Davies Talks Jo Grant

Russell T Davies has spoken about bringing back former Doctor Who companion Jo Grant in The Sarah Jane Adventures.

Jo Grant (played by Katy Manning) will return to the Whoniverse after 37 years, and will join Matt Smith’s Doctor in the story Death of the Doctor.

Davies revealed to SFX that he wanted to remain faithful to the characters original exit, “For the first time ever, I went and watched old stuff. I think it’s really important to preserve the absolute beauty of what [producer] Barry Letts and [script editor] Terrance Dicks did [in Doctor Who: The Green Death].”

“I know there’s a feeling [now] that she’d have got divorced, and there was a theory that she’d be living on her own in Wales in a little cottage – some of the novels did this – and you think, ‘Nice idea, but actually that’s absolutely betraying the way we left her’. We left her with the promise of happiness, of adventure, of love and joy, and you can’t be cynical and undercut that.”

Below: Jo’s final scenes in Doctor Who: The Green Death (1973).