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Victoria Waterfield and The Tomb of the Cybermen
Cause I was watching Tomb of the Cybermen: one of the most annoying phrases in Doctor Who fandom is "sixties screamer", which should be banned for being an lazy way to dismiss the main female character and erase all the nifty stuff she did (and they all did nifty stuff).
And Victoria is kind of amazing in Tomb. She doesn't get nearly enough credit for it. Deborah Watling's performance is ridiculously charming, managing to make her vulnerable and innocent without being at all cloying. There's her wonderfully played uncertainty about her smashing new dress. And then she gets to be curious and unafraid in exploring the Tomb; politely snarky at the human bad guys who she's totally unimpressed by; wonderfully snarky at the American rocketship crew (every one of those scenes makes me flail slightly in delight); turns out to be a crack shot with a pistol as she takes out a Cybermat; knows her own limitations and goes and gets help from the rocketship crew to open the Tomb again since this technology's at least 500 years ahead of her; cheerfully starts smashing a Cyberman to save the Doctor; distracts the bad guys (successfully) with a well-timed scream and is decent enough to be the one who brings up the bad guys' safety when they might get attacked too. And then has that beautiful scene with the Doctor talking about her family and his.
Jamie gets a whole lot of excellent moments with the Doctor, and the story would be weaker without their banter, but does sod all himself. (In fact, Jamie falls asleep/gets knocked out/doesn't do very much really QUITE A LOT during his run, and yet fandom/the media has failed to dismiss him with a derogatory name.)
Anyway, mostly it is lovely to see Jamie and the Doctor being space-married, but companion-wise, Victoria is by far the more developed and interesting character here. And now I really want to watch The Abominable Snowmen, except that got burnt, boo.
And Victoria is kind of amazing in Tomb. She doesn't get nearly enough credit for it. Deborah Watling's performance is ridiculously charming, managing to make her vulnerable and innocent without being at all cloying. There's her wonderfully played uncertainty about her smashing new dress. And then she gets to be curious and unafraid in exploring the Tomb; politely snarky at the human bad guys who she's totally unimpressed by; wonderfully snarky at the American rocketship crew (every one of those scenes makes me flail slightly in delight); turns out to be a crack shot with a pistol as she takes out a Cybermat; knows her own limitations and goes and gets help from the rocketship crew to open the Tomb again since this technology's at least 500 years ahead of her; cheerfully starts smashing a Cyberman to save the Doctor; distracts the bad guys (successfully) with a well-timed scream and is decent enough to be the one who brings up the bad guys' safety when they might get attacked too. And then has that beautiful scene with the Doctor talking about her family and his.
Jamie gets a whole lot of excellent moments with the Doctor, and the story would be weaker without their banter, but does sod all himself. (In fact, Jamie falls asleep/gets knocked out/doesn't do very much really QUITE A LOT during his run, and yet fandom/the media has failed to dismiss him with a derogatory name.)
Anyway, mostly it is lovely to see Jamie and the Doctor being space-married, but companion-wise, Victoria is by far the more developed and interesting character here. And now I really want to watch The Abominable Snowmen, except that got burnt, boo.
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