"Once, a boy said to me, "We've got a picture of you and you've got no clothes on!" And I said, "Well, yes, I had to go and save the universe and I didn't have time to get dressed."
I love Katy Manning.
An I think this is a very good point:
"the producer, made absolutely no bones about why the companions were there: you were told, in words of one syllable, that you were there for the dads. That didn't sit easily with me, because I was, and still am, a feminist. I thought, "Actually, I'm there for the young women to identify with."
Go Janet!
This I didn't actually agree with:
"By the end, I wasn't wearing very much at all. It did seem a shame. You start off with a strong character, and it all gets lost along the way."
Despite what she was wearing, which was immaterial, Nyssa was a very strong character by her final story. She survives being put in a strange ship with a bunch of Lazers, contracting a fatal disease, all alone, grabbed by a monster and dosed with radiation, yet in the end she believes she can find the cure, and goes on to give her life to that endeavor. To saving lives, even when it's not a cushy or safe, or even very comfortable life she knows she's going to be going into. Even the living quarters suck. But she chooses to help, despite all the setbacks, and despite it meaning she would leave the safety of the Tardis, and the little family she had left now that her world was gone.
When I look at Nyssa, I don't see a girl who left after dropping her skirt on the show. I see a young woman who has grown hugely and who has dedicated her life to an ideal of helping. Of making the universe a better place. I don't think her strong character got lost along the way. She's now just the strong grown up woman who started out as the strong young girl who would shoot someone if necessary to save the ones she loved. Nyssa may have been a quiet person, but she was always strong.
Don't worry Sarah (Sutton).
This also makes me a bit sad. That apparently even the Companions from that time have fallen for the myth that Companions were useless:
" I don't think young people today are prepared to accept that women are doormats."
Bonnie, you may not have gotten the best parts, but I never thought the Companions were doormats. I always looked up very much to Doctor Who Companions. They were women out there helping to save the world, being amazing, without ever having to "lose" being a woman to do it. (Doctor Who Companions never fell into that 70's and 80's myth of the "Superwoman" who could do everything and ended up being "fake men" in the attempt. Doctor Who women, were always women, real women, who could get scared, and scream, and have no idea what was going on, but they'd still by God damn demand answers and would save the Doctor and would bull through situations by sheer determination and grit that even many men would find daunting.)
Part 2 (Lots of interviews, long response)betawhoSeptember 28 2013, 14:22:37 UTC
Doctor Who women were never doormats. They were never just eye candy. They were women entire generations of girls could look up to and think "I want to be her when I grow up." And who whole generations of boys could look at and think, "Wow, girls can do more than I thought! That's cool! I wish I got the chance to do that!"
Not being the title character did not mean the Companions were useless. And not knowing what is going on or knowing how to deal with it, did not make them doormats or stupid or undeveloped, it just made them real. Who would know what was going on if you woke up on an alien planet and found your tour guide missing? And if you have to be a bit shrill in order to get answers, or a bit annoying and digging in your heels when an alien takes you prisoner, that does not make you a doormat. It means you use what you have and by god get the job done.
There are soldiers who know what that's like. And it's not about being a doormat.
Doctor Who Companions are awesome, and I don't honestly think the New Companions are better simply because they drag their domestics along or get to swing on ropes. If Mel had been there while the 9th Doctor was strugging with the Autons, she'd have simply charged the Auton and shoved it in the vat.
Being a smartass with a sexlife and lame relatives does not make a person a better character. Or even necessarily a "more fleshed out one" the majority of the Classic Companions were taken completely away from their homes, so that part of their life was inaccessible. But they were constantly put in danger, so we got to know them by how they responded to those dangerous situations, to how they dealt with a rather scatterbrained Doctor, with how they related to the people they met along the way.
They learned to expand their horizons, and that the universe wasn't all "about them" but at the same time, that did not make them irrelevant.
And, honestly, when did Mel ever have the chance to come across a computer she could program? It's not like all these high tech worlds were running rudimentary 80's Apple programs.
Sorry, rant. But I get so tired of women that I greatly admired for their fortitude, honor, bravery, intelligence, and caring being talked about as if they were doormats, or uninteresting, or only there as something for the men in the audience to leer at.
If anything, Classic Doctor Who Companions taught me respect for women, and all they are capable of.
The fact that they were pretty was nice, but mostly irrelevant.
And, honestly, if I was traveling with the Doctor, I'd be asking "What is it Doctor?" every time I saw something new too. It's not a sign of stupidity, it's a sign of intelligence. They wanted to know more about the worlds and new things they saw.
What would be stupid, would be to see something new, and not ask. Especially when it could be dangerous.
And what else would be stupid, would be to treat Companions as if they know as much as the Doctor. The whole point of Companions is that it's all new to them. New Worlds, New Species, New Times, cultures, and customs everywhere they go.
And I like Carol Ann Ford's remark in the video:
"Bill would have loved to be around today, to see how incredibly successful it is. He'd have gone, 'I told you so. I told you so."
Thanks for posting these reviews, they were awesome, even if I did get a bit ranty. It's amazing to see everyone back again, all getting the chance to celebrate and be recognized for a cultural institution that they helped create. A whole legacy and mythology of heroes that has entertained and changed people's lives for the better.
