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Tardis

Flavia was a Time Lord, and the aunt of the Doctor. (AUDIO: Blue Boxes) She served as High Chancellor before being appointed Acting President by the Fifth Doctor. (TV: The Five Doctors) She was twice deposed and re-elected, (PROSE: The Eight Doctors, AUDIO: Lies) after which Romana II became President. (AUDIO: Lies)

Biography[]

Early life[]

Like all Time Lords, Flavia was taken from her family at the age of eight for the selection process in the Drylands. Staring into the Untempered Schism as part of a Time Lord initiation rite, Flavia was inspired by what she saw in the Schism. (PROSE: A Brief History of Time Lords)

The Third Doctor mentioned to Liz Shaw that he had an Aunt Flavia who was hundreds of years old. (AUDIO: Blue Boxes)

Political career[]

Chancellorship[]

Flavia served as High Chancellor under Lord President Borusa and sat on the Inner Council. Flavia met with the Fifth Doctor when Borusa summoned the Doctor's other selves to the Death Zone. She was sympathetic towards him, letting him in the Lord President's room and talking to the guards for him. Following Borusa's defeat and entombment in the Dark Tower, the High Council granted Flavia the authority to make the Doctor President of the High Council. The Doctor used his emergency powers to put Flavia in charge, appointing her Acting President until he returned. He then escaped from his homeworld of Gallifrey, evading the responsibility of the office of Lord President. (TV: The Five Doctors)

As Acting President[]

Flavia's time as Acting President was a successful one in which the people of Gallifrey and the High Council were content and the planet prospered. She was able to achieve much and served for quite some time, forgetting that the office was not her own by right.

Eventually, Flavia became aware of murmurings that it was time for the High Council to make its own choice for President given that she had not been properly elected. In response to this, she resigned and offered herself up for re-election, expecting this to simply be a formality. (PROSE: The Eight Doctors)

Deposition[]

Unexpectedly, Flavia was defeated and deposed by Niroc through what she believed to be "fraud, chicanery, jerrymandering and jiggery-pokery". In reality, the CIA wanted a more easily controllable President to conceal the theft of important data from the Matrix. As an ex-President, she retained her place on the High Council, which President Niroc filled with sycophants.

After a judicial inquiry was called into the Sixth Doctor's behaviour, a temporal duplicate of the Sixth Doctor and the Eighth Doctor had Niroc call for a Presidential Inquiry into it. Flavia assisted them and became a leading member of the Council of Administration under a restored Borusa. She assisted in the reformation of Gallifrey and was re-elected as President. After several regenerations, she was elected once again. (PROSE: The Eight Doctors)

As President[]

During "Borusa's time", the Portrait of Rassilon disappeared, and the Time Lord High Council censured the Corsair in response. Later, the Censure was lifted by President Flavia, although she refused to clarfiy why; although she once admitted that the Corsair had a "very attractive" smile. (PROSE: Eleven Things You Probably Didn't Know About the Corsair)

When the Seventh Doctor was captured by the Committee of Three, his companions escaped and warned President Flavia of the danger. (PROSE: Blood Harvest)

Shortly afterwards, Ruath shot Flavia with a stunner to gain access to the Time Scoop. (PROSE: Goth Opera)

Flavia later learnt the Eighth Doctor was visiting his past seven selves for unknown reasons, bypassing all usual security protocols preventing such interaction. Flavia, despite the protests of the unscrupulous Time Lord Ryoth, decided to allow these visits to continue until they were proven to be a danger to Gallifrey. Once the visits were concluded, Flavia reflected that she wished the Doctor well in his future adventures. (PROSE: The Eight Doctors)

End of political career[]

President Flavia's reign was not conducive to success.

According to one account, after she invited Romana II onto the High Council, the other Time Lady "repaid" her by invoking the ancient "right of challenge" against her and taking the Presidency from her. (PROSE: Gallifrey: A Rough Guide) According to another account, she was overthrown by a coup, and it was only afterwards Romana II was asked to be President despite her lack of political experience; it was against a male President, whom she defeated, that she invoked the right of challenge. (AUDIO: Lies)

According to yet another account, there was an election between Romana and a second individual to succeed a female President who had been found drunk whilst in charge of the Sash of Rassilon. (PROSE: Happy Endings)

A discrepancy between Flavia and Romana was created by the "Great Grey Eminence," who folded the Doctor's timeline on itself (PROSE: The Eight Doctors) to undo Romana's tenure and replace it with Flavia's, removing the changes to the "nice, sterile world." (PROSE: Unnatural History)

Other matters[]

At some point before or after her presidency, Flavia wrote a book titled Tales from the Matrix - True Stories from TARDIS Logs Retold for Time Tots. She was credited as "Loom Auntie Flavia." (PROSE: Apocrypha Bipedium)

Behind the scenes[]

  • The character of Flavia filled in for that of Thalia, who had appeared in the earlier story, Arc of Infinity. The production team decided not to simply recast the role using the excuse of regeneration and made up a new character.
  • According to various commentaries on the Series 1 and 2 DVDs, Russell T Davies refers to the lilting female vocal in the musical score as "Flavia's Theme." It plays when the Time Lord "the Woman" is revealed in The End of Time.
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