Jo Grant was the companion to the Third Doctor, and joined the team during one of the series’ most highly-rated eras. She became an integral part of what became known as the UNIT Family, and these are some of her greatest adventures from her TARDIS travels…
The Sea Devils
‘The Sea Devils’ was a spiritual sequel to the earlier story ‘Doctor Who and the Silurians’ and saw the eponymous Time Lord do battle with an underwater race who had been lying dormant for centuries. These so-called Sea Devils had once dominated planet Earth, long before humanity came to the fore.
It’s a great adventure, and indeed one that spawned the spin-off ‘The War Between the Land and the Sea.’ But, crucially, ‘The Sea Devils’ was a great adventure for Jo Grant, too. Jo Grant was always known for being headstrong and resourceful, and her skills are put to particularly good use in this adventure; at one point, she jets off on a motorbike in order to find the Doctor, and later busts him out of jail when he’s being held prisoner by the Master.
In reality, the actor Katy Manning was a little more cautious than her on-screen counterpart, allowing her stunt double Stuart Fell to perform the task of climbing out of the boat onto the deserted oil rig, in one particular scene. But you could never tell!
Frontier in Space
‘Frontier in Space’ featured one of Katy Manning’s favourite costumes for Jo Grant, which was a black, Japanese-inspired number with a belt, like something worn by a karate master.
Of course, costumes aren’t the most important thing, and there’s still plenty for Jo Grant to do in this story. It’s a sort of epic space opera concerning a war between the humans and the Draconians – or at least, the threat of war. The Master is trying to engineer a conflict between the two races by attacking their ships. The Draconians are convinced that the humans are responsible. The humans think it’s the Draconians. It’s chaos.
There are times, however, when Jo Grant is quite firmly separated from the Doctor and left to figure things out on her own. In fact, she saves his life at the end of the story by getting him back to the safety of the TARDIS, and this scene segues into the next story ‘Planet of the Daleks’ where Jo Grant, effectively, is on her own, and has to venture out onto the planet by herself.
The Daemons
Some might say that ‘The Daemons’ is the greatest Jo Grant adventure on the list, and indeed there are many fans who would cite this as their favourite Jon Pertwee story of all time.
In ‘The Daemons,’ the Doctor and Jo head to a sleepy country village known as Devil’s End where a driven archaeologist is conducting a dig which threatens to wreak havoc on the inhabitants. And, in true Doctor Who style, it does, and the Time Lord and Jo find themselves battling a whole host of (seemingly) supernatural forces, which in reality link back to a crashed spaceship from the planet Daemos.
And, as is typical for this period in the show’s history, the pair’s old enemy the Master is creating problems too, and this time he has disguised himself as the local vicar whilst secretly conducing cultish, underground rituals as he seeks to awaken the sleeping Azal.
Overall, whilst this is a great adventure for Jo Grant, it is also one of the definitive stories for the UNIT Family. Every member of the team is handed a fair slice of the action: the Brigadier, Captain Yates, Sergeant Benton, even UNIT’s struggling technical officer Tom Osgood, who would later inspire the character of Petronella Osgood in the new series.
The Green Death
It’s hard to watch ‘The Green Death’ without a tear in your eye. This story was the last of the classic era to feature Jo Grant and, atypically for companions in this period of Doctor Who, her character was thoughtfully and carefully written out. Her departure builds up throughout the adventure, starting with her insistence that she travels to Wales to meet with Professor Clifford Jones of the Nut Hutch, whom she describes as a younger version of the Doctor.
Inevitably, the pair fall in love, and by the story’s conclusion they are engaged and planning a trip to the Amazon in search of a rare fungus. This scene at the end of ‘The Green Death’ is one of the rare, truly emotional moments in classic Doctor Who, and is perhaps one of the best-remembered of all the companions’ departures.
It’s not all about departures, though. Although this story is very much centred around Jo Grant and her fledgling romance with Clifford Jones, it will forever be remembered as ‘the one with the giant maggots,’ and its scenes of the oversized insects descending on the Welsh valley have become iconic – possibly because the maggots were realised with inflated condoms!
But Jo Grant’s story didn’t end here. The character later returned in The Sarah Jane Adventures where she paired up with the Eleventh Doctor, and she was reunited with Clifford Jones himself (the actor Stewart Bevan) in a special minisode for ‘The Green Death’s Blu-ray trailer. As such, ‘The Green Death’ has actually earned an important place in the history of Doctor Who, even if it might not be your very favourite on this list.
So, over to you reader. Which is your favourite Jo Grant story? And which is your favourite moment for the character? Let us know in the comments below.
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