Leela

Leela, later known as Leelandredloomsagwinaechegesima, (PROSE: Lungbarrow) was a warrior of the savage Sevateem, a tribe of regressed humans. She met the Fourth Doctor during his visit to her home planet and aided him against Xoanon. The two became friends and, despite being offered the possibility of becoming leader of her world's new society, she left to follow the Doctor. Although he initially rejected her request to go with him, she ran into the TARDIS and became his companion. (TV: The Face of Evil)

Leela's origins meant she had little understanding of the technological wonders to which her travels exposed her. She was educated by the Doctor, who attempted to instruct her on the nature of societies beyond her own. During one such trip, she met Henry Gordon Jago and George Litefoot, whom she would revisit a number of times thereafter. Despite the Doctor's misgivings, she remained quick to violence and her primitive edge never dissipated. (TV: The Talons of Weng-Chiang, AUDIO: The Renaissance Man, The Wrath of the Iceni, The Ruthven Inheritance, Dead Men's Tales)

They were joined on their travels by K9. (TV: The Invisible Enemy) Having fallen in love with Andred, a member of the Chancellery Guard, Leela chose to leave the Doctor and live on Gallifrey. K9 decided to remain with her. (TV: The Invasion of Time)

She married Andred (TV: Arc of Infinity) and, taking the name Leelandredloomsagwinaechegesima, (PROSE: Lungbarrow) became embroiled in Gallifreyan politics as the bodyguard of Romana II. (AUDIO: Weapon of Choice) The Time Lords allowed her to retain her youth for an unnaturally long time. (AUDIO: The Catalyst)

In the course of her time on Gallifrey, Leela became involved in a civil war and was blinded. (AUDIO: Fractures) Following Andred's death, (AUDIO: Insurgency) she explored a number of alternative Gallifreys in other dimensions (AUDIO: Reborn) and restored her sight in one of them by drinking blood. (AUDIO: Annihilation) Leela later became a prisoner of the Z'nai and died in their dungeon. (AUDIO: The Catalyst, The Time Vampire) Her soul was reborn as Emily. (AUDIO: The Child)

Early life
Leela was a member of the Sevateem, descended from the human survey team of the Mordee expedition. She was the daughter of Sole. (TV: The Face of Evil) Leela was named after Leela, the greatest warrior in Sevateem history, who sacrificed her life to save the tribe. (AUDIO: The Catalyst, Arbitration, The Abandoned) In 60, she told Boudica that the name had no meaning. (AUDIO: The Wrath of the Iceni)

As a child, Leela saw her mother struck down and killed by an animal on Mount Kremnon while protecting her. She stayed with her body until sunrise in order to protect her soul from evil spirits.

During her childhood, she and her friend Tomas often went hunting together. (AUDIO: Empathy Games) Her father taught her how to heal animals' wounds with moss. (AUDIO: Zygon Hunt)

Meeting with the Doctor
Leela argued against the tribe's shaman, Neeva, in his decision to attack the rival Tesh tribe - a purpose he claimed came from the Sevateem's god, Xoanon. Leela's blaspheming against this deity secured her banishment. Sole undertook the ritual Test of the Horda on her behalf and was killed.

While attempting to leave Sevateem land, Leela came into conflict with two men, sent by Neeva to kill her. She used a crossbow to slay one of her assailants while Tomas, her friend, killed the other. Leela instructed him to return to the tribe and, before going far, met with the Fourth Doctor. She believed him to be the Evil One - a figure from Sevateem religion who supposedly held Xoanon captive - due to the resemblance between him and the carved face on a cliff nearby.

The Doctor saved Leela from the psychic projections of Xoanon that resided in the jungle, earning her trust. After the Doctor was captured, she returned to the Sevateem village and helped him escape. Her use of janis thorns to paralyse and kill was criticised by the Doctor.

Calib used a janis thorn against Leela, and only through the Doctor's use of a bioanalyser was she restored from paralysis and saved from death. Leela then went with the Doctor to the base of the Tesh - in fact the spacecraft used by the expedition. There, the Doctor found the supercomputer Xoanon and set about trying to cure him of his insanity while Leela fended off the attacking Tesh, killing several. The Doctor was able to unify the mind of Xoanon, slipping into unconsciousness as he did so.

Leela cared for him for two days until he came to his senses. She followed him back to his TARDIS and requested that he take her with him. The Doctor protested, admitting that he liked Leela, but saying he could not take everyone he liked with him as they were too numerous. She walked past him into the TARDIS, he followed, and Leela's use of the console led to dematerialisation. (TV: The Face of Evil)

Travels with the Doctor
Leela and the Doctor visited Storm Mine 4. After Chub, one of the crew, was found dead, the pair were accused of murder by the commander, Kiy Uvanov. The Doctor suspected that the Sandminer robots were responsible and Leela and he were exonerated when this was proven. D84, a Dum class robot, approached Leela and revealed that it could talk. She agreed to keep the secret, but told the Doctor.

Leela became friends with Lish Toos, treating her injury and comforting her after she was attacked by V6. They hid inside a hopper together, narrowly avoiding detection by the robots. Taren Capel, who had inspired the robot revolution was on board. The Doctor had Leela hide inside a vent and release helium when Capel entered the room. It changed the tone of his voice so that SV7 did not recognise his commands and killed him. (TV: The Robots of Death)

Whilst travelling through the Vortex, the Doctor and Leela came across a rip in time. They landed in Devon in 1977 where they met Charlotte Willis who told them about the mysterious grange. There they discovered a body of a priest who had died from exposure to the time rip. Finding the source of the rip, Leela and the Doctor travelled to the year 4000 where they found a dystopian earth ravaged by the Pantophagen who had been brought there by Jalnik, who was half human/half Pantoghagen. He had planed to evacuate all the remaining humans back in time not before he infected them so that they would all become like him. Leela fell through the time rip, and the Doctor thought that she was lost and would never be found. OIn fact she had used the Doctor's scarf to climb on one of the Pantophagen and rode it back to 1977, where she helped to stop the invasion from the future. (AUDIO: The Foe from the Future)

As part of the Doctor's efforts to teach Leela about her ancestors, he brought her to Victorian London in 1889. She saved the Doctor from an assailant, a member of the Tong of the Black Scorpion, by killing him with a janis thorn.

Leela found the hypnotised Teresa and took her clothes, allowing her to gain access to the 51st century war criminal Magnus Greel's laboratory. She attempted to prevent the death of a woman, but the catalytic extraction chamber Greel used had already drained her.

As she fled, the Doctor saved Leela from a giant rat by shooting it with a Chinese fowling gun. She then went to the home of George Litefoot where she was attired in clothes bought by her host on the basis that they were fashionable. Leela wore them to accompany the Doctor to the Palace Theatre.

