Companions leaving the Doctor: then and now
This has been on my mind but it's too silly for anything but LJ (or Tumblr, but fuck Tumblr for reasons). Anyway, it's this: there's this thing the rebooted Doctor Who does with companions that really gets on my nerves--it treats the idea of the Doctor's travel mates (I really, really hate the term "companions" by the way, at least in this context, for reasons I will try to articulate some day) leaving the Doctor as some kind of life downgrade. Basically, the show is now made by fans who are tv professionals, instead of tv professionals. (I don't know how "fannish" the old showrunners and writers were, but they couldn't possibly compete with Davies and Moffat.) That means that travel with the Doctor is bar none hands down THE most wonderful thing, and anyone who wants out, or is forced out, will be a pitiful, lesser figure facing a future of grinding boredom. This, more than the sexism (which has always been an ingredient in the show just like it's been one in every show on British and US television since the medium was invented) is what knocks new Who off-kilter and makes it somewhat less, despite superior production values, than the old show.
Basically, original "classic" Who had no trouble facing the fact that time travel with a nearly immortal alien who often seemed to forget the people with him wouldn't get back up in a new body if they got the one they had broken was not always a fun ride. There was, of course (as there still is, though in a less sincere and thus much more annoying and cloying way) the traditional British love affair with "good old British domesticity," but at least the Doctor wasn't always making announcements about how wonderful it was (and thus, oddly enough, undercutting it) when it was Docs 1-7. (8, at least in the movie, was in America and involved with Americans and I don't think the British cottager and his million cups of tea make an appearance so I'm leaving him out of this.) Few of the Doctors' friends in the old series hero-worshiped him as lavishly as Rose did, and if they did it ended up badly for them. (See: Katrina, who thought he was a god, and Adric, who had dead big brother issues.) And no, Rose didn't end up dead, despite the nonsensical end of her initial run. Ending up in another universe with a new live dad who is also rich is not a bad ending.
But enough. My basic issue is the difference between the old series and the new and the way it treats companions leaving the Doctor. The new one treats it as a tragic downgrading of life for them. The old show treated it (mostly - with exceptions that I will also mention) as them having grown wiser from traveling with the Doctor, and being able to go on and have their own fulfilling lives. Now I will provide proof:
First Doctor: I haven't seen too many of his shows. But Ian and Barbara were initially kidnap victims, not travel buddies. Though they came to love the Doctor, they never stopped wanting to go home, and when they got the opportunity, they took it. Then there is Susan: she was his own granddaughter, but it was clear that when she left it was because she needed to leave and become her own woman with her own life. (The Doctor's last speech to her even said so!) These are the only 1st Doctor companions whose serials I've seen, so I'll leave the rest. (I've only read about Katrina.)
Second Doctor: okay, here is one exception, but the reasons for it were well done, and the idea that they wouldn't have as fulfilling a life were plausible. It was this: Zoe and Jamie were forced out of the Doctor's company by the Time Lords, and most of their memories of him removed. There was no nonsense about "well we have to leave the Doctor even though it means we're choosing a lesser, merely human existence." There was also Victoria, but she left to have her own life as well I believe.
Third Doctor: the Brig had his own life and career. Liz also had her own life and career as a scientist. Jo got married to a cool scientist dude near her own age. The Doctor was sad, but not once was it implied that she had chosen some sort of awful, boring life. The Sarah Jane Smith came along.
Fourth Doctor: He inherited the Brig and crew, and Sarah Jane. Now Sarah Jane was a bit of a problem. She started out as a feminist and a journalist, but somewhere along the way she began to be written as descending somewhat into childishness. At the end of her run she was dressed in the most absurd striped overalls outfit (Andy Pandy was the name of the character she dressed like, I believe). Now I don't know if this was done deliberately or not, but I think the Doctor recognized that if she kept on going about with him her life would never get anywhere. So he left her with some cock and bull about how humans weren't allowed on Gallifrey. And he left her in Scotland instead of London so she'd have to use her brains (and K-9's, who he'd left with her because he cared about her well-being and wasn't sure how well she'd be able to cope) by herself to get home. The writers of the new show seem to have decided that her life was still not great without the Doctor, but that was the new show, and we'll come to that in a little bit. The there was Romana, both 1 and 2. (They were the same character after all.) Romana left the Doctor to help the civilization at Warrior's Gate. She had found her mission in life, and was ready to strike out on her own. The companions that saw out Four were Tegan, Nyssa, and Adric. I'll talk about them in the next paragraph.
