January Meme: Companions and Doctors: what makes particular combinations work for me
Necesssary preamble: all of this is extremely subjective. What looks like a good arc for me doesn't have to look like one for you, ditto for chemistry being in the eye of the beholder, etc. And nothing is meant as a disparagement of your own favourites, choices, etc.
Two years ago one of the prompts on the month of meta meme was to write about Clara, then the Eleventh Doctor's Companion in his final couple of episodes. Without looking it up, I think my conclusion was that while I had loved Clara's two non 21st century incarnations, Oswin and Victorian Clara, main Clara Oswald felt too generic a Companion to me, with only her being a teacher to distinguish her from the basic model. Fast forward to today, and Clara is now one of my favourite Companions. Partly because the writing for her changed (imo, imo); instead of a "how is she the Impossible Girl?" mystery and then generic Companion-ness, her arc was, simplified: Clara becomes her own Doctor. Also, and not so coincidentally, that ability to make up stories that Victorian Clara had had was explored as main Clara's talent to lie, which served her well in a couple of dangerous situations but also became sometimes a convenient short cut with which she short changed Danny because it was easier than telling the truth. And her adrenaline junkie side grew larger. In short, we saw her flaws along with her strengths.
Simultaneously, her relationship with the Twelfth Doctor was different than the one with the Eleventh. He was different. There was a lot more bickering involved, and at first a lot less certainty about each other. They had to learn about each other anew. In retrospect, I think it's possible to say that he was finding out who - which kind of Doctor - he wanted to and could be through her even while she become one herself. Which made it a dynamic uniquely theirs. He couldn't have had it with another Companion; she couldn't have had it with another regeneration. And on an actorly level, Capaldi and Coleman clicked for me in a way Smith and Coleman just hadn't done.
Which brings me to my still in progress theory about which Doctor and Companion(s) combinations work for me, and which don't work so well. (Again: for me. No claim to generalness.) It is this: if you can't simply switch Doctors or Companions and get the same type of story, then the combination works better for me. Which, btw, doesn't mean a Companion can be good only with one Doctor, or a Doctor only with one Companion. That's not why I'm saying. Take the Third Doctor, who lucked out in his Companions - Liz, Jo and Sarah Jane all are great characters, and his dynamic with each of them was to me very enjoyable (and different with each of them). (And he got the Brig, too!) Conversely, Sarah Jane started with Three, had the majority of her stint as a Companion with Four, come back to the show with Ten, and on her own show, worked with Ten and Eleven both. Each of these combinations worked for me as a viewer. But the thing is, you couldn't just switch the different phases of her life, or the regenerations of the Doctor, and get identical stories. Three and Four would not have reacted to seeing Sarah Jane again the way Ten did (and not just because David Tennant's personal fannish adoration shone through that reunion scene) , and Eleven didn't have to because they were on visiting terms. The young Sarah Jane who'd only just met the Doctor and was starting to get to know him responded differently to him than the one who'd travelled with him in his Baker form for years. And so forth. The interaction was different each time, sometimes subtly so, sometimes majorly so.
Mind you, uniqueness of interaction is by no means the be all and end all. Here are some dynamics which didn't work so for me, and which, nonetheless, are very specific to their respective Companion(s) and Doctor combinations: Five and his on screen Companions (on screen because on audio, some of the same Companions work quite differently for me), Six and Peri, Ten and Rose and Ten and Martha. There isn't a common denominator: my problem with Ten and Rose was the romance and clique-ness, with Ten and Martha the fact Martha was stuck with the unrequited love storyline (no matter how good her TARDIS exit scene as payoff), with Six and Peri I felt that they were meant to be fun verbal sparring partners but what was supposed to be banter often came across as unpleasantness, and with the various on screen Fifth Doctor Companions, you got quite often the feeling they didn't really want to be there and with each other in the first place, and that what Eric Saward really wanted to write was Blake's 7, only that wasn't an option anymore.
All of this is fixable by writing, though. In the one Six and Peri Big Finish audio I heard, the banter balance is just right, and you get a sense of deep mutual fondness beneath it. Speaking of Peri, Big Finish took her, added Erimem the Pharaoh who never was, and created what became my favourite Fifth Doctor & Companions combination. (No matter how unlikely it is that Five and Peri between the Master's seeming demise and the Doctor's had all these adventures.) And Six is THE audio Doctor, in a way, the one who gained most via Big Finish. The belligerence is still there, but so is compassion and when needed kindness, plus from Evelyn Smythe the historian onwards, the audio Companions for the Sixth Doctor have a sparkling dynamic with him. (Even the recurring guest stars do. *waves D.I. Patricia Menzies & Six 4evah! banner*) And to repeat an often stated but true cliché, one of several reasons why the Ten & Donna dynamic is so great is because neither is in love with the other, and the episode in s4 where we see the Doctor, Donna and Martha travel together made me wish for more in this combination, too.
To get back to the start: whoever the next Companion is, I hope their dynamic with the Doctor will develop into something specifically theirs. If it's not right at the start, I'll hang on, because I know that sometimes, waiting can result in something incredibly captivating (for me). In the meantime, there are forty years of other combinations to go back to. And who could ask for more?
