Top Five Big Damn Hero Moments: Romana I (Doctor Who)

How much do I love Romana, in either incarnation?  Heaps, and while I think Romana II may have the edge, Romana I is great, too.  Here are my favorite moments of hers (spoilers.)

Signaling K9 (Series 16, Episode 5 – “The Pirate Planet:  Episode 1”)

I like this one, because it’s such a Fourth Doctor move.  Four does this kind of stuff a lot, spouting out what feels like random non-sequiturs to the person he’s addressing while actually giving a blatantly direct order in plain sight.  Romana is definitely taking a page from his book when she calmly tells the guards who’ve captured her, “What I said was, no K9, you mustn’t… fetch the Doctor.”  Cool as a cucumber, that one.

Standing Up to the Guards (Series 16, Episode 6 – “The Pirate Planet:  Episode 2”)

It might be weird to include two moments from one instance of Romana being captured, but I love her here.  While this moment doesn’t really accomplish anything in terms of freeing her, her blasé attitude toward her captors is just witheringly perfect.  Gruffly ordered by one of the guards into their aircar, Romana replies, “I shall take that as an invitation.”  She then bats away his weapon and hands him her stuff to carry, asking, “Will you drive?  I trust you know where we’re going.”  100% imperious Time Lady with zero rat’s asses to give.

Saving K9 (Series 16, Episode 10 – “The Stones of Blood:  Episode 2”)

Brainy Romana to the rescue!  When K9 is severely damaged by one of the Ogri, the Doctor is convinced there’s no way to repair him in time to save his essence.  He’s preparing to put K9 out of his misery right there, but Romana rattles off a spectacular string of technobabble demonstrating that she can pull off a last-ditch rescue by repurposing certain TARDIS systems.

Determining Vivian’s Origin (Series 16, Episode 12 – “The Stones of Blood:  Episode 4”)

In general, “The Stones of Blood” is a pretty good showing for Romana.  Impractical footwear aside, she demonstrates her smart-cookieness through much of the serial.  Here, she’s able to reason out alien-in-disguise Vivian’s real planet of origin based on patterns she finds in Vivian’s cookbook and some bits of extra intel from Emilia.  Not too shabby.

Standing Up for Astra (Series 16, Episode 26 – “The Armageddon Factor:  Episode 6”)

As eccentrically endearing as Four is, he’s not always one to get broken up over casualties, and Romana typically makes him look warm and fuzzy by comparison.  But in this episode, she’s the one confronting him about the cost of their actions.  Once they realize that Astra is the sixth segment of the Key to Time, Romana insists that assembling the Key would be murder.  The Doctor argues that it’s not their fault the sixth segment took the form of a living being, but Romana refuses to let him deny their culpability.