lyssie: (Jo Grant is excellent)
lyssie ([personal profile] lyssie) wrote2012-02-15 10:02 pm

Jo Grant is magnificent

The next time someone claims that the newskool companions are so much better than the oldskool ones because they don't stand around and scream or break ankles, I am making them watch The Sea Devils followed by Curse of Peladon. And maybe Terror of the Autons, too.

(seriously, you guys, Jo spends a large portion of SD running about evading capture, climbing around in ducts, jumping off cliffs and picking locks, not to mention rescuing the Doctor like four times AND DRIVING A HOVERCRAFT. You know. She just happens to know how to drive one. she is like the 1972 version of Parker from Leverage.)

In Curse, Jo climbs cliffs, deals with intergalactic politics, rescues herself (by climbing around the outside of a castle while wearing high heels), and convinces the Ice Warriors that she's on their side.

She also translates for the Doctor--you know, when he's being all technical and over-bearing, she simplifies it for the people around him (which leads me to believe that when she asks him "Oh, Doctor, what does that mean?" when they're alone and then professes confusion, that she's lying through her teeth to make him feel better. After all, he's much easier to deal with when he isn't sulking like a schoolboy).

There was definite femslash potential in Sea Devils--Jane Blythe, the assistant to the Captain or Colonel or whatever he was, at the naval base. She was quite bright, and even hugged Jo at one point!

(which is beside the point, but I thought I'd type it out to remind myself)

Basically, the next time someone says "River/Amy/Donna/Martha/Rose are better, since newskool companions DO things while oldskool companions are just there to be space hookers/break their ankles/scream" I can now punch them in the face with even more evidence to the contrary.

(and River Song is not the first non-Time Lord to go about flying the TARDIS. Tegan and Adric and Nyssa have all had a go, with and without help; and I suspect others have, as well)

Also, the Doctor really has no call to go about acting superior about how he doesn't kill people. Blowing up the Sea Devils was his own plan.

eta: I'd appreciate it especially if show-runners wouldn't go about making that comment, either. Really, know your bloody history, you twits.
scarfman: (Default)

[personal profile] scarfman 2012-02-16 04:45 am (UTC)(link)

Who says no companion but River has flown the TARDIS? Leela flew the TARDIS in episode one of Invisible Enemy. She had to ask the Doctor for the coordinates first, but she got where she meant to go in good time or the Doctor's condition would have been a lot worse when they arrived.

Also, the Doctor really has no call to go about acting superior about how he doesn't kill people. Blowing up the Sea Devils was his own plan. In The Invisible Enemy he blows up the bad guys after Leela suggests it and then claims credit for the idea. But he only does it when there's no other way to preserve the Web of Time!

Seriously, The Invisible Enemy seems to be all of Doctor Who wrapped up in one.

ext_18106: (Romana ftw)

[identity profile] lyssie.livejournal.com 2012-02-16 12:54 pm (UTC)(link)
Pretty much every River fan EVER. They hold it up as some sort of holy mantra for how River Is Special.

AND I LIKE RIVER, BUT IT IS NOT TRUE, DAMMIT.

He does tend to steal other peoples' plans a lot, doesn't he. Tsk.

[identity profile] lilacsigil.livejournal.com 2012-02-16 08:54 am (UTC)(link)
I never like Jo Grant because she replaced my beloved first companion Liz Shaw, but in retrospect she was actually pretty cool.

And the Doctor has killed quite a lot of people? Or do they only mean "named human characters"?
ext_18106: (Romana ftw)

[identity profile] lyssie.livejournal.com 2012-02-16 12:53 pm (UTC)(link)
I can vaguely understand that, but much like the Doctors, I don't really have a favorite (or first, though I think it might be either Nyssa and Tegan or Jo), I generally like them all.

Well, one of the recent criticisms of Eleven's run has been "But the Doctor doesn't kill people!" by a lot of fans.

And the show-runners have been known to say things about the oldskool companions that were basically "all they did was scream a lot and break their ankles."

[identity profile] wishfulaces.livejournal.com 2012-02-16 01:32 pm (UTC)(link)
OMG JO GRANT IS PARKER'S MUM.

Yeah, yeah, the timing is all wrong, I don't care, I'm throwing that out there anyway. :p
ext_18106: (Fiona is smirking)

[identity profile] lyssie.livejournal.com 2012-02-17 03:12 am (UTC)(link)
*ponders*

She could be her grandmother? I think Jo is now canonically one, with, like, 13 of them and seven kids.

[identity profile] wishfulaces.livejournal.com 2012-02-18 12:04 am (UTC)(link)
That might work? And honestly, UNIT dating is such a canonical nightmare, who doesn't mind futzing with it some more? (I suppose she could be Parker's Crazy Aunt or something, but it would be a lot more fun if she were a direct relation.)
ext_18106: (Martha Jones considers the possibility)

[identity profile] lyssie.livejournal.com 2012-02-19 04:02 am (UTC)(link)
OTOH. Jo might be part Time Lady by this point, maybe Parker was born later in life (the TARDIS: prolonging lives since 1963. Also, aren't Babs and Ian supposed to be unaging Time Lords, too?)

omg, I did not just give myself a truly horrendous plot-bunny. PARKER IS NOT A PROTO-TIME LADY, BRAIN. stoppit.

[identity profile] wishfulaces.livejournal.com 2012-02-19 04:55 am (UTC)(link)
OMG, can you see the Doctor dealing with her running all around the TARDIS? Any incarnation, really, but especially Eleven? "No, don't touch tha--what are you doing over there? No, you can't fly the TARDI...do you know River? You do, don't you."

[identity profile] scalderwood.livejournal.com 2012-02-18 03:43 pm (UTC)(link)
THIS!!!

(Just re-watched Terror of the Autons on Wednesday night.)
ext_18106: (Jo Grant is excellent)

[identity profile] lyssie.livejournal.com 2012-02-19 04:03 am (UTC)(link)
=D

Technically, I listened to it. But I spent a lot of it going "GO JO." and "SHE HAS LOTS OF KEYS. THAT IS HOT."

[identity profile] scalderwood.livejournal.com 2012-02-19 03:52 pm (UTC)(link)
Yes it is! One of my favorite lines in all of Who is when Sarah Jane tells the Queen of Peladon, "There's nothing just about being a woman."