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Courtney Woods is a Year Ten student at Coal Hill Secondary. She can be a nightmare and when Clara first joined the school’s teaching staff, Courtney delighted in giving her a hard time. She also picked up on the romance between ‘Miss Oswald’ and Danny Pink, never missing an opportunity to poke fun at Clara about it.

Courtney’s curiosity led her to investigate the strange blue box in the caretaker’s office, which, of course, turned out to be the TARDIS. She seemed to like its owner, possibly because he shared her bluntness and disregard for convention. And maybe the Doctor recognised their shared traits because he was soon taking her on a mission far away from Earth, allowing Courtney to accompany him when he dumped the Skovox Blitzer in deep space.

But behind her mischief and bravado, Courtney does have a vulnerable side. She told Clara that the Doctor had said she wasn’t special, and although the Time Lord brushed it off, it clearly affected the young girl. ‘You can’t just take me away like that!’ she raged at the Doctor. ‘It’s like you kicked a big hole in the side of my life. You really think it? I’m nothing? I’m not special?’ And so he offered her another trip in the TARDIS. ‘How d’you like to be the first woman on the moon?’ he asked. ‘That special enough for you?’

We saw another side to Courtney when she was flung into an adventure with the Doctor and Clara on the moon. This time she revealed her kindness, horrified by the idea of killing whatever was hatching beneath the lunar surface. She cared enough to leave the safety of the TARDIS, insisting on being part of the team that decided the moon’s future.

As for her future, was the Doctor joking when he told Clara, ‘She also becomes President of the United States! You see, she marries a feller called Blinovitch...’ Who knows?