Build-A-Companion (Taken from Issue 17)
With the new Doctor Who Companion set to revealed today (23rd April) here is an article from our latest Issue, looking at what sort of companion the show may go for...
(You can download our latest Issue for free here)
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So unlike
those build-a-bear shops you see littered around the large, uninspiring,
zombie-filled shopping centres in major cities around the world - let’s build
an uplifting and inspiring companion!
Male?
There’s been
a rumbling underground campaign amongst forum-dwellers for a while about this
issue. I suppose that Rory has arguably been the only (regular) male companion
since the series came back in 2005. Even then, he seemed to play second fiddle
to Amy and was only really brought on board after Amy tried to jump The Doctor
at the end of Flesh and Stone. Would
a male companion work? I’m not sure how I feel about this; if you look through
the history of the show, it has generally balanced
having The (male) Doctor with having at the very least, one female companion.
Unless they were to introduce a female Doctor to compliment our man, it would
be ‘unbalanced’ if balancing genders is indeed important to us viewers (imagine
the criticism a male-only Doctor Who, or even, a female-only Doctor Who would
receive) If we do indeed have to have a ‘balanced’ Doctor Who with at least one
member of each sex, then why not introduce a secondary companion? Somebody who
isn’t related to the current companion, someone who they just happen to pick
up? Someone who would ironically unbalance the genders, despite what I said
earlier? Rigsy would have been ideal, I personally would have loved to learn
more about him, but he has a family now and is seemingly settled down and him
abandoning all of that would just seem tactless on his part.
Alien or non-contemporary?
I don’t know
about you, but I’m constantly growing tired of re-visiting the modern-day with
our modern-day companion. Russell T Davies once tackled this issue by making a
comment of something along the lines of ‘we
need a modern-day companion for the viewers to be able to relate to them’.
That’s a fair point – but is it something that needs to happen every single time a new companion is
cast? I feel that if you treat viewers like they won’t understand a character,
if you don’t think they won’t relate to them, then you run the risk of growing
complacent by constantly treading the same old ground – which will only seep
into the story. Using an alien, who is very unfamiliar with Earth customs, has
been done before – but barely in the modern-day series. I’m thinking of a
Leela, but not a direct copy of Leela. I’m not sure they’ll be able to get away
with the skimpy outfits. Similarly, a non-contemporary companion would offer a
balance between being familiar with Earth, but unfamiliar with other elements,
which can only make stories set in the modern-day, that more interesting to
viewers and perhaps help us to learn things about our modern life that we tend
to neglect.
Not happy to be there?
Yeah, we had
a Turlough who wasn’t necessarily happy to be around and more recently, Donna
who appeared on board just as she was about to get married, before returning of
her own volition. What would be interesting, is having our character who is
simply not happy to be aboard the TARDIS – not necessarily trying to sabotage
The Doctor, but someone who is desperate to get home but is constantly messed
about with. Why are they desperate to get home? Who (if not The Doctor) is messing
about with them? Like a Big Finish Lucie Miller, but not exactly a Big Finish
Lucie Miller. You can already see how story branches can grow from this
narrative tree.
Celebrity?
One aspect of
the RTD era I didn’t like was the drafting in of these ‘in the moment
celebrities who play themselves’ just to gain an extra few thousand viewers –
will kids in 50 years time know (or care) who McFly are? No, in all likelihood
they won’t, but I’m all for the casting of a long-deceased celebrity in Doctor Who. It would be interesting to
see a character with an established history experience something that didn’t happen in reality and it can only
bring out the creative best in writers, as they try to interweave established
fact around their stories. It will only work with a deceased Celebrity, as
aside from the murky rights issues, the fact that we know who these long-dead
people are today, just shows that people will always remember them in the
future, which obviously isn’t the case with modern-day or relatively-recent-living
celebrities.
Within Doctor
Who, we’ve had celebrity historicals that perhaps take a liberty or two with
established fact, so having one travel with The Doctor for a bit probably won’t
do any harm. Maybe it can be someone who has a history that isn’t laid-down,
perhaps someone from The Dark Ages, where historical fact is very vague. I feel
an opportunity was perhaps missed when Agatha Christie’s ‘missing years’ were
solved in The Unicorn and The Wasp –
missing years that could have been spent on board the TARDIS! A celebrity
travelling with The Doctor isn’t anything new mind, more recently it was done
in Big Finish, as the 8th Doctor travelled around with Mary Shelley
(played on audio by Julie Cox) and saw us delve into her story, whilst another fictional story was going on around her.
You can see how that might be interesting.
Hey – just
had a thought - what about our celebrity companion travelling in time to meet
another historical celebrity! Margaret of Anjou slays McFly to death in their
prime for making lewd comments. The universe might explode, but at least we
were entertained for 45 minutes, which is all that matters in the end.
Non-British?
All joking
inside (I was joking by the way) it’ll be intriguing to see a ‘foreigner’
aboard the TARDIS. From a purely believability point of view, it IS rather odd
that most of The Doctor’s companions are British and live in London!
Just Normal?
Okay, that
title is partly misleading, as we all should know - there is no ‘normal’, we’re
all different, all of us brilliant. Apart from Donald Trump. No, what I mean is
that why does The Doctor’s companion NEED to be the ‘key to the universe’ or someone who isn’t like anyone The Doctor has
never met before or is embedded in The Doctor’s entire timeline. Why can’t
they just be a ‘normal’ person, maybe they’re a bit fed up of their current
life and want to go travelling? From here, writers can GROW the companion, as
they experience new things, instead of just hitting points A, B and C on their
way to being revealed as the saviour of
The Doctor and entire time itself, or whatever. I feel that a ‘normal’
companion will be able to connect with the viewers more – and from this
connection, we too can learn to go out and experience new things like said companion,
not by travelling the universe, just by stepping out of our front doors and
carrying on experiencing, even if we are too fed up. That’s more inspiring to
me than shooting Daleks.
By Arthur Orse
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