Doctor Who assistants - Search/Destroy

not sure about the second bit, but not Sophie Aldred or the bloke from Blue Peter.

K9 is pretty foxy. the way that thing comes out of his forehead - hubba hubba.

watching Robots of Death relatively recently convinces that Leela is the best ever assistant. you can't really imagine Ace saying something like "Touch me again and I'll cripple you".

ROWR!

Tom -- please delete this thread

http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/doctorwho/doctors/comp_mel.shtml

do any of Adric, the Brigadier, Turlough, or Harry etc. reverse the polarity of your neutron flow?

She sure is one finxy lady.

Leela was far and away my favorite. She was foxy and completely lethal; "Robots Of Death" is so classic it hurts. Zoe was also foxy and smart. My favorite TARDIS crew of all time is Tegan, Nyssa and Turlough, though. They were only together for two shows, but the whole evil companion thing was SO GREBT.

Lalla Ward. mmmmmmmmmmm.

And wasn't the thing about Ace that the storys became about her psychological enemies? So that the Curse of Fenric wasn't about blood drinking zombies and Nicholas Parson as a Parson but was actually about Ace's deep seated need for/hartred of her mother.

Anyway for the real issues - I'd wanna be trapped in a Tardis with Sarah Jane.

what ethnicity was Tegan meant to be? I mean, she sounded Australian, but Jovanka sounds kind of African.

Jamie
Zoe
Sarah Jane Smith
Romana I
Leela
Tegan
Turlough
Benny
Roz
Fitz

(Yes, I cheated and put book companions in there.)

Victoria was cute; too bad she was so UNBEARABLY SHRILL AND TWEE. I've never seen her on-screen portrayal, but I still wanted the monsters to pull her head off.

(Admittedly there are those who could make intelligent arguments that there are more useful things to do with your time than watch black & white episodes of a long dead sci-fi series, especially episodes which, even by the standards of the show, have particularly cheesy special effects. Well, they can suck my stiff, slimy Ice Warrior.)

Oh yeah, Ian Chesterton rules - heterosexuality in the Tardis, never to be repeated.

none of this of which has any relevance any more to the question so i shall now shut up...

and why is the tracer buzzing in my hand? (nb, this is not a ref to tracer hand)

Thought Ian and Barbara in the very early Hartnell shows were terrific and made for each other. Does anyone remember the rather touching "montage" at the end of "The Chase" when they got back to 1960's London - running around Trafalgar Square, knocking on a police box door and laughing? Wouldn't you have wanted them to be your mum and dad?

Liz Shaw - the blue stocking scientist with a nice line in mini-skirts and Brian Jones fedoras.

Sarah-Jane - Lis Sladen was great. One of those "centred/focused" actors who no matter how shit the script was, breathed life into her character and carried herself with dignity.

Leela - probably my favourite. "You will do as the Doctor instructs, or I will cut out your heart!"

Romana I - Mary Tamm was equally good, v. aloof, superior, just standing there looking fabulous and making pithy remarks. Like Glynis Barber/Soolin off Blake's 7 for much the same reason. Lalla Ward had her moments but I'll never forgive her for blubbing at the pepperpots during "Destiny Of The Daleks", something Tamm would never have stooped to.

Tegan/Nyssa - a double act really. Pete Davison was "my" Doctor, the guy who tuned me into Who back in the 80's and I wanted to grow up and be a Mormon so I could thoroughly debauch the pair of them.

Mel - don't start. Bonnie Langford acts like a demented Principal Boy throughout, but she gave an utterly crap character on the page her spirited best shot.

Destroy:

Zoe - catch her shrieking in "The Mind Robber".
Adric
Ace - utterly dismal and embarrassing attempt to keep up with the times. Aldred's a fine actress (great in emotional scenes) but the character - her terrible street yoof speak, her proficiency with hand-made explosives. Forget it.

BLOODY HELL.

Thankfully Tom has now explained to me how there are two Romanas. My favourite is obviously Romana TWO because of the RED SHOES OV DEATH. And the boater!

actually given that the Romanas were the only Timelord assistants, it is presumably actually possible that either or both of them were getting it on with the Doctor.

andy

And K-9.

Also, Zoe and Jamie rocked.

andy

I have a question, btw, has anyone here seen this panto-parody thing that's got Rowan Atkinson as the 9th Richard E. Grant as something like the 10th (quite handsome) Doctor, Hugh Grant as the 11th (handsome) doctor, Pryce or someone as the 17th master, Atkinson, Lumley ... oh hell:

http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0212887/

Point being, how on earth would a geek in Chicago get his eyes on this?!?

