Friday 18 December 2009

Doctor Who and the Interpersonal Dynamics Part Two.

So first off an apology for not updating this blog anywhere near as often as I had intended. As most of you reading this will know I knocked out a rough outline for a first series of a hypothetical Doctor Who series when I was unemployed and when I was travelling I really fleshed out a lot of my ideas in a dirty old notepad. When I returned to Blighty's fair shores I decided to cast these into the ether to see what other basement dwelling internet scum thought about them. But real life as it does got in the way, not that life has been exactly hectic but with a thousand distractions and calls on my time varying from the pleasurable to the tedious I've not had too much time to ramble incoherently on the internet about an imaginary television series.

But with Christmas around the corner I think I should at least do a brief update. 

Now one of the most successful things about RTD's first crack at Doctor Who was -as already mentioned - the relationship between Rose and Christopher Eccleston's Doctor. It's difficult to imagine a series of Doctor Who ever going back to that utterly emotionless, asexual Doctor Who that only creepy repressed fanboys could ever really love.  

Partly at least because that period of Doctor Who never really existed.*  

Despite what you'd think if you read any interview with Russel "T" Dog (as he has recently rebranded himself for that difficult transatlantic transition) The Doctor and Rose wasn't the first romance in Who history. It was the most explicit one obviously and the first one that was more important to the series than the monster of the week but it wasn't the first one.

It wasn't even the first romance between Doctor and Companion, Tom Baker and Romana, Jon Pertwee and Jo, Patrick Troughton and Jamie - all of these romances were subtly hinted at but clearly there for those that cared to look. 

So props to RTD for doing the best Who Romance ever but he wasn't the first one to do Who Romance and when I ascend to glory (when the wiseheads and greybeards of the BBC beat a path to my door to ask, nay beg, that I take over Doctor Who) I will be following the example of the previous writers and having a romantic relationship be one of the important cores of the series.

"But Jim, you've already said you'd cast the companion and the Doctor in a brother/sister relationship. We know you're from Shropshire but don't you think that's a bit much?"


To which I would smile knowingly and say... "Ah hah."


Because as well as the Doctor/Companion romance there is another tradition in Who that has been neglected in recent years but will be making a comeback in my Brave New World: The Companion/Companion relationship. 


The first companions; Ian and Barbara, were clearly at it like knives, as were Harry and Sarah Jane, Tegan and Nyssa (a sort of Dom/Sub relationship that no doubt), Jamie and Victoria, Jamie and Zoe, Jamie and the Tardis console... But I digress.


This post could ramble on incoherently for another seventy paragraphs but I shall cut it short and give you the gist: We can keep the Romance element that has been key to the renewed shows wide appeal and often gave the old show an emotional core that gubbins like Stargate or that thing with Kevin Sorbo on a spaceship lack by having our companions in the romance-ey state.

The most successful male companions have served to fill in the gaps where the Doctor fails to live up to the traditional hero mould (in fact for much of his tenure Ian was the hero and the Doctor was an anti-hero at best)  so why not have him step up to the plate to take over the romance part? 


*Well ok... long stretches of the eighties had the emotional reality of porridge soup. But it's my blog and I can stretch the truth if I want to. 

No comments:

Post a Comment