Leela (Doctor Who)
| Leela | |
|---|---|
| Doctor Who character | |
 Leela of the Sevateem |
|
| First appearance | The Face of Evil |
| Last appearance |
The Invasion of Time (regular) "Dimensions in Time" (charity special) |
| Portrayed by | Louise Jameson |
| Information | |
| Affiliated | Fourth Doctor |
| Species | Human |
| Home planet | Unspecified |
| Home era | Far future |
Leela is a fictional character played by Louise Jameson in the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who. Leela was a companion of the Fourth Doctor and a regular in the programme from 1977 to 1978. Writer Chris Boucher named her after the Palestinian hijacker Leila Khaled. Leela appeared in 9 stories (40 episodes).
Leela was the daughter of Sole. She first appears in the 1977 serial, The Face of Evil, where she was a warrior of the savage Sevateem tribe, who were amongst the descendants of the crew of an Earth ship from The Mordee Expedition that crash-landed on an unnamed planet in the far future. The name of her tribe, "Sevateem", was a corruption of "survey team". Although the Doctor at this point was content to travel alone, Leela barged into the TARDIS and continued to accompany the Doctor on his journeys.
Although Leela was a primitive, she was also highly intelligent, grasping advanced concepts easily and translating them into terms she could cope with. Despite the Doctor's attempts at "civilizing" her, however, Leela was strong-willed enough to continue in her ways. She usually dressed in animal skins, and was armed with a knife or a set of poisonous Janis thorns which she did not hesitate to use on people who threatened her, much to the Doctor's disapproval. Leela frequently demonstrated a highly accurate sense of danger.
In her travels with the Doctor, Leela faced killer robots, murderous homunculi, the Rutan Host, and the Sontaran invasion of the Doctor's home planet of Gallifrey. It is during this final adventure, The Invasion of Time, that she meets and falls in love with Andred, a native Gallifreyan, and decides to stay behind to be with him. The first K-9 remains with her. This exit for her character was created when Louise had announced her intention to leave the show.
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