Custos, your description of Turlough made him sound even better than he was!
I hated his bright red eyebrows. I wanted to take a lawnmower to the guys forehead.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/doctorwho/shalka/

Companions:
Search:

Leela (Louise Jameson) - despite a distinct lack of rapport with Tom Baker, she works superbly, esp. in Season 14 and "Horror of Fang Rock". The much-admired minimalist costume, and the fiery, resourceful savage quality make a fine combination.

Romanas I and II (Mary Tamm & Lalla Ward) - slightly aristocratic superior Time Lady types... work wonderfully well with that genial and *knowing& quality the series projected in those last two Graham Williams-produced seasons. Tamm is the more beautiful, yet Ward is wonderfully teasing in "City of Death". Shouldn't forget that Ward played the part in a more serious (well some of the time) vein in Season 18, particularly in "Warriors' Gate", and that Tamm is sublime in the first 4 stories or so of S16. If one likes that sort of slightly haughty ice maiden tendency; which concealed an interesting level of naivety about things compared to the Doctor.

Ian & Barbara (William Russell & Jacqueline Hill) - stalwart, well-characterised pair of teachers. Don't think Russell is the last instance of heterosexuality in the TARDIS... Jamie in more than one story indicates such leanings, as ambiguously does Pertwee's Doctor in "The Green Death"... Barbara is a very strong character; see, "The Aztecs", "The Romans" and many more; idealistic, and reasoning. A shame they never really thought to bring any more history teachers into the TARDIS. What did Chesterton study again...? Surely a more masculine science or maths...? ;-)

"Jamie & Zoe!" (Frazer Hines & Wendy Padbury) - they work wonderfully in the Troughtons I've seen (most surviving Troughton seems to be from Season 6). Precocious, slightly impudent brainbox girl (with real '60s' futurist costumes) and the loveable old Scots fish-out-of-water himself. The 3 actors seemed to be so suited to each other, and put so much spirit into things.

Liz Shaw (Caroline John) - perhaps an under-explored character and one who never left earth (well barring the tomfoolery of Ambassadors #1 in the TARDIS), but one of the more intelligent companions, who yeah, also had some incredibly short skirts; particularly in "Inferno" and "Ambassadors". ;-)

Ace (Sophie Aldred) - An example of the writers getting it together and really putting some extra thought into characterisation. Aldred's no great actress, but in Season 26 she is served by some excellent writing. Ace is one of the more substantial characters of all the companions, though in S25 she could get annoying with all the pseudo-street/hip tendencies. All works really well though, in the learning curve that produced the wonderful final season.
Not at all as attractive as the likes of Liz, Peri, the Romanas, Leela for me, sorry. :)

The Brigadier (Nick Courtney) - brought to life gloriously by the actor. In early stories, he is a calculating, professional and at times edgy figure... in the later guest appearances, he is a loveable crusty old uncle sort. In the middle (seasons 8-11) he is a bit of a caricature; admittedly this can be enjoyed on some level, but it gets irritating. Not the actor's fault. He seemed to take on a new lease of life in the two stories he had with Tom Baker's Doctor; there was more of a clash of perspectives between the two, and the comedy all came off better. Particularly a wonderful double-take in "Robot" after this great exchange:
Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart: [On neutral monitoring of superpower missile bases] Naturally enough, the only country that could be trusted with such a role was Great Britain...
The Doctor: Naturally, I mean, the rest were all foreigners.

Mixed:
Sarah-Jane Smith (Lis Sladen) - one of the most down-to-earth and likeable companions in the show; seemed close to a 'real person'. Yet, occasionally quite tiresome. Her departure scene cannot be beaten though; wonderfully played by Sladen, and particularly ambiguously by Baker... she works as a breath of fresh air in the tired late Pertwee episodes. She's wonderfully integral to the plot of "The Time Warrior". She did lose a bit of her distinctiveness as the seasons passed however; where did the strong feminist views go, or the sharp tongue?

Jo Grant (Katy Manning) - ill-served at times by scripts, but Manning gave an increasingly likeable, distinctive portrayal in her later stories; particularly things like "Frontier in Space" (a yawn of a story generally), "Carnival of Monsters" and "The Green Death" most of all, as we see her fall for the eccentric 'younger doctor' hippy scientist, Jones. She really doesn't work very well in her first few stories; not quite to grips with the part yet.

