Liv Chenka

Liv Chenka was a companion of the Seventh and Eighth Doctors.

She was a Kaldoran human who travelled as a medical technician. She met the Seventh Doctor aboard the Lorelei and later met the Eighth Doctor on Nixyce VII, joining him and Molly O'Sullivan in the TARDIS after encountering them aboard the Orpheus.

Liv continued to travel with the Doctor after Molly's departure and death, later being joined by Helen Sinclair whilst tracking the Eleven.

Early life
Liv was the daughter of Kal Chenka and his wife (AUDIO: Absent Friends) and sister to Tula, who she always felt was the favourite. The family lived in Kaldor City, although Liv never felt like she belonged there, spending most of her days looking up at the stars and longing to be away. (AUDIO: Escape from Kaldor) As a child, she was sometimes known as Livvie, which she hated. (AUDIO: Love Me Not)

Her father often took her hiking through the mountains, (AUDIO: The Sonomancer) where he would play music which he believed centred him with nature. (AUDIO: The Robots of Life)

Liv studied medicine at college (AUDIO: Escape from Kaldor) and took extracurricular modules in biomodelling, stem cell usage and advanced operating procedures. (AUDIO: The Robots of Life) She was part of a group of friends that included Bas Pellico and Kit Laver. Whilst she remained close to her parents, Tula pursued a career in robotics with the Kaldor City Company and never returned home nor called due to her father's apparent dislike of robots. Liv found it impossible to live up to her and saw how much her absence hurt her father. (AUDIO: Escape from Kaldor)

She trained at Kaldor City Hospital, where she was mentored by Arak Varren. During her final cadaver exam, her hands shook so much that she could barely hold her laser scalpel. (AUDIO: The Robots of Life) Upon qualifying, she looked to have herself assigned to long-term postings away from Kaldor. (AUDIO: Escape from Kaldor) As a result, she was away working when her father died. She blamed herself, believing that she would not have misdiagnosed him as the med-tech had, and was upset that she was never able to say goodbye. (AUDIO: Absent Friends)

Kal's funeral was paid for by Tula, who did not attend. This left Liv bitter and she cut contact with her for ten years, feeling abandoned. However, she did not hate her sister. (AUDIO: Escape from Kaldor)

Encounter with the Seventh Doctor
Liv served aboard the Lorelei cargo spaceship. She encountered the Seventh Doctor shortly before a group of Voc robots began to attack the crew of her ship. She helped the Doctor to discover that the Voc robots were not behind the attacks, and found that it was actually the ship's security chief, Farel, dressed as a robot when instigating an attack. Liv and the Doctor then prevented Farel from crashing the Lorelei into Ventalis. Liv stayed behind on Ventalis after the Doctor had departed. (AUDIO: Robophobia)

The Doctor's TARDIS took a liking to Liv during this encounter and talked with the Doctor afterwards. She asked the Doctor if he could take on Liv as his companion to which he replied, "Another time perhaps, but not now." (AUDIO: Black and White)

Following the events on the Lorelei, Liv wrote a debrief and signed a non-disclosure agreement. (AUDIO: Escape from Kaldor)

Meeting the Eighth Doctor
Liv was present on Nixyce VII when the Daleks invaded. She was used by the Dalek Time Controller to be a source of compassion amongst the natives of Nixyce VII. It was here she encountered the Doctor for the second time, although she did not recognise him at first because he had regenerated since they last met. Eventually she was convinced of his identity and she helped him with his plans to turn the Daleks against an Eminence fleet nearby. (AUDIO: The Traitor)

Liv eventually fled the Dalek invasion in the bowels of a cargo ship, but suffered severe radiation poisoning which compromised her metabolism and condemned her to death, be it through embolism or renal failure, whichever would strike first. Because of this, (AUDIO: The Reviled) she signed up as a med-tech on the science vessel Orpheus and went into cryo-sleep on board for a thousand years.

