Tansy Rayner Roberts's Blog, page 119

Watching New Who: Smith and Jones

"Smith and Jones" – Season three, episode one

The Doctor – David Tennant

Martha Jones – Freema Agyeman

TEHANI:

I loved Martha from the moment I met her. She's funny, smart, cool and works well under pressure. I love her dysfunctional but ultimately awesome family and her obvious and instant difference to Rose and Donna (clearly marked by her telling the Doctor about the events of the past couple of years that Donna had missed entirely). Well, in the beginning…

Is it just me or is Tennant more relaxed in the role in this episode? It's almost like he's taken a breath and gone, yup, I'm the Doctor and everything is ooo-kay.

TANSY:

There could certainly have been a bigger time gap there, for the Doctor, which allows him to have relaxed a bit into himself. And I think it helps for David Tennant to not be the new boy any more.

I'm also a huge Martha fan! This is a great introduction to her and her family – and it really is a game of contrasts between her and Rose. She has a life, something not as easily walked away from, and is only interested in an adventure or two before returning to her career and attachments. She's also capable, clever and quite flexible.

Like Donna, she's also perfectly capable of smacking the Doctor around when he gets too high handed … and does it rather less abrasively than Donna did in "The Runaway Bride".

DAVID:

Once I got over how familiar she looked, neatly explained away of course, I was really impressed with Martha. I agree about the contrast with Rose, it is almost as if they were trying to find the complete opposite. I am in no way calling Rose stupid, but one of the things they emphasise about her is her limited education and the narrowness of her experience of life. The way her journeys with the Doctor expand these horizons is a major part of her character arc.

In Martha we are presented with someone who is well educated and has a very nimble and inquiring mind, and who immediately grasps the ramifications of what has happened to the hospital and the patients, yet can still grasp the wonder of what she is seeing (and how brilliant an image is this hospital sitting on the surface of the moon, bathed in "Earthlight" as the Doctor so elegantly puts it?). You can see how much she impresses the Doctor from the word go (and I was equally as impressed). Terrible doctor though, fancy running around with the Doctor instead of attending to her patients!

TEHANI:

And don't they run! I really find that motif of running around with the Doctor so much fun. Tansy, did that start with Four, or is it just that I don't know the earlier Doctors to remember it?

TANSY:

I think it started with Troughton really, but it was never emphasised in the narrative of the show so much as with Christopher Eccleston's first episode. "Running down corridors" had become a meta comment about the show from fans and satirical sketches, but it became something more in the new show.

DAVID:

When we first meet Rose, she really is almost a child, still trying to work out who she is and what she wants to be, while Martha is an adult, much more confident in her identity and goals. It's very much like the different between the two Mickey's, pre and post parallel universe. Martha seems very centred, and I am looking forward to watching her interactions with the Doctor, I have high hopes that it will be on a much more equal footing. I was a bit dubious about the last five minutes though, almost portrayed the Doctor as an intergalactic predator, cruising the dimensions looking for impressionable young woman to pick up in a vulnerable moment!

TANSY:

Ha yes, there is a bit of that, particularly as he's still on the rebound from Donna turning him down. Though I don't think you can argue this interaction is LESS predatory than Christopher Eccleston and "by the way it also travels in time" – at least Martha is a bit older and more of a sensible decision-maker. Also this Doctor presents as younger so there's less of a visible age gap.

TEHANI:

I don't know about this. It was actually a bit disappointing, to see Martha presented so quickly as quite enamoured of him, after such a great episode of her being all smart and independent and awesome. Why do that? I mean, sure, we all know it's realistic – cute, super smart, funny and apparently really quite powerful guy sweeps you away, you're probably going to get a bit of a crush pretty quickly, but after Rose, we could have done with a break from the mooning about, don't you think?

DAVID:

No arguments here!

TANSY:

I like the fact that the way Martha chooses to come aboard the TARDIS is as different from Rose as is her personality – he's really (sure) offering her a simple jaunt, a holiday away from her real life, with the promise that she'll be home again straight away. One trip… the gateway drug!

DAVID:

Is it just me, or does Ten come across as completely and utterly insane in this? Tennant looks like he is having so much fun and he drags you along with him, it's impossible not to get caught up in his wild eyed enthusiasm. He really does remind me of Four at times., he just seems so at home in his role as the Doctor.

TEHANI:

Love the bare feet! He's manic in this, that's for sure. It really reflects true Doctor Who for me!

TANSY:

I do like the Tenth Doctor in this particular episode – he feels rejuvenated and enthusiastic about adventuring. Believe me, David, you're going to get used to 'manic energy Ten!' There's a lot more where this comes from. But yes you get a sense that, a year in, the actor knows exactly what he wants to do with the character, and has the confidence to put that into practice. It feels a more experimental and creative version now, with a new person to bounce off. There's a joy in that – he gets to experience the universe anew all over again.

DAVID:

While the Judoon were adequate aliens, Finnegan was a magnificent villain. The actress who played her was perfect, and that straw was a lovely little touch. Just goes to show that in the end acting is more important than special effects in a creating an effective and appropriately evil monster, one only has to compare Ms Finnegan and the Empress from the Christmas special.