Greel attacked Leela in Litefoot's home. She pulled off his mask and saw his disfigured face. The Doctor negotiated with Greel to have the unconscious Leela left behind while they went to the House of the Dragon. Leela infiltrated the building, killing one a member of the Tong as she did so. She attacked Greel, but was seized by his men. When Mr Sin turned on Greel, she used a firearm for the first time, destroying the dragon statue's weapon capabilities. Greel was killed by the chamber.

Litefoot gave Leela some instruction on how to drink tea before he and Jago said goodbye to the travellers. (TV: The Talons of Weng-Chiang) Back in the TARDIS, they were alerted by an interstellar distress signal emanating from an English manor house in 1895.

Keeping their Victorian clothes on, they journeyed there and discovered the aftermath of a pitched battle between Lord Jack Corrigan's troops and the peaceful alien Drellerans, the last survivor of whom warned them of the dire consequences should the humans escape with their spacecraft, the Aeolus. They chased the craft centuries into the future, to the newly constructed Space Dock Nerva, which was in orbit around Jupiter. Corrigan's man, Henry McMullan, boarded Nerva and infected members of the crew with a virus. Leela and the Doctor befriended Alison Foster and fled Nerva aboard the supply ship Chandler with her and Giles Moreau.

Moreau was infected so the Doctor, Leela and Foster left the craft in spacesuits. The Drellerans teleported them into their presence and revealed that they had infected Corrigan in order to destroy humanity after Lord Jack had subjugated their species. Leela joined Foster and the Doctor in pleading for humanity, arguing with the Drellerans that the species had progressed since Corrigan's time. Leela, the Doctor and Foster were teleported back to Nerva after being injected with an anti-viral. When they came into contact with the infected humans, the virus was destroyed. Those humans recently infected were freed, but Lord Jack and his crew died after their bodies became their actual age. The Doctor asked Leela where she would like to go next, and she requested that he educate her. (AUDIO: Destination: Nerva)

To fulfil this wish, the Doctor took Leela to the famous Morovanian Museum on Morovania Minor. They went to see the opening of the renaissance section, but found themselves instead surrounded by people who believed they were living on Earth. The Doctor discovered that they were former experts who had had their knowledge stolen by Reginald Harcourt. Harcourt's own knowledge had been stolen and he was being used for data-storage by Jephson. By collecting all this information, Jephson hoped to know everything. Leela lost her knowledge of hunting as it was assimilated by Harcourt.

The Doctor introduced incorrect information into the data base, causing the fictional world created in the museum to collapse. Leela thanked the Doctor for teaching her about learning - knowledge was something to aspire to, but not at the expense of others. (AUDIO: The Renaissance Man)

Deciding that interacting with history would be better for her education, the Doctor took Leela to ancient Norfolk at the height of Roman occupation. She saved a woman who was being attacked by two Roman soldiers and learnt that it was Boudica, queen of the Iceni. Knowing the queen's fate, the Doctor told Leela he wanted to leave. She refused, believing that the repressed Britons deserved helped, regardless of the Doctor's warnings.

Bragnar and the Doctor escaped the Iceni camp and Boudica pursued. Leela stopped the queen from killing the Time Lord and told her of her coming defeat, saying the Doctor was a prophet. He was taken captive and Leela swore allegiance to Boudica, receiving assurances that the Doctor would not be tortured. Leela believed that Boudica wanted to end the suffering of her people, but was made uneasy by the queen's intent to slaughter the population of Camulodunon. She went to the captive Doctor and pretended to threaten him while secretly handing him a knife.

During the attack on Camulodunon, she was with Boudica and confronted her, saying she aught not to kill the remaining Romans as they were defeated and accused her of fighting for revenge, not her country. Leela told Boudica that she had freed the Doctor and that she could not serve a queen such as she, so the two fought. With the queen at her mercy, Leela chose not to kill her. She told Boudica that she had once been like her and then fled. On their way back to the TARDIS, the Doctor spoke to Leela of Boudica's eventual fate and admitted that he wanted a break from education, suggesting a visit to the 21st century. (AUDIO: The Wrath of the Iceni)

The Doctor and Leela arrived in London on 30 January 2025, after the Doctor detected some unusual power readings there. There they found that a huge satellite dish had been fitted on top of the National Gallery, along with a base and giant solar panels on the Moon. The GlobeSphere Corporation was making limitless supplies of energy available to the people of Britain — but at a price. Caught up in a demonstration in Trafalgar Square the Doctor and Leela were swiftly separated and, as the Doctor fell in with affable protester Jack Coulson, Leela found herself captured and at the mercy of the Daleks. They interrogated her using a mind probe and she accidentally revealed that the Doctor was near. She taunted the Daleks and they sent her to become a Roboman. The Doctor saved her before the process was completed. Leela then went with him to the Moon. She worked out that in order distract Damien Stephens, they should use the friendship between him and Jack and get information from him. (AUDIO: Energy of the Daleks)

The Doctor and Leela then arrived in England in 1979, where they were put on the trail of the White Worm. It seemed that some kind of giant worm had been eating the local cattle, and had now eaten a girl. The legend of the White Worm dated back to Roman times, and said that a great White Worm, as wide as a man, slithered out of the rocks of the Dark Peak Gap to take animals, sometimes even children, for its food. They soon discovered that the legend of the Worm was very much alive — even in 1979. She used her huntress instincts to escape from a set of dogs but ended up trespassing onto Colonel Hugh Spindleton's land. After having to evade his guns, Spindelton was interested in the fact that she was tracking the worm. He took her to meet who was living in his cellars. The Master offered her to the worm but it didn't want to eat her and allowed her to escape. She discovered that Demesne Furze was the worm. The Doctor gave her a message to get UNIT's attention. (AUDIO: Trail of the White Worm)

The Master was working with the Kraals, and he gave the Doctor over to them as a prisoner. She escaped by stayed close. The Kraals then started their invasion of Earth led by Marshal Grinmal. The Kraals also arrested the Master. Evading Spindleton, Leela rescued the Master so that he could pilot the TARDIS and rescue the Doctor. Instead she rode the horse through the wormhole. She rescued the Doctor but didn't know that it was an android duplicate. She helped the Doctor to then create a duplicate of the Master to find the real Master. She tried to stop Spindleton from destroying Oseidon by convincing him that he was hypnotised. This allowed the Doctor to complete his plans. (AUDIO: The Oseidon Adventure)

