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Dr. Grace Holloway is a fictional character played by Daphne Ashbrook in 1996 television movie Doctor Who, known informally as Enemy Within, a continuation of the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who. A cardiologist from 1999 San Francisco, she assisted the Eighth Doctor against the renegade Time Lord known as the Master.
When the Seventh Doctor landed on December 30, 1999 in San Francisco, he was gunned down by a gang on the streets of Chinatown. Unaware of his alien physiology, Grace's attempts to operate accidentally killed him. He subsequently regenerated into his eighth incarnation, and involved Grace in his fight to prevent the Master from opening the Eye of Harmony and destroying the Earth at the stroke of midnight on New Year's Day, 2000. At the end, the Doctor offered to take Grace along with him in the TARDIS but Grace declined, preferring to stay behind and apply the lessons she had learned from the Doctor.
Grace was described by the Doctor as "tired of life but afraid of dying." She was a warm and compassionate person who was disllusioned early in life when she realized that she could not hold back death. As a result, she put on a cold, aloof front in an effort to protect herself from her feelings and to mask her own insecurity. She realized this over the course of her adventure with the Doctor and learned to feel hope again, placing it in the form of the Doctor, an alien who could literally come back to life, as well as regaining confidence in herself as a medical practitioner and as a person.
Grace's appearance in the television movie caused controversy because the Doctor kissed her, breaking a longstanding taboo against having any romantic involvement with his companions. Some fans also also question whether she can be considered a proper companion since she only appears in this one story. However, it is clear that her role within the television movie is that of the companion's, and she appears listed on most lists of companions, including the one on the BBC website.
Grace's life after her encounter with the Doctor has not been explored on-screen beyond the television movie, although the Doctor did have to deal with the after effects of those events in the spin-off BBC Books novel Unnatural History, by Kate Orman and Jonathan Blum. Grace appeared in the Doctor Who comic strip story The Fallen, published in Doctor Who Magazine #273-#276.
Daphne Ashbrook performed in the Big Finish Productions audio play The Next Life opposite Paul McGann as the Eighth Doctor, but playing a different character named Perfection.
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