Bye, bye Five

[promethia_tenk]

Have gotten through all of the Fifth Doctor. Probably my favorite writing of any Classic Who I've seen so far has been in this era (and Four's last season).

Tegan came out from behind to become the best companion, but I rather want a lot of Big Finish with all of them. Preferably some where everybody is a bit less crabby.

And I don't know if Five is my favorite, but I will fight anybody who says anything mean about him. And his magical foster home for tragically orphaned alien princesses.

In lieu of further commentary, please accept this picture of Peter Davison:



Damn, boy.

For my own amusement, I have been ranking all the companions as I watch. My criteria for ranking them is pure squee level, so this does not take into consideration things like general quality of stories and arc:

1) Leela
2) Tegan
3) Liz Shaw
4) Ace
5) Sarah Jane
6) Turlough
7) Romana
8) Nyssa
9) Adric
10) Mel
1000) Harry Sullivan
45024) K9

Comments

[st_aurafina]

Nhhgh, that photo. Don't you just want to to terrible things to him? There's something fascinating about his baby face and the cricket gear that's so. IDK.

I was going along all 'this isn't so controversial?' until:
1000) Harry Sullivan
45024) K9

HDU!

[promethia_tenk]

I was just idly scrolling through the Five tags on Tumblr at ungodly o'clock in the morning, waiting for the caffeine to kick in. Then that photo came around and I nearly choked on my own tongue. Peter Davison doesn't usually exude . . . magnetism, but there it is.

HDU!
Controversy! Harry is boring and K9 is annoying!

[greensword]

My top 5 classic companions are:

1) Sarah Jane
2) Liz Shaw
3) Ace
4) Jamie
5) Romana

But I have never seen any Leela episodes and the only Nyssa/Tegan/Adric episode I remember is Castrovalva. I really need to do a rewatch!

[promethia_tenk]

A fine list. I'm looking forward to Jamie (more so since I just watched The Two Doctors, which has him in it.)

But I have never seen any Leela episodes and the only Nyssa/Tegan/Adric episode I remember is Castrovalva. I really need to do a rewatch!
I had never heard anything particularly compelling about Leela and then I watched her and was like she's so amazing?!?!?!? Why didn't fandom tell me?!!??! What is wrong with everybody?!?!?! (Romana kind of suffered the opposite fate. I think if I wasn't expecting her I'd have been more thrilled about her, but she has the thankless task of living up to her reputation.)

[greensword]

What order are you going in?

I've only watched one 1st doctor episode (the pilot/initial episode) but I have heard really wonderful things about the earliest companions.

[flowsoffire]

You can have ALL THE BF YOU WANT! And this era is just so great :) plus you need to hear them troll each other behind the scenes. Priceless.

[promethia_tenk]

I have a feeling I am going to be listening to quite a lot of BF for this era . . .

I posted this the night I finished Caves of Androzani and was still letting things marinade in my head. I've basically been restlessly chewing it all over ever since and . . . I kind of love it all so much? I spent the whole Five era not knowing what to think about it and suddenly its over and its my favorite thing ever.

plus you need to hear them troll each other behind the scenes. Priceless.
I love the commentary tracks.

[flowsoffire]

I have a feeling I am going to be listening to quite a lot of BF for this era . . .
You think? ;)

I love the commentary tracks.
Gosh, me too, they're amazing.

[owlboy]

I couldn't really appreciate Five and thought he was a bit boring until I realized what it was about him that informs so much of Moffat Who Doctor. It was probably the first time they tried to scale back his Mysterious Alien God-ness instead of continually adding to it, and depict him as a vulnerable, conflicted man who just wants to be nice for the sake of being nice. It's a quietly ambitious counterpoint to Four, whomst has that spark of ''the only authority is my authority'' madness in him and never seemed to suffer any truly dire consequences for that

[promethia_tenk]

I was enjoying Five all the way through, but basically understood where people were coming from when they call him boring. And I kept waiting for something to really click for me with him. Now that I'm finished, though, I'm feeling like I've been watching something quite a bit more impressive than I really understood while I was watching it.

[owlboy]

Right, I feel like it's quite a bold and experimental bunch of stories but it doesn't advertise that about itself and the scale of the experiment goes unnoticed by people.
Like, the fact that he willingly sacrifices himself for the sake of one person and isn't even sure he can regenerate after was an entirely new idea then. It's not just about switching into a new body when the old one wears out or he trips and falls in a hole or something in the process of saving the universe-- with all the emotional weight of changing his shirt. There's personal stakes in regeneration and the Dr can be uncertain about his own survival, he is also now just as dependent on his human friends to keep going as he is on time lord biology.
The basis of the modern Doctor's simultaneous existential dread and drop-of-a-hat suicidality basically starts 20 years into the show.

And he makes sense as a self-correction after both Three and Four's increasingly fractured and abusive relationship with Gallifrey, I think. Like the Time Lords had pushed Four near to the point of justifying genocide and radically altering history for them, so he slams on the breaks and goes off to be relentlessly nice and play Space Dad with the humans instead. There's a precedent for Eight's refusing to be a pawn in the War.

[promethia_tenk]

Lol, so, since I originally wrote this post I've gone completely obsessive and Five is my new favoritest thing ever.

Like, everything you say there, and then what other Doctor would defeat evil through Buddhism? I keep thinking about Castrovalva as a metaphor for Five's whole run and having a lot of feelings about the poetry of empty spaces?!!?! And the whole fucking thing with Turlough where the Doctor pretty clearly saw that there was something shady going on with him and took him in anyway!?!?! UGH FREAKING UNASSUMING PERFECT BASTARD can i keep him?

so he slams on the breaks and goes off to be relentlessly nice and play Space Dad with the humans instead. There's a precedent for Eight's refusing to be a pawn in the War.
I feel like Five is making me more patient with Thirteen as well?

[owlboy]

>>I feel like Five is making me more patient with Thirteen as well?


I was thinking that as I wrote the post above lol. Like I can see the parallels between those two.

[nostalgia]

K-9 is bitchy goodness, I shall fight you!!!!!

[promethia_tenk]

Fight! Fight!

I do like some of K9s quips, but he's so endlessly annoying otherwise. Always being too slow and having to have excuses made about why he isn't in this scene and ruining perfectly good scenes where we might get to watch Tom Baker try to talk his way out of getting shot by coming in and stunning all the guards instead. And then (this is the real kicker) always running out of batteries at the worst possible moment. I'm sorry, that's just way more realism than I want in my Doctor Who. It's like having to hear Doctor Who talk about the budget for the new fiscal year all the time.