Zoe Heriot is a supporting protagonist in Season 5 and the tritagonist of Season 6 in the Classic series of Doctor Who. A genius prodigy with a photographic memory, Zoe joined the Second Doctor and Jamie McCrimmon to learn more about the universe than how she was trained. While an intellectual equal to the Doctor, Zoe is also capable of great compassion.
She was portrayed by Wendy Padbury, who has also voiced the character for Big Finish.
Biography[]
Zoe was a child prodigy in the mid-21st century. She had been trained to assess any situation logically, with little emotion. She was assigned to Space Station W3, officially as the station librarian but also as a scientific adviser. She met first Jamie McCrimmon and then the Doctor when they were brought to the station after being found on a drifting ship. Although she had some insight into how the ship had come to be there, she found herself out of her depth when it turned out the Wheel was a key part of a plot by the Cybermen to invade Earth, realising that she had only been trained to deal with known problems, not the unexpected. She risked her life to help Jamie recover the time vector generator from the TARDIS, which the Doctor used to boost the Wheel's weapons and destroy the Cybership. Afterwards, she insisted on joining the Doctor and Jamie to explore the universe further.
Her first trip took her to the planet Dulkis, where she soon found herself at odds with the native Dulcians as they refused to accept the danger posed by the invading Dominators. She was used as slave worker for a time and showed greater strength than the pacifistic Dulcians. On a trip to the Land of Fiction, Zoe was the one who managed to sabotage the controlling Master Brain, resulting in it being destroyed by its own robots. During their next visit to the 20th century, Zoe was held prisoner by International Electromatics head Tobias Vaughn, an agent of the Cybermen, but rescued by the Doctor and Jamie and joined up with UNIT, playing a key role in destroying the evading Cyberfleet by calculating the trajectories needed to set off a chain reaction with a limited number of missiles.
While helping the Doctor investigate the Krotons' enslavement of the peaceful Gonds, Zoe ended up using the Gonds' teaching machine and being recognised by the Krotons as a "high-brain". She and the Doctor were forcibly recruited by them to pilot their ship but managed to sabotage the life support system. She later volunteered alongside the Doctor to pilot a 21st century rocket to the moon to investigate an Ice Warrior attack on the weather control station.
Zoe's last adventure with the Doctor took her to the planet being used by the War Games by the War Lord and his ally, the renegade Time Lord the War Chief. Zoe helped form a resistance movement among the captured soldiers by memorising full details of those who had broken conditioning during an interrogation. Afterwards, she, the Doctor and Jamie were taken to the Time Lords' home planet (the Doctor had been forced to summon them to return the captured soldiers to their original time periods) where the Doctor faced trial for interference. Zoe had her memory wiped of her time travelling with the Doctor and was returned to the Wheel.
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 Heroes
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