Victoria Waterfield and The Tomb of the Cybermen

[carmen_lj]

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.

Comments

[laura-luvage.livejournal.com]

The female Hartnell and Troughton companions,except for Dodo who I sadly haven't really seen much of, are AMAZING. I seriously side-eye anyone who whines about them being weak, they're characterisation is just as, or nearly as, feminist as current companions. Their kick arse moments are just as worthy as New!Who ones plus their little character moments like Victoria and Troughton talking about family are beautiful.

Also if Victoria hadn't been a 'sixties screamer' she would've never stopped the creature in Fury From the Deep, so without her they would've been kinda screwed.

There needs to be a list of all the awesome things that the Old School female companions did to how awesome they are to throw in the face of those who claim they are not.

I am very protective of my black and white companions.

[calapine.livejournal.com]

Dodo, sadly is probably the weakest character, and there was a lot of behind-the-scenes turmoil at the time which really didn't help. But I do like her rather a bit in Gunfighters, and she does have v good hats.

I seriously side-eye anyone who whines about them being weak, they're characterisation is just as, or nearly as, feminist as current companions.

It is both yayful and bizarre to me that I think the best companion, after fifty years, is still Babs.