Sharon (Doctor Who)

Sharon (last name not given) is a fictional character who appeared in the Doctor Who Magazine comic strip based on the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who. She was a companion of the Fourth Doctor. Sharon was introduced in Doctor Who and the Star Beast, which ran in issues #19-#26 of Doctor Who Weekly (as it then was), written by Pat Mills and John Wagner, and drawn by Dave Gibbons. She was a secondary school student living in the city of Blackcastle, England. She was the first non-white companion, albeit not on television.

Character history

One night, a spacecraft crash-landed in Blackcastle, bringing with it the intergalactic tyrant Beep the Meep. The Meep was fleeing the galactic law enforcers called the Wrarth, but he used his appearance as a cute, furry alien to gain Sharon's sympathy. Sharon sheltered Beep for a time, and it was while doing this that she met the Doctor. Beep's ruse was eventually uncovered and he was handed over to the Wrarth, and the Doctor prepared to take Sharon back to Earth.

However, at this time the TARDIS was being particularly unreliable, so the Doctor and Sharon shared several adventures on the way. Together with the Doctor, Sharon faced the Daleks, the Sontarans and Brimo the Time Witch, among others. During the encounter with Brimo, a fault in the TARDIS's chrono-compensator made everyone in the time machine age four years in an instant while passing through a time rift. While this did not affect the Doctor significantly, Sharon was suddenly in her early twenties. Not having been fond of being an adolescent, however, she was quite pleased with the results.

Eventually, Sharon and the Doctor arrived on the planet Unicepter IV. Since the Doctor's last visit, a new fad of dreaming had arisen, with professional dreamers who would construct dream worlds in which groups of people could participate in a shared fantasy. This was facilitated by the Slinth, telepathic sloth-like creatures that perched on the dreamers' shoulders and made it possible to connect multiple minds to a single dreamer. It transpired, however, that the Slinth were actually psychic vampires, and had been leeching energy off the minds of the dreamers until they were strong enough to mass for an attack. During these events, Sharon met a dreamer named Vernor, and after the Doctor defeated the Slinth, she chose to remain behind on Unicepter IV to be with him.

Other appearances

The Doctor did intend to return to Unicepter IV to attend her wedding but ended up landing in Blackcastle instead, where he once again encountered Beep the Meep (The Star Beast II, Doctor Who Magazine Yearbook 1996). An image of Sharon constructed by the TARDIS to help destroy a Vortex parasite appeared in the Eighth Doctor comic strip A Life of Matter and Death (DWM #250).

In the comic book Incomplete Death's Head #5, as part of the profile on "Doctor Who", her name was given as Sharon Davies. The accuracy of this information is not known.

External links

• Sharon Davies on TARDIS Data Core, an external wiki
• blackcastle.co.uk — a fan site devoted to Sharon’s life on Unicepter IV featuring many other Doctor Who comic characters