Are Doctor Who’s Companions Too Sexy?

A few days ago Hypable raised the question, “Is Doctor Who too sexy?” It was in response to The Telegraph‘s piece interviewing Carole Ann Ford (aka Susan, the very first companion) about how working on Doctor Who affected her career. And Hypable isn’t just another site desperate for clicks; this question is a common fan criticism of “New Who,” especially Moffat’s era. Some believe the show’s writing and companions have crossed some sort of risqué line, and it’s damaging the show. So is it?

Doctor Who as a show has a complicated relationship with sex. The show began as a mostly educational children’s TV program, featuring Susan as the granddaughter of “Doctor Who.” Ford reveals that Susan was also originally envisioned to be pretty badass:

“They told me Susan was going to be an Avengers-type girl – with all the kapow of that – plus she would have telepathetic powers. She was going to be able to fly the Tardis as well as her grandfather and have the most extraordinary wardrobe.”

Tekken Tag 2: Fun, Sexy, and Deeply Confusing

I have enjoyed the Tekken series since I was a youngster playing Tekken 2 with my friends. It has always been fun for me, and after missing out on the series for some time, I finally picked up the newest title, Tekken Tag Tournament 2. As an adult, I am noticing some things about the game which I either failed to notice before or missed in their development.

The first thing that I noticed is how funny this game is. It makes fun of itself and the fighting genre, which works well with its powerful and serious characters. Its good humor makes it difficult to understand what exactly it is really saying sometimes. Tekken is, like many arcade games, highly sexualized. However, it is very aware of this and pokes fun at the clash between violence and sex. For example, the opening cut scene begins with Jinpachi, who is glowing with a powerful aura, riding in a cab presumably on his way to the fighting tournament. He tells the cab driver that it should be obvious where he is going, as he needs to unleash his awesome power. In a follow-up cut scene available in the gallery, we see that the driver mistook Jinpachi’s cryptic remark to mean that he wanted to go to sin-corner to pick up a prostitute. In other games, the character Ganryu fell in love with Michelle after kidnapping her mother and Michelle subsequently kicked his ass. After Michelle was written out of the series and replaced by her daughter, Julia, Ganryu arbitrarily forgot about Michelle and fell in love with Julia.