Diana Goddard (usually just called Goddard) was the highly efficient and ruthless personal assistant to Henry van Statten. Over the course of just one day in 2012, her career path went from replacing the old assistant to taking over GeoComTex, van Statten's company.
Goddard had a sardonic sense of humour, much like her employer. She found the Democratic Party "funny" and hoped that they would win the next Presidential election, an event over which van Statten implied he had control.
Goddard told the Ninth Doctor to "shut it" before recognising him as an ally. Van Statten accorded her a rare degree of respect. After the Doctor and Rose Tyler had destroyed the Dalek let loose in the Vault, Goddard orchestrated a corporate palace coup of sorts and took over from van Statten, demonstrating her ruthlessness by ordering his memory erased and her former boss dumped on a street corner in some city starting with the letter "S".
While ruthless and good at her job, she was not without a heart and was utterly horrified at van Statten deeming his soldiers "dispensable" and not experiencing any regret over causing the deaths of 200 personnel. (TV: Dalek)
Personality and traits
Diana Goddard was a ruthless, highly efficient and cold-blooded businesswoman. She was also not afraid to voice her opinion or stand up to her boss, earning her a degree of respect from him. Even when confronted by a Dalek that had exterminated 200 people, she remained calm and did not panic. The only exception to this was when the Dalek drained power from the base and seven states in the US, where she lost some of her cool. When van Statten revealed his opinion that his personnel were "dispensable", she was horrified, even more so when the Dalek killed most of the base's personnel that tried to stop it. When she initiated a hostile takeover of GeoComTex, she ordered her boss' memory wiped and him dumped in a city starting with the letter "S" with a satisfied smile on her face. She also understood the dangers of the alien technology contained within the Vault, ordering the place sealed with cement to stop it from falling into the wrong hands and erasing it from existence. (TV: Dalek)
Behind the scenes
- In the online game The Last Dalek, which presents an alternate version of the events of Dalek, Diana Goddard does not appear, but she has an entry in the Dalek's memory files. She is described as; "Female subject. Age 25. American. Working her way to Van Statten's upper ranks. Calculating and professional."
- Dalek writer Rob Shearman named Goddard after his wife Jane Goddard, who acted in Jubilee (on which Dalek was based), as an in-joke.
