LINDA

LINDA (London Investigation 'N'Detective Agency) was a secret organisation and inner sanctum founded in early 2007, and broken up in the spring of that same year, due to all but one of its members being absorbed by an alien form. It was a society composed of five people: Elton Pope, Ursula Blake, Colin Skinner, Bridget Sinclair and Bliss. Although it was a group originally created and dedicated to finding out about the mysterious "Doctor", the members of the group soon bonded and it became as much a social club as a Doctor-investigating club, much to the annoyance of their future "leader", the mysterious Victor Kennedy.

All but Elton were absorbed by Kennedy, but Ursula was later partially returned from the dead by the Doctor's sonic screwdriver in the form of a face embedded in a slab of concrete.

The Doctor himself became aware of LINDA's activities before or during his fifth incarnation (at which time he appeared to find them slightly embarrassing). He briefly thought his tenth incarnation was a LINDA member, whom he described as "a fan". (TV: Time Crash)

The Doctor made no attempt to contact LINDA until his tenth incarnation after Elton Pope befriended and then upset Jackie Tyler, which in turn angered her daughter Rose. (TV: Love & Monsters)

The Doctor later recalled their deaths as among the many who had "died in his name" when taunted about the issue by Davros. (TV: Journey's End)

In 2020, Petronella Osgood had an icon for LINDA on the desktop of her computer. (WC: The Zygon Isolation)

Behind the scenes

 * Russell T Davies came up with the acronym while writing a children's programme called Why Don't You? (1973-1995), where it was the Liverpool Investigations 'N' Detective Agency, and re-used it in this episode.
 * A deleted scene from Love & Monsters goes into the group's choice of name. As they researched the Doctor, Ursula initially suggested names with doctor in the title ("the Doctor people", "Doctor hunters", "the Doctorers"). However, it was soon realised that this would bring a misconception of a medical connection, with the members concocting a hypothetical situation in which a man suffering from a heart attack appeared at their meeting place before dying. Elton suggested the name London Investigation 'N' Detective Agency because they investigated "things and stuff".