10 Doctor Who Scenes Actors Hated Shooting

Louise Jameson’s time on Doctor Who got off to a rocky start.

Tom Baker, then well-established as the Fourth Doctor, was somewhat unwelcoming to his new co-star – due, in part, to his objection to Leela as a character, on the grounds that she was too violent.

If that wasn’t bad enough, the part required her to wear contact lenses, turning her naturally blue eyes brown.

The lenses were a source of much discomfort for Jameson, limiting her vision and irritating her eyes. In one scene during her second story, The Robots of Death, one of the lenses became dislodged, leaving Leela with one brown eye and one blue!

Fortunately, four stories into Leela’s run there was a change of producer, with Graham Williams taking the reins from Philip Hinchcliffe.

Williams allowed her to finally stop wearing the lenses, though not without an in-universe explanation – hence why, at the end of Season 15 opener Horror of Fang Rock, the Doctor acknowledges that Leela’s eyes have changed colour (apparently an example of “pigmentation dispersal”).