The Time Lords sent her and the Doctor to Dowcra. She saved Vilhol as she difn't think it was fair for an unarmed soldier to be killed with arms. She was told by Vilhol of the Sontaran plans and of Strang's betrayal. She went to find the Doctor but was informed by Irving that he went to see Strang and had been since. She went to the armoury to find bombs to destroy the portal and the hatching vats. She told Reaver that Strang would not need her when his army of clones was activated. She blew up the portal which then caused the whole site to collapse. Because the Doctor wasn't certain that he could make the Sontaran clones good, she destroyed all the vats. This caused a rift between the two of them. (AUDIO: The King of Sontar)

She decided to educate herself and read a book of fairy tales. After she and the Doctor arrived on a dark planet, they were attacked by the local flora. However, Morandi saved Leela. She almost died when she removed her helmet. After the missile exploded, the flora grew quickly giving enough oxygen for her to breath unaided. Leela used her huntress instincts to attack the roots of the plants and was distracted and was pulled away until she electrocuted the roots. Morandi then mutated into something else. She ran away from it. It turned out that they become vampiric and she was injected with the material. She was worried that she would become. Leela explained to the Doctor that she knew what crop rotation was as the Sevateem used it. She was injected with a placebo. (AUDIO: White Ghosts)

They landed at Eastwold to investigate something unusual. She saw a policemen and thought they would get information from him. She noticed that the Doctor thought something was weird with the broken glass in the bookshop. When they went to Celia Turner's place, she offered him cake laced with cyanide. Afterwards, the Doctor told her to go after the Crooked Man. She helped to protect Laura Corbett and the Doctor from an ogre. In the Land of Fiction, she helped ward off different monsters to stop the Crooked Man. (AUDIO: The Crooked Man)

She had a nightmare in which her father Sole faced the Horda. Shortly afterwards, she and the Doctor arrived on a luxury space liner, the Moray Rose, and they investigated it because of its empty hold. Calvert captured them and thought they were pirates. She kept hearing strange noises and spotted the Salonu. She thought that she heard the Doctor say that Sole was dead. She was captured by the Salonu. Each time she heard that strange noise, her memory of her father changed. The Salonu took her to a new ship where she was told that she was under the employ of the Master and was known as the Evil One. The Master told her that she was to kill the Doctor. Leela then tried to assassinate the Doctor. The Master had implanted fake memories into her mind. She used a janis thorn on the Doctor. Because the Doctor had the antidote to the janis thorn, she managed to throw off the conditioning and helped the Doctor to defeat the Master. (AUDIO: The Evil One)

The Doctor took Leela to Colophos for a camping holiday, but she did not think that it was a place where they should holiday. She noticed that the rock was actually a destroyed building, and theorised that either the natives died out or it was attacked. She was interested in why Sutton, Hardwick and Kellaway were on the planet. Inside the building, they met with Astaroth Morax who told them of his people. She was used as a bargaining chip by Morax. She managed to escape from the clutches of Morax. Om Kellaway's ship, she helped the Doctor to track Morax. (AUDIO: Last of the Colophon)

The Doctor took her to Delafoss to show her a successful human colony. When she realised that something was wrong, she thought that the Doctor was mistaken about it being successful. Noticing a ship being destroyed, she theorised that there was a war going on. She wanted to help Larivan but he was becoming an infinite warrior. After the Infinite Warriors attacked she was rescued by Davent who took her to the Doctor, but she had to leave him behind against her will. She was taken to the Earth Alliance ship and met with Moorson who she told not to destroy the infinite. She gave orders to save the Alliance fleet. She devised a plan to destroy the Infinite. After the Doctor had taken the Breath of forever, she was still determined that the Doctor would help her save the humans. Boarding the ship, she used a Janis thorn on Zarith to rescue the Doctor. (AUDIO: Destroy the Infinite)

The Doctor was teaching Leela mathematics before he decided to visit the Point of Stillness. She was intrigued about how the TARDIS had a soul. She saw cockroaches in the console room. In the library she started to read nursery rhymes before finding the Vincent van Gogh paintings. She thought that the TARDIS wanted her to paint. She heard screaming in the TARDIS library. When the cockroaches all died, Three laughed at her and her picture started laughing she went back to the Doctor. She thought that there were invaders in the TARDIS. When Marianna appeared in the console room, Leela discovered that Marianna created the Horda. Later she realised that Three and his compatriots were feeding of their imaginations. This involved using an illusion of her father against her. (AUDIO: The Abandoned)

Arriving on the leisure planet of Gorros, the Doctor and Leela found that they were at the same time as a hunting party from the Solar Knights. She used her medical knowledge to help heal an injured bird. When Mina Challis arrived, Leela told her that the way her commander had injured the bird wasn't in good sport. She was interrogated by Gregor Saraton and didn't like that he would attack animals who weren't able to attack back. She thought that the Doctor would want to stay and solve the mysteries on the planet rather than leave. Leela used her tracking instincts to get back to the hunting lodge when the Zygons attacked. She wanted to know why Mina-Zygon didn't kill her and the Doctor. She had a plan to capture the Mina-Zygon using a cage of vines. She then suggested that the Zygons settled on Gorros instead of invading Earth. (AUDIO: Zygon Hunt)

While trying to get to Brighton, the Doctor and Leela found themselves on Fang Rock in the 1900s. They visited the lighthouse there. With reports of a "fireball" and Ben Travers dead, the Doctor suspected alien involvement and Leela when sighted a creature in the waters, she had to be persuaded that it wasn't the mythical Beast of Fang Rock.

Aside from the lighthouse keepers, they were also joined by the crew of a steam yacht that crashed in the fog. One of the passengers, Adelaide Lessage, irritated Leela with her screams and swooning in the face of their alien aggressor. Leela hit Lessage across the face to silence her.

The creature was a Rutan and Leela helped the Doctor prepare a makeshift weapon to kill it. They put various items from their pockets into a telescope. Leela lit it and it fired the contents at the Rutan scout, killing it. She suggested that the Doctor modify the lighthouse and he did so, fitting it with a carbon oscillator, which he used to destroyed the Rutan mothership. (TV: Horror of Fang Rock)

She saved the Doctor from a fire within the console room. She didn't feel comfortable on Synchronis. She later thought the Doctor was dead. She took part in the empathy games as Vilor Angell's champion. (AUDIO: Empathy Games)

The Doctor was called back to earth by UNIT to help on an expedition to the Amazon. When Leela and the Doctor became separated after a plane crash, she and Edward Perkins found the tribe of the Magor and their apparent god Godwin. She and the Doctor discovered that he was a Luron and took him back to London, where they were promptly knocked out. On recovering she found herself kidnapped and escaped through the ventilation shafts. After discovering that the Luron had duplicated her and the Doctor as well as many other humans, she helped to destroy their plans by tricking the Luron that they were their duplicates and shut down the sun with which the Luron were planning on killing the human race with. (AUDIO: The Valley of Death)

Travels with the Doctor and K9
In 5000, the Swarm brought the Doctor to the Bi-Al Foundation, which they took over. As the Doctor fell into a self-induced coma to fight off the influence of the Nucleus, he sent a shrunken clone of Leela and himself inside his brain to fight the infection. Absorbing Leela's clone unleashed her antibodies into the Doctor's system, saving him.

