True, I should have put “at least once” as I didn’t intend for that to be an exhaustive view on the subject. Immediately recalling that one was geeky enough for me.
The Brig’ll be back in The Sarah Jane Adventures…which started Monday…which we in the U.S. won’t see for some time, because we would never, ever use inappropriate methods to view foreign shows…
Hee hee hee…
Just through some quirk, we had Journey’s End playing here the same week as the season final of Torchwood. They both had a scene where Cap’n Jack is saying goodbye to two of *his *companions, the same guy and girl in both scenes.
In Doctor Who, he gives them each a quick kiss on the lips. In Torchwood, he’s practically tonguing their tonsils - it’s all a matter of degree.
Another vote for Donna as most improved companion over the series. Really good how she went right back to the annoying bint she had been, showed how much she’d changed through traveling.
Bridget Burke, nice picture - I could put names to most of them and I loved K-9!
Here’s my own personal favorite fanwank on the Doctor and his female companions, comments welcome.
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We know the Time Lords are very long-lived and usually stay on the secluded planet of Gallifrey. This implies a very low birth rate.
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We know the Time Lords are telepathic.
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I suspect then, that Time Lords mate for life, and that a telepathic bond like the ones Vulcans have is a part of their bond. Time Lords are truly monogamous, not merely sorta-kinda monogamous like humans are.
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The Doctor is a widower, or effectively so. We’ve never been told exactly what happend to his family, but while they’re clearly gone forever, no one’s ever said flat out ‘they’re dead’. My guess: some disaster in time left the Doctor and his family on mutually exclusive time lines- if he exists, they can’t and vice-versa.
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The Doctor therefore suffers from a severed telepathic link that was formerly attached to his wife. If my theory in point 4 is correct, then the Doctor doesn’t even have the closure of her being truly and finally dead; she’s just “gone”.
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Completely involuntarily and unconciously, the Doctor has a tendency to telepathically bond to any female who spends too much time with him. This is particularly insidious because in it’s early stages it helps relieve the Doctor’s loneliness.
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The Doctor recognizes this, and when he feels things have gone too far he forces himself to part ways with his companion. The first Doctor actually had to leave his own granddaughter stranded behind, after it became clear that she would spend the rest of her life with him if he allowed it. The majority of the first Doctor’s other companions were paired male-females who tended to bond with each other. The second Doctor spent much of his time with two adolescents, again a male and female pair. The third Doctor started allowing himself to become closer to human females. The fourth Doctor had to quite rudely dump poor Sarah Jane after she briefly started wondering why she let this man repeatedly drag her through hell. (although events forced his hand), etc. A large number of the Doctor’s female companions left him quite suddenly after meeting other men- almost as if the Doctor had managed to foist off their budding addiction onto someone else. (Most hilariously, when Leela threw herself at another Time Lord who seemed rather embarrassed by her affections).
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With Rose, the Doctor left it far too late. He allowed her to become obsessed and virtually enslaved to him. Breaking it off was extremely painful for both of them, to the point where just the residual backlash ended up casting a glamour over Martha.
Kamelion? K-9 was more male than Kamelion. Apart from the fact he could shape-shift into any form, even in his natural state, C-3PO was less effeminate.
But you did forget a couple of other male companions: dashing astronaut Steven Taylor and the sixth Doctor’s companion Peri. Plus I’m firmly in the “Adam doesn’t count” camp, so I’m not even going to mention his name. I’m Adamant.
Plus I also count Chris Cwej and Fitz from the novels. But don’t hit me.
Speaking of Adric and crushes, I think I had one on him when I was a kid. I’ve tried to deny it for a long time (well who wouldn’t?), but I recently rewatched “Castrolvalva” and my half-baked feelings of pre-teen lust all came rushing back to me. I can deny it no longer. Hey, what can I say, I was an introverted pre-pubescent gay kid with no friends who loved maths and Doctor Who. Adric was made for me.
I really don’t know if that’s true. It must have been part of the reason he decided to travel with them, but I think by that point he was ready to see the universe for himself, and not just be the tin dog who stayed at home. It seemed that it was only once he was ready to let Rose go (even joking during “School Reunion” the Rose was the Doctor’s “missus”) that he felt comfortable in taking up the Doctor’s long-standing offer to travel with him.
But even if it was true, why wouldn’t it make him one of the Doctor’s companions? So he had feelings for Rose. Ben and Polly were a couple and Ben definitely counts. You don’t have to be in love with the guy to travel through time and space and get chased by rubber monsters with him.
Well, he can be all those things and a companion as well. There doesn’t have to be a “main” companion, the Doctor has travelled with 2 or 3 people on loads of occasions. That’s how he started off actually. And who could forget the glorious Davison years, a crowded TARDIS jam-packed with whiny brats.
I took it as he saying, not so much that she was in love with him at the time, but that after he left her, no man could ever match up to him. No romantic partner could ever hope to be as amazing and constantly wonderful as he was. I think that’s a pretty understandable sentiment. I don’t know if she thought of herself as in love with him when they were together, but I think their relationship probably did interfere with her being able to love anyone else afterwards.
We all know he and Romana II were shagging up one side of a chronic hysteresis and down the other.
Sarah Jane was only intended to appear in the second season episode “School Reunion”. It was only after the BBC approached Russell T Davies about doing a children’s show - specifically a “Young Doctor Who” series about the Doctor as a kid (!!!), and after “School Reunion” had proved to be such a success, that he pitched the Sarah Jane series idea to them. Thankfully, they went for it.
And I’d also like to chip in on the Donna love. I thought she was magical. Possibly the best companion ever. I loved that she gave it to the Doctor as much as he would give it to her - and not in a snippy, nasty, annoying way like, say, Tegan, but in an affectionate, equal way, with humour and strength. I also loved that she was so excited and enthusiastic about her love for traveling and going on this amazing adventure. Rose and Martha were too, but for some reason I just bought it so much more with Donna, and really felt that excitement along with her. Her final fate in “Journey’s End” was heartbreaking, and I really hope that’s not the end for her.
Wow, Monkey Chews. What a post. Even more of a geek than me!
I love your summary of the glorious Peter Davison years, sometimes having a whole bunch of kids in the Tardis. He’s still my favorite Doctor.
I think the show’s change in direction re the Companion(s) was necessary, and so far has been successful. (great chemistry w/Piper) But it is definitely a change.
BTW, I like Lumpy’s fanwank. I can live with it.
The potato-faced Adric, second-worst companion ever, was clearly only in love with himself.
Harry Sullivan’s character was created before Tom Baker was cast as the fourth Doctor, when they initially thought they’d be dealing with a much older actor piloting the Tardis: he was originally supposed to take care of the youthful swashbuckling, but with Tom Baker’s manic energy galvanising the role - and a run of great scripts - he quickly became a fifth wheel on the show.
I watched the old Tom Baker episode “Invasion of Time” on YouTube awhile back and Leela really provides a nice contrast to show how most of the Gallifreyans are a bunch of dullwitted pussies. Of course the scene where the Sontaran does a header into the deck chair doesn’t help their case either.
Adric worked very nicely with the Doctor (see “The Keeper of Traken”), since both he and the Fourth Doctor were similar. However, he didn’t mesh well with the Fifth Doctor. Still, his departure from the series was one of the two best of the original run (along with Peri’s – if we don’t believe the warrior queen business).