Romana, short for Romanadvoratrelundar, is a fictional character in the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who. A Time Lord from the planet Gallifrey, she was a companion of the Fourth Doctor. She was played by Mary Tamm from 1978 to 1979 and by Lalla Ward from 1979 to 1981.

As a Time Lord (or Time Lady), Romana was able to regenerate, and therefore the character had two incarnations with somewhat different personalities. These different incarnations have been dubbed Romana I and Romana II by fans. Romana I was played by Mary Tamm, who chose not to sign on for a second season, despite optimistic prodding on the part of the show’s producers. Romana II was played by Lalla Ward, who in real life married and divorced her co-star Tom Baker, and is now married to the scientist Richard Dawkins.

Romana was originally assigned to assist the Doctor during the quest for the Key to Time, which was a series of linked serials which constituted the whole of Season 16 (1978-79). Romana first appeared in The Ribos Operation , and was intended to be a contrast to the savage Leela who was her predecessor. Romana was initially played as haughty and somewhat arrogant, looking down upon the Doctor who she considered to be her academic inferior. However, she soon gained a appreciation for the Doctor's real world experiences.

Over the course of Season 16, Romana appeared to take some of the characteristics of the screaming damsel in distress, much to the annoyance of the actress who played her. When Mary Tamm decided not to return to the role, Romana regenerated into Romana II at the start of Season 17, emerging with a different physical appearance and a lighter personality.

Romana II's introduction in Destiny of the Daleks , a script credited to Terry Nation, but with several additions and alterations by script editor Douglas Adams, has long been controversial, mainly because of its casual approach to the subject of regeneration. At the beginning of the serial, Romana changes bodily forms several times, rather like someone casually trying on different outfits, before deciding to take the form of Princess Astra, who had been played by Lalla Ward in the final serial of Season 16, The Armageddon Factor . The controversy arises from the fact that the Doctor's own regenerations have usually been traumatic events, and it had been previously established that Time Lords were limited to twelve regenerations.

The suddenness of the regeneration scene was also dictated by real life events. Although Mary Tamm had left the show on relatively good terms and did not object to returning for a brief regeneration scene, by the start of Session 17, Tamm was very visibly pregnant, making her return impractical.

Romana II enjoyed a more intimate relationship with The Doctor than her predecessor, to the point that fans have assumed a romantic relationship with the Doctor. Although a relationship was never explicitly shown or intended by the writers, many fans have found the signs of a romantic relationship particularly evident in the story City of Death, perhaps reflecting the real-life romance between Tom Baker and Lalla Ward.

Her final television appearance was in Warrior's Gate , where she left the Doctor with the robot dog K-9 to forge her own path in the parallel universe of E-space. She also appeared briefly in The Five Doctors through the reuse of footage from the uncompleted story Shada. Shada itself was remade as an audio play accompanied by Macromedia Flash animations and Romana was once again played by Lalla Ward.

Outside of the television programme, the character has made appearances in the spin-off novels published by Virgin Publishing and BBC Books, and in Doctor Who audio plays produced by Big Finish as well as a separate series of audio plays produced by BBV. It should be noted that the canonicity of these stories is disputed.

In the BBV series Lalla Ward plays a character who appears with K-9 in an unnamed parallel universe. This character is called the Mistress (which was what K-9 called her in the television series). Because of the copyright situation in which BBV was able to license K-9 but not Romana, the Mistress is not explicitly called Romana.

In the licensed Virgin Missing Adventures novel Goth Opera, Romana returns from E-space and is given a seat on the High Council of time Lords, and subsequently becomes Lady President of Gallifrey. Her presidency is reflected in the later novels and in her audio appearances (also voiced by Ward). In some of the audio appearances Ward co-stars with other incarnations of the Doctor. Ward herself has been very active in Doctor Who fandom.

In the Big Finish adventure Zagreus, Romana was forced to banish the Eighth Doctor from the universe as he had become a danger to it following his infection by the forces of "anti-time". Following on from this, she was featured in a number of audio plays with former Doctor companion Leela (played by Louise Jameson) under the umbrella title of Gallifrey.

In the BBC Books Eighth Doctor Adventures novels, Romana undergoes a third regeneration, and her new incarnation (Romana III) is far less sympathetic and far more ruthless than the other two. This third regeneration pursues the Eighth Doctor in a story arc which results in the obliteration of Gallifrey and the retroactive wiping out of the Time Lords from history. As of this writing, it is unclear how the continuities of the novels and the audio plays can be reconciled, if at all.

• Travelled from: The Ribos Operation to Warrior's Gate