Helen Sinclair Helen Sinclair was a companion of the Eighth Doctor . Helen was a language scholar for the British Museum during the 1960s . Her career was stymied by the misogynistic attitudes of the time , and the " old boys " network working against her . Despite being more than qualified for a promotion , she was denied the position by her superior who felt she wouldn ' t be able to commit fully due to the " fact " that women were " too emotional . " ( AUDIO : " The Red Lady " ) Helen had never been abroad until she travelled with the Doctor , and carried a box brownie camera with her . ( AUDIO : " The Galileo Trap " ) In 1963 , while working as an assistant to Professor Walter Pritchard , she met the Eighth Doctor and Liv Chenka who were in search of a temporal anomaly related to the Eleven . Joining them whilst they investigated a collection of artefacts featuring the Red Lady , she became involved in a mystery involving extraterrestrial elements . Not having seen any of the artefacts featuring the entity , Helen was unaffected by her influence , and was able to help prevent the Doctor and Liv from succumbing to her effects . After they defeated the Red Lady and the artefacts were " disposed of , " Helen was dismissed from her position and threatened with being reported for the police , her boss being suspicious that she was behind their theft . Impressed by her help , the Doctor offered her the chance to join him in the TARDIS , which she accepted . ( AUDIO : " The Red Lady " ) Arriving in Florence , 1639 , she was immediately fascinated by the opportunity to visit history , so much so that she wished she had brought her camera so she could take pictures of it . She joined Cavalli in investigating Cleaver and saw her first spaceship , helping the Doctor and Galileo to defeat him and Fortuna , his fellow Volkbrood . ( AUDIO : " The Galileo Trap " ) She was used in the Eleven ' s game against the Doctor , being captured by an Orb aboard the Eleven ' s stellar manipulator and prepared for dissection . However , Paine arrived and stopped it , allowing her and Liv to flee to the TARDIS . ( AUDIO : " The Satanic Mill " ) After this ordeal , the Doctor took her and Liv to Stegmoor to recuperate . She wanted to go somewhere a bit more alien . She helped to move the Doctor when he fell unconscious . She told the Doctor about the Voord spaceship on the beach . ( AUDIO : " Beachhead " ) She couldn ' t understand the dimensions of the antic TARDIS . Caleera used her powers to empathise with her . ( AUDIO : " Scenes From Her Life " ) When they landed in San Francisco , 1906 Liv trusted her guide her round the city as it was closer to her time then Liv ' s . She was taken by Aldo Deluca because he wanted to know about the gift . ( AUDIO : " The Gift " ) On Syra , Ruslan tried to threaten her into the truth and then trapped her with River Song . She helped River to contact Galactic Heritage and promised to keep her secret . ( AUDIO : " The Sonomancer " ) When she realised they had landed in Calcot in 1998 and decided to take a train back to London to discover what had happened to her friends and family . In London she went to her old house and found out that it had been converted into flats . She later went to see her brother George Sinclair . George then told her about how mother , father and brother had died . After telling the Doctor she could just go back , he told her this was impossible . She was now part of events and could not go back and change her own timeline . ( AUDIO : " Absent Friends " ) She was sent by the Doctor to Rome in 2016 in order to find a piece of the Doomsday Chronometer . She met Rosalia who showed her the collection of clock in the museum she worked with . There she met the Clocksmith . ( AUDIO : " The Eighth Piece " ) Before entering the museum she met River again , who to told her to come with her on a scavenger hunt to help her find the Eighth Piece . She collected many paintings and discovered where the Eighth piece was and took it back to Rome . She was then frozen in time for the Clocksmith ' s enjoyment before the Doctor arrived . She managed to escape the collapsing museum and went back to the TARDIS just in time to see Whitley regenerate . ( AUDIO : " The Doomsday Chronometer " ) Liv had to explain to her the effects of regeneration to her after witnessing it . After the Nine , told her the Liv had died she on Gallifrey she wanted to leave , before she discovered that he was the Nine . She was appalled at the Nine murdering the Time Lords at the Crucible of Souls . ( AUDIO : " The Crucible of Souls " ) She , Liv and the Doctor were trapped in a scape capsule careering into the nontime of a murdered future by Padrac . After seeing some pressure suits she thought of jumping out and swimming in the other direction . She tried to calm Liv down after she went a bit upset . They jumped out of the pod and rode the shockwave back into normal time . ( AUDIO : " Ship in a Bottle " ) Liv and Helen appeared back in the normal universe with only five minutes of oxygen . They were rescued by a Time Ship which traversed the vortex and started to disintegrate . After Liv managed to get them to Earth she wanted to get to a space port to get away from an Earth which was disintegrating . River later told Helen to tell Liv who she was . River managed to get her to Gallifrey where she got to the TARDIS she left with Veklin to find the Doctor . ( AUDIO : " Songs of Love " ) Helen and Liv went exploring New York . When they went to the main museum they saw a picture of the TARDIS and a Weeping Angel which had been bequeathed by them . At the museum they started to hear about the Weeping Angels . projected an angel which then became an angel in front of them . ( AUDIO " : The Side of the Angels " ) She wanted to join the Doctor in the Panopticon but he wouldn ' t let her . Instead she was tasked in evacuating the Time Lords . When the Eleven escaped from his restraints he stole a Battle TARDIS and kidnapped her . Caleera contacted her via the Matrix and got her to crash the TARDIS into the Resonance Engine into it . Her Battle TARDIS wasn ' t destroyed in the blast , so the Doctor went searching for it . ( AUDIO : " Stop the Clock " ) Behind the scenes . In the behind the scenes extras to " Doom Coalition 1 " , producer David Richardson cites Verity Lambert as a source of inspiration for the character of Helen Sinclair , something acknowledged in her coming from 1963 .