was pregnant at the time, she might have had to have resigned had Letts exercised his option on her.

Caroline reprised the role of Shaw in the anniversary episode The Five Doctors, where her character's unearthly scream of "Stop him!" is still fondly remembered by Doctor Who fans. Liz later popped up in the special episode Dimensions in Time, part of the BBC's annual Children in Need appeal. Liz has also returned in "The Blue Tooth", a release in Big Finish's Companion Chronicles range, and will return again in the Companion Chronicle "Shadow of the Past".

She is married to Geoffrey Beevers, who is most famous for playing the Master in The Keeper of Traken. The couple have performed in two Doctor Who productions together: once during her televised run on Doctor Who — when he played UNIT Private Johnson in The Ambassadors of Death — and again the Big Finish Productions audio, "Dust Breeding". The couple have also appeared in the P.R.O.B.E. episodes, "The Devil of Winterborne" and "Unnatural Selection."

She is the aunt of Souska John, who appeared in Castrovalva.

A popular story told by Caroline John recounts how, in preparation for her role on Doctor Who, she purchased a dictionary of scientific terminology, then found that all the technical terms the writers had her character using were made up.

In addition to her role as Liz Shaw, Caroline John has also appeared as Laura Lyons in a 1982 televised version of The Hound of the Baskervilles, starring Tom Baker as Sherlock Holmes. She has also appeared in episodes of Z-Cars, Casualty, The House of Elliot, and EastEnders.