With the help of K9, Leela killed some of the Titan Base who were infected with the Swarm. She urged the Doctor to blow up the hatchling Swarm, to which the Doctor finally agreed. Leela begged him to accept Professor Marius' offer of K9 as a gift. K9 entered the TARDIS of his own accord, joining them on their journeys. (TV: The Invisible Enemy)

The Doctor and Leela went to Earth in search of the cause of a Relative Continuum Displacement Zone, knowing the time scanner being used could result in a direct continuum implosion. They landed in Fetchborough and came across Ted Moss, whom Leela held prisoner, believing him hostile. He told them about Dr Fendelman's work at Fetch Priory before they parted.

While circling the perimeter of the priory, Leela wandered from the Doctor and came across a cottage. Moss, who was within, fired a gun through the doorway, but Leela pressed herself against the outside wall and avoided harm. She overpowered Moss and threatened him the gun, but surrendered the weapon to Jack Tyler, believing the cane he pressed against her back to be a firearm.

After Moss left, Martha Tyler came home, visibly shocked, and speaking of something "hungry for [her] soul". Leela left to seek the Doctor's assistance. At Fetch Priory, she found him in contact with the Fendahl core, Eustace, and broke the connection by toppling his chair. When the Doctor explained what the skull had been doing, using appropriate genetic material to recreate itself and draining his life, Leela told him what Martha had said about seeing something "huge and dark" and its hunger for souls. The Doctor asked Leela to take him to Martha. At the Tyler cottage, Leela and the Doctor revived Martha by appealing to the commonplace and she told them about the being she had seen in the woods. Martha gave Leela a charm before she left.

Using the TARDIS, the Doctor and Leela went in search of Planet 5 – the homeworld of the Fendahl. Leela fell asleep and, having dreamt she was being pursued, drew her knife on waking and almost attacked the Doctor. They found that Planet 5 had been placed in a time loop by the Time Lords, making it and its records invisible.

Back at the priory, Leela recalled her dream and she, Martha and Jack found they could not move their legs – their muscles being controlled psychotelekinetically. The Doctor - unaffected - used Jack's shotgun, loaded with rock salt, to kill an approaching Fendahleen, breaking the Fendahl's hold on Leela and the Tylers.

The Doctor explained that the Fendahleen was created out of pure energy while the skull was restructuring Thea Ransome's brain, turning her into the Fendahl core. The Doctor and Leela went down to the cellars, where Maximillian Stael had conducted a ritual with his coven. There, they freed Adam Colby and the Doctor tasked Leela with getting him to safety, warning them not to look into the transformed Thea's eyes.

In Fendelman's lab, Leela suggested, as the Doctor had been able to kill one Fendahleen with rock salt, the rest could also be killed. As the creature was incomplete, it being comprised of twelve Fendahleen and a core, and there only being ten with one Fendahleen and Stael dead, the Doctor told her that there was a chance of defeating it. He asked Leela to go with Jack, who was armed with more cartridges filled with rock salt. Thea and a Fendahleen appeared before the pair in the corridor beyond the lab. Having already gazed upon it, Jack told Leela he couldn't shoot so she knocked him down and took the gun herself, firing and killing the creature.

The Doctor instructed the Tylers to return to their cottage and asked Colby to give him and Leela enough time to get down to the cellars, then set off the scanner beam, allowing them to take the skull in the confusion this would put the core into. He told Colby to allow it to run for two minutes and then to leave as he had rigged a controlled explosion that would destroy the priory after a further three minutes. Leela asked why they could not leave the skull to the inferno, but the Doctor told her it could reappear anywhere and begin the process again.

In the cellars, Leela and the Doctor came across the core and they threw vials of salt, collected by Martha Tyler, at it. The Doctor placed Eustace in a lead-lined box and they left, passing through an apparition of the core on the way out, avoiding its eyes as they did so. As they ran across the grounds, Fetch Priory was engulfed in flames. Leela asked what they were to do now, and the Doctor told her they would leave, assuring her that Colby and the Tylers would be fine. Back in the TARDIS, the Doctor told Leela he would find a supernova in order to destroy the skull. (TV: Image of the Fendahl)

The TARDIS landed on E9874 where Leela was delighted at it being a warm planet. She helped Trexa to escape from a Tarl. She was impressed by the Tarls' weapon. Leela asked the Exxilons what they were doing on the planet. She offered Ergu her knife as a sign of respect, and he gave it back out of honour. The Doctor asked her to find out more about the Exxilon beacon. She recognised the symbols on the beacon. She felt the power in the city and was attacked by it. She thought the city was evil and that the fight against the Tarl wasn't fair. Gethal used her as a hostage. (AUDIO: The Exxilons)

On Pluto, Leela was captured by Megro guards and was sent to the steamer, but the Doctor rescued her. She then took part in the Citizens' Revolution that overthrew the Company. (TV: The Sun Makers) She and the Doctor later landed on the R1C, a Minyan spacecraft commanded by Jackson searching for the lost Minyan ship P7E. When they arrived on the P7E, Leela helped the Doctor and the "Trogs" defeat the Oracle and its guards. (TV: Underworld)

When they visited the home of the Doctor's former companion Joshua Douglas and his family, Leela met the imprisoned emperor of the Z'nai, whom the Doctor had contained long before. He hoped to find an antidote for the plague which Douglas had released to destroy his people. Douglas' daughter freed the emperor, sparking a resurgence of the Z'nai empire. Leela became the virus' vector, infecting the Z'nai with it. She wiped out the Z'nai except for the emperor, whom the Doctor imprisoned again. (AUDIO: The Catalyst) She later visited the world where the Doctor had his final battle with the Z'nai and found out the Doctor's involvement. This event was effected by the presence of a Time Vampire created through the close contact of many different Leela's. (AUDIO: The Time Vampire)

The Doctor arrived on Agratis to see the Jewel of Fawton and eat a banquet. However, the Jewel had gone missing, and the Judoon had been called in to reclaim it. While the Doctor searched for the Jewel's thief, Leela and K9 distracted the Judoon out of the city so the Doctor could leave. Leela broke into a Judoon tank, so K9 could connected himself to it. Then, Leela knocked another Judoon from his motorbike, and took it.

