Molly O'Sullivan

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Molly O'Sullivan
Doctor Who character
First appearanceThe Great War
Last appearanceEye of Darkness
Portrayed byRuth Bradley (voice)
Sorcha Cusack (voice in Master of the Daleks and Eye of Darkness)
In-universe information
SpeciesHuman
AffiliationEighth Doctor
HomeEarth
Home era1910s

Mary "Molly" O'Sullivan, later Mary Carter, is a fictional character in a series of audio plays produced by Big Finish Productions based on the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who, played by Ruth Bradley (mainly) and Sorcha Cusack. An Irish Voluntary Aid Detachment nursing assistant in World War I, she is a companion of the Eighth Doctor.

Character history[]

Molly was born in 1891, and first appears in The Great War (2012). The Great War takes place during World War I, making her in her twenties at the time.

She was the daughter of Patrick and Cathy O'Sullivan and had seven siblings, all of whom she outlived. Two of her brothers and her three sisters died before their fifth birthdays. She had two other brothers, Patrick and Liam. Patrick joined the British Army in World War I and was killed on his first day in France, while Liam remained in Ireland but was killed by an English sentry.

On her second birthday, Molly became "lost in a storm", after which she returned home with unusually dark eyes. She was teased for her dark eyes when she was a child and when she first entered domestic service. However, this teasing ended when she began to punch the people who mocked her.

Before the outbreak of World War I, she worked as a chambermaid for the Donaldson family in Eaton Place in London. She became friends with the Donaldsons' daughter Kitty, who viewed her as being the sister that she never had. When Kitty became a VAD in France, Molly did likewise as she knew that Kitty needed someone to protect her. After several months serving in France, Kitty contracted an infection from one of the soldiers whom she was treating. She was eventually killed by the renegade Time Lord Kotris and the Daleks. Molly met the Eighth Doctor in France, with whom she began to travel after they were chased across no man's land by the Daleks.

The first place the Doctor took Molly was Dunkirk in 1941. They were not there long before the Daleks appeared once more, chasing them across the town. They were also chased to London in 1972, and the planet Halalka.

Shortly after leaving Halalka, Molly and the Doctor seemingly arrived on Skaro, where they discovered that the Daleks had become peaceful, after they caused the extinction of the Time Lords. However, it was later revealed that this was a simulation generated on their behalf.

The Doctor and Molly were directed to Srangor by the Time Lords, where Molly discovered that she had been implanted with retro-genitor particles by Kotris while she was lost during her second birthday, the effect of which gave Molly her unusually dark eyes. The effects of this were erased when Straxus — a younger version of Kotris — was killed, thus erasing Kotris and everything he accomplished from history.

She departed the TARDIS after it materialised in France during World War I. Molly realised that with Kotris having been erased from history, Kitty would still be alive and that she had to continue taking care of her as she promised.

Molly returned to London and stayed at 107 Baker Street. In 1918 she met the Doctor again, and they travelled to the cryo-ship Orpheus, where Molly met Liv Chenka for the first time. Shortly after, the ship came under attack by the Eminence, a gaseous entity and psychic force that could control the minds of any being it came into contact with, and it began to possess the crew. After defeating the Eminence, Molly and the Doctor were joined on their travels by Liv.

Molly, Liv and the Doctor's next stop was London in the 1970s, where Molly helped the Doctor defeat the Master and the Eminence. After they were defeated, Molly stayed behind in 107 Baker Street and awaited the Doctor's return from the human colony planet Nixyce VII. One night she heard a knock at the door, and was kidnapped by the Master and his own companion, Sally Armstrong.

The Master edited Molly's memories, replacing the Doctor with the Master, creating a sense of trust between them. The Master then made her become part of his experiment to pass some of her retro-genitor particles onto other humans, so that they could fall under the Eminence's control, and allied himself with the Eminence, allowing both of them to conquer Earth. He subsequently activated the retro-genitor particles in the humans and asserted his psychic influence over them. The Master also used her to create the Grand Administrator of the Earth, Walter Vincent, based on her father. The Eighth Doctor helped a group of humans overcome the Master's influence and stopped his plans. Whilst the Celestial Intervention Agency erased his work from history, the Master escaped in his TARDIS. Afterwards, Molly parted company from the Doctor, after it was deemed she would be unsafe travelling with him, they parted ways as she was to be returned to her proper place in time.

