The Return of All Era Thursday!

[the_willows]

In these long months between series halves, we thought it might be nice to return to our weekly look at eras past. Hopefuly, in the coming weeks, we'll have some people hosing themed posts about a specific aspect of Doctor Who history, but we'll kick off today, with a general post, where people can bond over Doctors, characters, stories, writers,

Comments

[sharkshark]

I LIKE ADRIC, HATERS TO THE LEFT.

[the_willows]

[sharkshark]

I had second thoughts about starting off the post with something so in-your-face and controversial BUT I NEEDED TO STAKE OUT MY TERRITORY AND DEFEND MY BB.

[the_willows]

[box_in_the_box]

Adric and Turlough are a fascinating study in contrasts.

In retrospect, they both sort of wound up being the Fredo Corleones of their respective TARDIS families - and isn't it interesting how few Fredos there have ever been on board the TARDIS? - but with Adric, it was because the writing couldn't rescue him from the gravitational pull of the Scrappy heap, whereas with Turlough, he was quite intentionally written as not worthy of being a companion, at least at first.

Adric had potential, but it got killed when they added Nyssa to his Team TARDIS (yes, JNT, excellent idea; let's have two characters whose entire hooks revolve around being slightly alien child prodigies on the cast at the same time), especially since it takes some strong characterizations to make a three-companion TARDIS at all functional from a writing standpoint in the first place. Barbara, Ian and Susan worked, as did Rose, Jack and Mickey, but Tegan, Nyssa and Adric? No.

[box_in_the_box]

On that note, I'd really like to see another traitor in the TARDIS, like we had with Turlough. Eleven would be an especially good Doctor for such a storyline, because we've already seen how cagey he can be with the truth, even with companions whom he genuinely loves like family, and you could basically take all of the mutual keeping-secrets-from-each-other paranoia of the first half of this season and amp it up to ... well, eleven. :)

Actually, right before "A Good Man Goes to War," a friend of mine speculated that the reason we weren't shown the nightmares that House must have subjected Rory to in the TARDIS, during "The Doctor's Wife," was because Rory has been very calmly and quietly going completely insane for a very long time now. Thus, when Amy was confronted with an aged and homicidal Rory, she was physically ill over it (brilliant acting on Karen Gillan's part, by the way, that she looked like she was actually going to vomit), whereas when House showed Rory his worst nightmares, Rory simply shrugged and said, "Yeah, I'm

[sharkshark]

I can totally see reasons why people hate Adric, but I've always blamed the writing just not knowing what the hell to do with him. Though, to be honest, he really reminds me of me as a teenager (and probably now), pain in the ass-ness and all, which might be why I like him so much.

Adric had potential, but it got killed when they added Nyssa to his Team TARDIS
I do agree with this. And I really think his dynamic with Four was better than Five, as well. There are just a lot of things that made him not quite work later on with Five, Tegan, and Nyssa. =/

[box_in_the_box]

What's funny about Moff claiming the JNT/Five era of Classic Who as his favorite is that, while Eleven resembles Five in certain surface aspects, he's absolutely Five's opposite in terms of how he relates to his companions. Eleven comes across as genuinely old and paternal at many points, which reflects Five's old-man-in-a-young-body thing, but Five actually had a lot more of One's prickly peevishness toward the youngsters in his TARDIS, whereas Eleven is like a well-meaning but frighteningly careless babysitter, who's so excited to be showing cool stuff to the kids in his care that he sometimes forgets that, hey, they're just kids, and not quite ready to do more grown-up adventuring. Five rolled his eyes with impatience every time Adric opened his mouth, whereas Eleven saw nothing wrong with spiring little Amelia Pond away from her home in the middle of the night to show her the universe. With another character, that could come across as manipulative or predatory, but with Eleven, it's because he actually assumes too much about

[scarfman]

Adric ... really reminds me of me as a teenager
I am of the school of thought that fans dislike Adric because he's just like us. (Though not having been written very well comes into it too.)

[box_in_the_box]

As a kid, I reflexively hated ALL of the "child POV" characters for this reason, right down to Robin, Marvin and Wendy on the Super Friends cartoon. I NEVER identified with kids my own age. I identified with the DOCTOR, dammit!

[ccorday]

I agree -- I never liked the child characters writers always shoehorn into established "family shows" because somebody on the staff had written something on child psychology and decided that children watching the show needed "someone their own age to identify with." Any kids watching Who at that point already identified with the characters that were already on there; kids don't watch things on tv they don't like. (When my father put the cowboy movies on or my mother watched golf, I went to my room and read a book.)

That being said, I had a bit of a crush on Adric. I didn't really think of him as being at all like me so I didn't realize he was supposed to be some sort of Doctor Who "translator" to my tiny teenage brain. (If he'd been played by an American actor I'd probably have caught it, though.)

[azarsuerte]

People hated Adric for acting like a teenage boy, which is illogical because HE WAS A TEENAGE BOY. I always thought his behavior made perfect sense considering Four had promised to mentor him, and then Five came along and was only interested in the girls. Adric basically *lost* his father figure and no one seemed to care. Most teens would be a little irritable and do things to get attention under the circumstances.

[rebellious_toes]

I can't possibly hate Adric, he's too much like me at that age. Good at maths, bit of a know-it-all, always hanging around the buffet at parties. When he's arguing with the Doctor at the beginning of Earthshock, he sounds so much like teenage me fighting with my mum that it's frightening.

I don't care what anyone says, I like him.

[rat_hospital]

Thank you! Adric will never be one of my all time favorites, but he isn't even half as annoying as people say he is. He's the only teenage companion to actually consistantly act his age. Sure Matthew Waterhouse doesn't rate as one of the better actors in the TARDIS but it was his first job more or less. He suffered, as did Nyssa, and to a certain extent Tegan, from the over-crowded TARDIS syndrome. Keeper of Traken and early parts of Logopolis show a Four/ Adric dynamic that is surprisingly charming. Adric is so earnest and naively intelligent, yet with a survival streak that is lost over time. Watching him struggling to keep pace with Four's rapid mood swings and leaps of logic is a joy. The Fourth Doctor serves as a reluctant mentor figure who is busy doing his own thing but every once in a while gives Adric a pat on the head. The Fifth Doctor was more an older brother who was too busy dealing with the shouting annoying Tegan to deal with either Adric or Nyssa.

[donna_c_punk]

PREACH IT!!!!!!!!!

Random fact

[acmeeoy]

His actor is apparently a dentist in my US state.