K9 (voiced by J. Leeson in the main) - Oh, loveable addition to the series for kids, or a pointless way of solving narrative difficulties, like the Sonic Screwdriver? I'm maybe some way in between, but it must be said that John Leeson's voice is wonderful as K9 and he did have so many choice lines: in the "Pirate Planet", "She's PRETTIER than you, master" (on Romana I, compared to the Doctor... indeed ;-)) and responding to the ludicrous cockney Time Lord of "The Armageddon Factor":

Drax: 'Blimey, it's a dog! Who's a little tin dog, then?'
K9: 'Your silliness is noted.'

;-)

Perpugilliam "Peri" Brown (Nicola Bryant) - absurd first name, and bizarre in that she had one of television's few on-screen romances with Brian Blessed... okay, she had a habit of being sour and bitchy, but there were depths in the character - more so in general than Tegan perhaps - that were occasionally explored. She worked really well with Davison, and I do actually enjoy at times the love-hate rapport she has with Colin Baker. There is enough tenderness there in selected moments of Season 22 to suggest this, behind the bickering. I think Bryant did as good a job as she could with what she was given, especially considering she was forced to put on an accent foreign to her. Writing for the character was occasionally abysmal - see "Timelash" - and often tended to make her scream or become the object of lust of some perverted figure. Such sweet scenes as the one with Alexei Sayle's DJ in "Revelation" (that's really *the* 6th Doc. story that got it all right...), arm-in-arm with the Doctor at the start of "Mysterious Planet", the nice finale to "Mark of the Rani"... here you get the impression that she'd be a really nice person to know, which is always the mark of a good companion.
I feel Peri's underrated, and sadly was short changed too often by writers. Could have been one of the best companions, if her sweet side was more often brought out, or if her screwball sourness was ever really explained/explored in depth.

On a baser note, she had some nice flattering/revealing costumes... (there's no way around viewing DW companions in this way really!)

Nyssa (Sarah Sutton) - generally successful, but in a very low key. Nice attempt to make a companion clearly alien in her outlook and way of speaking. Not enough was made of her.

Harry Sullivan (Ian Marter) - OK, he's clearly not an example of 'heterosexuality in the TARDIS', yet I'm not suggesting he is well, a gay man. Just a bizarre throwback to Bertie Wooster almost, who somehow is involved in the military - admittedly as a medical figure though, am I right?

Ben and Polly (M. Craze and Anneke Wills) - again, far too little exists in the archives... yet, I'd say they seem pretty good. Polly actually not at all the stereotyped 60s dolly bird - though she indeed has the look down pat - and Ben a likeable, 'able seaman'. 'Was he a taste of heterosexuality in the TARDIS or not?' Discuss. ;-)

Vicki (Maureen O'Brien) - seen too little to fully judge; she seems okay. Good in "The Myth Makers" by all accounts. Nicely scornful and petulant in "The Time Meddler".

Steven Taylor (Pete Purves) - not seen enough really. Though he was entertaining in "The Time Meddler" as a smug, slightly raffish, though at-heart-likeable chap. A fine comic foil for Hartnell in that story.

Vislor Turlough (Mark Strickson) - I like the fact that they tried to do make a very dubious-intentions based companion. Strickson was all right as well. Some slightly hammy acting, but it's fun - I can't quite recall his histrionics in "Frontios"... It was a shame, again, that he was made rather more bland after "Enlightenment", and played less of a part generally in the stories.

Destroy:

Grace (Daphne Ashbrook) - From the McGann TVM. She just didn't work really; a sketchy, ill-defined character. Too Scully-esque in the scepticism; not enough sense of who she really is.

Melanie Bush (Bonnie Langford) - just not the right actress or part really for a companion. Comes across best in the runaround "Delta and the Bannermen". Is awful in "The Ultimate Foe" and from all I remember "Time and the Rani".

Adric (Matthew Waterhouse) - I am aware he has some support from female quarters, c.f. his indie maths quality. All I can say is that he was a millstone around a few stories' necks; an insufficient actor, straitjacketed by those ridiculous yellow pyjamas he constantly wore. Works slightly better with T. Baker than Davison.

Tegan (Janet Fielding) - Some good moments, but too much tiresome whingeing. Best in "Enlightenment", with that talk about love with that strange Mariner (IIRC ?) character.

Kamelion (voiced by Gerald Flood IIRC) - pointless android who had a first and last story but nothing in between as he was too impractical to use!

