Steven Moffat reveals the new companion

I've never followed Emmerdale, either, but my first thought was, "Here we go again - another pretty companion to get the Dads watching"

Oh, goody.


Don't they realise we'd watch anyway? I mean, good grief, I just endured a season of Matt Smith, I'll take anything.
 
That goodness for that. I might be able to endure Matt Smith without the screaming bimbo. Let's see, I have little faith in Stephen Moffat's ability to with female characters. They all tend to be 'dainty' even River Song lost her edge.
 
Agreed, River seemed at once threatening and thrilling to have around when she was making only occasional appearances. Once her plot started being unveiled, she definitely teetered on the verge of the twee list of cast regulars.

Moffat has been a little disappointing since he got the reins of the series. His most compelling contributions were definitely during the RTD tenure, and not only because his ideas stood out so compellingly from the dross but because his ideas were simply fascinating SF/F regardless of the DW background. I'm afraid that allowing the extended series-arc has made him lazy and, dare I say it, complacent.

I think Moffat needs a Moffat :)
 
My immediate thought was also "oh, another young, pretty girl as the companion". Not that that's a problem in itself, Amy is stunning....... Hem, but it's just the repetitive nature of it now. I don't see why it should always be that type. Catherine Tate, as a slightly older woman, was really refreshing, a different dynamic. And it has been nice having two companions, Rory's been a wonderful addition.

But I still have enough faith in Moffat. I was completely bowled over by Smith, despite my initial deep reservations.

What more concerns me is Moffat's revelation that #Possible massive whopping spoiler# Amyand Rory's last episode involves the angels, and this time someone really does die. #end#

Angels, again?? Really??? They've already been ruined.
 
Hmm.

Not sure I'll be watching, although that has nothing to do with New Pretty Companion.

I like the concept and the darker episodes (Blink, the two-parter at the start of the last season) can be great, but quite often they just seem to completely ignore even pretending to have a coherent plot.

Case in point: killing cybermen with emotion is stupid. Use gold, like Ace did! Or a half-cyberised beefcake like the Second Doctor did in Tomb of the Cybermen.

The companions have mostly been good. Martha was rubbish (due to the total eclipse of Rose Tyler), but Rory's improved a lot. Not so fond of Pond.
 
Smith was OK - a bit Colin Baker for me but watchable - it was his drips of companions I couldn't stand. I'm forced to watch Cbeebies normally without them letting the presenters loose in Dr Who.

Moffat has ruined it for me. I know people say it takes time to get used to but everything was just so wrong from me and it started with the theme tune. (which did get better). The last series was the first Dr Who series I have not watched since the early eighties. I even liked the movie - I'm not fussy.

To me it just doesn't feel like Dr Who anymore, but I'll give it another go.

See I even loved Martha - I am really, really not fussy.
 
Martha had HUGE potential, unrealised and frittered away. The odds are that her character is having far more luck now that she's left the series - I wonder if that spin off series might not be due for a think-tank discussion.

I agree that Rory and Amy made it slightly more tolerable than it might otherwise have been (I wonder how Arthur Darvill feels about Karen Gillan making it unlikely he'll ever be in the series again), but if this new companion turns into a prolonged will-they-won't-they I will throw something hard and heavy at my television set so fast that will send it spinning through multiple dimensions until it finds the one where Stephen Moffat lives and hits him squarely on the left nostril!
 
I think it's best to wait and see how it goes. I'm reserving my judgement for when I see her in the role. I'm not concerned with the 'another pretty face' issue, shows are full of 'pretty' actors, one more isn't going to change anything.

I thought both Billie Piper and Karen Gillian made great companions, not because they were pretty - and we all know they were - but because of their personalities and the way their acting style complemented the Doctor. Martha was definitely the worst companion of the recent seasons, but not because she was pretty, but because she couldn't act compared to the other companions, and her story was weak.

Catherine Tate made a brilliant companion too, because of her personality. This was enhanced by the fact that she wasn't romantically interested in the Doctor - which was refreshing from the pining of Martha the whole previous season. I think that's also where Karen became likeable to me as well, when she got over her infatuation with the doctor - although her infatuation was appopriately placed, considering the story arc at the time.(Getting cold feet over her wedding to Rory)

Just because she is pretty, doesn't mean she'll be a terrible companion. The trick is to not make it about the romance.
 
thaddeus6th said:
[...]killing cybermen with emotion is stupid. Use gold, like Ace did! Or a half-cyberised beefcake like the Second Doctor did in Tomb of the Cybermen.[...]
Click to expand...

Well, speaking of Pat Troughton's Doctor... killing Cybermen with emotion was precisely taken from another story of his era: "The Invasion". (A point I had forgotten until watching it again recently....) And, really, it makes sense when one thinks about it... in and of itself, at least; it all depends on how it is done, and whether that jibes with how the Cybermen's systems have been presented as working....
 
j. d. worthington said:
... killing Cybermen with emotion was precisely taken from another story of his era: "The Invasion"...
Click to expand...

Off topic: Having an invulnerable enemy with a small weakness must be an extremely overused scifi plot device.

I just mentioned it in context with "alien invasion of Earth films" - how after attacking them uselessly with atomic weapons for one and a half hours, in the final few minutes they are defeated by something quite simple and overlooked.

But it is far older than that: Achille's Heel anyone??
 
And here's me hoping that SM would actually listen to the fans and bring back Sally Sparrow (Carey Mulligan) - especially as there's an Angels episode...

I do wish we'd get a decent number of episodes, as well, even if it means cutting back a bit on the amount spent on each one. Fourteen episodes over two years isn't really enough - especially when twaddle like "The Voice" has cost the Beeb a reported £22 million, trying to out-Cowell Cowell.
 
I don't think Sally Sparrow should have been brought back. By the end of Blink, her story had reached a satisfactory conclusion, and she was happily settling with her new man. Why retcon a good ending for a character?
 
I have to agree with MemoryTale.

But why have all the recent companions been from 21st century Earth? What happened to companions from other times and other planets, like Leela, Nyssa, and Adric?

River sort of fits that description, but she's never actually been a companion.
 
What I would like to see, although I don't really expect it, is that the Doctor's daughter is woven into the stoyline. That would be a genius arc to follow up the River Song one. It doesn't have to be Georga Moffet that plays her. I mean I felt that they missed a trick when they didn't regenerate her properly.
 
I'd love to see Sally Sparrow return, but I think Carey Mulligan's success over in the states makes it a little unfeasable.

I think our first look at the new companion in Asylum of the Daleks was a little bit disappointing. Oswyn appeared to be very ballsy, just like Amy. Which then begs the question, why make them similar? However I dare say i'm reading far too much in to this considering the little airtime Oswyn has had. I must admit though, I for one will miss Amy!
 
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