Thoughts on the new Who companion
Why I don't care that the new companion is yet another attractive 20-something woman (one of the most frequent complaints I've seen about her)
1. Attractive 20-something women are not all the same.
2. Attractiveness is pretty much mandatory for professional actors, especially female ones. So where were they going to find an unattractive one, and come on, do you REALLY want that? My observation is that the male audience (who, face it, are unfortunately the main ones catered to by sci-fi TV producers to whom that is the default demographic, and any others like me who happen to be watching are gravy) tends to *lose their freaking minds* if an actress cast in a regular role on their favorite show is anything less than drop dead gorgeous in their eyes.
3. "Doctor + 1 young female companion" has been the default setup on the show since the early 70s, so much so that it's pretty much a set-in-stone part of the show's format (with the occasional male, alien, or robot thrown in just for grins). Also set in stone in the BBC's and viewers' minds is the notion that the main companion needs to be the Doctor's opposite on several levels: young and relatively naive (because he's old and has incredible amounts of knowledge and experience), female (because so far he's always been male), human (because he's not, and the conventional wisdom is that audiences will tune out if there's not at least one character with a similar perspective to theirs in at least one aspect). *And* a longstanding major component of the Doctor's character is the fact that he likes humans (or why else would he save us so much?). So what do you want from them?
4. *And*, (this is probably the most important) television producers are NOTORIOUSLY reluctant to mess with what's worked in the past. So, sorry, but I continue to refuse to write this new character off before I've even seen more than 2 minutes of her in action.
Deal with it.
(This is a modified version of a reply I posted on a Who community post on Facebook that was full of "Waaahhh, they didn't create and cast a character solely according to MY personal hopes and preferences!")
1. Attractive 20-something women are not all the same.
2. Attractiveness is pretty much mandatory for professional actors, especially female ones. So where were they going to find an unattractive one, and come on, do you REALLY want that? My observation is that the male audience (who, face it, are unfortunately the main ones catered to by sci-fi TV producers to whom that is the default demographic, and any others like me who happen to be watching are gravy) tends to *lose their freaking minds* if an actress cast in a regular role on their favorite show is anything less than drop dead gorgeous in their eyes.
3. "Doctor + 1 young female companion" has been the default setup on the show since the early 70s, so much so that it's pretty much a set-in-stone part of the show's format (with the occasional male, alien, or robot thrown in just for grins). Also set in stone in the BBC's and viewers' minds is the notion that the main companion needs to be the Doctor's opposite on several levels: young and relatively naive (because he's old and has incredible amounts of knowledge and experience), female (because so far he's always been male), human (because he's not, and the conventional wisdom is that audiences will tune out if there's not at least one character with a similar perspective to theirs in at least one aspect). *And* a longstanding major component of the Doctor's character is the fact that he likes humans (or why else would he save us so much?). So what do you want from them?
4. *And*, (this is probably the most important) television producers are NOTORIOUSLY reluctant to mess with what's worked in the past. So, sorry, but I continue to refuse to write this new character off before I've even seen more than 2 minutes of her in action.
Deal with it.
(This is a modified version of a reply I posted on a Who community post on Facebook that was full of "Waaahhh, they didn't create and cast a character solely according to MY personal hopes and preferences!")