When the species that originally owned the Jewel were discovered, the Judoon's search was called off. Becoming much less aggressive, Leela invited them to dine at the banquet. Then, the Doctor joined them, and offered jelly babies to the Judoon. While feasting with the Judoon, Adam Mitchell appeared and kidnapped both Leela and K9. (COMIC: A Rare Gem)

At some point during her travels with the Doctor, they visited Bob Dovie at 59A Barnsfield Crescent in Totton, Hampshire on 23 November 1963. (AUDIO: The Light at the End) At another time, they encountered the Tzun on Mimoza II. (PROSE: First Frontier)

Parting with the Doctor
As part of the Doctor's attempt to double-cross the Vardans, the Doctor was inducted as Lord President of the Supreme Council of Time Lords on Gallifrey. After the Doctor had been attacked by the Matrix, he banished Leela to Outer Gallifrey. She left with the Time Lord Rodan as the Vardans invaded Gallifrey. Out in Outer Gallifrey, Leela persuaded the Outsiders, led by Nesbin, to help fight against the Vardans. They managed to make their way to the President's office where the Doctor used K9 to send the Vardans back to their planet and time loop the planet.

The Sontarans followed the Vardans to invade Gallifrey after the force field had been opened in order to trap the Vardans, and the Sontarans gained access to the TARDIS. Leela and the Outsiders attacked and killed the soldiers, leaving only Stor, whom the Doctor erased from time with the De-mat Gun. Leela decided to stay on Gallifrey, having fallen in love with Andred. When the Doctor was ready to leave, he indicated his intent to Leela. She told him she wanted to remain and when he asked why, Andred took her hand. The Doctor assured Andred that Leela would look after him, saying she was "terribly good with a knife". K9 chose to stay too, in order to look after "the mistress". (TV: The Invasion of Time)

Life on Gallifrey
She spent the next decades in the Capitol. Andred and Leela married (TV: Arc of Infinity) and conceived a child, the first born on Gallifrey for millennia. (Pythia had long ago made the Gallifreyans a sterile race.) (PROSE: Lungbarrow) There were hints that the Doctor was really her son; this was covered up by family, politics and paradox-avoiding paranoia.

When the Dominators attempted to conquer Gallifrey, Leela fought alongside K9 against the invading Quarks which had "flooded" the Captiol, destroying 39 between them. (AUDIO: Time in Office)

Andred vanished, and Leela served as bodyguard and confidante to President Romana, another former companion of the Doctor. (AUDIO: Weapon of Choice) She was drawn into Time Lord politics and conspiracies while working on Presidential missions with Celestial Intervention Agency operatives Torvald and Coordinator Narvin. (AUDIO: Square One, A Blind Eye) She discovered that Torvald had caused Andred's death, but later that Torvald was really a regenerated Andred. (AUDIO: A Blind Eye)

Mission to Earth
Romana sent her on a mission to the 19th century to track temporal seepage and to stop it from destroying the Earth, knowing that she had visited the time before. Romana told her how to track the breaks in time. She sought out Jago and Litefoot to aid her, and they attempted to teach her Cockney rhyming slang. She found a source of temporal seepage at the Jolly Rodger and decided to work there. With the help of Ellie Higson Leela learned the basics of being a barmaid and came up with a nickname; "Lil". Leela's suspicion was correct as the Wet Men came to the bar. They attempted to take Leela to their wreckage in the River Thames, but Johnny Skipton accepted him fate and went with them instead. This closed the break in time. (AUDIO: Dead Men's Tales) She later went round looking for an energy source. Her temporal seepage detector relayed the story which Eleanor Naismith told to her daughter Clara. (AUDIO: The Man at the End of the Garden) She tracked the energy source to the New Regency Theatre, much to Jago's dismay, and aided the pair in sealing the majority of the breaches. (AUDIO: Swan Song) Leela later found the source of the temporal seepage to be the experiments that Elliot Payne was performing. When Litefoot was trapped under a collapsed building, she worked out where he lay. As her job was done, she tried to use her Time Ring to return to Gallifrey, but found that she couldn't. (AUDIO: Chronoclasm)

Realising that her Time Ring wasn't working, she rejoined Jago and Litefoot and suggested they go on holiday to Brighton, as the Sixth Doctor had advised her to do. She thought that Abigail Woburn wouldn't make a good mate for Jago, and killed a lioness to save Litefoot. (AUDIO: Jago in Love) She did not like Oscar Wilde's play, and was more interested in the man with no smell. (AUDIO: Beautiful Things) She went to find Kempston and Hardwick with Ellie. They went with Winnie O'Connor to the train where Jago and Litefoot were trapped in a time loop. (AUDIO: The Lonely Clock) She helped the Doctor stop Kempston and Hardwick. After this, her Time Ring began to work again, and she used it to return to Gallifrey. (AUDIO: The Hourglass Killers)

Back on Gallifrey
She went into the catacombs and encountered Pandora. (AUDIO: Lies) She accompanied Romana to Davidia where she started to understand Romana's way of thinking. (AUDIO: Spirit) Braxiatel appointed her to acting Castellan after the disappearance of Wynter; this angered Andred. (AUDIO: Pandora) Braxiatel's last act as chancellor was to appoint her as a tutor at the Time Lord Academy, where she taught Neeloc, Taylor Addison, Galadina and B'arech about living in harmony with the Time Lords. (AUDIO: Insurgency)

Leela had not forgiven Andred for his deceit when he died soon afterwards. During the troubled time that followed, Leela's most trusted friend, K9, was destroyed in an explosion aimed at off-world students of the Time Lord Academy. Bitter at the loss of her last link with the Doctor, Leela refused a replacement. (AUDIO: Imperiatrix) In the Time Lord civil war, Leela fought on Romana's side and was blinded by a bomb. (AUDIO: Fractures) She protected Romana when she fought Pandora inside the Matrix. (AUDIO: Warfare)

After the Sunari, Nekkistani and Warpsmiths of Phaidon invaded Gallifrey after the civil war, she was tasked in finding K9 Mark II so that he could fix the transduction barriers. (AUDIO: Appropriation). When Romana was imprisoned by Darkel, Leela posed as part of Romana's legal counsel to talk to her. She also pursued Darkel's would be assassin into the catacombs. Leela was told by Narvin to go to Braxiatel's office to check his notes, and found Braxiatel there. (AUDIO: Mindbomb) When Romana left the capitol, Leela, following K9's prediction, went to the House of Heartshaven to find her. She then smuggled Romana into Elbon's medical wing. After the destruction of the matrix Narvin used her first hand evidence about the criminal activities of Mephistopheles Arkadian to the High Council. She followed Arkadian for the CIA tower to the biodata archive. She, with the archive, Narvin and Arkadian, was timescooped to the Braxiatel Collection. (AUDIO: Panacea)

