Is it just me or is there something missing with Amy? I don't know what it is but something just isn't right. I don't know if its the acting or the characterisation but I'm finding it hard being that interested with her on board the Tardis.

This was further highlighted when Rory joined the crew and I instantly connected with him. So, whats wrong with Amy? I wasn't a huge fan of Rose or Donna but i can understand why viewers loved them but with Amy I'm sure she's that likeable.

what did Rose and Donna have that Amy doesn't?

She's a bit smug at times, outshines the Doc at times and seems to know more at times than she should, while knowing less at other times than she thinks?

I still think there is a twist ahead regarding Amy that we don't see quite coming ...

Overall, I like her though - and she's deffo very attractive imo

I know what you mean... I'm not sure her it's her though. I think it's because Ledworth is boring and she has no apparent family background. Meaning that her character has no obvious depth to it...

However Karen Gillan is a very good actress and I'm hoping we are given more to go on with her as the series progresses

She's rude and belligerant and solves all the episodes while goading the Doc and engaging in stand offs.

She knows too much, more than a normal person should, more akin to a writer who could have been closely involved with the show for years.

She has become engaged to a lovely (strange) young man, only to leave him in the lurch as soon as something better comes along.

Could Amy be the Rani?

Just like real life, where people make questionable life choices and don't always comply with the rules of hero worship.

Shhh, talking about characters that are well written and realistic as if they're a good thing will have the Happiness Patrol round here quicker than you can tell a knock-knock joke!

I do find it curious how people can complain about Amy and not Rose though. Considering that:

* Rose ran off with a strange man leaving her clearly traumatised boyfriend in a back alley somewhere in London
* She's away from home for a year so more trauma for her family.
* She immediately hits on the first eligible young man she meets (and it's ADAM! Yeash) despite still having a boyfriend.
* She ignores the Doctor to save her dad despite warnings of Doom which directly leads to the Doctor's death and the world is only put right when her dad proves what sort of a man he really was and kills himself as was meant to happen.
* She immediately starts flirting and dancing with Captain Jack the instant she meets him despite still having a boyfriend (although it IS jack so may get a pass on that one).
* She drags her boyfriend all the way down to Cardiff (surely unforgivable) to give her her passport and rub his nose in the wild adventures she's having.
* She flirts with Doctor 10 pretty much straight off the bat on New Earth despite still having a boyfriend.
* She throws a major hissy fit when she runs into the reality of companionship via Sarah Jane.
* She's about as happy to have MIckey hop on board the TARDIS as a Dalek with a really bad tentacle itch. That's her BOYFRIEND Mickey let us not forget.
* She gets cocky, goes hunting clockwork robots against the Doctor's orders and almost gets both herself and her boyfriend (who's new to this remember) very very killed.
* She ignores the doctor and goes to see her alternate reality dad who will never, ever know who she is despite warnings of doom. This ends just about as well as the last time she did that.

I know there's the second half of series 2 to go but I think that kinda sums her up really. Treated Mickey FAR worse than Amy has Rory (bear in mind the one question Amy asked before getting in the TARDIS was 'can you get me back for tomorrow'.... she isn't running away just... postponing things for a bit), selfish as hell, definitely thinks she has all the answers and only avoid spending eternity in the Void because her alternate-reality father proved for the second time that he's a better person than she ever was.

Stupid thing is, I actually like Rose as a character (first season anyway) because she acts within character and actually pretty much a realistic one at that. But if we're going to judge companions here she's waaaaay out there in a league of her own when it comes to selfish and downright dumb behavior. Just saying...

Just a quick one, how did Young Amy know what the guard in the Atraxi prison was saying through the crack in the wall? I mean, is it plausible to think that the Atraxi were well versed in the Queen's English?

Only wondering because Amy hadn't been in the TARDIS at that point and I just found it a little odd.

smiddlehurst is totally right about Rose. Yet she was still likable. She was cute (in a personality sense, not in an attractive sense), she was funny, she could be vulnerable, she was very very human and went through most of the emotions that we probably all imagine we would experience if we had been in her position. She made a string of mistakes and didn't show that much regret for the pain she caused her mum and Mickey - especially Mickey. But it was easy to connect with her. I don't know why.

