I saw Janet Fielding at a Doctor Who convention years ago. She was asked about the way she left the series which, it was said, “was notable because companions usually leave by getting married to someone wildly inappropriate.” Quick as you like, Fielding replied, “No, that’s what I did in real life.”

Fielding spent three years on Doctor Who playing the truculent Tegan. But unlike some of her TARDIS predecessors and successors, Tegan rarely attracted any romantic attention. The one time she did garner an admirer, it was creepy ethereal being Marriner (Christopher Brown).

The aptly named Marriner is an officer on an Edwardian racing yacht. Or so we think, until it’s revealed that he is one of a race of god-like Eternals, the yacht is a spacecraft and the race is around the solar system.

He gets off on the wrong foot with Tegan when she’s alone in the darkened, disabled TARDIS console room, and he climbs up its police box exterior, peering into the scanner. First his hands appear splayed across the scanned, pulling the rest of him up. Then his big ol’ boat race fills the screen in wide eyed wonder. It’s uncomfortably like the village peeping tom is looking for an unsecured window.

Once Tegan ventures outside the TARDIS, Marriner’s fixation grows. He’s a tall, blond, handsome man in uniform. Normally, he’d exactly the sort of sort a companion would strike up a flirty rapport with. But Marriner’s preternaturally calm demeanour and his unsettling stare means he makes for uncomfortable company. “You’re a stowaway,” he declares silkily to Tegan, “and I shall put you in irons.” Down boy. It’s way too soon to start mentioning your toys.

It turns out that Eternals depend on the minds of mere mortals to keep themselves entertained. But Marriner’s focus on Tegan is particularly keen. “I find you fascinating,” he keeps telling her, to Tegan’s obvious discomfort. It soon grows into an obsession. “You’re not like any ephemeral I’ve ever met before,” he wails plaintively from outside Tegan’s bedroom door.  These days we call this sort of behaviour stalking. If she had a mobile, it would be full of freaky texts: U HAVE AMAZING MIND. UR FASCIN8ING. 😳

Unsurprisingly, Tegan doesn’t respond well to this sailor turned suitor. Although it is unusual for a companion’s admirer to be rebuffed; on the whole if its not the story’s villain, then flirtations are reciprocated. Tegan, however, wants out. Half way through Part Two she asks to go back to the TARDIS, and sit the rest of the story out. “I can’t cope with Marriner,” she wails, and that’s telling enough. Alien spaceships and kidnapped humans are all in a day’s work, but too much unwanted attention from a besotted weirdo? That’s a deal breaker.

Marriner’s meant to be a platonic type of amour, only interested in Tegan for her mind. But the most time he spends with her, the more “ephemeral” his desires seem to get. “Your companion’s a very beautiful woman,” he tells the Doctor in Part Three (“Is she?” he replies offhandedly). And in Part Four he baldly tells her “I want you. Your thoughts should be my thoughts. Your feelings, my feelings.” How far would he go? Perhaps even turn human?

At the story’s end, there’s a hint that Marriner might even give up his Eternal life to be with Tegan. About to be banished back to the Eternal’s echoing void, he pleads to stay and begs Tegan for her help. Tegan’s not having a bar of it; there’s not a hint of fondness in her response: “I can’t”. Never has love for a companion been so unrequited.

But then again, perhaps we’re overlooking something. Marriner was barred entry to Tegan’s bedroom on board the yacht. Even the Doctor has to knock. But ginger ninja Turlough (Mark Strickson) bowls straight in without invitation. It’s a room he finds “quite familiar”. Perhaps he’s spent some time in it before? Ooh-er, hanky panky in the TARDIS.

*****

Turlough also gets a bit of Eternal attention, although he has to throw himself overboard to get it. He’s picked up by the crew of the Buccaneer, captained by the piratical Captain Wrack (Lynda Baron). Wrack’s entrance is a turning point for the story. Up until then, it has been a gentle, dreamy affair. When Wrack enters, via a slow pan from thigh length boots, up to flashy waistcoat barely containing ample cleavage, up to a head full of teeth and curls, we know our villain has finally shown up. With a swipe of a cutlass and a machine gun laugh, she reduces Turlough to crawling prostrate at her feet. She’s the boss, me hearties.

There’s never any hint of romance between Wrack and Turlough, although if there were, it would be of the kinky kind. “You ephemerals have such inventive ways of inflicting pain,” she coos at him at one point, having chained him to a post. Still there must be some appeal there, similar to the one Marriner feels for Tegan. She likes to read Turlough’s “devious” mind. “It’s fascinating,” she says, echoing Marriner’s sentiments. But thankfully she doesn’t repeat his whole ominous following around routine. Let’s face it, if Wrack wanted Turlough she’d simply have him, then and there.

Wrack is a vibrant splash of colour in this story, but she’s ultimately quite disposable. In fact, Enlightenment is more Turlough’s story than anyone else’s. The prize that everyone’s vying for is eventually won by him and the Doctor. The Doctor’s modest enough to turn his reward down, but Turlough’s share of the prize turns out to be the breaking of his pact with the Big Black G. “Enlightenment was not the diamond,” the Doctor explains. “Enlightenment was the choice.” Luckily it’s also a handy petrol bomb, which Turlough gets to hurl at the Black Guardian and he goes up in flames. Now that’s what I call enlightened.

THE TEGAN AND TURLOUGH DEATH WANDER: Faced with an deadly hazard mere footsteps away? Why not try the Wander of Death, like Doctor Who’s friends Tegan and Turlough? Say you’re faced with an floor grille that’s open to space, or a door being forced open by a sea monster, or an excavator driven by a cadaver. Instead of running away, adopt a dazed expression and wander gormlessly towards it! Then become ensnared in or trapped under said hazard and wait to be rescued by the Doctor. Note: this may result in the death of some innocent supporting characters.

LINK TO Robot of Sherwood. Oddly enough, Enlightenment gets named checked by the Doctor in Robot of Sherwood.

NEXT TIME… A dangerous journey… A crisis… Our next stop is a Planet of Giants. But be warned, it’s lost the urge to live!