Exploring alternate realities
When Braxiatel took her to the Axis she explored alternative Gallifreys. The first she visited was a Gallifrey where the alternate version of herself searched for the Key to Time. Chancellor Dondequest wanted to install her as a puppet President of this Gallifrey so she could have ultimate power. Leela used this role to help find the information Romana wanted. (AUDIO: Reborn)

In another Gallifrey she met an alternative version of herself where she was the interrogator General of Gallifrey. She was tortured by her alternative self and forced to relive her memories. (AUDIO: Disassembled)

She started to age being away from the prime Gallifrey. On a Gallifrey where the Vampire war still went on, Leela's sight and youth were restored by drinking vampire blood as part of Borusa's hound creation process. (AUDIO: Annihilation)

On another Gallifrey where there were slaves, she freed the slaves and joined them in a revolt against the Regenerators of Gallifrey. (AUDIO: Forever)

She then set up many townships for the freed slaves with her as the head of one and Sura another. She spoke with Allora about mining rights near her township. There was an assassination attempt on her, which was later discovered to be Valyes under Allora's orders. (AUDIO: Emancipation)

A fellow outcast, Maris, led Leela to an abandoned research facility where she met Hector and Taine who were running the experimental side of Jonias' research. (AUDIO: Evolution). She captured Lord Zakar to put him on trial for the murder of 237 slaves. (AUDIO: Arbitration)

Leela tried to defend this Gallifrey when the Daleks from the prime universe invaded. She knew all the secret passages through this Capitol which allowed, Romana, Narvin, Lukas and herself to manoeuvre around without the Daleks knowing. On returning to the Axis she killed the Dalek Overseer of the Axis. (AUDIO: Extermination)

Returning to Gallifrey
Leela and Narvin were held in a Chronic Hysteresis and couldn't immediately get to Gallifrey from the Axis. After Romana agreed on a deal with her future incarnation, Leela escaped from the Hysteresis. She didn't like her new rooms and argued with Romana about it. Leela also could see Romana's watcher before anyone else could. Lady Tre still valued her friendship after thousands of years not seeing her. She wanted to leave Gallifrey when Romana was exiled by her future self. She could see a haze behind her. She was worried about Romana when the Eye of Harmony started to break down. (AUDIO: Renaissance)

When Romana mysteriously disappeared, she was anxious about what happened. She spotted Coordinator Tallan in the corridors and in the archives, and recognised he was like someone she met on one of the alternate Gallifrey. When Tallan turned out to be K9, she was excited. It turned out this Gallifrey on which she thought they were was a Matrix construct. She escaped the Matrix, but after doing so, Slyne released the Daleks from the Matrix. She tried to stop Romana from sealing herself in the Matrix with the Daleks. She watched the Data Pocket containing the artificial Gallifrey close and collapse. In fact Romana wasn't trapped in the Matrix, and Leela was amazed at this. (AUDIO: Ascension)

Leela disobeyed Romana and followed her to the Moros where she stopped some droids from attacking Romana. Romana sent Leela away to a random planet, in order for her plan to regenerate to be fulfilled. After Braxiatel negated that timeline she was rescued. She was suspicious of Braxiatel believing he might be the caused Narvin's death. She later discovered that one of the Monan Host transmats was rigged to explode but warned Romana and Livia. After discovering that there was a Warpsmith plot against the Time Lords she helped Ace find and dispose a bomb on the Gallifreyan outpost she was on. In the origonal timeline she was sent to Legion after being transported of the Moros, this Leela thought that Romana was punishing her for her actions against the Monon Host Ambassador. (AUDIO: Enemy Lines)

The Last Great Time War
During the Time War, Leela was present at the Battle of the Pillars of Consequence. She was in charge of the retake of the city Destilation from the Daleks. At some point of the battle, she faced the Disruptor Dalek, who shot her, displacing her from time and space.

After this, Leela gained "all her memories", being capable of remember not only what happened to her, but also everything she could have done, and its consequences. Trying to remember what actually did happen to her caused her pain. She spent her time defending the universe from The Unlived which came from a breach in time caused by a Dalek Temporal shift who was damaged. She allowed the Doctor to close the breach. She then went with the Doctor to Grend to stop the Daleks. The Doctor managed to heal her using the TARDIS. She could see that the War Doctor was still her Doctor. She wanted to defend Gallifrey. (AUDIO: The Lady of Obsidian)

On the way back to Gallifrey she felt a sadnesss. She started to observe this enigma and thinking it was sad. She saw the shadows of Daleks in the capitol. After Lintok was affected by The Enigma Leela helped her. She later thought that the Enigma was drawn to her. The Enigma started to talk through Leela. She could sense the Doctor's sadness and it used that to communicate with her. (AUDIO: The Enigma Dimension)

Death and rebirth
Leela survived the destruction of Gallifrey. She ended up a prisoner of the Z'nai, who had returned to power. While Leela lived on Gallifrey, the Time Lords had allowed her to retain her youth for a greatly extended time. This was no longer so. While the Z'nai tortured Leela for information about Gallifrey and the Time Lords, she aged physically, one year for each day.

The Z'nai had abandoned their ancient custom of leaving their chests bare. Just before the Z'nai interrogating her was to kill her, she gave him a choice — stop the killing or be killed. He laughed, but she infected him with the plague that had wiped out the Z'nai originally. The entire race died, leaving Leela and the other prisoners at first joyful, then terrified as they realised they were trapped and abandoned. Leela remained bound, without the strength to free herself, reminiscing about her days with the Doctor as she waited to die. (AUDIO: The Catalyst)

After the Z'nai had all died and all torture had stopped, the machines used to torture Leela and her fellow prisoners kept them alive. Leela told a fellow prisoner who was crying a story about when she saw the Doctor being afraid. (AUDIO: Empathy Games) Leela eventually died in the Z'nai prison. (AUDIO: The Time Vampire)

Leela's soul was reborn as a young girl named Emily. Leela recounted many of her adventures with the Doctor to Emily. (AUDIO: The Child)

Legacy
Summoned to Gallifrey because of the Omega plots, the Fifth Doctor asked about Leela and was told by Damon that she was "well and very happy". He was sorry to have missed her wedding. (TV: Arc of Infinity)

The Doctor commented on the fact that Leela's child would be half-Gallifreyan and half-human. He told Leela to name the child after him. (PROSE: Lungbarrow)

After seeing Richard Harries' experiments with rats, the Eighth Doctor recalled the episode in the London Sewers when Leela had been attacked by a giant rat. (PROSE: The Banquo Legacy)

At some point, Leela was taken to the Black Archive by UNIT to have her record as a companion of the Doctor taken, she met Sergeant John Benton there. Leela's memories of the visit were subsequently erased and she was sent on her way. (TV: The Day of the Doctor)

Leela had a Bookface account and was friends with the Eleventh Doctor. She commented on one of the photos River Song tagged him in and asked if it was taken on Riftan Five, where she and the Doctor once got lost for three days. (COMIC: Timeliney Wimey)

Personality
Leela told the Doctor it was clear to her he could not control the TARDIS. When he objected, she told him "don't cry about it". When the TARDIS and its occupants were endangered by a Relative Continuum Displacement Zone, Leela was quick to assert that she "meant no disrespect" and that she may have been wrong in suggesting the Doctor was unable to control the "old machine", as she had labelled it. When it righted itself, she asked if it could understand her. The Doctor replied "she just generates a low intensity telepathic field, and obviously primitive thought patterns like yours appeal to her". Initially cheered, Leela became somewhat dismayed when she understood the full meaning of this.

