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.”

An Unearthly Journey: Doctor Who, Season Two

Continued from here, this series follows me on my erstwhile adventures through Classic Who. We left off on my review of the original Season One; now let’s act a little out of character as Doctor Who fans and proceed directly to the next season in chronological order.

I actually finished watching the First Doctor a while ago, and never really got around to posting about it. (I tend to watch while I sew, and with no conventions since Comic Con, I haven’t had a lot of time.) There are still two seasons with One in them after S2, but there are too many good episodes to talk about in this season to bother trying to mush all three remaining Hartnell seasons into one post.

So, without further ado, onto the review!

An Unearthly Journey: Doctor Who, Season One

A lot of people say that you can’t really call yourself a Whovian if you’ve never seen any classic Who. To those people, I say that it’s not okay to give people assignments on what they should or shouldn’t do before they can call themselves geeks. So that’s not the reason I’m watching classic Who.

But hey, I am watching it, and this series will encompass reviews of the good old days. Some of them will look at entire seasons, some at specific episodes; it will jump all over the place between Doctors in properly timey-wimey fashion; but all will be rooted firmly in the appreciation of the Doctor by Hartnell through McGann. I hope to watch as much as I can before the 50th Anniversary next fall.

So when I say Season One above, I mean, well, the very first season of Doctor Who that ever aired, back in 1963. The season that started it all, beginning with “The Unearthly Child.”