In praise of… Tanya Lernov (and her nose)

For me, The Wheel in Space has a peculiar charm thanks to its idiosyncratic minor characters, like space-flora geek Bill Duggan and, most particularly, Tanya Lernov, played by Clare Jenkins.

While every other member of the Wheel’s crew has a well-defined position on board, Tanya’s role is somewhat vague. She’s an ‘astrogator’ – which the internet tells me means space-navigator – yet she works on a stationary object. Amusingly, she becomes an astrologer (second class!) in Terrance Dicks’ novelisation, which makes considerably less sense. Presumably he meant ‘astronomer’, though even that wouldn’t account for the work she is seen doing. Or maybe it’s an accidental mis-correction of ‘astrogator’. Tanya’s exact duties are unclear but she spends most of her time reading instruments, acting as a general dogsbody, and flirting.

A cynic might argue that Tanya is there to lend a little feminine glamour to the otherwise overly-masculine environment of the operations room, and to be the token Russian in the series’ latest attempt at depicting a multinational space project. However, she is much more important than that.

With her amusing talk about the special properties of her nose (“it’s like a barometer … I smell trouble”) and her romance with Leo Ryan, Tanya provides the essential human element amongst the dry and dreary space talk. This role is vital as a counterpoint to Zoe. A product of some form of educational brainwashing, Zoe is “a proper little brainchild: all brain and no heart”, as Leo puts it. Tanya represents the human heart that Zoe lacks at this early stage.

Although a nebulous threat for much of the story, the Cybermen are the ultimate in scientific emotional repression. The final shot of the Wheel’s crew ends with Leo’s hand closing around Tanya’s in a simple visual symbol of the human tenderness that has narrowly escaped the mechanised inhumanity of the Cybermen.

And her nose was right, after all.

Images © BBC

This is an updated version of an article originally published in Panic Moon in May 2014