Victoria Waterfield (Deborah Watling) - the screamer par excellence (well, close to Mel in that regard...) which must alone make one dubious of her. Yet, she doesn't impact on the stories badly at all; though generally adds little either. Amusing use of her talents in "Fury from the Deep". I suppose she does actually have a lovely reflective scene with Troughton's Doctor in "The Tomb of the Cybermen" and is key to the plot of "Evil of the Daleks"... but generally, not a good companion.

Dodo (Jackie Lane) - sadly, she has seemed just wet in most of the things I've seen her in. Overplayed in an irritating vein by the actress.

Kinda
Snakedance
Arc of Infinity
Enlightenment
The Awakening
Frontios
Resurrection of the Daleks

Earthshock is one of the best stories ever for the simple fact that it ended with Adric dying in a fiery explosion.

Oh, and I missed Susan - the very first - from my epic trawl through the companions... I'd say mixed really; she's great in the stunning opening episode, "An Unearthly Child" but too often is a bit of a screamer in later stories. We get to see far too little of her mooted intelligence.

Turlough is loathesome and creepy but is also very watchable - his knee-jerk cowardice is a terrific character trait plot-wise (and makes his few brave scenes pretty memorable) though I think a short run as a companion suited him best.

Tegan can be awful but it's very hard to imagine the Davison stories without her.

Black Orchid was an odd story in that it was almost as if it started life as an ordinary period costume drama and Dr. Who was just thrown in as an afterthought.

around the same moment she sees some prisoner the cops have hauled in and says "Put him to the torture!".

what ethnicity is Tegan meant to be?

I don't she was as bad as Nyssa, although there's a good chance I'm mixing them up.
Typical behaviour of the Doctors assistants during the Adric/Nyssa/Tegan era:
1) Adric would help think up a possible solution to the problem.
2) Nyssa would tactfully offer advice on what Adric got wrong, and offer an improved version of the solution.
3) Tegan would neurotically pace back and forth and complain about how they were all doomed.
4) The bag guys would capture Nyssa and Tegan.
5) The bag guys would **KILL** Adric.
6) Tegan would bitch and complain while Nyssa surrepticiously would find a way to free herself.
7) The Doctor shows up just in time to see that Nyssa has solved the problem.
8) The show ends with no theme music, just a shot of Adric's broken star badge.

yeah, but her surname was Jovanka. Where do people with surnames like that originate from?

There was a debate over whether the character was going to be named Tegan or Jovanka. Allegedly someone wrote down both names on a piece of paper and it was assumed that rather than being seperate choices for a first name, it was the character's full name. Hence a dumb-ass surname was born.

Imagine talking about The Doctor, Jovanka, and Turlough...

"Black Orchid"; bloody good little story: a refreshing change and one of the few most purely enjoyable Davisons. My problem with a lot of Season 18-24 DW is that it really isn't fun to watch, unlike vitually all the Graham Williams episodes... it had lost that sense of being able to appeal to an audience wider than the 'fanbase'. Too many of the JNT companions didn't really work or weren't given enough good material. Nyssa and Peri worked well at times, but could have been given so much more to do. Tegan... all my memories (however long ago) point towards her being a whingeing irritant in most stories. I would like to be proved wrong if I watched the episodes again. In something like 'Four to Doomsday' I distinctly remember her being awfully portrayed...

"Much more intelligent and pro-active” than her predecessors, says Eccleston.

So is this Billie Piper any good then?

I'm something of a DW fan and will frankly not denounce this decision; it seems to me potentially a very good choice indeed, from all I hear. Some will see it as a balancing act between the respected actor Eccleston and a more glamorous choice (reeling in certain other audiences), yet she must clearly have done a great audition and have something about her as actress to have got the role. Russell T. Davies and co. seem so far very astute judges. I have the impression they might just see Piper playing the role as something of the Buffy type... which would be interesting in DW's context.

Oh, and yes, it's definitely a bit absurd to say that none of the companions were intelligent before...! The stereotype is exaggerated. Some of them were underwritten at times, but yes, Romanas, Barbara, Zoe, Liz Shaw, Ace, Sarah Jane etc... these were all interesting characters and hardly stereotyped helpless 'lovelies'.

They said as much about the Rose character months ago. They've written the part as an intelligent forthright independent assistant, not a piece of fluff that bounces around screaming.

All looking good so far. I just hope the whole relationship bent doesn't turn it into something horrible and sappy [news of the TARDIS interior being designed around relationship-building is a bit naff].

