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My boss tagged Andrew and I in a facebook post sharing that silly infographic about sexism in Doctor Who. After his girlfriend said that Moffat was less sexist because "at least he'd brought in a male companion," he teased Andrew and I about how we were sure to offer a gender analysis of all the companions there'd ever been.

Ha. We did a lot better than that. After a short digression about how a bit of Malcolm Tucker could be good for Capaldi's Doctor, Andrew and I managed to interest a few people in the stories of my very favorite companion ever, despite the fact that she only exists in the audio dramas.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

matgb

Moffat was less sexist because "at least he'd brought in a male companion,"

Mickey? Jack? The stupid one who got a computer in his head on Satellite Stupid?

From:

cosmolinguist

Yeah, the one comment I gave on the subject I was expected (however mockingly, because my boss thinks anyone who cares about anything more than he does is faintly ridiculous) to talk about is "there have been male companions since the beginning of the series; it says nothing about how sexist it is or isn't." ffs.

But his girlfriend is half his age and has never done or thought about anything (according to what he says about her!) so I am not surprised to hear this kind of thing from her.

From:

quirkytizzy

Who was that? I'll admit to only being a "New" Who watcher, though given time I'll end up watching the older shows. I want to know why everyone loves Baker so much!

And that's awesome that you guys can give critical commentary. That's half of why entertainment exists - to give people a way to talk about what's going on in society.

From:

cosmolinguist

Like I say, even fans of the old series tend not to know what I'm talking about, because the Big Finish audios are even less well-known or esteemed than the novels and comics and everything else that has Doctor Who stories in it. But anyway, she's Dr. Evelyn Smythe, and here's how Andrew described her yesterday;

Evelyn is great. She's a doctor of history who dumped her husband because he didn't like her spending so much time on her career, she manages to solve most problems with chocolate cake and sympathy, and rather than the tiny miniskirt outfits the current TV companions wear she has a selection of comfortable cardigans. She's about the Doctor's intellectual equal in intelligence, if not knowledge, and far more emotionally mature than he is.

I want to know why everyone loves Baker so much!

Well, one of them. :) Two actors with the surname Baker have played the Doctor on TV: one is the kind of default answer for "best Doctor ever" (Tom) and one is unfairly maligned, mostly because he got badly-written scripts as far as I can tell, but I'm very fond of him (Colin). (Colin's in a lot of the audio stories too, not least the ones with Evelyn, and he's my favorite of the five Doctors they've had there.) I'm fond of both, but neither is my favorite.

And that's awesome that you guys can give critical commentary.

Oh, I can't. I think my boss thinks I know/care a lot about Doctor Who because I have unorthodox opinions -- that thus require more defense, and yes I do get, um, enthusiastic about defending my opinions sometimes -- and because he's met my husband, who among other things has written a book about Doctor Who. But this is partly why I'm so lazy about knowing or saying things about Doctor Who: it'd be like working hard to make toast for myself when I live with a gourmet chef. And also my boyfriend and the one ex I am friends with have different but overlapping spheres of knowledge regarding Doctor Who; I can just about follow their conversations most of the time, but have nothing to add to them. So I don't think of myself as being much of a Doctor Who person at all -- because I've hardly even bothered to watch most of the DVDs Andrew has and I don't care about who produced that episode or how many male companions there have been on the TV show or whatever -- but I guess that's a matter of perspective. :)

From:

miss_s_b

I love this comment. That is all.

From:

magister

As a fully paid up member of the Tom Baker fan club, there's two reasons why I'm so fond of him. One is that he was playing the Doctor when I started watching the show, when i was seven - so he's kind of hard wired into me. The other is that as far as I can tell, when he plays the Doctor, he's pretty much channelling himself.

I was at a Doctor Who convention about 15 years ago and got into the lift to go down to breakfast. Two floors down, the lift stops and in steps Tom. This is a man who i wanted to be when i was a child. Do i say something to him? Christ, I've got to say something.

So... "Lovely to see you, Mr Baker. How are you?"

Long pause. And then he leans in close enough that I can see myself reflected in his eyes and intones - beautiful voice, by the way, all dark and velvety, like Terry Pratchett's Death might sound after a few drinks - "My conscience is clear. Can you say the same?" And then the lift door opens and he sweeps out.

Anyway, if you ever decide to watch anything with him in it - and this is an immensely cliched answer, but as a wise man once said, cliches only become cliches because they work - then there's a story called City of Death which is about - well, it's about an attempted theft in Paris and it's about the Doctor going on holiday and it's about the dawn of man and it's about tiny details and how sometimes they matter, but not always and it's about many other things that I won't go into, because frankly they're better discovered by watching it. It's written by Douglas Adams, incidentally, shortly before Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy took off. I was eight when I first watched it. It's one of those things that still makes me happy when I watch it.