She awoke when the Orpheus had reached the edge of the universe. Liv once again met the Doctor on board the Orpheus, shortly before it came under attack from the Eminence, and it began to possess the crew. Liv planned on blowing herself up next to a piece of the Eminence in order to stop its plan, but was rescued by the Doctor and Molly O'Sullivan. She promptly joined them on their adventures. (AUDIO: Time's Horizon)

Travels with the Eighth Doctor and Molly O'Sullivan
Liv travelled with the Doctor and Molly to London (AUDIO: Eyes of the Master) in 1972. (AUDIO: Lost Property) There she helped defeat who was attempting to exploit the Eminence. After they were defeated, the Doctor made Liv and Molly stay behind in London at his home in Baker Street, due the fact that they had met out of order — he had to play out the events in which Liv first met him on Nixyce VII. (AUDIO: Eyes of the Master)

After months in Baker Street, Liv became accustomed to living there. One day she had an unusually clear dream of the Doctor in a rose garden asking for her help. He told her to find the fourth tree and knock four times, so she could find the Damascus project. Waking up, Liv found Molly in a trance-like state and quickly ascertained everyone else in the city was in the same condition. Wandering through London, she encountered Lila in Regent’s Park. After realising Liv was not a threat, Lila used psychic visions to explain that she was an alien fugitive who had caused the trances with a listlessness field so she could escape the Milieu, which had come to Earth looking for her. Liv helped Lila find the Damascus project from the Doctor’s cryptic directions, where they found technology stolen from Lilla’s father which she could use to escape. After she left the field lifted so Liv returned to Baker Street, telling a Milieu she encountered that he was too late. That night she had another dream of the Doctor where he just smiled. The next day Liv felt compelled to make a recording in which she relayed the adventure to her late father. (AUDIO: The World Beyond the Trees)

When Molly disappeared, Liv suspected the worst and was able to fashion a crude communications device from the technology of the era, and sent out a distress call which was intercepted by Coordinator Narvin of the Celestial Intervention Agency. (AUDIO: The Death of Hope)

Liv was later sent to Ramosa by Narvin to help the Doctor fight the Master and the Eminence. There she worked to improve the conditions of the humans refugees of the Eminence War who had settled there, alongside the native scorpion-like Ramossans, who began to despise their visitors and the danger they placed them in. When the humans were isolated into a "quarantine camp", Liv worked to make conditions livable and acted as a medic to the injured, while waiting for the Doctor to arrive. Once he did, together, they worked out a way to make sure the humans escaped an incoming Eminence attack, however, their plan failed resulting in the complete destruction of the Ramossans, their world, and the Master securing the refugees for his own purposes. (AUDIO: The Reviled)

Scared by the Doctor's determination to avert the war, but willing to go along with him, she snuck aboard the private research complex of Professor Markus Schriver, the man responsible for the eventual creation of the Eminence itself, and posed as an assistant sent to him by the Ides Scientific Institute. She became concerned by his mental health but facilitated a meeting between him and the Doctor, which only reinforced the fact he was slowly losing his sanity. Her cover was blown by the arrival of Dr. Sally Armstrong, working for the Master, and she would have died during a neural extraction procedure if Shriver's insanity hadn't caused him to trap Sally inside a second chamber and program the computer to decide which one would undergo the procedure through random chance. Due to her condition, Liv was ready for death, but in the end survived when the computer "chose" Sally instead. She was then taken by the Master instead to play nursemaid to Molly, who was suffering from the mental conditioning and retro-genitor particles that Master had assaulted her with. (AUDIO: Masterplan)

Liv was present on Earth as the Master set up his final endgame, with the eventual result that all of humanity was slave to his will, only able to keep Molly stable and calm during her moments of wakefulness. When Narvin, working with the Doctor, tried to rescue her, she tried to shoot the Master with a hidden firearm, but his hypnotic abilities caused her to believe she was finally succumbing to her illness. However, the Master revealed it was all in her mind, and that her continuous exposure to the particles inside Molly had in fact cured her of the radiation poisoning.