TEHANI:

Agree! Florence Finnegan (played by Anne Reid) is scary by being so ORDINARY.

TANSY:

I really like the Judoon! I think their design is one of the better 'Earth animals as aliens' renditions, though that particular trope is getting old now, and it would be more powerful if it wasn't coming after the cat nuns and the pig in a space suit. I love their way of talking "BO SHO WO KO" – we always do that when we need a rhino noise when reading to our toddler. So convenient to finally have one. Thanks, Doctor Who!

Also I think the idea of them is intriguing – they're set up as bad guys but in fact are an intergalactic police force with entirely their own agenda. Their methods are definitely questionable but I like the way that demonstrates that Earth isn't actually the centre of the universe – and just because they represent law and order doesn't mean they're on the Doctor's side! I think his tendency to get in trouble with or work outside the authorities is an important character trait.

DAVID:

I think that is a very good point. It's refreshing to see aliens other than those bent on the Earth's destruction because they are evil, or seeking to conquer the Universe, aliens who actually don't care about the planet except for how it intersects with their interests. And, it is a bit of a running gag about how one insignificant planet seems to attract so much trouble, one wonders whether the Doctor's loves the planet because so many exciting things happen, or so many exciting things happen because he loves the planet!

If the Doctor were a Dungeons and Dragons character he would surely be Chaotic Good rather than Lawful Good (I don't play D&D, so any readers who do will have to forgive me if I have stuffed that up). His relationship with authority figures and law enforcement agencies has always been rather tense, that was one of the reasons why I loved his relationship with the Brigadier so much. The contrast between the anti authoritarian Doctor and the "Establishment" figure brought out the best, and worst, in them both.

TEHANI:

One has to wonder if the questionable methods are commentary on military in the "real world"? How much of Doctor Who IS that?

I think "Smith and Jones" is a really good episode overall (the last few minutes notwithstanding) – probably could be an interesting gateway episode to Doctor Who for new viewers, with the great introduction of Martha and the manic energy of the Doctor, plus aliens both weird and eerily evil, set both on Earth and off. It had me giggling and also tearing up – good sign!

TANSY:

Yes I think the show as a whole (New Who, that is) has been very clever about gateway episodes – not just the first of each season which have mostly done well at giving jumping on points, but the Christmas episodes as semi-standalones, and having several eps through the season which you could watch independently, knowing nothing about the show.

It's fascinating to me, because Doctor Who is one of those shows so heavy with years of continuity – and yet this is what it has always done, starting again with new companions and new Doctors, each season having its own identity even though it was more episodic in the old days. Having said all that, while I liked "Rose" a lot, I think this is the best first ep of a new season of the new show so far. Clear cut and confident, which is good because losing Rose could have a had a hugely detrimental effect on the reputation of the show – she was our point of view character, after all!

Another pretendy kiss!

DAVID:

Very true, and that's why it is good idea not changing the Doctor AND the Companions at the same time, it allows a degree of continuity if there is a familiar face or two floating around. It's why I actually think the Second Doctor's regeneration was, at the time, a bit of a risk (Tehani, without spoiling it too much for you, the Doctor was forcibly regenerated, exiled, and his Companions sent back to their own times – with their memories wiped!). After all, the whole regeneration thing wasn't as established in canon as it is now and it could have gotten very messy.

TANSY:

Hmm, not to spoil it for you, David, but there's at least one episode coming in your future that I think argues against your point. I'm also a big supporter of the complete change of cast between the Second and Third eras – sometimes it's nice to start from scratch! I agree we wouldn't want it every time, though.

I do think it's good for the show to regularly change up the supporting cast, and that each companion offers something completely new. I find it interesting that the most damning accusations fans tend to wield at new eras of the show is usually any hint of repetition – is there any other show that has such pressure on it to be completely different every season?

DAVID:

Well, I will just have to wait and see!

I have probably not been involved enough in fandom to have heard that sort of criticism, but I think that is a little unfair. I can't think of any other show that has reinvented itself as consistently and sometimes as bravely as Doctor Who. To be able to span almost half a century and manage to avoid becoming dated and stale is a hell of an achievement. And, while it was born of necessity, the idea of regenerations was a stroke of genius and it means that if worse comes to worst there is a bit of a "Get out of repetition jail free" card!

We've seen all sorts of styles and directions, both successful and unsuccessful, from dark and brooding to fairly light hearted. There are lots of criticisms that can be levelled at Doctor Who, but I don't think repetition is one of them. I can't even think of a season where they weren't trying to do something new at least every few episodes, though I'm open to correction on that.

There is no one more critical than a fan, though, is there?

TANSY:

So true. And the new version of the show has worked very hard to keep changing things up, despite that being against pretty much everything that people expect from the rest of modern television!

Something I only just noticed – the big difference between this episode and "Rose" is that the Doctor himself doesn't interact with Martha's family, which suggests they're going to be a lot less personally relevant to him than Jackie and Mickey were.

But of course we can't really discuss that point until later, can we? Time to move on?

TEHANI:

Let's!

