Wasn't The Five Doctors shown on Children in Need night, though?

Sorry if I sounded harsh, it was great, fun story - but the companions were treated badly as characters IMO.

19-odd years helping rebuilding the Earth have gone by and Susan was still a whining girl tripping over invisible rocks.

Sarah likewise. Seven years after being suddenly dumped onto Earth, roles down a bit of hill and is reacquainted with the Doc - no issue with how he left her. It was an earlier Doctor, too - would've been quite interesting!

But I don't really care, as it was a fun, celebratory reunion episode. I just don't thing it should be taken as a good example of how to reintroduce an old companion.

Yes on all counts. It was a fun celebration of Who, but nothing more, and I absolutely agree with you that it was completely unrealistic in the reintroduction of Sarah. Obviously some people are happy with this one-dimensional characterisation, but thank God that RTD had the inclination and the time to develop these kind of things further.

Surely anyone doubting that Sarah-Jane would have reacted the way she did in "School Reunion" doesn't know very much about women.

She travelled with the doctor for a very long time, and then he left her somewhere because he had to go to Gallifrey, she didn't know at that time that he would not return. When we see Sarah-Jane again in "School Reunion" she is somewhere in her fifties without kids and without family. I can believe that she might have waited for quite a long time for him to return. When she meets the doctor again, he is travelling with a very young blonde, pretty girl. There didn't need to be a romantic involvement for her to be jealous about that. It's like being cast aside by a friend or your boss. It's particularly bad, because the doctor is a timelord. In theory he could have gone back at any time and picked her up again, but he didn't. Instead he got himself the next travelling companion. She was replaced. Any normal person (but particularly a woman) would resent that or at least question it. It doesn't matter how Sarah-Jane was, when she was young, because now she is older and things will have changed. She might have become more insecure, maybe she is worried about death and the fact that she hasn't got a family. Who knows.

One thing that I liked about RTD's writing was that he understood women and that he understood emotions.

Very well said. Obviously some people think emotion has no place in the show, but thank god the sensible masses are listened to more. If the doctor is to mix with humans, then human emotions are a big part of it.

These people only think that because RTD has written it, if Moff comes up with the same stuff it's different (works the other way around as well, people thinking RTD can't do wrong and Moff is rubbish). I personally don't care who writes what, I enjoy both writers' stuff.

Emotions are part of human social interactions and as long as the Doctor interacts with humans, they have a place in Doctor Who!

Yep, couldn't agree more. I love Classic Who, PD being my favourite ever doctor. I loved RTD Who and I love SM Who.

Maybe I am a whore for who, but I just like a good story and while all three stages I mentioned had crap episodes, they had amazing ones too. Never understood the hatred for show runners in any way.

The emotional side I love and get so involved with as well as the sci fi geek elements as well.

Perhaps my memory is at fault, but didn't most of the companions choose to leave for various reasons? They got married or they decided that they'd had enough of fighting monsters, or they had their memory wiped* etc. Donna initially said she didn't want to go with the Doctor. It wasn't his fault she changed her mind later.

Sarah-Jane was just left because the doctor couldn't take her to Gallifrey. So she probably thought he would come back for her after his trip there, but he didn't.

Jack is the example par excellence of someone being dumped and waiting for years......and years....

*alright not a choice, but they weren't actually waiting for the doctor to return.

I would call you a Doctor Who fan instead. I agree with you, I don't understand the hate for showrunners. I like or dislike episodes, or I like or dislike characters, sometimes, I think there isn't enough involvement, sometimes I think there is too much. Overall though, I have always found that you can find something to enjoy in each era!

In School Reuninon I had goose bumps during the first scene with Sarah-Jane and the Doctor at the Tardis


I agree. There is another aspect as well, Sarah-Jane was always younger than the Doctor, now all of a sudden she is older. That would have been another "strange" factor for her.

He wasn't younger than her, he only looked it-Sarah would know that. And anyway, she'd already met a physically younger Doctor in The Five Doctors.

It doesn't matter to a woman how old a man is if he is looking younger (it's human nature). Trust me I'm a woman I do know! She didn't have much to do with the PD Doctor and she still had her Jon Pertwee Doctor, which would have negated any feelings of inadequacy, in the five Doctors. Women are quite complex, believe me, and Sarah-Jane was written spot on from a female point of view. If you don't understand that, it's probably due to the fact that you are a man (no offence intended).

Disclaimer: I think men are just as complex, but in a different way.

Wasn't it Pertwee who came up with the term 'Whoer'?

Oh me too. The lighting and the music and mood. And then the turn around and reveal, oh wow, loved it.


Haha, amazing way to end your post. As a man I kind of agree but then sometimes think we are just simple folk.

LOL I agree with you, lach. (As I've said before, evidence of how strange Time Lord society must be - one day your husband looks 10 years older than you, the next 10 years younger. How do they cope?)

I sometimes worry I would hate my new look so much that I would run out of regenerations from suicide vanity

Nah you are definitely unfair to your own sex here, although....

Woman: "What are thinking about" (expecting some deep revelation)
Man: "Nothing"


I sincerely don't know. Uni started again today, and I realised that there were a lot of fresh faced kids around. Now if I had been travelling with an old doctor in my twenties, and one of these kids would come up to me telling me the are the doctor, I would have a serious crisis.


Lol

Why assume they would have the same kind of family relationships we have on Earth? The novel Lungbarrow pretty much confirms that they don't, usually.

I might be unfair but it's true. For a majority.

I know what I should say, but I'll refrain for once....

Well, I haven't read Lungbarrow. And I know the Doctor has been married, and has had children and a grandchild. So some things may be different from us (it would be odd if an alien society wasn't different), but some things are the same.

We may have seen the Doctor's granddaughter, but nowhere (aside from that Queen Elizabeth thing I prefer to try to forget) has it ever been stated that he was married, or not on Gallifrey, at least. That has been assumed by a few people in fandom, but never confirmed either in the TV series or anywhere else. And it doesn't really fit with the sterile society of the Time Lords as it has been depicted from The War Games onward.

... so how did he get a grandaughter then. Did he think about her and she materialised?

PS: The Queen Bess thing was mainly accentuated by Moff, the silly sausage*

Peri is probably still waiting for her lift home.

God yes! Forgot about her!! She's probably the most peed off of the lot being left with a bellowing King Ycarnos!

The Doctor bedded someone and started a family, get over it

To my knowledge, the Doctor only promised to one person that he would come back - and that was Susan. The swine never did! OK, she saw him in 'The Five Doctors', but that was by accident. He had no intention of going back to her!
(He probably thought in TFD, "Ohh goodness me, the wretched girl is going to sprain her ankle again!!")