Women and Their Stories in Doctor Who

[fauxkaren]

So, I ended up getting into a really great discussion with therealycats about RTD's Women in Doctor Who vs Moffat's Women in Doctor Who over in this post and while replying to her comments, I realized that I was basically writing the meta that I'd been toying around with writing, so I edited my comments together to create this post. If you want to see my

Comments

[kem_viva]

My ranking for favorite companions is a lot more about entertainment, and how good the episodes/seasons on whole are rather than just their stories. I am also not a huge RTD fan, but because I have not watched his episodes of Doctor Who in so long now I don't know if I can properly explain why. I like Moffat a lot more as a story teller, because as I have said like a million times lol, he was the writer for my favorite Doctor Who episodes. This season things just got far to carried away for me, but I think his first series is one of my favorites. I never noticed any of the problems with Amy or River really until what he did this season.

Anyways, Donna was my favorite companion, mainly because Catherine Tate and David Tennant were brilliant together. They had the funniest Doctor Who moments I can remember and played off each other so much. And I really dislike any romantic story line between the Doctor and his companion so it was especially awesome that they were just best friends. Donna's story was really sad, but IA with what you said that there really wasn't another way for that to end up. I wish they could bring her back for just one Matt Smith ep though, I think that could be hilarious!

Amy is my second favorite companion, and I sort of group Rory with her since she is the one who brought him into the show too. Vincent and the Doctor might be my favorite Doctor Who episode, and I really loved Amy in it. Amy just has really great personality and I think that is what makes me like her so much. I am hoping for the next series there won't be as much of an overarching plot (haha, i know) and we can have more individual episodes which I think let the companions have more character exploration. Also Rory and Amy are the cutest couple, I wish they could have an episode with just them two and no Doctor.

Rose was my third favorite, but I liked her episodes in series 1 more than series 2. I don't even remember why now but Rose was always just okay for me. I think some of it had to do with her relationship with the Doctor, and I know I really disliked the whole 10.2 thing where she got to keep a Doctor for herself after all. I don't know maybe I thought her story ended too melodramatically or something lol.

Martha was my least favorite, but because I found her series to be dull and uninteresting. Blink was my favorite that series and her and the Doctor really weren't in it. So I think she suffered from the writing, because personality wise I did like her more than Rose, its just that story line wise she did not have as many memorable moments imo. I also did not like them making her have a crush on the Doctor right after Rose, I think that almost forces you to compare Martha and Rose and I think thats why a lot of people don't like her. I did love that she was the one who left the Doctor though and got to live her own life. In some ways actually she is my favorite companion lol.

[fauxkaren]

Oh there's nothing wrong in coming from that perspective. I think that there is a lot about Amy and River's personalities that are fun to watch. That's definitely one way to approach the show. It's just not how I experience and enjoy the show. So I just wanted to explore why Amy and River failed as characters for me personally. For me, it's about how much I connect to characters emotionally, and how much I "get" their stories. The fact that I found Amy and River's stories so problematic prevents me for really loving them as charactes.