She was eventually rescued from the Master's grasp by the Doctor, and sent by him to take control of a nearby television communications hub, which proved essential to ending the Master's control over the Earth, and defeating the Eminence in the here and now. Afterwards, she was invited on board the TARDIS as a full-fledged companion, even being given a TARDIS key of her own, and said her farewells to Molly, who was to be sent home by Narvin for her own protection. (AUDIO: Rule of the Eminence)

Travelling with just the Eighth Doctor
She visited London 1921 when the Doctor was looking for Molly. She hated looking out of place in her usual attire, so wore clothes of the era. The Doctor then asked her to take Martin Donaldson out on the town. When Martin took her to see a Buster Keaton film she pointed out the flaws in it. The Woman was looking for her. (AUDIO: A Life in the Day)

She went to Paris with the Doctor when he tracked the TARDIS there. She talked to Georges Legrand which led her to Adelaine Dutemps. She kicked down the Doctor's artist friend's apartment door. She told the Dalek Time Controller about the outcome of The Eminence war. (AUDIO: The Monster of Montmartre)

Liv was disgusted that was working with the Daleks. She got used to being taken prisoner by the Daleks. She expected the Master of being better than using the Daleks. She attacked the Master with the perfume the Doctor had given her in Paris, and stole his Tissue Compression Eliminator. She went to Moscow with him to find the Doctor. She blew Molly O'Sullivan's cover there. (AUDIO: Master of the Daleks)

She became worried after Molly became ill after they arrived in the Eye of Orion. The Time Controller then took her to see Markus Schriver's final experiments. She witnessed the birth of the Eminence. The Dalek Time Controller wanted her to transfer his mind into the gasses the Eminence were composed of; she wouldn't. She wanted the Dalek Time Controller to die to save billions. She took Molly home after her sacrifice. (AUDIO: Eye of Darkness)

With the Doctor, she visited several England-themed planets. (AUDIO: Absent Friends)

Hunt for the Eleven
After years of travelling with the Doctor, (AUDIO: Absent Friends) Liv visited Gallifrey when Cardinal Padrac summoned the TARDIS from Destrana for help tracking down the escaped Eleven. She was able to see the Eleven due to her immunity as a human to the eye filter and searched Kiani's room at the Time Lord Academy with Padrac, later taking Padrac's place as the Eleven's hostage. Once freed, she joined the Doctor in hunting him down. (AUDIO: The Eleven)

Tracking a temporal anomaly in 1963 London, Liv met Helen Sinclair and was the one to realise that the red lady was present in all of the written pieces in her office. She was able to save herself from death by writing a poem about the red lady, after which Helen joined them on their travels. (AUDIO: The Red Lady)

The crew searched for Galileo Galilei in 1639 Italy and, after the Doctor was captured by Cleaver, Liv and Helen joined Cavalli 2 and investigated the mercenaries' ship with him. (AUDIO: The Galileo Trap)

On Phaiton, Liv and Helen were put to work and escaped the Orbs by causing a spillage. They were found and taken captive by the Eleven, managing to escape from the Orbs thanks to Paine bringing them the sonic screwdriver before dying in Liv's arms. The two escorted the factory's workers into the TARDIS, which dematerialised and saved the Doctor, who said that they deserved a holiday. (AUDIO: The Satanic Mill)

Freeing the Sonomancer
The Doctor took Liv and Helen to Stegmoor for peace and quiet, only to be immediately be caught in a flood. Whilst Helen looked after the unconscious Doctor in Phillipa Gregson's house, Liv went towards the village with Matilda before running over Scout Ship Commander Ishtek and taking her back to the house. Liv, the Doctor and Helen investigated her ship and were saved from the Voord by the police. (AUDIO: Beachhead)

In an antique TARDIS, Liv and Helen found Caleera and tried to remove her from the neural amplifier. Liv left Helen with her to find the Doctor and instead found prisoners whom she managed to save by stealing the keys from Swordfish. She told the Doctor that they had been tricked when he successfully got Caleera out of the machine. (AUDIO: Scenes From Her Life)

