is a
Fictional Character who appeared in the ''
Doctor Who Magazine '' comic strip based on the long-running
British Science Fiction Television series ''
Doctor Who ''. An
Officer in the
British Army , she worked for
UNIT ('''U'''nited '''N'''ations '''I'''ntelligence '''T'''askforce), an international organisation that defends the Earth from
Alien threats. The
Canonicity of the comic strips, like other ''Doctor Who''
Spin-off media, is unclear.
A fiery redhead, both in hair colour and temperament, Frost was a no-nonsense and efficient UNIT operative who nonetheless had problems maintaining personal relationships. She first appeared, with the rank of
Captain , in the comic strip story ''The Mark of Mandragora'', published in DWM #169-#172, written by
Dan Abnett and drawn by Lee Sullivan and
Mark Farmer . Frost was working undercover and investigating Stranks, the owner of a night club suspected of selling a potent street drug called Mandrake.
At the same time, the
Seventh Doctor and
Ace had been drawn to Earth at the close of the
20th Century by the alien energy structure known as the
Mandragora Helix , which the
Doctor had last encountered 500 years before. When told of Frost's investigation, the Doctor pointed out that another name for Mandrake was Mandragora. The similarity in names was no coincidence — the Mandragora Helix had contacted Stranks and used him to produce Mandrake, which sapped the will of its users, making them susceptible to the Helix's influence. Together with Frost, the Doctor and Ace thwarted the Helix once again.
Frost next appeared in the
Andrew Cartmel -penned ''Evening's Empire'' (''Doctor Who Holiday Special 1993''), where she was now a
Colonel and investigating the crash of a
World War II fighter plane. With the help of the Seventh Doctor, Frost entered the mind of the dead pilot and discovered that the crash was a result of a collision with an alien
Spacecraft . The local records clerk, Alex Evening, had taken possession of the miniature alien craft and was using its abilities to turn fantasy into reality to kidnap beautiful women, placing them in an imaginary empire of his own creation. The Doctor and Frost entered Evening's empire with UNIT troops and managed to destroy the illusion, sending Evening into an irrecoverable coma.
An alternate universe version of Colonel Frost appeared in the comic strip ''Final Genesis'' (DWM #203-#206), in a world where humans and
Silurians were working together. There, she was a member of URIC, the nited '''R'''aces '''I'''ntelligence '''C'''ommand, UNIT's equivalent in that alternate world.
Frost is one of the few characters from the comic strip that has made the cross-over into the other
Spin-off media. She made a brief appearance (holding the rank of Captain in
1980 ) in the
Big Finish Productions audio play ''
The Fires Of Vulcan '' (voiced by Karen Henson).
In a link to the 2005 episode '' for the
2005 series of ''Doctor Who'', a page mentioned a formidable female UNIT officer named Frost, who was stationed in Geneva as of the year
2006 .
In the episode itself, a female Major in a
United States military uniform, wearing a tag with the name "Frost" was among a group of "alien experts" killed by the Slitheen. According to the ''Series One Companion'', early drafts of the script had the
Ninth Doctor refer to her explicitly as "Muriel Frost", but the line never made it to screen. The situation is muddled somewhat by the use of Muriel Frost as a narrator of the episode guide in the children's ''Doctor Who Classified! 3D Dossier'', which would suggest that she is still alive.
Ultimately, however, given the uniform, the rank and the young age of the officer, whether or not the Frost that was killed (or at least incapacitated) was definitively the Muriel Frost of the comic strips is debatable.