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Watching New Who – in conversation with David McDonald, Tansy Rayner Roberts and Tehani Wessely

David is coming to New Who for the first time, having loved Classic Who as a kid. Tehani is a recent convert, and ploughed through Seasons 1 to 6 (so far) in just a few weeks after becoming addicted thanks to Matt Smith – she's rewatching to keep up with David! Tansy is the expert in the team, with a history in Doctor Who fandom that goes WAY back, and a passion for Doctor Who that inspires us all (plus a seven-year-old daughter who is finding her own Doctors for the first time). We're going to work our way through New Who, using season openers and closers, and Hugo shortlisted episodes, as our blogging points. Just for fun! We have already talked about:



"Rose", S01E01

"Dalek", S01E06

"Father's Day, S01E08

"The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances", S01E09/10

"Bad Wolf/The Parting of the Ways", S01E12/13

Season One Report Card – David, Tansy, Tehani

"The Christmas Invasion," 2005 Christmas special

"New Earth", S02E01

"School Reunion," S02E03

"The Girl in the Fireplace", S02E04

"Rise of the Cybermen/Age of Steel", S02E05/06

Army of Ghosts/Doomsday, S02E12/13

Season Two Report Cards: David, Tehani, Tansy

"The Runaway Bride", 2006 Christmas Special

Friday Links Wants to be BFFs Forever

I generally try not to get excited about TV shows before they happen, despite that being one of the main themes of the internet, but Lauren Faust (new My Little Pony, Powerpuff Girls) is creating a series of DC Shorts entitled Super Best Friends Forever, featuring Supergirl, Batgirl and Wonder Girl. And I think this is the cartoon I have been longing for! Sure, it's going to be girly as hell. That's the ENTIRE POINT. There's enough Batman/superhero related material out there with only occasional girl cooties in it. I am hugging this one to my chest.

Possibly I'm also going to share it with my daughters. But only if they're good.

Tehani at the Book Nut talks about the new TV series Outland, some of the more curmudgeonly criticisms of the show coming from some corners of Australian fandom, and how it has made her reassess her own fannish identity. You can be a fan without the seal of approval from fandom! People express their fannishness differently! These should not be revolutionary ideas, and yet…

The new TV series Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries starts tonight on The ABC! I'm excited because I've been reading the Phryne Fisher books for years, and it looks like a great production. Author Kerry Greenwood talks about her relationship with the production crew, and her experience playing an extra on screen.

Tiger Beatdown on Even Housemaids Get the Blues: Compulsory Heterosexuality in Downton Abbey. (spoilers for season 2) I've found the Daisy/William storyline in that show surprisingly subtle and complex considering that it's REALLY not a subtle show, and that it sums up beautifully the historical attitude to marriage, and poor Daisy's conveyor belt route through guilt and obligation to marry someone she doesn't love, simply because he asked, everyone else thinks it's romantic, and she has no personal power to fight them all, being the lowest rung in the house. The exploration of this in the article and the way her experience can be coded queer is fascinating!

Remember Pottermore? The website that was going to revolutionise the marketing of ebooks and the relationship between readers and the books they love? Yeah, it's still not ready. But apparently it's pretty.

We mentioned this on Galactic Suburbia but it's still awesome – Kaaron Warren nominated for a Stoker award!

Meanwhile, Deborah Biancotti writes 80K in a month (GO DEB) and tells us how to do it too. It's at least partly tongue in cheek, guys, no one quit their job because of this post, please! (unless you really hate your job)

Famous male novelist Jonathan Franzen looks at historically famous female novelist Edith Wharton and finds her hard to relate to and also, not pretty enough. Oh, Franzen.

Even even more cranky-making news, the story of a female game producer who is still receiving appalling abuse for a (quite sensible) suggestion she made years ago, about making games more appealing to those who are more interested in the narrative than the fight sequences. Oh, gaming community.

The Doctor Her blog is well underway. Some fabulous essays so far:

My Dad, John Barrowman and Me: How Doctor Who Helped Me To Come Out, by Amy

Amy Pond and Steven Moffat's Babies, by Ritch Ludlow

Women Who Waited (portrayal of older women on Doctor Who), by Cathannabel

If The Doctor Were a Woman: A Queerer Doctor Who, by Ritch Ludlow

(and when I asked which actress you would cast as a female Doctor, the comments absolutely delighted me – so many awesome women who could play the part!)

To close, one of the best recent explorations & explanations of the Bechdel Test, how it works, where it falls down, and how to make it better when assessing films:

Galactic Suburbia Episode 54

New Episode of Galactic Suburbia is up (after a few problems) to be downloaded by the manner of your choosing!

In which we keep it short (truly) through restraint and perseverance, despite setting Tansy off on a tangent about Lego and lots of crunchy gender bias stuff to chew through.

News

Nebula shortlist

Stoker shortlist



Paul Cornell on Panel Parity

Elizabeth L Huede on National Year of (Gender Biased) Reading

Tansy's thing: new feminist Doctor Who blog Doctor Her

Can princesses play with Lego? (Lego friends petition at Change.org)

What Culture Have we Consumed?