Leela had sympathy with the Doctor when he claimed to have been frightened by a "mythological horror" in his childhood. (TV: Image of the Fendahl)

Leela retained the mindset that life among the primitive and superstitious Sevateem had imprinted upon her. She took the noises of a ship on the River Thames for the attack sound of a swamp creature. When a Chinese man she had implicated in a crime refused to talk, Leela insisted that he be tortured into speaking. While in the home of George Litefoot, Leela displayed her savagery to the host, tearing meat off the bone with her teeth. (TV: The Talons of Weng-Chiang)

The Doctor described Leela as "a huntress, a creature of instinct". She felt better suited to the wastelands of Gallifrey than the Capitol. Nevertheless, Leela was confident she could "survive anywhere". Her single-mindedness convinced the Doctor that she would be susceptible to Vardan telepathy, so he ordered that she be banished from the Capitol. (TV: The Invasion of Time)

The sociology of the tribe instilled Leela with the belief that the only way to learn was by listening to the wisdom of elders. Leela maintained that the "fate of the old and crippled" was to be slain and asked the Doctor to kill her when she thought she was blind. She did not consider herself to be a lady. (TV: Horror of Fang Rock)

Leela rejected the belief that Xoanon was a god. She referred to the phantoms that supposedly resided in the lands beyond Sevateem territory as "feast fire stories". (TV: The Face of Evil) She abandoned her belief in magic, telling Adelaide Lessage "I too used to believe in magic, but the Doctor has taught me about science. It is better to believe in science". (TV: Horror of Fang Rock)

Leela quizzed the Doctor on how the Fendahl came to Earth. She compared the method of passage the Doctor described the way in which lightning travelled, a simile the Doctor partly approved of. She thought that the use of a time loop to make Planet 5 and its records invisible was "very clever"; the Doctor considered it criminal. (TV: Image of the Fendahl)

Leela did not hesitate to use the weapons she kept about her person, despite the Doctor's disapproval. (TV: The Robots of Death) He didn't berate her for saving his life through violence. (TV: The Talons of Weng-Chiang) Leela boasted over the wounded Rutan scout on Fang Rock, telling it "I enjoyed killing you". She believed it was "fitting to celebrate the death of an enemy", a point the Doctor disagreed with her on. (TV: Horror of Fang Rock) Henry Gordon Jago believed that Leela was the "bravest creature" that he had ever met. (AUDIO: The Night of 1000 Stars) She claimed to have no fear of death. (TV: The Talons of Weng-Chiang)

Leela admired Boudica. She doubted her knowledge of the Doctor's character after he refused to help the Iceni, saying "I thought you were a man of honour". Having ignored his warnings about altering history, she told Boudica of her coming defeat, and swore fealty to her. The slaughter at Camulodunon convinced Leela that she had misjudged the queen's character. She recognised her former self in Boudica and chose not to kill her when she had the chance. (AUDIO: The Wrath of the Iceni)

Leela was concerned for K9 when he was dysfunctional, asking the Doctor if "he would be okay" and insisting, when he used the pronoun "it", that his use of "she" to describe the TARDIS gave her the right to use "he". After the destruction of Fetch Priory, the Doctor commented that he should return to "repairing him", with the use of the word greatly pleasing Leela. (TV: Image of the Fendahl) Leela became angry with K9 after he failed to provide her with information, telling him to "shut up". When K9 started to sulk, she apologised, saying she was sorry and assuring him that she "didn't mean to shout". K9 chose to stay on Gallifrey with Leela to look after her.

On Gallifrey, Leela met Rodan. The Time Lord advised her to put her knife away, lest she hurt herself, which Leela said was something the Doctor often remarked. When Rodan allowed a fleet to pass and told Leela it was probably going to "blast some part of the galaxy to dust", Leela told her she ought to have stopped them, but Rodan explained that the non-interference policy forbade such action. Leela mocked Rodan's manner of speaking, saying "one must, one must, yes". Rodan only replied "I knew I'd like you" and turned off the force field that separated the pair.

At their parting, Leela told the Doctor she would miss him. He made an admission in kind only when alone in his TARDIS, saying "I'll miss you too, savage". Leela left him in order to be with Andred, whom she fell in love with. (TV: The Invasion of Time)

Romana considered Leela to be her best friend. (AUDIO: Extermination)

Leela considered Jago and Litefoot to be like family to her. (AUDIO: Chronoclasm)

Appearance
Leela usually dressed in animal skins and armed herself with a knife and janis thorns. (TV: The Face of Evil) She once accompanied this outfit with the Doctor's hat. (TV: The Invisible Enemy)

While in London in 1889, the Doctor had Leela wear a less conspicuous outfit, befitting the time. Leela thought these alternative clothes were ridiculous. In order to affect a disguise, she took and dressed in Teresa's clothes.

In order to accompany the Doctor to the Palace Theatre, Leela wore a fashionable dress selected by George Litefoot. She was pleased by the comments the pair made, with Litefoot labelling it as "quite delightful" and the Doctor saying he would "be proud" to take her the theatre "looking like that". (TV: The Talons of Weng-Chiang)

Leela dressed in a skirt and wore a boater hat for a trip to Brighton. When she found herself on Fang Rock instead, she changed into men's clothes belonging to the lighthouse keepers. The explosion of a Rutan mothership resulted in pigmentation dispersal that caused Leela's eye colour to change permanently from brown to blue.

