Mel Bush
Portrayed by: Bonnie LangfordTravelled with: Sixth Doctor, Seventh Doctor
Series: Classic
Melanie Bush was a companion of the Sixth and Seventh Doctors from Pease Pottage, West Sussex, with a bachelor’s degree. Mel was a computer programmer in Pease Pottage, who had a temporally complex relationship with the Doctor, meeting him in the wrong order initially. Mel was the daughter of Christine and Alan Bush, born some 25 years prior to her travels with the Doctor. By the time she met the Doctor, Mel held a summer job with Brighton Information Technologies as a pre-requisite for a full time job with ACL Services, Ltd. Mel first met the Sixth Doctor in Brighton in 1989 when she was 25 years old. However, the Doctor already knew Mel by this point due to his trial by the Time Lords. Because of this, until he was able to drop Mel off with an older version of himself, the Doctor had to pretend that his first meeting of her was in Brighton. It was only after returning Mel to his future self that their timelines synced and her adventures with him continued in a more forthright way. However, due to the unusual way in which they met, their timelines weren’t asynchronous. Mel’s adventured with the Seventh Doctor was considerably better synchronised by contrast.
Mel had a cheery personality, greeting situations with good humour and a warm smile. She was an optimist who usually believed the best of people’s natures, though she did temper this optimism with a scepticism and realism born of her scientific education. Her usually perky personality could cool quickly if she detected a threat to the Doctor or herself, or anyone she had befriended. Along with this, Mel had a couple of outstanding skills, possessing an eidetic memory and a veritable genius. Mel’s reaction to fear was dichotomous, sometimes meeting danger with a powerful scream, though in others she possessed a steely resolve. Though initially cowering in fear on her first meeting with the Tetraps and Vervoids, Mel comported herself quickly after expelling a scream. On some occasions, she displayed little or no fear at all. Mel also possessed a relatively even temperament when facing the Bannermen in Delta and the Bannermen (Classic Series) and defeating the Valeyard in The Ultimate Foe (Classic Series). Mel was a vegetarian and health enthusiast, often encouraging the slightly portly Sixth Doctor to exercise and diet more, though this virtually disappeared after his regeneration into his Seventh incarnation.
Mel’s proactive lifestyle led her to be bossy of the Doctor, trying to reform the Sixth Doctor’s health standards and spurring him onto adventure and explore against his better judgement. Perhaps due to her highly adventurous nature, Mel found it difficult to cope with mundane things, such as displaying reluctance at the sight of the rather ordinary Shangri-La holiday camp in Delta and the Bannermen. When Mel chose to leave the TARDIS crew, she chose a time and place radically different from her own. Although she left the Doctor, she remained an adventurer, trading on travelling companion for another in the form of Sabalom Glitz. Mel’s last adventure with the Doctor was on Iceworld where she met Sabalom, the galactic confidence trickster that she believed could be reformed if she spent time with him.