nlt@duke.UUCP (N. L. Tinkham) (10/20/84)
Rob DeMillo writes: > Why are the majority of women with the Doctor completely wimpy > useless humanoids? The only exceptions that come to mind > are Leela (she was great), Romana (although she seemed to do > her fair share of screeching), and (barely) Tegan. > Any thoughts about this? ************************** Good question. I hate to suggest the obvious, that many of the writers see the women in the show as functioning primarily 1) to decorate the set, and 2) to give the Doctor someone to rescue when things get dull. This is the 20th century, after all. Perhaps a kinder explanation would be that it takes work and imagination (on the part of both writer and actor) to create a complex character, and, although the characterization in Doctor Who is generally well above the average for television programming, not all the characters have been as fully and imaginatively developed as they might have been. (It's unfortunate, though, that more care couldn't have been taken with the female companions who lasted for several seasons -- Jo, Sarah, Tegan, and Nyssa were not minor walk-on roles.) Another factor, I think, is that the Doctor Tom Baker created was so forceful that a strong and forceful companion was needed to "balance" his character; anyone with less charisma would look "wimpy and useless" by comparison. I have found it interesting to watch those companions who travelled with more than one Doctor. Sarah next to Pertwee's Doctor was a headstrong feminist; next to Baker, she faded into the background. And Adric (in my opinion) seemed much stronger alongside Davison than with Baker. That doesn't explain Nyssa, of course, as she was with the fifth Doctor. I suppose she suffered mostly from having to share the stage with Tegan and (Turlough or Adric). There might have been time to develop her character more fully if she had travelled with the Doctor alone for awhile between "Time-Flight" and "Arc of Infinity". N. L. Tinkham duke!nlt
acsgjjp@sunybcs.UUCP (Jim Poltrone) (10/27/84)
[Can I kill him now, Doctor?] Quoting N. L. Tinkham here (duke!nlt): > ..... Sarah next to Pertwee's Doctor > was a headstrong feminist; next to Baker, she faded into the background. Indeed. Sarah first appeared in "The Time Warrior", when she posed as her aunt, viologist Lavinia Smith. I remember her active role in the stories "The Monster of Peladon" and "Planet of the Spiders". As soon as Tom Baker took over as the Doctor, she had become more of a tag-along. The only other time she was forceful was during "The Hand of Fear", where she said the now-famous line (all right, everyone, 1.. 2.. 3..) "Eldrad *must* live!" > That doesn't explain Nyssa, of course, as she was with the fifth > Doctor. ..... There might have been time to > develop her character more fully if she had travelled with the Doctor > alone for awhile between "Time-Flight" and "Arc of Infinity". I didn't see "The Keeper of Traken" or "Logopolis" yet, so I can't say how Nyssa was in the last two Tom Baker stories. She does speak up quite vehemently to one of the members of the High Council in defense of the Doctor in the story "Arc of Infinity". Now quoting from Rob DeMillo (uwmacc!demillo): > What's all this I keep hearing about Sarah Sutton!? My God, she's > absolutely awful!! She can't act, she can barely speak her > friggin' lines - and she is NOT particularly attractive, in my opinion, > either.... Everyone's entitled to their own opinions; the world would be a boring place if we all agreed with everyone else, wouldn't it? I would have to say that one of the reasons I like Nyssa is because the character is close (+/- 5) to my own age. When I first started watching, I wasn't particularly too fond of Leela because she was "too violent". (I've grown to like her since then.) And I didn't like Tegan in "Castrovalva"; she was a bit too much of a "mouth on legs". (She isn't that way in "Resurrection of the Daleks", however.) By the way, Sarah (Sutton) has been going to the Guildhall College of the Performing Arts (I'm not sure on the name) to get a teacher's degree in speech and drama. She'd have to be able to act in order to TEACH how to act, right? (Doctor Who does not have that many well-known stars in it, other than some guest roles.) -- From under the smogberry trees.... Jim Poltrone (a/k/a Poltr1, the Last of the Raster Blasters) uucp: [decvax,watmath,rocksvax]!sunybcs!acsgjjp ARPAnet, CSnet: acsgjjp%buffalo@CSNET-RELAY Don't forget to STAY DEMENTED!