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She is a Time Lord (or Time Lady), an extraterrestrial race from the planet Gallifrey, and was a companion to the Fourth Doctor, played by Tom Baker. As a Time Lady, she was able to regenerate, and therefore the character had two incarnations with somewhat different personalities. These different incarnations have been dubbed Romana I and Romana II by fans. Romana I was played by Mary Tamm , who chose not to sign on for a second season, despite optimistic prodding on the part of the show’s producers. Romana II was played by Lalla Ward, who in real life married and divorced her co-star Tom Baker, and is now married to the scientist Richard Dawkins.
Romana was originally assigned to assist the Doctor during the quest for the Key to Time, which was a series of linked serials which constituted the whole of Season 16 ( 1978- 79). Romana I first appeared in The Ribos Operation , and was intended to be a contrast to the savage LeelaFor the Futurama character, see Turanga Leela. Leela is a term from Hinduism meaning divine play of the Lord. Leela is a fictional character in the science fiction television series Doctor Who played by actress Louise Jameson. Hinduism. who was her predecessor. Romana I was played as haughty and somewhat arrogant, looking down upon the Doctor who she considered to be her academic inferior. Romana I, however, soon gained a appreciation for the Doctor's real world experiences. Over the course of Season 16, Romana I appeared to take some of the characteristics of the screaming damsel in distress, much to the annoyance of the actress who played her.
At the start of Season 17, Romana regenerated into Romana II, emerging with a different physical appearance and a lighter personality than before. In real life, Mary Tamm left the show to be replaced by Lalla Ward.
Romana II's introduction in Destiny of the Daleks , a script credited to Terry NationTerry Nation (born August 8 1930, Cardiff, Wales, UK; died March 9 1997, Los Angeles, California, United States) was a British television screenwriter and is probably best known for creating the Daleks for the long-running science fiction television serie, but with several additions and alterations by Douglas Adams, has long been controversial, mainly because of its casual approach to the subject or regeneration. At the beginning of the serial, Romana changes bodily forms several times, rather like someone casually trying on different outfits, before deciding to take the form of Princess Astra, who had been played by Lalla Ward in the final serial of Season 16, The Armageddon Factor . The controversy arises from the fact that the Doctor's own regenerations have usually been traumatic events, and it had been previously established that Time Lords were limited to twelve regenerations.
In actuality, the sudden regeneration scene was dictated by real life events. Although Mary Tamm had left the show on relatively good terms and did not object to returning for a brief regeneration scene, by the start of Session 17, Tamm was very visibly pregnant, making her return impractical.
Many of the scripts written in Season 17 were edited by Douglas AdamsDouglas Noel Adams ( March 11, 1952 May 11, 2001) also known as Bop Ad or Bob after his illegible signature, or by his initials DNA was a British comic radio dramatist and author, most notably of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy HHGG . Education and e. Adams was criticised by some fans for introducing too much of the sort of humorous content that served him well in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the GalaxyThe Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy was first and foremost a 1978 radio comedy series written by Douglas Adams. This was followed by a series of novels, a television series and a computer game. A film version is due in theaters in 2005. Although the vari into the season on which he served as the script editor. However, other fans consider some of Adams' scripts to be among the series' high points.
Romana II enjoyed a more intimate relationship with The Doctor than her predecessor, to the point that fans have assumed a romantic relationship with the Doctor. Although a relationship was never explicitly shown or intended by the writers, many fans have found the signs of a romantic relationship particularly evident in the story City of DeathDoctor Who serials City of Death is a four-episode serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who''. It first aired in 1979 with Tom Baker as the Doctor, Lalla Ward as Romana, and Julian Glover as the villainous Scaroth, and featured c, perhaps reflecting the real-life romance between Tom Baker and Lalla Ward.
Her final television appearance was in Warrior's Gate , where she left the Doctor with the robot dog K-9K-9 has a variety of entries, all related to dogs, by virtue of the pronunciation being similar to 'canine'. K-9 is the US military designation for war dogs, also used by departments of the police that use dogs in their work. K-9 is the name of several ro to forge her own path in the parallel universe of E-space. She also appeared briefly in The Five Doctors through the reuse of footage from the uncompleted story Shada. Shada itself was remade as an audio play accompanied by Macromedia Flash animations and Romana was once again played by Lalla Ward.
Outside of the television programme, the character has made appearances in spin-off novels published by Virgin Publishing and BBC Books, and in Doctor Who audio plays produced by Big Finish as well as a separate series of audio plays produced by BBV. It should be noted that the canonicity of these spin-off stories is disputed.
In the BBV series Lalla Ward plays a character who appears with K-9 in a parallel universe. This character is called the Mistress (which was what K-9 called her in the television series). Because of the copyright situation in which BBV was able to license K-9 but not Romana, the Mistress is not explicitly called Romana.
In the licensed Virgin Missing Adventures novel Goth Opera, Romana is given a seat on the High Council of time Lords, and subsequently becomes Lady President of Gallifrey. Her presidency is reflected in the later novels and in her audio appearances (also voiced by Ward). In some of the audio appearances Ward co-stars with other incarnations of the Doctor. Ward herself has been very active in Doctor Who fandom.
In the Big Finish adventure Zagreus, Romana is forced to banish the Eighth Doctor into a parallel universe. Following this, she is featured in a number of audio plays with Leela, played by Louise Jamison .
In the BBC Eighth Doctor Adventures, Romana undergoes a third regeneration, and her new incarnation (Romana III) is far less sympathetic and far more ruthless than the other two. This third regeneration pursues the Eighth Doctor in a story arc which results in the obliteration of Gallifrey. At this point, it is unclear how the continuities of the novels and the audio plays can be reconciled, if at all.