Added: Oh my god how could I forget Leela? Not going to talk in depth about her character here, but once again she chose to leave the Doctor for a husband who suited her (this time a soldier in the Gallifreyan Citadel guard, and I don't know how they plan to handle her eventual human death or did I read somewhere that fans or non-tv Who stuff writers made it that humans who live on Gallifrey somehow gain the power to regenerate, just like Moffat later made it so that babies conceived on the Tardis are magical regenerating babies no matter what species they are, this is all very confusing...) Anyway, though Four seemed a tad put off, there was no indication that *Leela* had made a bad decision.
Fifth Doctor: He inherited Tegan, Nyssa, and Adric from Four. Four was more like a captain who kept this crew in line, but Five was pretty unstable for a while and he never managed to impress his friends with his authority. His run was more democratic, if you will, or more bickery, if you want. Anyway, the only companion who didn't come well out of things was Adric, but at least he went out with a bang, trying to save lives. Nyssa left the Doctor to help sick people on Terminus with her scientific knowledge. Tegan couldn't take the violence after a while, but this was because there had been a whole lot of violence, not because she was too timid to be the Doctor's buddy. (See: Mickey when he was first introduced.) Turlough left the Doctor to go back to his home planet and help rule it, after having learned how to control his fears under the Doctor's influence. Then there was Peri. Peri was one of the exceptions... or was she?
Sixth Doctor: He got Peri as a companion. By this time the writing had fallen to bits rather, so at the end of Trial of a Time Lord it wasn't clear whether she'd actually been killed or had gotten to marry Brian Blessed (who was the ruler of a planet, so no bad end if that was it, she'd just have to wear ear plugs). There was also Mel, who was treated badly by her scripts but was a pretty sharp companion if you ask me. I don't know what happened to her -- I think it was off screen?
Seventh Doctor: for Seven they pulled themselves together in the friend area when they got him Ace. (He traveled with Mel too, but I haven't seen those.) She was one of the best companions, and had an obvious mentor/student relationship. This left Ace free to form other friendships, mostly with girls. (The old show's treatment of friendships between women companions was also refreshingly free of today's "all women hate each other at least at first because MAN in the room" nonsense.) Some of those friendships, it was implied, were romantic. Even Davies didn't dare go there with main characters (he did have a Safe Old Lesbian Couple in one episode). This was in the late 80s when apparently Thatcherism was crushing homostuff left and right. Unfortunately Ace's end of travel with the Doctor is left up to audio stories I think -- I believe she went to Gallifrey to go to the Academy according to one thing I read. If so, not exactly a soul-crushing life of boring humanity!
(Added: I left out Eight because I haven't seen the movie or heard any of his Big Finish things. But I think at least as regards the film there was a happy-ish ending in that nobody left with sighs and tears about how bored they'd be forever.)
Now the new show.
Ninth Doctor: The only companion he had left at the end was Rose, after all the other ones had been dispensed with. Adam: discarded for capitalism. Seriously. Well it's true he was obsessed with making money and exploiting stuff he found time traveling with the Doctor, but let us remember Turlough tried to kill the Doctor several times. Why PTSD-advert War Refugee Doctor should be more ruthless about foolish companions is something I really can't figure out. But anyway. I didn't like Adam all that much, but I did like Mickey. Well, they had him write himself out because he just couldn't deal with the scary time travel. Considering how most of this Doctor's episodes involved aliens attacking Earth, I'm not sure how staying there without a Tardis to run away in was "safer." But I don't write the show. Then there is Jack. Before he became the Brig-like figure at least to having his own life and storyline he was a regular companion, and he got dumped on a space station 250,000 in the future orbiting a half-destroyed Earth. "He'll be all right!" says our hero the Doctor, meanwhile fleeing in fear for what we later learn are really stupid reasons (basically through no fault of his own Jack was the wrong kind of immortal).
Tenth Doctor: Rose was forced away from the Doctor by circumstances that were perfectly understandable (stuck in another universe) but it wasn't that bad: she had her dad back, her family and Mickey with her, and they were all rich. The reason why everyone focuses on Rose instead of Mickey was because she was clearly by this time in love with the Doctor, and Mickey had again for some reason stopped traveling regularly with them (probably because he was tired of seeing his girlfriend mooning over another man). Anyway, the show undercut this sad but not that bad ending by having Rose emote all over the place in a way that made clear her life was destroyed and nothing would ever be good and fun without the Doctor.
Then they brought Martha in. She was everything that makes a great companion (smart, curious, open to new things, able to run in high heels), so of course they ruined that by making her fall in love with Ten and his pretty face. When she finally left -- after saving the whole world -- it was to nurse her traumatized family back to health, and the way it was written made it look as if this was mostly just an excuse to get away from a disappointing love affair. Weak.