Alisa: Vorkosigan – Shards of Honor, Barrayar by Lois McMaster Bujold

Alex: The Islanders, Christopher Priest

Tansy: After the Apocalypse, by Maureen McHugh (collection)

Feedback episode coming soon!

Please send feedback to us at galacticsuburbia@gmail.com, follow us on Twitter at @galacticsuburbs, check out Galactic Suburbia Podcast on Facebook and don't forget to leave a review on iTunes if you love us!

Women in Science Fiction and Fantasy Who are Great At Their Job

Over at SF Novelists, Marie Brennan talks about why 'competence is hot,' about the portrayal of various careers/jobs in fiction, and which ones work better than others. She also talks about wanting more heroines who get to be good at their job instead of merely hot.

Which is true, absolutely true, that there aren't enough of those women in TV and especially movies. It reminds me of how excited the internet got about Women Fighters in Reasonable Armour and, in fact, that if you take a very attractive actress and put her in a practical outfit, and make her good at her job, she's actually still going to be very attractive, in many cases MORE attractive than the glamorpuss in the tiny, implausibly unprofessional outfit, because it doesn't look like she's trying so hard.

In other words, you can have hot women on TV who are also fantastic role models for women, merely by putting more clothes on them, and treating their characters seriously. Who knew?

Some examples of iconic women in science fiction and fantasy television who are, in fact, awesome at their jobs:

Uhura (Star Trek) who may have mostly sat there and pushed buttons, but always looked like she was taking her job as communications officer seriously. Her aura of professional competence was impressive considering she was often given little to do in the script, and that's down to the gravitas of the brilliant Nichelle Nichols, who gave a generation of African American kids hope that there was a place for them in the future. One of my favourite things about the movie remake of Star Trek is how they added weight to the job that Uhura (now played by Zoe Saldana) did – how much education she was required, and why she in particular was qualified for that really important position on the flagship. (in comparison, Kirk crashed into his job on a wing and a prayer, and seems to have been picked for "leadership qualities" that include "being a complete tool").

[honourable mention Star Trek women of competence: Pulaski and occasionally Beverley Crusher from Next Gen, Dax and occasionally Kira from DS9, Janeway, Torres and ESPECIALLY Seven of Nine in Voyager, the Vulcan in the other one whose name I have temporarily forgotten)

Dana Scully (X-Files) - sure she wore ridiculous shoes, so they could pretend that Gillian Anderson was more than five feet tall, but you never doubted that Scully cared about her job at the FBI, and was damn good at it, despite having Mulder being flaky at her side 24-7.

Renee Montoya (the animated Batman) - a cool, competent (there's that word again!) and mostly sensible cop, surrounded by idiots. Such a fabulous character that they stole her for the comics and she ended up being not only one of DC's first prominent lesbian characters, but a superhero in her own right when she took on the mantle of The Question.

Xena (Xena: Warrior Princess) - okay, maybe Big Damn Hero is a job description after all. It certainly was in Xena's case! When she was a bad-ass warlord she was damn good at it (there's even an AU episode that shows she would have ended up ruling the known universe if she'd kept going in that direction) and when she was a force for good, she cleaned up the country, saved damsels, preserved kingdoms, killed gods, and generally kicked arse.

[honourable mentions: one of the great things about this show was the way that Xena was surrounded by competent, professional women, such as Gabrielle the bard, ALL the Amazon queens, but especially the original Queen Melosa and the steadfast Ephiny, Cleopatra, Boadicea, and Livia, Bitch of Rome. Even Aphrodite, the flighty surfer babe goddess of love, is... okay, no, that's going too far.

Kaylee (Firefly) - cute as a button, but while she scrubbed up nice and purdy, she spent most of her time in her engineer's kit - grungy overalls and messy hair. But you never doubted that she knew her shit when it came to keeping the ship going, and it helped that the rest of the longtime crew respected her abilities. Of course, she probably would have whacked them good with a spanner had they done otherwise...

[honourable mention Zoe, who only doesn't get the top position because I'm not entirely sure what her job description was other than BIG DAMN HERO.]

Astrid (Fringe) – whether she's assisting Olivia, keeping Walter sane, or exhaling precise statistics in the alternate version of Earth, Astrid (Jaskia Nicole) is never less than competent. She puts up with a lot, and is often asked to do far more than most FBI agents would dream of handling, but part of the reason she is so highly trusted in both universes is because you can rely on her, every time.

[honourable mention: Olivia herself, who might have ranked equally to Astrid if it wasn't for the fact that she doesn't tie her long blonde hair back NEARLY enough when chasing bad guys. But I really appreciate it when she does! Also Nina as bad-ass corporate queen of all technology is one hell of a supporting character]

Jenna (Blake's 7) – okay, there's that thing where the women almost never went down to the away missions, but in Jenna's case there was a reason for that. She was a pilot, a damned good one, and the first human to come anywhere close to mastering the alien renegade ship Liberator. Sure, Tarrant got the job later, but the ship was basically domesticated by that stage. Jenna wasn't the world's best smuggler (she did get caught, after all, and arrested) but she was certainly the best pilot in the Blake's 7 universe, and the whole crew knew it. Her loyalty to Blake and her being the only person who could fly the ship for the first two years was basically the only reason that the structure show worked at all…

[honourable mentions: Soolin for being supremely excellent at shooting things, and Servalan for being a fabulously evil supreme commander... even if her Presidential skills left a lot to be desired, we never saw her lose to Blake and his crew because of her own incompetence - only that of the men around her. Even when she was down and out, a renegade herself, she never gave up fighting, or scheming.]