Amy? She's stand offish and rude and childish. There is something unlikable about her. And I find her very hard to connect with. Watching Rose, you knew what she was thinking and what she might do - with Amy I never really know what she's feeling or thinking. Often I don't really get why she does things she does or says what she says.

Donna was rude when we first met her and, based on the initial Christmas special, I didn't like her at all. But when she was reintroduced I really fell for her. But Amy - I don't feel anything for her yet.

I certainly don't see anything unusual in this to set her apart from any other late-teen girl of the 21st century.

Do you ?

D

Nope, none of this is relevant. I wasn't comparing Amy with Rose. Rose was younger and out to have fun. Sure, she had a boyfriend, but which young teenager wouldn't flirt with all these exciting men? Captain Jack? come on! He had just rescued her and was plying her with drink and the megawatt smile.

I didn't see a major hissy fit when Sarah Jane arrived. Imagine Amy in exactly the same situation since you are comparing them. The Doctor would have been black and blue.

She wasn't fresh onto the TARDIS when she went hunting the clockwork men. She had a few episodes' experience behind her. Not like Amy who was going off on her own from the start.

I did bear in mind the question Amy asked, about getting back for tomorrow, but I also bore in mind that the first time the Doctor returned, supposedly after 5 mins, was years too late and the second time he just went off for a short hop was two years later. WHich part of these trips lead Amy to believe that he will get her back on time. Doesn't it completely imply that he will NOT get her back in time at all - thereby knowing leaving Rory in the lurch.

Amy is not a character for me at all. So far, she has been a series of plot devices and annoying reactions. I liked Rose because she looked like she was having fun and living the experience to the full. Amy just looks like she wouldn't care whic planet she was on as long as she could knock someone about a bit

BTW, did you miss the bit where Amy leapt on the Doctor? She is engaged you know.

S just like real life, leave her behind to have a little sulk and find somone who would truly enjoy the experience

I thought a first that it could be that Amy was taking the shine away from the doctor but its more than that. He had more of a connection when she was a little girl , unless she is meant to be offish.

Maybe she is clone Amy from beyond the crack

I agree about both of them. And Rose didn't know she'd be away for a year the first time. A 19 year old having a not-so-serious boyfriend (that's what it looked like on her side anyway)is not exactly the same as getting married a few hours later and still going off with another man with a history of extremely unreliable time-keeping.

Her character has a lot of depth to it-it's just not, as you say, obvious. That's because she's written as a real person rather than as a stereotype like Rose.

And why is Leadworth 'boring'? Come to think of it, why would that impact on her character anyway?

How is Rose a stereotype character? Don't tell me....becuase she lives in a council estate? And has a London accent? And didn't do that well in School? Well believe it or not there are hell of a lot stereotype labels that surround people who grow up in council estate, and yet she doesn't cover any of those. She was celever, she worked, if bored by her job, she was in a relationship with a guy that wasn't stereotypical black young man living on the estates, but an intelligent, hard working if cowardly, she grew up in a single parent family, not becuase of the stereotypical reasons, but because her dad had died, and second time as a hero.....so what exactly was the stereotype?

On the surface of it all, Rose, Donna and Martha may have stereotypical settings, but their characters are beyond the whole nature and nurture debate. Their experience of what makes them is unique and individual to them.

I think its a case of you not being able to get past the stereotypes, and therefore not looking at them as a whole. Actually come to think about it....you do the same to Amy....for everytime you have tried to justify her actions, it usually comes down to the fact that she has been abandond. The job she gets, the relationships she forms, the way she acts, is down to the fact that she was abandond as a child. And reading the "why did Amy choose Rory" thread and Johnny's post about abandonment issues....I did come to the conclusion last nght that the so called issues Amy has are quite stereotypical of what a person who has sufferd abandonment is like. My God I've done it myself to Amy!!! Seriously, if I did that in my field of work, judged every client because of an issue during their childhood, and not looking at them as whole person...I'd lose my job!!!
Everyone who is a Kissogram hasn't been abandond in their life, everyone who makes pass at people they know they shouldn't isn't because they were abandoned as a child, and certainly not everyone who has been abandoned has commitment issues either! None of us have been looking past the whole stereotype of Amy's situation...we have all been judging her!!!


