Doctor Who assistants - Search/Destroy

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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.