While on Fang Rock, James Skinsale commented that Leela was "not a bad looker", but Adelaide Lessage thought her "perfectly grotesque". Skinsale told her he had learnt to "appreciate nature" during his time in India. (TV: Horror of Fang Rock)

Leela had skins in various tones and occasionally wore her hair in a bun. (TV: Image of the Fendahl)

On Gallifrey, Andred helped Leela to chose an outfit. She went through many clothes, rejecting them all, much to Andred's annoyance. He asked her what outfit she would like and she replied: "a quiver, a bow, a pouch of Janis thorns and my knife back". While with the Outsiders, she wore a fur cloak over her other clothes. (TV: The Invasion of Time)

After she stopped travelling with the Doctor, one of her skins remained in the TARDIS wardrobe. The Fifth Doctor's companion Peri Brown considered wearing it on one occasion. (AUDIO: No Place Like Home) The Eighth Doctor's companion Izzy Sinclair tried it once. (COMIC: Ophidius)

Abilities
Leela was skilled in combat, both armed and otherwise. She was particularly adept with knives, which she used as throwing weapons. (TV: The Robots of Death) Leela was able to hit a Sontaran's probic vent with a thrown knife and the Doctor congratulated her, calling the act "prodigious" and "amazing". (TV: The Invasion of Time) Leela was once found by a policeman to be strangling her opponent with his own pigtail. She had never used a handgun until her visit to London in 1889, but managed to utilise it effectively against Mr Sin. (TV: The Talons of Weng-Chiang) Leela told the Doctor that good marksmanship was not a matter of luck. After she knocked out Jack Tyler and used his shotgun to kill a Fendahleen, all the time being unable to look at her target lest it influence her, the Doctor agreed with her. (TV: Image of the Fendahl)

Leela was skilled with a bow and displayed her talent for archery to the Outsiders on Gallifrey. (TV: The Invasion of Time) The Doctor claimed that "Leela [was] an expert in armaments". (AUDIO: The Renaissance Man) Before his death, Andred showed her how to operate a staser. (AUDIO: Extermination)

Leela wrote with her left hand, but threw her knife and performed other actions with her right. (TV: The Invisible Enemy) During her travels with the Doctor, he taught her to read and write. (PROSE: People of the Trees; AUDIO: The Time Vampire, White Ghosts, TV: The Invisible Enemy) However, she could not read English. (AUDIO: Beautiful Things) She was able to swim and did so in the TARDIS swimming pool. (TV: The Invasion of Time)

The Fourth Doctor told James Skinsale that "Leela's senses [were] particularly acute" when explaining how she had sensed a change in temperature that eluded everyone else present. Leela also believed she had a keen sense of hearing. (TV: Horror of Fang Rock) She could sense an evil about the Swarm and was able to tell that a communique from Titan Base had a non-human source. (TV: The Invisible Enemy) Leela told the Doctor, after breaking the connection between him and Eustace, that she had felt something was wrong and had followed the feeling allowing her to find him. (TV: Image of the Fendahl)

In Jack Corrigan's house in Kent in 1895, she was able to "smell" death and correctly predicted that a battle had taken place there. She also recognised that Henry McMullan was "not what he [seemed]" by being in his presence and hearing him talk. (AUDIO: Destination: Nerva) The Doctor believed that her "tracking skills [were] peerless". (AUDIO: The Renaissance Man) On another occasion, he described her as "the greatest hunter who has ever lived". (AUDIO: Black Dog)

After taking Ted Moss prisoner, she told him that "your Council should choose its warriors more carefully. A child of the Sevateem could have taken you". Later, she was able to move swiftly to avoid harm when Moss fired a gun at her, pressing herself against the outside wall of the Tyler cottage when he fired through the doorway from within. She disarmed Moss and turned the weapon on him, telling him the shot would be his last, and only surrendering the weapon when she believed Jack Tyler had a gun to her back. Moss told Leela as he left that he would see her later, to which she replied that he should get some practice first. (TV: Image of the Fendahl)

Alternative timelines
In an alternative timeline in which it was standard policy for the Time Lords to sell their temporal technology to the highest bidder and regenerations could be extracted and sold, Leela and K9 Mark I accompanied the Doctor on his search for the Key to Time. She was the only human to hold the Key to Time in her hands. Consequently, when her counterpart from the proper timeline visited this alternative Gallifrey, she was appointed Lady President. (AUDIO: Reborn)

In another alternative timeline in which the Time Lords regularly altered history through the Temporal Intervention Agency, Leela was brought to Gallifrey to amuse the then Lord President. She subsequently murdered Interrogator General Narvin and assumed his position under Lady President Romana. When her blind counterpart from the proper timeline visited this alternative Gallifrey, she took great pleasure in torturing her. (AUDIO: Disassembled)

Creation of the character
Leela was first conceived by producer Philip Hinchcliffe and script editor Robert Holmes. They wanted someone in the mould of from George Bernard Shaw's play : a bright but unsophisticated primitive who would learn from the Doctor. Writer Chris Boucher had submitted a story proposal entitled The Mentor Conspiracy. It featured a character named Leela which fitted Hinchcliffe and Holmes's ideas.

Although The Mentor Conspiracy was not produced, Boucher reused the character of Leela for The Day God Went Mad (later renamed The Face of Evil), seeing her as a mixture of from  and. Boucher was asked to write two endings to the story, in one, Leela left with the Doctor and in the other she stayed behind. The decision to have Leela become a companion was made soon after.

Initially, Leela was to have only appeared in three stories. It was decided later she would stay for the remainder of season 15. One consequence of this decision was a plot contrivance added to Horror of Fang Rock to allow the character's eye colour to change, so actress Louise Jameson would not have to wear uncomfortable coloured contact lenses.

Jameson felt that Doctor Who's writers sometimes neglected to write for Leela as an individual, instead writing her as a stereotypical "Doctor Who girl." For example, in Underworld, the script originally had Leela screaming when overwhelmed by poisonous gas. Jameson declined to do this, pointing out that it was not in character for the warrior Leela. (INFO: Underworld) In fact, Leela screamed in only one television story, The Talons of Weng-Chiang, when her leg was being gnawed by the giant rat — a scream which Jameson felt was justified. (DCOM: The Talons of Weng-Chiang)

Leela ranks as one of the most violent companions, regularly threatening or using deadly force against other humanoids (often to the Doctor's disgust as in The Invisible Enemy, but occasionally not as in Underworld). Although other companions sometimes killed (for example, Romana I shot a guard in The Pirate Planet), others have killed in spin-off productions (most notably Jack Harkness in Torchwood) and Ace racked up body counts in the New Adventures novels, Leela remains, to date, the only TV companion to be shown killing on a frequent basis.

Along with Irving Braxiatel, she is one of only two characters to play a major role in two audio spin-off series: Gallifrey and Jago & Litefoot. Leela and Braxiatel have both also appeared in the main range of Big Finish Doctor Who audio stories as a result of their guest roles in the audio story Zagreus.

Katarina - the first television companion who can be considered primitive - was axed almost immediately by the production team to avoid the exposition that would necessary with a character that knew nothing of modern society.