10 Major Unanswered Questions From Classic Doctor Who

8. Whatever DID Happen to Ace?

Brace yourself for a shock, but in 1989, the BBC stopped making Doctor Who altogether (don't worry, because they eventually started making it again, and it's worked out pretty well thus far!). At the end of the initial series run, the Doctor and his then current companion, Ace, literally walk off into the sunset (or at least, into a lovely grove of trees under a sunset, but still...). If, God forbid, the series had never come back, this would never have been a question. Fans would all have happily assumed that they went on to have a bunch of exciting adventures until she eventually left him for one reason or other. John Nathan Turner's plan was that the Doctor would eventually reveal that he'd been training her to go off to Time Lord School (Timewarts?) and she would leave to go do that. So, that's one reason to be glad the show was cancelled, then. But in 1996, the ill-fated TV movie opened with the Seventh Doctor travelling all alone and there was absolutely no mention of Ace. Again, this was fine. They went on to have a bunch of exciting adventures, etc, etc. No problem. The problem, dear friends, is that at some point in the intervening years, the editor of the Doctor Who comics had chosen to use Ace to make a larger point about not being required to care what the New Adventures line of books was doing. In fact, There was quite a public dust up over the issue which led to the DWM comic strip killing her off brutally (while Susan and Peri watched, oddly enough), whereas the New Adventures left her as a kind of Captain Jack/Joan of Arc/time travelling/French maiden/commando figure who now went by the name Dorothee. Seriously. Ultimately, of course, it doesn't really matter. Pick whichever one you prefer and move on with life, but it's still a rare point of uncertainty in the Doctor Who continuity, for better or for worse. Speaking of which...