Day 615: Planet of Fire Part 1

How much do we really know about Turlough? Despite the fact that several episodes were entirely devoted to his character and the development thereof, we know virtually nothing of his history before joining the TARDIS crew. We knew that he wasn't a human, but aside from a few hints as to his past, that was all that we really knew about this companion.

That is, of course, until Planet of Fire. Here, we see him genuinely worried, hiding things from the Doctor that hint toward his past. Symbols appear in various places and he recognises them but with a degree of worry and horror that implies a darker history than what one had previously thought. He even goes to the lengths of dismantling the TARDIS console in order to prevent the discovery of his history.

And I suppose that it's at this point that we really realise how little we know about this character, and how we can now be kind of worried that he may be as nice as we had assumed him to be. It also raises the notion of how much faith we, as an audience, put into the role of the companion, being that they are normal beings with no real problems outside of the TARDIS. Of course, in a few years time, this notion will be challenged again in a far more interesting way, and once the series is brought back in 2005, we will see this notion developed again, but for now let's focus on Turlough, as we learn more of his mysterious past.