That Lady Christina woman was fine, and at least she got to escape the law, but what sort of life would she have after that? She was known to the police as a thief. I hope Ten at least snuck in to Scotland Yard and Interpol headquarters and wiped their files, it was the least he could do.
Astrid (?) played by Kylie Minogue got to die of stupidity. Seriously, the cab was open, all she had to do was roll out before it hit the edge. Her reward was to be a cloud of particles floating vaguely through the void. Disgusting.
Then Donna. At last, we think, here's a companion who won't take his shit. (Though when she first appeared, in the Christmas special, she did that "I'm leaving you because I'm too inadequate to the task of traveling with you" thing.) But they had to make her pathetic, because she was a woman in her late thirties or early forties and still not married and time has gone backwards in Jollie Olde Englande and we can't have an old maid have a happy life. So they pulled the Time-Lord-memory-wipe thing, only this time it was the Doctor who was the Time Lord. I really hated this, it was so unnecessary. He could cure his own problems with a cup of tea, but he couldn't fix Donna. Again, weak, all meant to show the tragedy of Not Being Able To Travel With The Doctor.
That one time they brought Sarah Jane back, they wrote her as someone who had never recovered from the joy and/or trauma of traveling with the Doctor. No growth for you, Sarah Jane! Just a sort of holding pattern as an eccentric lady who lives in an attic (though at least she got to do some adventures of her own for a while). And they made her and Rose have one of those silly women fights over a man that male writers nowadays are sure all women do as a matter of course. Shameful.
Eleventh Doctor: His main companions, Rory, Amy, and River, were a mess. He could never let Amy grow up. She had to write him an "and I never saw you again" letter to get him to never see her again. Rory was in it for Amy, always. If Amy hadn't cared about the Doctor I doubt he would have. Then River. I'm not going to say anything about her really being Rory and Amy's daughter because I prefer to pretend that part of the story didn't happen. But she went from a character with her own life and career to one that had literally been raised to be the Doctor's girlfriend. I liked the chemistry of the two actors on screen together. I just wish they had been in something else. And we already know she died *for him* so yeah.
I much prefer Clara, though she doesn't actually seem to have much of a life really. Oh she's a teacher. (I may be prejudiced against the profession: surely teaching is a fulfilling career.) Anyway, I hope the show's writers pull themselves out of whatever rut they're in and don't fuck up her life too, but I'm not hopeful. Here's what I want: whether she leaves him to teach Ulldrialian children on Blastripher IV or just goes back to Coal Hill School to marry one of the cute other teachers there, I hope it's treated as a life UPGRADE, as an "I'm ready to go on into my own life now," not "I'm doing this because all humans have short lives and I'll die soon and it's just sad, boring fate." Just give me that little bone.
Basically, original "classic" Who had no trouble facing the fact that time travel with a nearly immortal alien who often seemed to forget the people with him wouldn't get back up in a new body if they got the one they had broken was not always a fun ride. There was, of course (as there still is, though in a less sincere and thus much more annoying and cloying way) the traditional British love affair with "good old British domesticity," but at least the Doctor wasn't always making announcements about how wonderful it was (and thus, oddly enough, undercutting it) when it was Docs 1-7. (8, at least in the movie, was in America and involved with Americans and I don't think the British cottager and his million cups of tea make an appearance so I'm leaving him out of this.) Few of the Doctors' friends in the old series hero-worshiped him as lavishly as Rose did, and if they did it ended up badly for them. (See: Katrina, who thought he was a god, and Adric, who had dead big brother issues.) And no, Rose didn't end up dead, despite the nonsensical end of her initial run. Ending up in another universe with a new live dad who is also rich is not a bad ending.
But enough. My basic issue is the difference between the old series and the new and the way it treats companions leaving the Doctor. The new one treats it as a tragic downgrading of life for them. The old show treated it (mostly - with exceptions that I will also mention) as them having grown wiser from traveling with the Doctor, and being able to go on and have their own fulfilling lives. Now I will provide proof:
First Doctor: I haven't seen too many of his shows. But Ian and Barbara were initially kidnap victims, not travel buddies. Though they came to love the Doctor, they never stopped wanting to go home, and when they got the opportunity, they took it. Then there is Susan: she was his own granddaughter, but it was clear that when she left it was because she needed to leave and become her own woman with her own life. (The Doctor's last speech to her even said so!) These are the only 1st Doctor companions whose serials I've seen, so I'll leave the rest. (I've only read about Katrina.)