Yeah, most of the previous assistants were definitely intelligent, but some of them really were there as eye candy. Zoe didn't get that tight-fitting jumpsuit by magic. ;)

Yes, one sees little need ever for sappiness in DW, if it directly involves the Doctor, but I see no reason why Piper's character oughtn't get involved in such stuff; she is to play a modern day human being after all, and I see no reason why DW in 2005 should entirely shirk the odd emotional storyline...

If Rose gets a porking in the control room, great. Awesome. Having her boyfriend as a second companion would create some good tension too [there's been talk of a second companion for ages]. What worries me is the prospect of this new Doctor being all sappy. Eccleston seems to want to drag the Doctor in that direction. If it works, cool, but right now I don't see how.

Those Davison years saw a complete failure to grasp how the show works, c.f. companions. You can have more than one companion, but you have to do it very well for it to work; Jamie and Zoe, the original Series 1 team etc.

Frankly, Tegan, Nyssa and Adric were very thin characters, impoverished by some very misguided writing. Strange how I can actually stand Nicola Bryant's Peri and not these; maybe the sole companion format just sits more naturally and easy, even with a companion who was written similarly. She managed a bit more rapport with Davison and Baker at times than those 3 ever did (well at times I admit Tegan and Nyssa worked well, but only very fleetingly).

Anyway, one awaits with great interest to see how Ms. Piper fares within the pantheon of companions; my feeling is that she could surprise many and be one of the very best - and it seems likely her relation to the nature of the series itself will be larger than any companions since Ian and Barbara, right back at the start. But then such is my confidence in the production; a fantastic team of writers, so much time and thought going in, etc.

I think I read somewhere she would be quite feisty. I just wonder if Dr Who will get terrible ratings because some prat will put it on a weekday between 7-8pm up against ITV soap operas and noone will watch it and the BBC will just let it die due to poor ratings(like happened before)
It has to be on around 6pm at the weekend IMO.

I'd love it if she was completely drugged out and criminal but that's not going to happen.

Billie Piper is obv an arse-ette. I mean - Chris Evans! How can anyone bear to be in the same room as that tool, never mind live with him.

1/ She is the hottest with her PANDA EYES.

2/ She is a secretary who goes into the Tardis by accident. Does the experience turn her into a fighting space trooper - NO! In almost every story she ends up literally making coffee, particularly in bases under siege.

3/ Except when she realises that the way to kill cybermen is by using her nail varnish on them!

4/ She is an even better screamer than Troughton's other assistants.

5/ She is the only companion who never gets an official surname, according to something I read somewhere.

6/ There is a great will-they won't-they thing going on with co-companion Ben. Except will-they won't-they hadn't been invented as a mechanism of characterisation so you have to squint to see it. But there is a definite dynamic and quite an interesting one - bit of rough Ben is clearly interested in posh girl Polly, and only really ever gets motivated when she gets kidnapped or captured (which is often), the rest of the time he's all "can't we go back to the Tardis?". Polly on the other hand never really pays much attention to poor old Ben, she seems more interested in Jamie though mostly to mother him and enjoy his quaint anachronistic ways.

(I am a sad, sad man)

Has Eccleston always been a cock?

He's one now, for sure.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/06/09/middle-aged-white-men-pariah-industry-says-christopher-eccleston/

Times ran the same story a few days ago, & were getting shit for a near-identical headline. It seems like Ecclestone's actually saying "and that's how it should be" but I haven't checked the actual interview.

It is really interesting how paywalls and twitter allow newspapers to lie. It becomes necessarily difficult to verify what was actually said so people respond to the headline, the headline has ideological effects... (what Eccleston actually said in the next tweet of Jolyon’s) https://t.co/T0zD2KLwkP

— Tom Gann (@Tom_Gann) June 10, 2022

i wrote a thing

https://www.alanauch.org/wtob/2022/06/19/no-more-allegories/

Reading that notes and the unexpected shade is painful:

When it comes to Doctor Who, I’m always hopeful. I’m hopeful that this won’t be a “Picard”-style second act.

jesus, this thread

Sorry about the shade! I try to be kind and compassionate, and I certainly don't judge anybody who really likes the show. That sort of nostalgia is simply not my cup of tea these days.

No offense taken, I actually consider that show to be generally terrible! I've watched a trans youtuber talk about LGBT representation in Trek and how she had found and valued analogues to the trans experience in the '90s, but how much more affirming it was to see actual trans characters and actors on the show (as unwatchable as I find Discovery, I will applaud its inclusiveness, just as I do with Chibnall's tenure), so I'm excited for RTD II, and I really like your reading on "Turn Left"!