Following Caleera, the TARDIS landed in 1906 San Francisco. Liv and Helen went looking for the Doctor after he left for a haircut and were eventually taken hostage Aldo Deluca, who demanded the Gift from Charles Virgil McLean. Liv was buried under rubble by the earthquake and tended to in the TARDIS by Helen. (AUDIO: The Gift)

Tracking the Gift on Syra, Liv and the Doctor climbed the volcano, finding bodies and the Eleven. Liv managed to trick the Eleven into following her instead of the Doctor and fought with him in mechanical mining suits, later being saved by River Song. The two locked him in a mining capsule. (AUDIO: The Sonomancer)

The clock and the Crucible
In 1998, Liv covered for Helen to allow her to go to London and find out what happened to her family. She and the Doctor investigated Superville Com, breaking into their office after Liv received a phonecall from her father which she believed to be fake. Upon finding out that it was genuine, she used it as an opportunity to say a proper goodbye to him and to tell him how much he meant to her. (AUDIO: Absent Friends)

The Doctor left Liv in 15th century Prague to find a piece of the Doomsday Chronometer. Meeting Apolena and River, Liv investigated the Clocksmith and detected a piece in his workshop, handing over the ticket for Midge's lost property office where the Doctor hid the piece they found in Calcot once the Clocksmith threatened Apolena. (AUDIO: The Eighth Piece)

The Clocksmith killed Apolena and was going to kill Liv before she was saved by River and taken to 2016 Rome where they joined the Doctor and Helen and witnessed the completion of the Chronometer. Liv and Helen assumed that the Doctor was dead when the Science Museum collapsed until they entered the TARDIS and saw the Nine, whom they believed to be his next incarnation. (AUDIO: The Doomsday Chronometer)

Liv was more suspicious of the Nine than Helen, leading him to leave her behind in the archives after stealing Time Lord information and weapons. She met with Cardinal Padrac and, after realising that he was part of the Doom Coalition, was stunned by him and taken to the Crucible of Souls. He ejected Liv, the Doctor and Helen into the Time Vortex in an escape shuttle. (AUDIO: The Crucible of Souls)

Defeating the Doom Coalition
Whilst the Doctor and Helen were more willing to give up on trying to escape the Vortex, Liv was optimistic and refused to give up, also making sure to stand up to the Doctor on Helen's behalf. The three managed to escape, with Liv and Helen arriving in the middle of space in their pressure suits, setting off a temporal flare in the hope of being rescued. (AUDIO: Ship in a Bottle)

Liv and Helen were saved by a vortex sphere sent by Volstrom and went to 25th century London, stealing a skimmer to leave the planet before the Doom Coalition's cataclysm. They were teleported to Gallifrey by River and left in the Doctor's TARDIS with Veklin, finally joined by the Doctor once River entered the Matrix. (AUDIO: Songs of Love)

In 1970s New York City, Liv and Helen visited the City Museum and were locked in a room with a Weeping Angel by. Liv used Promethean Everlasting Matches to keep alive until they were saved by Veklin and Joanie Carrington, allowing Liv to fly a helicopter to get herself and Helen to safety. On the roof of the planning office, Liv took the Eleven's staser. (AUDIO: The Side of the Angels)

On Gallifrey, the Doctor tasked Liv and Councillor Alekall with destroying the transduction barriers. After hearing Caleera's voice, Liv instead chose to destroy the Capitol shields before returning to the TARDIS and saving the Doctor and Padrac once the Resonance Engine was destroyed. Liv spent some time on Gallifrey looking after the wounded before the Doctor detected a trace of the Battle TARDIS that Helen and the Eleven were on, suggesting they could be alive. (AUDIO: Stop the Clock)

Searching for Helen
While the TARDIS calculated the route taken by the Battle TARDIS Helen was in, the Eighth Doctor was summoned by Winston Churchill to investigate a mysterious abnormality to which the RAF were losing pilots. Liv ended up flying through the breach and was used by the Heliyon as a bargaining chip against the Doctor, who thought Liv was dead. After defeating the Heliyon, Liv was saddened to hear about the death of the pilot with whom she was a prisoner, calling his death a waste. (AUDIO: Their Finest Hour)