Second Doctor: okay, here is one exception, but the reasons for it were well done, and the idea that they wouldn't have as fulfilling a life were plausible. It was this: Zoe and Jamie were forced out of the Doctor's company by the Time Lords, and most of their memories of him removed. There was no nonsense about "well we have to leave the Doctor even though it means we're choosing a lesser, merely human existence." There was also Victoria, but she left to have her own life as well I believe.
Third Doctor: the Brig had his own life and career. Liz also had her own life and career as a scientist. Jo got married to a cool scientist dude near her own age. The Doctor was sad, but not once was it implied that she had chosen some sort of awful, boring life. The Sarah Jane Smith came along.
Fourth Doctor: He inherited the Brig and crew, and Sarah Jane. Now Sarah Jane was a bit of a problem. She started out as a feminist and a journalist, but somewhere along the way she began to be written as descending somewhat into childishness. At the end of her run she was dressed in the most absurd striped overalls outfit (Andy Pandy was the name of the character she dressed like, I believe). Now I don't know if this was done deliberately or not, but I think the Doctor recognized that if she kept on going about with him her life would never get anywhere. So he left her with some cock and bull about how humans weren't allowed on Gallifrey. And he left her in Scotland instead of London so she'd have to use her brains (and K-9's, who he'd left with her because he cared about her well-being and wasn't sure how well she'd be able to cope) by herself to get home. The writers of the new show seem to have decided that her life was still not great without the Doctor, but that was the new show, and we'll come to that in a little bit. The there was Romana, both 1 and 2. (They were the same character after all.) Romana left the Doctor to help the civilization at Warrior's Gate. She had found her mission in life, and was ready to strike out on her own. The companions that saw out Four were Tegan, Nyssa, and Adric. I'll talk about them in the next paragraph.
Added: Oh my god how could I forget Leela? Not going to talk in depth about her character here, but once again she chose to leave the Doctor for a husband who suited her (this time a soldier in the Gallifreyan Citadel guard, and I don't know how they plan to handle her eventual human death or did I read somewhere that fans or non-tv Who stuff writers made it that humans who live on Gallifrey somehow gain the power to regenerate, just like Moffat later made it so that babies conceived on the Tardis are magical regenerating babies no matter what species they are, this is all very confusing...) Anyway, though Four seemed a tad put off, there was no indication that *Leela* had made a bad decision.
Fifth Doctor: He inherited Tegan, Nyssa, and Adric from Four. Four was more like a captain who kept this crew in line, but Five was pretty unstable for a while and he never managed to impress his friends with his authority. His run was more democratic, if you will, or more bickery, if you want. Anyway, the only companion who didn't come well out of things was Adric, but at least he went out with a bang, trying to save lives. Nyssa left the Doctor to help sick people on Terminus with her scientific knowledge. Tegan couldn't take the violence after a while, but this was because there had been a whole lot of violence, not because she was too timid to be the Doctor's buddy. (See: Mickey when he was first introduced.) Turlough left the Doctor to go back to his home planet and help rule it, after having learned how to control his fears under the Doctor's influence. Then there was Peri. Peri was one of the exceptions... or was she?
Sixth Doctor: He got Peri as a companion. By this time the writing had fallen to bits rather, so at the end of Trial of a Time Lord it wasn't clear whether she'd actually been killed or had gotten to marry Brian Blessed (who was the ruler of a planet, so no bad end if that was it, she'd just have to wear ear plugs). There was also Mel, who was treated badly by her scripts but was a pretty sharp companion if you ask me. I don't know what happened to her -- I think it was off screen?
Seventh Doctor: for Seven they pulled themselves together in the friend area when they got him Ace. (He traveled with Mel too, but I haven't seen those.) She was one of the best companions, and had an obvious mentor/student relationship. This left Ace free to form other friendships, mostly with girls. (The old show's treatment of friendships between women companions was also refreshingly free of today's "all women hate each other at least at first because MAN in the room" nonsense.) Some of those friendships, it was implied, were romantic. Even Davies didn't dare go there with main characters (he did have a Safe Old Lesbian Couple in one episode). This was in the late 80s when apparently Thatcherism was crushing homostuff left and right. Unfortunately Ace's end of travel with the Doctor is left up to audio stories I think -- I believe she went to Gallifrey to go to the Academy according to one thing I read. If so, not exactly a soul-crushing life of boring humanity!
(Added: I left out Eight because I haven't seen the movie or heard any of his Big Finish things. But I think at least as regards the film there was a happy-ish ending in that nobody left with sighs and tears about how bored they'd be forever.)
Now the new show.