So who else can you think of? I haven't even started on characters from Doctor Who, Battlestar Galactica, etc. Liz Shaw, both Romanas, Starbuck, President Roslin and Emma Peel from the Avengers all come to mind. But who are your favourite SF/Fantasy women who are fantastic at their jobs?

Big Finish Originals: Lucie Bleedin' Miller

This is the first of my posts for Doctor Her, a new feminist Doctor Who blog. It's an exciting project and I'm very glad to be part of it. I think we're going to have some great conversations over there. I'll be cross-posting most of the big pieces I write for them, because it's not like talking about Doctor Who is a NEW thing for this blog. Depends on the pieces, though. I recommend you check Doctor Her out over the next week or two as everyone starts putting up their first posts. We're still feeling our way into it but hopefully it will be a hub for all that crunchy feminist Doctor Who chatter.

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I'm a Big Finish fangirl, plain and simple. So, there's that. I imagine a lot of my posts here are going to be about the audio plays they produce, not only because I enjoy them (and it's one way to justify the amount of money I pour into subscriptions) but also because they provide me with a lot of interesting and crunchy feminist material to chew over. Like all the awesome stories they have provided for Classic Who companions, and entire spin off series which allow those companions to shine as protagonists in their own right.

But also, very much so, with the new companions they have created to travel alongside various "classic" Doctors. Lucie Miller (Sheridan Smith), one of the audio companions created for Paul McGann's Eighth Doctor, wasn't by any means the first of these, but she was the first of the companions created after Doctor Who came back in 1995, and the "New Eighth Doctor Adventures" which featured her character were a standalone series of short, punchy stories that were designed to appeal to the fans of New Who. They were broadcast as radio plays as well as being available for purchase from the Big Finish site – and there's a Lucie Miller sale on THIS WEEK including a free download of her first episode, which is why I wanted to get this post up today.

Lucie Miller: It's my superpower. I am Sarcasmo, woman of sarcasm. My enemies are struck down by my barbs of steel.'

 

Lucie Miller appeared mysteriously in the TARDIS much as Donna did in the Runaway Bride – Big Finish are often in conversation with Cardiff to make sure coincidenced like this don't happen, but they slipped up in this instance, as Lucie Miller's first story, Blood of the Daleks, and The Runaway Bride, were produced concurrently and broadcast very close together. There was no copying here, just plain happenstance. But it's fascinating to see how similar – and then how different – the characters were.

Both temps, working in dead-end admin jobs. Both mouthy, and quick-witted, and had a tendency to give the Doctor an earful when he was being pompous, or sometimes just for standing there. Both were to grow and transcend their original image of themselves, to become absolutely epic characters. Both materialised quite literally in the TARDIS, under mysterious circumstances. Both of them displayed absolutely no physical attraction to the Doctor – which was a refreshing change from their immediate predecessors!

Both were awesome.

Lucie Miller: Well, you know, there's nothing wrong with the TARDIS…

The Doctor: No.

Lucie Miller: Apart from all the things that are wrong with the TARDIS.

The Doctor: Admittedly.

Lucie Miller: Just, it's not so much a spaceship as…a shed.

Sheridan Smith is a major star in the UK now, through her performances in West End musicals as much as being a comedy actress, but she continued doing these audio plays for four years even as her star was rising. Her chemistry with Paul McGann is electric, you can hear how much the actors enjoy each other's company in the various Extras documentaries that are paired with the episodes, and she brought out something marvellous in his Doctor. She's one of those companions who completely earns the title of the Doctor's best friend.

They were taking no chances with this series of adventures – as well as the faster paced, easy entry stories that were designed to appeal to new listeners, there's also lots of classic monsters and characters from the old show – not just Daleks and Cybermen for Lucie in her first season, but a truly original take on Zygons in her second with a plot twist which was to resonate through her entire run. (honestly, you haven't lived until you've heard Tim Brooke-Taylor from the Goodies as a shy, sexually confused Zygon) We even get the return of Morbius, YES REALLY.

Bechdel-Test wise, while the main focus (as always) is the relationship between Lucie and the Doctor rather than the characters of the week, there are some interesting women in these adventures who spark well off Sheridan Smith's performance. Particularly her Auntie Pat, the rock chick wild aunt she accidentally keeps crossing time tracks with, bumping into her in the 1970′s (in Horror of Glam Rock, a surreal semi-musical with aliens stuck in a motorway service cafe) and later in the 1980′s (in the equally brilliant The Zygon Who Fell To Earth). There's also the Headhunter, a mysterious villain type whom we see tracking Lucie down throughout the whole first season, only to finally be revealed in the major season finale, Human Resources. There's also Karen, Lucie's workmate, who has a surprising role to play in that same story.