The Doctor and Liv followed Helen's trail, but were dragged off course by a disturbance in the vortex, caused by the experiments of Cornelius Morningstar. After Morningstar's scientific consultant, Stralla Cushing, killed him, Liv and the Doctor worked to find her. (AUDIO: How to Make a Killing in Time Travel)

When the TARDIS finally tracked down Helen, the Doctor and Liv ended up at Rykerzon, a prison, where Liv was interrogated. She was broken out by inmates attempting to escape the Kandyman. Then, she and the Doctor finally reunited with Helen, who had also been an inmate there with the Eleven. (AUDIO: World of Damnation) The Doctor was initially sceptical that Helen was still the same person that they knew, but Liv was convinced by her. After defeating the Eleven and the Kandyman, Liv and the Doctor happily welcomed Helen back on board the TARDIS. (AUDIO: Sweet Salvation)

Return to Kaldor
Seeking a holiday after recent events, the Eighth Doctor took Liv and Helen to the opening of a new leisure centre on Kaldor, hoping to also arrange a reunion between Liv and her sister Tula. After a distraction caused by an aborted attempt to rob the complex that reverted the robots to a setting where they would destroy all life in the complex as part of an early attempt at pest control, Liv decided to remain on Kaldor for a year to patch things up with her sister, arranging to rejoin the Doctor and Helen later after they travelled forward in time by one year after saying goodbye to her.

At the end of her year on Kaldor, Liv returned to where the TARDIS had left and rejoined the Doctor and Helen, telling them that she would tell them about her experiences there later. (AUDIO: Escape from Kaldor)

Back with the Doctor
The Doctor took Liv and Helen to experience the Christmas season in Salzburg, arriving on Krampusnacht. As Christmas was not celebrated on Kaldor, Helen showed Liv around and explained the holiday to her. The three became aware of the presence of Krampus and were able to defeat it, (AUDIO: Better Watch Out/Fairytale of Salzburg) with Liv using her one wish to have Artron (AUDIO: Day of the Master) restore Helen's youth after she spent decades learning to fly the TARDIS. (AUDIO: Better Watch Out/Fairytale of Salzburg)

The three materialised on a dying TARDIS after receiving a distress call from the Eleven, although Liv had no sympathy for him and did not wish to save him. They encountered one of the Ravenous, which chased Liv but was far more interested in the Doctor and the Eleven. The trio ended up on a nearby planetoid after escaping the TARDIS and were transported away by Rasmus. (AUDIO: Seizure)

Given her history with Time Lords, Liv asked Rasmus up-front if he was evil. On the Deeptime Frontier, she and the Doctor attempted a number of methods to destroy the corpse of a Ravenous, each failing. Liv and Helen were led into a TARDIS by the Nine, believing that it was the Doctor, (AUDIO: Deeptime Frontier) and were incarcerated as part of his collection.

Liv and Helen teamed up with fellow companions Charlotte Pollard, Bliss and their old friend River to escape their confinement, managing to defeat the Nine thanks to Katarina. They were picked up by the Doctor and the Eleven. (AUDIO: Companion Piece)

Seeking answers to the Ravenous, Liv, the Doctor, Helen and the Eleven went in search of Professor Marathanga (AUDIO: L.E.G.E.N.D.) and, later, the gateway to the Ravenous's prison on a Time Lord outpost. Liv was entirely distrustful of the Eleven, who claimed to have lost his other personalities and joined them as a companion. (AUDIO: The Odds Against)

Due to the Eleven's presence, Liv began to consider that she might leave the TARDIS, with Helen agreeing to join her should she decide to do so. The two discovered that the Eleven had been lying about the disappearance of his other personalities. (AUDIO: Whisper)

The Eleven asked to be taken to Parrak to live as a hermit. On the planet, the TARDIS team encountered, who was eaten by the Ravenous. (AUDIO: Planet of Dust)

