Penny Carter

Penny Carter was a journalist who worked as science correspondent for The Observer.

She investigated Adipose Industries, so as to verify her scepticism about their new diet pill, and witnessed a little creature made of fat - an Adipose. She escaped with no evidence after the Tenth Doctor unintentionally thwarted her investigation at every turn, which she resented him for.

Over the following years, she questioned her mental state, but came to the conclusion that what she saw was alien. She refused to go public with her experience, believing that people would think she was crazy.

Biography
Science correspondent for The Observer, Penny Carter attended a press conference at Adipose Industries in the 2000s. She was sceptical about their diet pill, uncovering the fact that their results had been faked. Attempting to investigate further, Penny stayed at Adipose Industries till after closing time, hidden in a toilet stall, but was discovered by Miss Foster — thus saving Donna, who was hiding in a stall nearby as part of her own investigations into the company.

Miss Foster took Penny to an office, and her security men tied her into a chair. There, she witnessed a little creature made of fat. She was later released by the Tenth Doctor and warned to get out, but stayed behind to collect files for her story and ended up getting tied up again. When Miss Foster set the inducer, she told Penny to mark the date: "Happy birthday; so many birthdays". After the March of the Adipose, Penny escaped (still tied to her chair) and told the Doctor and Donna Noble that she would report them for "madness"; Donna pointed out that "some people just can't take it" (alien intervention), to which the Doctor agreed. (TV: Partners in Crime)

Penny was furious with the Doctor for ruining her investigation. She questioned her own mental state, but came to the conclusion that what she saw was alien. Despite being a journalist, she refused to go public with her experience, believing that people would think she was crazy.

Penny still worked for The Observer in 2022. She met Cleo Proctor in Soho, where she was interviewed about the Adipose Industries incident. Despite Penny's girlfriend saying that she had the memory of an elephant, she could remember remarkably few details about the Doctor himself. Cleo spoke about the odd situation with her friends, noting that it was like the Doctor had been redacted from her memory. (AUDIO: SOS)

Later, when Cleo attempted to contact Penny to request she waver her anonymity, her signal was cut off by a strange distortion. (AUDIO: Hysteria) Penny had disappeared shortly after meeting Cleo, (AUDIO: Interrogation) due to a psychic virus which had infected the Thirteenth Doctor and was erasing people who had had contact with her. The Doctor and Cleo eventually restored the disappeared. (AUDIO: Salvation)

Behind the scenes

 * According to The Writer's Tale, before Catherine Tate requested to reprise her role as Donna Noble, Russell T Davies wrote a character called Penny Carter to be the Tenth Doctor's new companion beginning with Partners in Crime. This character was scrapped when Tate was granted her request to reappear as Donna, and "Penny Carter" was later used as the name of the journalist who was investigating Adipose Industries.
 * In his early notes regarding the character of Penny (reproduced in The Writer's Tale), Davies described her as being in her 30s and Donna Noble-esque, even a bit of a klutz.