Ninth Doctor: The only companion he had left at the end was Rose, after all the other ones had been dispensed with. Adam: discarded for capitalism. Seriously. Well it's true he was obsessed with making money and exploiting stuff he found time traveling with the Doctor, but let us remember Turlough tried to kill the Doctor several times. Why PTSD-advert War Refugee Doctor should be more ruthless about foolish companions is something I really can't figure out. But anyway. I didn't like Adam all that much, but I did like Mickey. Well, they had him write himself out because he just couldn't deal with the scary time travel. Considering how most of this Doctor's episodes involved aliens attacking Earth, I'm not sure how staying there without a Tardis to run away in was "safer." But I don't write the show. Then there is Jack. Before he became the Brig-like figure at least to having his own life and storyline he was a regular companion, and he got dumped on a space station 250,000 in the future orbiting a half-destroyed Earth. "He'll be all right!" says our hero the Doctor, meanwhile fleeing in fear for what we later learn are really stupid reasons (basically through no fault of his own Jack was the wrong kind of immortal).
Tenth Doctor: Rose was forced away from the Doctor by circumstances that were perfectly understandable (stuck in another universe) but it wasn't that bad: she had her dad back, her family and Mickey with her, and they were all rich. The reason why everyone focuses on Rose instead of Mickey was because she was clearly by this time in love with the Doctor, and Mickey had again for some reason stopped traveling regularly with them (probably because he was tired of seeing his girlfriend mooning over another man). Anyway, the show undercut this sad but not that bad ending by having Rose emote all over the place in a way that made clear her life was destroyed and nothing would ever be good and fun without the Doctor.
Then they brought Martha in. She was everything that makes a great companion (smart, curious, open to new things, able to run in high heels), so of course they ruined that by making her fall in love with Ten and his pretty face. When she finally left -- after saving the whole world -- it was to nurse her traumatized family back to health, and the way it was written made it look as if this was mostly just an excuse to get away from a disappointing love affair. Weak.
That Lady Christina woman was fine, and at least she got to escape the law, but what sort of life would she have after that? She was known to the police as a thief. I hope Ten at least snuck in to Scotland Yard and Interpol headquarters and wiped their files, it was the least he could do.
Astrid (?) played by Kylie Minogue got to die of stupidity. Seriously, the cab was open, all she had to do was roll out before it hit the edge. Her reward was to be a cloud of particles floating vaguely through the void. Disgusting.
Then Donna. At last, we think, here's a companion who won't take his shit. (Though when she first appeared, in the Christmas special, she did that "I'm leaving you because I'm too inadequate to the task of traveling with you" thing.) But they had to make her pathetic, because she was a woman in her late thirties or early forties and still not married and time has gone backwards in Jollie Olde Englande and we can't have an old maid have a happy life. So they pulled the Time-Lord-memory-wipe thing, only this time it was the Doctor who was the Time Lord. I really hated this, it was so unnecessary. He could cure his own problems with a cup of tea, but he couldn't fix Donna. Again, weak, all meant to show the tragedy of Not Being Able To Travel With The Doctor.
That one time they brought Sarah Jane back, they wrote her as someone who had never recovered from the joy and/or trauma of traveling with the Doctor. No growth for you, Sarah Jane! Just a sort of holding pattern as an eccentric lady who lives in an attic (though at least she got to do some adventures of her own for a while). And they made her and Rose have one of those silly women fights over a man that male writers nowadays are sure all women do as a matter of course. Shameful.
Eleventh Doctor: His main companions, Rory, Amy, and River, were a mess. He could never let Amy grow up. She had to write him an "and I never saw you again" letter to get him to never see her again. Rory was in it for Amy, always. If Amy hadn't cared about the Doctor I doubt he would have. Then River. I'm not going to say anything about her really being Rory and Amy's daughter because I prefer to pretend that part of the story didn't happen. But she went from a character with her own life and career to one that had literally been raised to be the Doctor's girlfriend. I liked the chemistry of the two actors on screen together. I just wish they had been in something else. And we already know she died *for him* so yeah.
I much prefer Clara, though she doesn't actually seem to have much of a life really. Oh she's a teacher. (I may be prejudiced against the profession: surely teaching is a fulfilling career.) Anyway, I hope the show's writers pull themselves out of whatever rut they're in and don't fuck up her life too, but I'm not hopeful. Here's what I want: whether she leaves him to teach Ulldrialian children on Blastripher IV or just goes back to Coal Hill School to marry one of the cute other teachers there, I hope it's treated as a life UPGRADE, as an "I'm ready to go on into my own life now," not "I'm doing this because all humans have short lives and I'll die soon and it's just sad, boring fate." Just give me that little bone.