Nyssa (Doctor Who)

**Nyssa** is a fictional character in the long-running British science fiction television series _Doctor Who_. She is played by Sarah Sutton. Nyssa came from the planet Traken. Nyssa was created by writer Johnny Byrne for the Fourth Doctor serial _The Keeper of Traken_, but the production team later decided that she should join the Doctor on his travels. She returned in the next serial _Logopolis_, in which the Fourth Doctor regenerated, and remained as a  companion of the Fifth Doctor. She was a regular in the programme from 1981 to 1983. Sutton was the youngest female actor to play a companion in the series.

## Character history

Nyssa is a alien from the planet Traken, the daughter of Tremas (a consul of the Traken Union) and stepdaughter of Kassia. She helps the Doctor and Adric to defeat Master. During her journeys with Tegan and Adric aboard the TARDIS, Nyssa finds herself trapped in a mathematical equation by the Master – whom she hates as he is, of course, now using "that face" (her father's). She also encounters a race of androids and their insane ruler, helps foil the genocidal plans of a wounded Terileptil and incidentally start the Great Fire of London, and discovers her remarkable resemblance to Ann Talbot.

## Appearances in other media

Nyssa's fate after she leaves the TARDIS is not known, although the spin-off novel _Asylum_, by Peter Darvill-Evans, reveals that she eventually leaves Terminus and settles down as an academic in a university on an unspecified planet. In _Asylum_, Nyssa shares an adventure with the Fourth Doctor from a time before he met her, leaving the Doctor with the knowledge that he will have to be extremely careful dealing with Nyssa when they eventually meet to avoid changing history.

Since then, Sutton has also voiced Nyssa in several audio plays alongside Peter Davison as the Fifth Doctor, produced by Big Finish Productions.

### Television

- Season 18
- _The Keeper of Traken_
- _Logopolis_
- Season 19
- _Castrovalva_
- _Four to Doomsday_
- _Kinda_
- _The Visitation_
- _Black Orchid_
- _Earthshock_
- _Time-Flight_
- Season 20
- _Arc of Infinity_
- _Snakedance_
- _Mawdryn Undead_
- _Terminus_
- Season 21
- _The Caves of Androzani_ (cameo)
- 30th anniversary special
- _Dimensions in Time_

### Audio dramas

- _The Land of the Dead_
- _Winter for the Adept_
- _The Mutant Phase_
- _Primeval_
- _Spare Parts_
- _Creatures of Beauty_
- _The Game_
- _Circular Time_
- _Renaissance of the Daleks_
- _Return to the Web Planet_
- _The Haunting of Thomas Brewster_
- _The Boy That Time Forgot_
- _Time Reef & A Perfect World_
- _The Darkening Eye_

### Novels

- Virgin Missing Adventures
- _Goth Opera_ by Paul Cornell
- _The Sands of Time_ by Justin Richards
- _Cold Fusion_ by Lance Parkin
- Past Doctor Adventures
- _Zeta Major_ by Simon Messingham
- _Divided Loyalties_ by Gary Russell
- _Asylum_ by Peter Darvill-Evans
- _Fear of the Dark_ by Trevor Baxendale
- _Empire of Death_ by David Bishop

### Comics

- "On The Planet Isopterus" by Glenn Rix (_Doctor Who Annual 1983_)
- "Blood Invocation" by Paul Cornell and John Ridgway (_Doctor Who Magazine_ Yearbook 1995)

## Other websites

- Nyssa at _The TARDIS Index File_ website
- Nyssa on the BBC's _Doctor Who_ website