In later seasons, not only is Lucie's relationship with her Auntie Pat explored further, but she also gets an opportunity no other companion since the 60′s has – a chance to form a friendship with the Doctor's granddaughter Susan, after she and her son Alex are reunited with the Doctor.

Lucie: But you travel in time and space. You've got two hearts. You live in a magic box that's bigger on the inside. You know all about stuff. You're the Doctor, you're brilliant and it was great, I mean really bleeding great and, well, that's how I want to remember it. That's how I want to remember you.

The Doctor: So I'm just a memory now?

Lucie: Yeah. The best memory I've got. Yeah, I remember the Doctor. He was great. He had a great time. An amazing time. Then one night he just disappeared in his magic box. Just disappeared. I'll never forget him. Never.

Fierce, brave, strong, loyal, hilarious, implacable, utterly self-reliant, and capable of giving her best Time Lord a good slap around the chops when he deserves it, Lucie Bleedin' Miller deserves her place in the pantheon of Awesome Doctor Who Companions. It's only a shame that Sheridan never got to play the part on screen, because she and Paul McGann would have kicked Doctor Who butt.

My favourite Lucie stories:

Season One

Blood of the Daleks Parts 1 & 2 – cos the first!

Horror of Glam Rock – characterific, full of banter, actual glam rock music and strange aliens

No More Lies – fascinating idea of a villain redeemed through time travel, plus banter & Nigel Havers

Human Resources Parts 1 & 2 – Lucie being epic, classic Doctor Who monsters, war and office politics plus THE HEADHUNTER REVEALED

Season Two

Max Warp – a Top Gear parody with Graeme Garden, spaceships and murder.

Grand Theft Cosmos – Lucie, the Headhunter, a heist, a train, IT'S ALL GOOD

The Zygon Who Fell To Earth – angst, family drama, banter and Zygons. With Tim Brooke-Taylor and Auntie Pat!

Sisters of the Flame Part 1 & Vengeance of Morbius Part 2 – if you're not addicted by now, you might as well give up. Lucie gets a whole episode to herself, and the Doctor gets one hell of a cliffhanger. Plus, well, the sequel to Brain of Morbius you never knew you wanted.

Season Three

Okay, I don't love this season so much but Orbis broke my heart a little, and The Eight Truths/Worldwide Web broke my brain

Season Four

Gut wrenching, traumatic and yet still funny and awesome too. The Doctor & Lucie separate sadly in Death in Blackpool and he finds another companion, but their story's not done… and Graeme Garden returns to play a recurring role as the Meddling Monk, a masterful performance that shows he's not just about comedy, he can do drama and angst with the best of them.

Relative Dimensions – The Doctor wants to make up for the time he ruined Lucie's Christmas. He's invited his granddaughter and great-grandson to the TARDIS, Lucie's cooking a turkey, and he has a Grand Plan to fix everything. But there's a killer fish and some doors and… the TARDIS basically has other ideas about what is seasonally appropriate.

Prisoner of the Sun – one of Paul McGann's finest moments as the Doctor, and one of Sheridan Smith's finest moments… not playing Lucie. A brilliant standalone story about the Doctor's ethics and why he needs a companion

Lucie Miller Part 1/To the Death Part 2 – amazing writing, amazing performances, and the Daleks are the scariest they have ever, ever been. Lucie Bleedin' Miller comes into her own as the hero we always knew she was… and she still has a thing or two to teach the Doctor about being human.

 

Eighth Doctor & Lucie art by veetvoojagigthemagnificent on Tumblr

[crossposted at my blog, tansyrr.com]

Friday Links Is Hopping on the Train to Earth 2

The Mary Sue previews the exciting upcoming new DC titles with women front and centre, including Worlds' Finest (squeee!) and The Ravagers (featuring the most interesting characters in the Superboy book, making me wonder whether I'll be continuing with his title) but they also called me attention to the delightful revelation that the Earth 2 Wonder Woman may actually be Donna Troy, one of those characters who has been noticeably absent from the new 52. SQUEEEE! (Is it too much to hope Wally West is over there too? If so, I'm totally moving in over there)

Some discussion went around the internets a week ago about Madonna, and how the media has always enjoyed hating her so much – and no, it doesn't mean that people who don't like her music are automatically sexist, but a lot of the invective used against her *is*.

Speaking of assumptions, there's a lovely interview with Sophie Kinsella, who has made a name for herself writing the fun, comedic Shopaholic novels. She talks about the way she is perceived, and defends the moral issues of her books as well as talking positively about comedy for women. Also from a writerly point of view, I thought it interesting how the article presents her two separate author names and identities.

Marion Zimmer Bradley's Darkover series possibly being made for TV – wow. I managed to miss the Darkover series, which is one of those things like Anne McCaffrey's Pern that makes me sad. I have heard there's a lot of hefty 70′s style feminist type stuff in there, though, and would be fascinated to see how they adapt it, and how much the material has dated. Far more than the George RR Martin series, this intrigues me enough to read the source material and compare to the TV if it gets that far.

