During the Fifth Doctor's tenure, the TARDIS was pretty crowded at times. For a while, he had Adric, Nyssa, and Tegan to contend with. One thing was sure, Tegan - played by Janet Fielding - was always possessed of an opinion. In fact, some fans even called her "stroppy". As well as being justifiably annoyed with the Doctor's cavalier attitude to danger, poor navigational skills and that whole business of her Aunt Vanessa being murdered, Tegan was generally quite... angry. To be honest, Tegan seemed to be angry with pretty much everything. Tegan finally left the Doctor at the end of Resurrection of the Daleks, sickened by all the death (although she previously separated temporarily from the Doctor accidentally at the end of Time-Flight). In the spin-off novels, it is revealed she (briefly) married Johnny Chess, the popstar son of Ian and Barbara Chesterton. A short story (Good Companions) claims she suffered a nervous breakdown and thought she imagined her adventures. Big Finish, of course, has also stirred the muddy waters by featuring Tegan in an audio story, The Gathering, in which she is dying of a terminal illness. This hardly seems a fitting fate for fans' favourite "mouth on legs". A return appearance for Tegan in the TV programme could be an opportunity to see how life really turned out for her. NuWho seems to delight in having characters verbally batter the Doctor and is there any character better at that than Tegan Jovanka?
Mike has lived in the UK, Japan and the USA. Currently, he is based in Iowa with his wife and 2 young children. After working for many years as a writer and editor for a large corporation, he is now a freelancer. He has been fortunate enough to contribute to many books on Doctor Who over the last 20 years and is now concentrating on original sci-fi & fantasy short stories, with recent sales including Flame Tree, Uffda, and The Martian Wave. Also, look for his contribution on Blake's 7 to "You and Who Else", a charity anthology to be released later this year.
You can find him on Tumblr at https://www.tumblr.com/blog/culttvmike
