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.

[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."