Sarah Rees Brennan is at it again, this time combining her Gothic Tuesday and Lady Sleuth Thursday posts to write a sharp, loving parody of Wilkie Collins' The Woman in White. Wilkie Collins is sometimes credited as the inventor of the detective story, which isn't quite true, but he was certainly the first author to develop the idea of a female amateur detective – I have a particular love for his The Law and the Lady, which is far better than the more famous The Moonstone. I've never read The Woman in White though, and now I really want to!

Also from the Mary Sue: The Periodic Table of Cupcakes. Someone should totally do this for a convention book launch! And when I say someone, I mean Terri.

Now the cupcakes have softened you up, Karen Healey has been trying to research beyond anecdata to see if people really do hate female authors (in the YA field) more than male authors, and if they're meaner about it. Short answer: yep.

@Kaelajael passed on a link to this wonderfully ranty article about how telling little girls that the boys bullying them in the playground are doing it "because they like you" needs to be stamped out, like NOW. I'd never thought about this particular meme before, but now I'm quietly horrified that, yes, of course.

Hoyden About Town are starting a regular feature, an open thread discussing Outland. If you haven't yet found the right peeps to discuss the show with, this could be it! Assuming that you're appropriately feminist & left-leaning, of course, otherwise NEVER MIND, NOTHING TO SEE HERE, MOVE ALONG.

One I'd missed earlier: 13 years on from Women in Refrigerators, a blog carnival. How far have we come?

I'm looking forward to this movie a lot more than I expected to be! Loving most of the character interpretations from this trailer:

Or maybe sometimes Equality MIGHT Mean Half… [the Paul Cornell Parity Project Edition]

Why does this stuff always happen in Galactic Suburbia's off week?

A few days ago, Paul Cornell, a very popular and well regarded SF, television and comics professional writer who regularly appears on panels at conventions around the world, made a bit of a splash with his announcement about how he plans to address the problem of parity on said convention panels.

Much like the male SF and fantasy authors (like Charles Stross) who have pledged publicly to step aside from appearing in SF anthologies which perpetuate the bad SF tradition of not including nearly enough work written by women, Paul Cornell has pledged to step aside from panels that do not offer at least 2/5 female participants. Naturally enough, responses to this are mixed.

It's a gimmick. Obviously it's a gimmick. It's also a stunt. It is a great big, messy, epic gimmicky stunt. It's going to make some people angry. It's going to make some people embarrassed. It's going to make a whole bunch of people complain loudly on the internet. I'm sure plenty of them already have, but I've become better and better at avoiding that kind of thing.

But, and this is important, it's unlikely that Paul will receive the same degree of anger, dismissive language and abuse that a woman would receive, should she pledge to enact some kind of public protest at conventions that do not offer equal numbers of male and female panellists. It's irritating, but true.

His plan is not going to fix everything. It's not going to heal the world. It may not even make much of a difference to a whole bunch of conventions. But that is not a reason for him not to do it. Because Paul can get away with it. He's a lovely guy, good-humoured and presents well in public. If he does end up having to do this piece of comedic pantomime, physically stepping down in front of an audience and finding women to take his place, then people will remember it, and they will likely forgive him for it. He'll make it entertaining, and the point will be made, with far less fallout than would occur (sadly) if a woman was the one trying to make the same point.

[there are a lot of potential problems with his proposed system of course - such as the potential embarrassment of female audirnce members called upon without preparation to take his place, and the pressure on such women to be brilliant and witty to justify the choice - it's an awkward position to put them in, and I think Paul may have to relent on his current plans not to make prior arrangements with potential replacements. Often there are quite sensible reasons why particular women are not sitting on a particular panel, such as having ALREADY been overloaded with a bunch of panels at a convention because programmers are often desperate to try to reach something close to parity, and once a woman is known to be good value on panels, she will often be massively over-scheduled. Unlike many other critics, I don't think the possibility that the female replacement might be less qualified or interesting than Paul Cornell is actually a reason not to do it - I have sat on far too many panels with dull and uninformed male participants to worry about that. But of course, a boring male participant is not seen to represent his entire gender if he fails in public... so, yeah. A lot of pressure.]

If it makes some conventions think differently about their programming, if it makes some women feel more confident about volunteering for panels, and if it makes some more men think seriously about whether they're really the most (or only) qualified person for the topic they've been asked to speak on, then it's worth doing. And if that means that Paul Cornell stops being invited to speak at conventions (which seems unlikely) then at least he'll have more time to write! A plan with few drawbacks!

Maybe it will be a helpful stepping stone in the process of making these events more inclusive of women, and maybe it won't – but at least it's getting us talking about the issue, and it's one worth talking about.

Farah Mendlesohn has some thoughts about Paul's plan, and about positive discrimination being at times a, you know, positive thing. As ever, she speaks good sense. I also very much enjoyed Cheryl Morgan's witty and energetic response to the Paul Parity Plan (it needs a catchier title, yes?).

Sometimes you have to stop worrying about the little details that might go wrong, and appreciate the joy that comes from a glorious, messy, gimmicky consciousness-raising stunt. While eating popcorn.

