Let's just skip over the nonsense of a Dalek/Mechanoid battle. The Mechanoids were cheap knock-offs of the Daleks with different verbal limitations. There's a theory in genre fiction that the best way to show how badass someone/thing is is to have them lay a beat down on an established character who is themselves an established badass. In Star Trek: The Next Generation, Worf got beat up a lot to show that the alien threat of the week was superbad, The Mechanoid/Dalek fight is an attempt to make the Mechanoids seem cool.
It failed.
This episode is best remembered for the introduction of a new companion and the departure of Ian and Barbara.
The new companion is Steven Taylor of the "light red fifty." His spaceship crashed on Mechanus two years ago and the robot terraformers took him prisoner. He's not given much time, but he does well with the screen time that he does have.
I'm going to have several episodes to dissect and discuss Steven, this post should be about Ian and Barbara.
They've always been companions that I liked, but watching them from the beginning all the way through has made me appreciate them all the more. Especially Barbara.
So many people look back to 60's era Who and think of girls in miniskirts, twisting their ankles and screaming their brains out. When the talk turns to the strong female companions the conversation turns to Leela, Ace or possibly the first Romana. There was a strong woman onboard the TARDIS from day one. She was resourceful, quick-witted, brave and humane. She overcame the Morphotons, killed the Animus, ran over Daleks with a truck and stood up to the Doctor when he was wrong.
Over the course of 77 episodes written by a dozen writers there were moments when the character almost slipped into the hysterical woman stereotype, but she always pulled back. At least some of that probably has to do with Verity Lambert being the producer.
It's common to pick an "uber companion" for each Doctor; the companion that had the best relationship with that incarnation of the Doctor or was in some way the "best" companion that Doctor had. Troughton had Jamie, Pertwee had Jo, Tennant had Rose (I'm not defending this one) and Smith had Amy.
Before this project I would have considered Susan to be Hartnell's; now I would say that it was Barbara. I don't think that the rewatctching the remaining Hartnell stories will change my mind. Vicki and Steven are replaced by some characters who, for whatever reason, didn't work out that well. Maybe I'll find renewed respect for some of them, but I doubt that they will eclipse Barbara.
And then there's Ian.
One thing sums up Ian for me. In The Reign of Terror he is in a cell with a man dying of wounds sustained in the man's capture. He tells Ian that a message has to be delivered to an English spy and Ian promises to deliver that message. Once freed Ian makes good on his promise. Never mind the fact that this is literally history as far as he's concerned, never mind the fact that the Doctor has told him that history can't be rewritten, he is going to do the best that he can to do what he said he was going to do.
He does the right thing as far as he can tell. Barbara may be the more humane of the two, but it's Ian who wants the Thals to fight for themselves and not for the fluid link.
I keep wanting to try to paint these two as coming from two different perspectives, but it doesn't work that way. This isn't Spock and Dr McCoy staking out the extreme ends of the human psyche and arguing over who has the nicer piece of real estate. This is more like an old married couple where there is a lot of common ground, but with some hot button issues that send them off when pushed.
I love that they sometimes fight and are brusque with one another. I love that their fights are thoughtful and passionate. They didn't throw two clones from 1963 into this amazing time machine, they put in two real people; perhaps a bit idealized, but still two real people.
Early in this blog I started to try to keep track of the signs that Ian and Barbara were romantically involved. I called it Barbian. In 77 episodes I've seen almost nothing. We fans like to make couples where none are shown to exist. It wouldn't be hard to imagine them ending up together though.
Oddly enough, of the original four TARDIS travellers, Ian is the only one who never had a romantic interest of any sort. Susan had David. The Doctor had Cameca. Barbara had more than one interested gentleman caller. Ian was pure.
I could probably make a video that looked as though the two were having a torrid affair if I put my mind to it. There is a comical scene of Ian trying to bite through Barbara's cardigan a few episodes back and there is a point in tonight's episode where he grabs for a falling Barbara and latches on the the back of her pants.
The two were also played by wonderful actors.
William Russel never returned to Doctor Who proper. There were plans for him to return in a Peter Davison story, but he wasn't available for filming and the part was rewritten for the Brigadier. He filmed some framing scenes for the VHS release of The Crusade in the roll of Ian.
Jacqueline Hill returned to the series to play an ultra conservative priestess against Tom Baker. I would have preferred a return of Barbara, but beggars can't be choosers.
Of the four original travelers only Carol Anne Ford and William Russel survive. It would be nice to see them in some role for the 50th anniversary.
Goodbye Ian and Barbara.
 | ||
No comments:
Post a Comment