Liz Shaw (Doctor Who)

Liz Shaw
Doctor Who character
Liz by the River Thames in a promotional photograph for Doctor Who
First appearance	Spearhead from Space
Last appearance	Inferno (regular) "Dimensions in Time" (charity special)
Portrayed by	Caroline John Hazel Burrows (DVD spinoff)
Information
Affiliated	Third Doctor UNIT
Species	Human
Home planet	Earth
Home era	20th century

Elizabeth "Liz" Shaw is a fictional character played by Caroline John in the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who and its spin-offs. A civilian member of UNIT - United Nations Intelligence Taskforce (later retitled: UNified Intelligence Taskforce), an international organisation that defends the Earth from alien threats, she was the companion of the Third Doctor for the 1970 season. Liz appeared in 4 stories (25 episodes).

Liz Shaw first appears in the first serial of the seventh season (1970), Spearhead from Space, having been drafted from the University of Cambridge by Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart as a scientific advisor to UNIT. She is an accomplished scientist, an expert on meteorites with degrees in medicine, physics and a dozen other subjects. Her extensive training, however, is still pale in comparison to the Doctor's own knowledge of the universe and scientific principles far beyond those of Earth. Sceptical at first of UNIT's ambit to defend against alien invasion, Shaw changes her mind when she encounters the newly regenerated Doctor and becomes involved in defeating the plans of the Nestene Consciousness and its animated plastic Autons.

Liz continues to work with the Doctor and UNIT through encounters with the Silurians, the so-called Ambassadors of Death and the Inferno project, where the Doctor also encountered Section Leader Elizabeth Shaw, an alternative version of the scientist in a parallel universe. She eventually resigns from UNIT and returns to Cambridge; there was no "farewell scene" on screen for Liz, with her departure simply being announced by the Brigadier at the beginning of Terror of the Autons. She reportedly told the Brigadier that all the Doctor really needed was someone to pass him his test tubes and tell him how brilliant he was.