In a new timeline created by the Daleks, she was in Moscow, 1961 where she was known under the name Mary Carter. While there, a Sontaran named Rastel ordered her to look after the Eighth Doctor. She didn't recognise him at first, but this was a deception, as the Master wanted her to stabilise the timeline. She knew that something was wrong with time when the Daleks invaded Earth as she had known the future.

The Dalek Time Controller took Liv and Molly to the Eye of Orion to see Markus Schriver's final experiment, which was the birth of the Eminence. She sacrificed her own life so that the Time Controller could die, as because of the retro-genitor particles, she was still linked with the Time Controller; if either of them died, they would both die. She then became part of the Eminence, and used the Time Controller's link with the time vortex to send the Eminence to the end of the universe.

Other appearances[]

The Eighth Doctor mentions Molly by name (along with other audio companions) before regenerating into the War Doctor in the 2013 mini-episode, "The Night of the Doctor". Molly was the last companion that he remembered.[1]


Actors[]

Ruth Bradley (Actress, age 34) is known for her many appearances in film and media. Born in Canada on the 24/01/87, her family later made the decision to immigrate to Irland when she was 5. Further on in life at eighteen MS Bradley had attempted to further her education in drama and languages at trinity college in Dublin but had ultimately decided to drop out three weeks later so that she could pursue a (what we know to be her future career) full-time acting career in London.

Acting has seemed to run in her family's interest since both her mother, Charlotte Bradley (age N/A) and sister, Roisin Murphy (age 48) had both pursued acting careers.

Ruth Bradley's first appearance as an actress was in 2002 in ’ultimate’ force an action-adventure series, while in 2011 she had won the Milan international film festival best actress award for the film ‘in her skin’ (2009).

When in relation to her molly O'Sullivan role she was the voice actress from 2012-2014 and had voice acted on:

Dark Eyes: the Great War, fugitives, tangled web and X and the Daleks.

Dark Eyes 2: The white room, times horizon and eyes of the master.

Dark Eyes 3: The death of hope and rule of the eminence.


Sorcha Cusack was born 5/04/49 in Dalkey Ireland, is a stage actress and was also the main voice actor for ‘Mary Carter’ also known as Molly O’Sullivan in the audio plays ‘dark eyes’. She took on this role in 2015 after Ruth Bradley, the first voice actor for this character had left that said role.

Alike to Ruth Bradley her family has some acting talent also, her late father Cyril Cusack (age 83) was known for being one of the few actors considered for the role of the first ‘doctor’ (for the series ‘doctor who’) and her sister Niamh Cusack (age 61) and daughter Cyril James (age N/A) are actors also.

Director[]

Nicholas Briggs (age 60), executive producer at Big Finish Productions (And actor) pushed for the audio anthology to be made into reality after many past colleges had shared their enthusiasm about the project when he would run it by them.


Production[]

Peter Davison, Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy ( the fifth, sixth and seventh 'doctor' actors) had all agreed to be featured within the show and so it got its start in 1999 at Crosstown studios London where it got its first episode recorded 'The Sirens of Time' onto CD and cassette tape.

Briggs says to the online newsletter ‘digital spy’ "My goal was to show everyone that we could deliver something that was thoroughly, officially doctor who".

The production of dark eyes had many changes in hand when It came to directors and writers for each episode-

writers and directors[]

  • Dark eyes 1 (2012) was both written and directed by Nicholas Briggs.
  • Dark eyes 2 (2014) was directed by Nicholas Briggs but written by Alan Barnes and Matt Fitton.
  • Dark eyes 3 (2014) was directed by ken Bentley and written by Matt Fitton.
  • Dark eyes 4 (2015) was directed ken Bentley and written by John Dorney and Matt Fitton.

List of appearances[]

Dark Eyes[]

  • Dark Eyes
    • The Great War
    • Fugitives
    • Tangled Web
    • X and the Daleks
  • Dark Eyes 2
    • The White Room
    • Time's Horizon
    • Eyes of the Master
  • Dark Eyes 3
    • The Death of Hope
    • Rule of the Eminence
  • Dark Eyes 4
    • Master of the Daleks
    • Eye of Darkness

References[]

  1. ^ Blair, Andrew (15 November 2013). "A guide to the Eighth Doctor Audio Adventures". Den of Geek. Retrieved 17 November 2013.


External links[]

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