Whilst Helen was kidnapped by, Liv met the , believing him to be a Time Lord agent. After exhausting his use of her, he shot her and she regenerated thanks to the Eleven's use of the Crucible of Souls to make food for the Ravenous. She later lost the ability and, after the Eleven was defeated, left in the TARDIS with Helen and the Doctor, who said that they would be stranded due to damage sustained by the TARDIS. (AUDIO: Day of the Master)

Stranded in 2020
Stranded in 2020 London, Liv, Helen and the Doctor moved into 107 Baker Street where Liv met and befriended Tania Bell. Six weeks after arriving, she and Helen encountered the Curator twice, once at the TARDIS and again in a cafe. Helen encouraged her to get a job to help them pay the bills. She was unable to use her medical knowledge to get a job due to her inexperience with 21st century, medicine (AUDIO: Lost Property) but was able to get a job as a cashier at Sanjit's convenience store thanks to housemates Aisha and Zakia Akhtar.

At the shop, Liv attempted to take a robber's gun, resulting in herself and Sanjit being shot. Unlike Sanjit, Liv survived and was taken to the hospital where, after becoming conscious, Tania invited her to dinner on a date, to which she accepted. To cover up being from the future, she had to pretend to need crutches and physiotherapy. (AUDIO: Wild Animals)

Liv met Andy Davidson when he came to the house looking for Tania and later followed him to Church Street where they saw Mr Bird, who disappeared after the MedTech building exploded. Liv helped with the casualties and, after returning home, shared a meal with Tania and agreed that they should have a "don't ask, don't tell" rule with regards to their respective secrets. (AUDIO: Must-See TV)

The Doctor intruded upon Liv and Tania's plans for dinner by inviting the entire house after he won £80,000 on You Either Know It or You Don't, irking Liv. She chased after the Rakilians with Helen, Tania and Andy and gave the Doctor CPR after he was shot. Following his revival and the Rakilians' banishment, she decided to tell Tania and Robin Bright-Thompson who she, Helen and the Doctor were. (AUDIO: Divine Intervention)

Legacy
The Tenth Doctor told Gabby Gonzalez about Liv, along with several other former companions. (COMIC: Vortex Butterflies)

Personality
On Kaldor, Liv felt that she did not belong and longed to explore the universe. (AUDIO: Escape from Kaldor) She was full of life when she was younger, but her life got hard and her struggles changed her. By the time that she was travelling with the Doctor, she said that she was not sure if she "actually [did] fun". (AUDIO: A Life in the Day)

Liv was smart (AUDIO: Companion Piece), sarcastic and liked to be in control. (AUDIO: Escape from Kaldor) Around the Doctor she was particularly sardonic, which occasionally led to people asking if they actually liked each other. (AUDIO: Their Finest Hour) She said that people generally liked her after getting to know her. (AUDIO: Sweet Salvation)

Liv found romantic situations uncomfortable, not being used to them. (AUDIO: A Life in the Day, Their Finest Hour, Baker Street Irregulars) When the Doctor said that Liv was good at diplomacy, she asked if he had ever met her. (AUDIO: How to Make a Killing in Time Travel) She was willing to sacrifice her own life to save others (AUDIO: Time's Horizon) and insisted that the Doctor let Molly do just that. (AUDIO: Eye of Darkness)

Liv was suspicious of the Nine when he impersonated the Doctor (AUDIO: The Crucible of Souls) and distrustful of the Eleven when he was travelling with them. The Doctor believed that she was an excellent judge of character (AUDIO: L.E.G.E.N.D.) and she bemoaned that she was always the one who stumbled upon surprise villains. (AUDIO: The Odds Against) She had also been the one to realise that Padrac was part of the Doom Coalition. (AUDIO: The Crucible of Souls)

She did not like snow and was initially resistant to embracing Christmas spirit. (AUDIO: Better Watch Out)

described Liv as being delightful but dreary. (AUDIO: Eyes of the Master) The Eleven admired her honesty and claimed to "almost" like her. (AUDIO: Whisper)

Behind the scenes
Along with Thomas Brewster, Evelyn Smythe and Charlotte Pollard, Liv is one of four companions created by Big Finish Productions to be depicted travelling with or meeting two incarnations of the Doctor.

Лив Ченка