Brilliant, Brilliant blog post FAO @stevenmoffatt

[miss_s_b]

I read this this morning, and my immediate thought was YES!

Part of the reason I never got on with Russel T Davies' vision of Doctor Who was that it was so clear he had grown up wanting to be the Doctor's COMPANION. I never wanted to travel WITH the Doctor; I wanted to BE the Doctor. I wanted to be Dennis the Menace and Batman and Mr Spock and Judge Dredd too. And I wanted to be Freddie Mercury and Alice Cooper and Bruce Dickinson. And later I wanted to be Rumpole, or Paddy Ashdown. Like the first commenter on that post, it never occurred to me (and I thank my Dad for that) that because all my heroes were boys, I wasn't supposed to want to be like them, I was supposed to want to be WITH them, to be their soppy female helpmeet.

My Holly wants to be a Green Lantern.



At least that's a narrative possibility - there ARE female green lanterns, even if they are generally peripheral to the male ones.

I hate this world, that it tries to frustrate her dreams of awesomeness and give her dreams of playing second fiddle instead. My little girl is amazing, and she deserves to have amazing heroes to look up to and dream of emulating. Why is there still, after so many years, only a handful? Why do Ripley and Wonder Woman have to shoulder this burden alone? DAMMIT, WORLD, GIVE ME MORE FEMALE HEROES!

Comments

[andrewhickey.info]

Yeah, on paper Mel's actually an interesting character - she's a computer programmer, after all, and could have been another Zoe. But... definitely wasn't.
Peri had all sorts of problems, but I think Nicola Bryant managed to give her some sort of consistent personality that wasn't just dependent on the Doctor.
But yeah, they varied enormously with the writers.

[telegramsam]

I think it's worth mentioning that Peri & Mel have both fared much better in recent years as Big Finish companions.

Peri's one of my favorite BF companions even though I didn't really take to her much on screen (not having to look at those ridiculous outfits they used to put her in anymore helps enormously, as well). Nicola Bryant is actually a pretty damn good actress I think. But a poorly written part, well you can only do so much with it.

[andrewhickey.info]

Nicola Bryant was also saddled with that ridiculous accent, which she moderated on audio. But I agree, she's done some *VERY* good work for Big Finish - I think Peri And The Piscon Paradox is one of the best things anyone's done with Doctor Who in any medium.
But she was surprisingly good in Trial, as well. Despite some horrible scripts, the body language she and Colin Baker use manages to convince me at least of the relationship between the two.