Re: Part 2 (Lots of interviews, long response)darkestboySeptember 30 2013, 12:30:20 UTC
beta, there's a lot here you've mentioned and it's interesting to read. Your stance with the companions is a pretty great one and I like that you enjoyed the interviews. I thought they were fantastic too and loved that the Guardian managed to represent the first 11 Doctors (had Jenna-Louise Coleman been interviewed too it would've taken in Peter Capaldi as well) as brilliantly as they did.
I loved this part:
"Once, a boy said to me, "We've got a picture of you and you've got no clothes on!" And I said, "Well, yes, I had to go and save the universe and I didn't have time to get dressed."
I love Katy Manning.
An I think this is a very good point:
"the producer, made absolutely no bones about why the companions were there: you were told, in words of one syllable, that you were there for the dads. That didn't sit easily with me, because I was, and still am, a feminist. I thought, "Actually, I'm there for the young women to identify with."
Go Janet!
This I didn't actually agree with:
"By the end, I wasn't wearing very much at all. It did seem a shame. You start off with a strong character, and it all gets lost along the way."
Despite what she was wearing, which was immaterial, Nyssa was a very strong character by her final story. She survives being put in a strange ship with a bunch of Lazers, contracting a fatal disease, all alone, grabbed by a monster and dosed with radiation, yet in the end she believes she can find the cure, and goes on to give her life to that endeavor. To saving lives, even when it's not a cushy or safe, or even very comfortable life she knows she's going to be going into. Even the living quarters suck. But she chooses to help, despite all the setbacks, and despite it meaning she would leave the safety of the Tardis, and the little family she had left now that her world was gone.
When I look at Nyssa, I don't see a girl who left after dropping her skirt on the show. I see a young woman who has grown hugely and who has dedicated her life to an ideal of helping. Of making the universe a better place. I don't think her strong character got lost along the way. She's now just the strong grown up woman who started out as the strong young girl who would shoot someone if necessary to save the ones she loved. Nyssa may have been a quiet person, but she was always strong.
Don't worry Sarah (Sutton).
This also makes me a bit sad. That apparently even the Companions from that time have fallen for the myth that Companions were useless:
" I don't think young people today are prepared to accept that women are doormats."
Bonnie, you may not have gotten the best parts, but I never thought the Companions were doormats. I always looked up very much to Doctor Who Companions. They were women out there helping to save the world, being amazing, without ever having to "lose" being a woman to do it. (Doctor Who Companions never fell into that 70's and 80's myth of the "Superwoman" who could do everything and ended up being "fake men" in the attempt. Doctor Who women, were always women, real women, who could get scared, and scream, and have no idea what was going on, but they'd still by God damn demand answers and would save the Doctor and would bull through situations by sheer determination and grit that even many men would find daunting.)
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Not being the title character did not mean the Companions were useless. And not knowing what is going on or knowing how to deal with it, did not make them doormats or stupid or undeveloped, it just made them real. Who would know what was going on if you woke up on an alien planet and found your tour guide missing? And if you have to be a bit shrill in order to get answers, or a bit annoying and digging in your heels when an alien takes you prisoner, that does not make you a doormat. It means you use what you have and by god get the job done.
There are soldiers who know what that's like. And it's not about being a doormat.
Doctor Who Companions are awesome, and I don't honestly think the New Companions are better simply because they drag their domestics along or get to swing on ropes. If Mel had been there while the 9th Doctor was strugging with the Autons, she'd have simply charged the Auton and shoved it in the vat.
Being a smartass with a sexlife and lame relatives does not make a person a better character. Or even necessarily a "more fleshed out one" the majority of the Classic Companions were taken completely away from their homes, so that part of their life was inaccessible. But they were constantly put in danger, so we got to know them by how they responded to those dangerous situations, to how they dealt with a rather scatterbrained Doctor, with how they related to the people they met along the way.
They learned to expand their horizons, and that the universe wasn't all "about them" but at the same time, that did not make them irrelevant.
And, honestly, when did Mel ever have the chance to come across a computer she could program? It's not like all these high tech worlds were running rudimentary 80's Apple programs.
Sorry, rant. But I get so tired of women that I greatly admired for their fortitude, honor, bravery, intelligence, and caring being talked about as if they were doormats, or uninteresting, or only there as something for the men in the audience to leer at.
If anything, Classic Doctor Who Companions taught me respect for women, and all they are capable of.
The fact that they were pretty was nice, but mostly irrelevant.
And, honestly, if I was traveling with the Doctor, I'd be asking "What is it Doctor?" every time I saw something new too. It's not a sign of stupidity, it's a sign of intelligence. They wanted to know more about the worlds and new things they saw.
What would be stupid, would be to see something new, and not ask. Especially when it could be dangerous.
And what else would be stupid, would be to treat Companions as if they know as much as the Doctor. The whole point of Companions is that it's all new to them. New Worlds, New Species, New Times, cultures, and customs everywhere they go.
And I like Carol Ann Ford's remark in the video:
"Bill would have loved to be around today, to see how incredibly successful it is. He'd have gone, 'I told you so. I told you so."
Thanks for posting these reviews, they were awesome, even if I did get a bit ranty. It's amazing to see everyone back again, all getting the chance to celebrate and be recognized for a cultural institution that they helped create. A whole legacy and mythology of heroes that has entertained and changed people's lives for the better.
It's like time travel, only better.
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