Stranger With My Face: this weekend!

A reminder to Hobart residents about the exciting women in horror film festival happening over this weekend.

Stranger With My Face Horror Film Festival ~ 17-19 February

Salamanca Arts Centre, 77 Salamanca Place, Hobart

It will screen dark, subversive and entertaining films by women, from exploitation to art house, gore to ghost stories. It takes its name from the teen horror novel by Lois Duncan, inspired by archetypes like the 'mad woman in the attic' and the 'evil twin.'

Stranger With My Face is the creation of award-winning Tasmanian filmmakers Briony Kidd and Rebecca Thomson and is an official 'Women in Horror Recognition Month' event.

It will feature two blocks of short horror films by women on 18 February, including a showcase of films from the Viscera Film Festival, a US-based festival which starts in LA and tours its 'sick chick flicks' around the world.

And here's the info again about the talk I'm giving on the Sunday [note time change: it was 4pm, now 4:30]

TALK: Genre and gender in our own landscape

From Australian 'dark weird' to Tasmanian Gothic

Fantasy author Tansy Rayner Roberts talks about Australian writers who find the horror, fantasy and 'dark weird' in the Australian landscape, as well as her own experiences writing about magic, female protagonists and monsters in Tasmanian settings. Tansy's talk will be followed by a Q & A about writing, grant applications and getting published in speculative fiction (horror, science fiction and fantasy).

TIME: 4:30 pm – 5:30 pm, 19 February

LOCATION: Peacock Theatre – Salamanca Arts Centre, Hobart

COST: Gold coin donation

BOOKINGS: Not required but please RSVP on the Facebook events page and invite your friends.

Dear John Richards

I *saw* what you did in tonight's episode of Outland. Just saying.

(and laughed myself into hiccups)

Equality, Apparently, Doesn't Mean Half [the National Year of Reading Edition]

The thing about feminism is that an awful lot of people in the world don't think about it. They don't think it's necessary. Worst of all, they think it's an anachronism. Because women have equality now, right?

Sure they do. Except in the many, many, tiny little ways that they don't. Some of those ways seem small, like tiny nicks in the glass of a car window, the sort of thing you can overlook on its own. But when it's nick after nick, dent after dent, hole after hole… once your awareness has been opened to it, it feels like the window is cracking open, from edge to edge. You can't not see it. It's everywhere.

Elizabeth L Huede, the powerhouse behind the gone-viral-or-what Australian Women Writers 2012 Reading challenge, blogged recently about how disappointing it is that the list of books chosen for the National Year of Reading project – one from each state, books chosen to represent 'our story' as Australians – consists of seven out of eight male authored works.

Elizabeth parses some of the ways in which this could have happened, noting that the longlist used for reference was also grossly weighted towards male authors, but also musing on how it is that male books are so heavily prioritised when the people choosing the long list – librarians and publishers – are both female heavy professions. Also, readers got to vote on the books – and reading is in itself identified as being a more popular pastime among women than men. So this isn't just about men thinking books by men are more important and universal and meaningful than books by women. This is about women thinking exactly the same thing.

The comments are good, btw. There, I point out something I have noticed in the past as far as this sort of list goes – it wasn't constructed as a balanced shortlist, it was constructed as eight single titles, each chosen by different people. When you're narrowing down the choice to ONE, you never think about gender (well, most people wouldn't) – the natural assumption is that it's a 50-50 chance, because a single winner can only represent one gender. So it never feels like a decision influenced by gender. It's only when the pattern is laid out – 7/8 'winners' per state being male, for instance, or the shocking statistics of the Miles Franklin literary award, named after a woman and rarely won by one, that the question of gender bias looks to be an obvious one.

And of course there are ways to deal with this. Like the Stella Prize, for instance. Like the Australian Women Writers Reading 2012 Challenge. Like having these conversations. All necessary things.

We need to change the way we look at literature and art. We need to change the way we read it, and teach it. You can't declare that equality exists and therefore parity doesn't matter. I've seen too many lists that promote the outdated idea that to be Important or Universal or even that completely pure and unbiased and rational philosophical ideal of GOOD, they have to be written by men. I don't buy it. I don't buy it in comics, or movies, or television, or kids toys, or football, or anything else I consider important. Hell, I don't even buy it in politics.

So no, I won't take it lying down when it comes to books. Because books are important. And 'our story' has a far more complex, diverse and interesting meaning than the National Year of Reading is managing to convey so far.

No gender bias in that list of books, huh? Really. I wonder how they can be so sure. Because the universe that the list exists in is pretty riddled with gender bias, and if you don't actively build defenses against it, you end up with the same story, over and over again.

Stop me if you've heard this one.

She didn't write it. She wrote it, but she shouldn't have. She wrote it, but look what she wrote about. She wrote it, but only one of it. She wrote it, but she isn't really an artist, and it isn't really art. She wrote it, but she had help. She wrote it, but she was an anomaly.

She wrote it, BUT…

Joanna Russ, the original cover blurb of How to Suppress Women Writing

Why has the world not yet rendered that quote utterly irrelevant???