Doctor Who fans overjoyed as Nerys gets another mention - but who is she?

There were some excellent references to past episodes in the first 60^th anniversary Doctor Whospecial on Saturday night.

From David Tennant’s Fourteenth Doctor doing a double-take when he learned Catherine Tate’s Donna Noble has a daughter named Rose (no, it’s not Billie Piper’s character), to “allons-y” getting another mention and finding out how Donna spent the prize money from a winning lottery ticket the Doctor gave her as a wedding gift, there was a lot to enjoy.

Though one which has gained plenty of attention is that of a character named Nerys, brought up by the Doctor when he takes a cab – driven by Donna’s husband Shaun Temple – to investigate a crashed spaceship.

“I know that friend of yours – Nerys,” the Doctor says, after Shaun asks how he knows his wife is Donna.

He replies: “Oh, Nerys! How is she?

“She’s fine,” responds the Doctor.

Shaun continues: “After the accident?”

The Doctor revised his comment: “She’s not fine…”

“It was her fault,” insists Shaun.

“She’s been fined … I thought, I mean, didn’t you win the lottery,” the Doctor goes on to ask.

Shaun wasn’t too happy with this, saying: “Nerys and her big her mouth! That’s supposed to be a secret.

“You know what happened? Donna gave it all away – to charity, every single penny. Well, we bought the house, that’s the one thing we did do, now we can’t afford to run it.”

So, who is Nerys?

BBC

Well, we saw her in Donna’s first appearance, The Runaway Bride, scoffing as she walked down the aisle before the companion vanished and turned up in the Doctor’s Tardis. Once in there, she was adamant Nerys was behind the strange situation.

“Well, obviously [I got in here] when you kidnapped me. Who was it? Who’s paying you? Was it Nerys?

“Oh my God, she’s finally got me back. This has got Nerys written all over it,” Donna fumed.

When the Doctor, still baffled as to how a bride has ended up in his spaceship, asked “who the hell is Nerys”, Donna said it was his “best friend”.

Later in the same episode, after defeating the Racnoss, Donna returns to her wedding to find Nerys (played by Krystal Archer) dancing with her fiancée at a reception which started without her. When she asked what was going on, Nerys snarkily replied that “it was all paid for, so why not?”

We saw her again when she got married a second time – to Shaun – and things seemed a lot better between the two of them, with Donna calling on her mate Nerys to appear in a wedding photo together.

Away from the TV show, Nerys also had her own short story in an issue of Doctor Who Magazine.

Fans were overjoyed to see that the Doctor still remembers the minor character who is still the source of some antagonism for the Nobles:

Whether we’ll actually see her on screen over the next two specials – “Wild Blue Yonder” and “The Giggle” – is, for now, unknown…

Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter

How to join the indy100's free WhatsApp channel

Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.