[faded mind]

its been 13 years and im still not over how the ninth doctor’s idea of a good first trip for his new companion was to take her to see her planet blow up at a celebratory party

BUT MOFFAT IS SUCH A GoOD WRITER GUISE.

I mean, how many companions can really pass this test?

Name one thing about Rose’s that doesn’t involve the Doctor, her mom, her dad, Mickey, or her job when she met the Doctor. I’m drawing a blank.

When she was sixteen she dropped school and moved out because she was in love with Jimmy Stone, which resulted in her never getting her A-levels. He later broke her heart and she returned to live with Jackie.

Is that enough?

RTD may have his flaws when it comes to writing (nobody’s perfect anyway) but at least he made the effort to give us glimpses of the life the companions had before meeting the Doctor. Moffat doesn’t care because that’s obviously not that important.

Rose got the bronze in an under-sevens gymnastics tournament; Rose’s best mate was named Shareen, and they used to skip school sometimes to go to the shops and look at boys; Rose loves chips and likes pizza and tolerates football; Rose has never learned French, though Jackie thinks she should’ve.

These are all things we learn within the first six episode of series one. And that’s not counting the remarkable depth and breadth provided when one fully incorporates her parents, which were restricted despite not being on Amy’s list. And you can say BUT THAT’S NOT FAIR, AMY DIDN’T HAVE PARENTS, but lol now she does and they’ve never explored how that changed her, and LOL PETE’S DEATH HAD A MASSIVE, VISCERAL EFFECT ON ROSE AND THE PLOT OF THE SHOW AND WAS MENTIONED SEVERAL TIMES BEFORE IT WAS EXPLORED AND IT’S A PART OF HER.

Rose’s life on the Powell Estate is more vividly rendered and thoroughly examined in just the Aliens of London/World War 3 two-parter than Leadworth has been in the two seasons we’ve known the Ponds. It’s not just Rose we learn about; we learn about her family in her absence, we see Mickey and Jackie interact and learn and grow together, painting a picture of their past and building a future, because they have a relationship COMPLETELY INDEPENDENT OF ROSE. We learn that Rose is the kind of person who knows exactly where things are in her boyfriend’s kitchen, even when he doesn’t, even when she hasn’t stepped foot in his flat in a (technical temporal) year. We get cut aways to the British *and American* newscasts of plot events, for chrissake. 

I mean, I’d make similar lists for Martha and Donna, or heck, even for any of the one-off guest companions from SINGLE EPISODES in Rusty’s era who’ve had more thoroughly-painted backstories than Amy Pond, but I’d give myself carpal tunnel and sacrifice several hours typing it all out.

The two showrunners are incomparable.

So, since Thirteen joined the fray, I’ve been thinking a lot about this post, and about the points made about family, and the lives companions have outside of the Doctor. 

With Rose, Martha, and Donna, we see a fairly good amount of their families, and sometimes their friends. We hear them interact with people from their normal lives–sometimes we even meet them. 

In one season, we learn that Martha has a mom, dad, a stepmom, a brother and a sister, and a cousin who died at Canary Wharf. We know her mom isn’t great with technology. We get to see her sister at work doing public relations, I believe, we see important life events for her brother–graduation, we might even see that he has a kid of his own?

Donna lives with her mom and her granddad. Her mom is a bit rigid and hard, particularly with Donna, but her granddad Wilf is warm and encouraging, who believes Donna can do great things. We learn that her Dad died not long ago and that he was the kind of man who would give money to a complete stranger. Wilf is incredibly caring and brave and important to the Doctor in his own right. We never see much of Donna’s friends, but we know she has one frenemy.

And Rose’s family, of course, is discussed above. 

Amy has an aunt, a mom, and a dad. Her aunt….exists, and her dad is short and can’t cook. Her mom is the kind of mom who brings her daughter breakfast in bed on her wedding day. her parents also didn’t exist, but then suddenly did, and Amy can remember both lives, with them existing and not existing, and this isn’t explored, as stated above, at all. It’s interesting to note we get more information about Rory’s family than we do Amy’s–we see Rory’s dad a few times.

I have yet to watch anything with Bill in it; I never finished Clara’s time as a companion. I do know that we got to see Clara’s job, and a dinner with her family, and she had a boyfriend. I believe we learned a bit about Danny Pink, but her family isn’t explored much at all, in any incarnation.

And then we get to Thirteen. Every other episode is about family. If it’s not an episode about family, family is talked about. Once again, we’re back to an era where the companions don’t simply have a family; their families are and integral part of who they are and how they react to those they meet in their adventures. We have family that is present, and absentee family, and family we’ve lost. 

Adding family or friends to a companion helps make them more three dimensional, but more than that, it grounds them. They aren’t free-floating entities who can explore the universe with no consequences–they have people who anchor them, even if they don’t want to be anchored. When you bring in a family dynamic, it adds conflict in a natural way. It gives us a way to measure how the companions have changed in their time with the Doctor when we can see where they came from, and how hard it can be to change when everyone expects you to be a certain way. 

People complaining that a man giving birth on Doctor Who is silly, unbelievable, and so not Doctor Who seem to forget that in season 3 a woman gave birth to literal kittens

This is my favorite form of entertainment.

Sequel:

Geek gatekeeping is a deadly occupation, and NOBODY has to do it.

Learn from the examples of the fallen, fellow nerds. Don’t be that guy.

Lmaooo oh Christ and someone did it to Neil gaiman too lmaooo

The best internet trope is gatekeepers gatekeeping people who work on the thing. 

The Doctor and their wife.

Married Space Idiots: a summary

Entering the lower level of the TARDIS tomb, when Clara asked the Doctor if he loved River Song, he replied, “She was clever and brave and kind and funny. And had more love in one heart than I could ever have in two.”

What is it though? Her diary. Our diary.

Donna Noble was a female character who:

-was in her early forties but didn’t have her life all together yet

-didn’t have a perfect Hollywood figure but nobody made a joke about her weight (to my knowledge)

-super funny and empathetic

-doubted her capabilities at first but learned to trust herself

-wanted to go on crazy space adventures but simultaneously wanted to get married and have a family and she was never derided for wanting both

-had a rich platonic relationship with the Doctor

-Appreciate Donna Noble

Not to mention had low-prestige job skills that came in handy for her amazing space adventures more than once!

river. who are you?

get to know me meme: [10/10] favorite characters = River Song (Doctor Who)