Maybe the fact that she is strong and fiesty, is because she just is...maybe she isn't that bweilderd by many things, because well that is who she is....after all the reason she wasn't scared of having a strange man in her house as a child wasn't because she had been abandond, but because she found the crack in her wall more scary than anything else....so anything else was a great welcome.


So many things shape us, families, freinds, geography, school, faith, strangers, media, the past, the present....its never as simple as one thing.....and even the people who experince exactly the same thing in every little way, can still grow up to be very different to each other.


i never did judge Rose, Donna, and Marth due to their backgrounds only, but as a whole person...can't believe I did that to Amy!!!

Rose wasn't a stereotype because of her background - people are talking about her personality. Besides, I don't think stereotype is the right word - I think 'generic' is better.

She seemed to have very few specifically-identifiable personality quirks, she was a generic teenager. I actually found her background, and the people in her life, more interesting than her. At least her mum and Mickey developed over the series.

Apart from her youth, her way of talking, and heck even dress sense...what was so generic about her? You may have not liked her...but personally you saying she is generic is no more true than those who are sying that there is nothing more to Amy than her not being scared and staring wildly.....
The way she was selfish, the way she was brave, the way she was smug, the way she wanted more to life, the way she treated Mickey, the way she treated her mum, the things she learnt, the things she wanted to do, what she thought about her dad, and how she was basically, as her mum put it, was becoming more and more like the Doctor, and not the Rose we knew in series one....were all about Rose and who she was. They were in her style and unique to her. If she was so generic, why did Billie worry that she had forgotton how to play her? Surely playing a generic Teenager who hadn't developed in any way, wouldn't been that hard of a part to get into again. Like i said on the surface they seem to be what you call stereotypes, or other words generic....but there is more to her....just like those who say Donna is nothing more than a loud mouth...when that isn't the case either.

I think it depends which character you can relate to or which character you can understand. I don't think that Rose's or Amy's characters are badly written, but those who like Rose will defend her character and those who like Amy will defend her character (regardless of how irrational some of these explanations may seem to others who don't share the same opinion).

IMO Rose was not stereotypical, neither in relationship to her background nor in relationship to her personality (e.g. she could be selfish and caring, she wasn't a typical chav who couldn't be bothered with other people and she showed some real compassion etc.). I was getting tired by the end of the second series of Rose, but not because she was a stereotypical character.

With regards to Amy, I certainly did not get her character to start with, but this has changed now and since the last episode I really like her. However, I agree with crazzy somewhat that people seem to explain her whole character with the abandoment issue (armchair psychology IMO). People are far more complex than that, not all children of divorced parents end up having committment issues, and a child who is abandoned by a stranger she has only met, would not carry lifelong scars. If SM explains all of Amy's characteristics because she was abandoned, I will be pretty disappointed. Amy's behavious and personality is due a variety of different biological and environmental reasons, chosing one as the main cause would be lazy writing IMO.

I don't see why you think that writing a twisted, rude, belligerant, perpetually annoyed, staring and confrontational character is more 'realistic' than writing a young, happy, hopeful, ditzy teenager.

It's not more realistic, it just suits certain posters agendas to say that it is...

My personal opinion is that Amy is the best assistant that there has been in any Dr Who so far brilliant really well written for and engaging

Now if they could only do the same for the Doctor

I agree, and despite me not being a big fan of the likes of Sally Sparrow....I think her and the other female characters that Moff has written show that he is beyond defining characters to one thing mainly...so I think Amy's character is definitely not just around her abandonment issues....

I also agree heavily with your first paragraph, explians why we fans don't seem to come to an agreement on these characters!!

Because that's not how either of them are written.

Unless you think that any of the recent Doctors are terrible characters because they're rude, belligerent, staring and confrontational?

None of the Doctors have been that so far as I can see