The other days
This entry was originally posted at http://selenak.dreamwidth.org/1136357.html. Comment there or here, as you wish.
Two years ago one of the prompts on the month of meta meme was to write about Clara, then the Eleventh Doctor's Companion in his final couple of episodes. Without looking it up, I think my conclusion was that while I had loved Clara's two non 21st century incarnations, Oswin and Victorian Clara, main Clara Oswald felt too generic a Companion to me, with only her being a teacher to distinguish her from the basic model. Fast forward to today, and Clara is now one of my favourite Companions. Partly because the writing for her changed (imo, imo); instead of a "how is she the Impossible Girl?" mystery and then generic Companion-ness, her arc was, simplified: Clara becomes her own Doctor. Also, and not so coincidentally, that ability to make up stories that Victorian Clara had had was explored as main Clara's talent to lie, which served her well in a couple of dangerous situations but also became sometimes a convenient short cut with which she short changed Danny because it was easier than telling the truth. And her adrenaline junkie side grew larger. In short, we saw her flaws along with her strengths.
Simultaneously, her relationship with the Twelfth Doctor was different than the one with the Eleventh. He was different. There was a lot more bickering involved, and at first a lot less certainty about each other. They had to learn about each other anew. In retrospect, I think it's possible to say that he was finding out who - which kind of Doctor - he wanted to and could be through her even while she become one herself. Which made it a dynamic uniquely theirs. He couldn't have had it with another Companion; she couldn't have had it with another regeneration. And on an actorly level, Capaldi and Coleman clicked for me in a way Smith and Coleman just hadn't done.
Which brings me to my still in progress theory about which Doctor and Companion(s) combinations work for me, and which don't work so well. (Again: for me. No claim to generalness.) It is this: if you can't simply switch Doctors or Companions and get the same type of story, then the combination works better for me. Which, btw, doesn't mean a Companion can be good only with one Doctor, or a Doctor only with one Companion. That's not why I'm saying. Take the Third Doctor, who lucked out in his Companions - Liz, Jo and Sarah Jane all are great characters, and his dynamic with each of them was to me very enjoyable (and different with each of them). (And he got the Brig, too!) Conversely, Sarah Jane started with Three, had the majority of her stint as a Companion with Four, come back to the show with Ten, and on her own show, worked with Ten and Eleven both. Each of these combinations worked for me as a viewer. But the thing is, you couldn't just switch the different phases of her life, or the regenerations of the Doctor, and get identical stories. Three and Four would not have reacted to seeing Sarah Jane again the way Ten did (and not just because David Tennant's personal fannish adoration shone through that reunion scene) , and Eleven didn't have to because they were on visiting terms. The young Sarah Jane who'd only just met the Doctor and was starting to get to know him responded differently to him than the one who'd travelled with him in his Baker form for years. And so forth. The interaction was different each time, sometimes subtly so, sometimes majorly so.
Mind you, uniqueness of interaction is by no means the be all and end all. Here are some dynamics which didn't work so for me, and which, nonetheless, are very specific to their respective Companion(s) and Doctor combinations: Five and his on screen Companions (on screen because on audio, some of the same Companions work quite differently for me), Six and Peri, Ten and Rose and Ten and Martha. There isn't a common denominator: my problem with Ten and Rose was the romance and clique-ness, with Ten and Martha the fact Martha was stuck with the unrequited love storyline (no matter how good her TARDIS exit scene as payoff), with Six and Peri I felt that they were meant to be fun verbal sparring partners but what was supposed to be banter often came across as unpleasantness, and with the various on screen Fifth Doctor Companions, you got quite often the feeling they didn't really want to be there and with each other in the first place, and that what Eric Saward really wanted to write was Blake's 7, only that wasn't an option anymore.
All of this is fixable by writing, though. In the one Six and Peri Big Finish audio I heard, the banter balance is just right, and you get a sense of deep mutual fondness beneath it. Speaking of Peri, Big Finish took her, added Erimem the Pharaoh who never was, and created what became my favourite Fifth Doctor & Companions combination. (No matter how unlikely it is that Five and Peri between the Master's seeming demise and the Doctor's had all these adventures.) And Six is THE audio Doctor, in a way, the one who gained most via Big Finish. The belligerence is still there, but so is compassion and when needed kindness, plus from Evelyn Smythe the historian onwards, the audio Companions for the Sixth Doctor have a sparkling dynamic with him. (Even the recurring guest stars do. *waves D.I. Patricia Menzies & Six 4evah! banner*) And to repeat an often stated but true cliché, one of several reasons why the Ten & Donna dynamic is so great is because neither is in love with the other, and the episode in s4 where we see the Doctor, Donna and Martha travel together made me wish for more in this combination, too.
To get back to the start: whoever the next Companion is, I hope their dynamic with the Doctor will develop into something specifically theirs. If it's not right at the start, I'll hang on, because I know that sometimes, waiting can result in something incredibly captivating (for me). In the meantime, there are forty years of other combinations to go back to. And who could ask for more?
The other days
This entry was originally posted at http://selenak.dreamwidth.org/1136357.html. Comment there or here, as you wish.