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From: acsgjjp@sunybcs.UUCP (Jim Poltrone)
Newsgroups: net.tv.drwho
Subject: Re: "useless" companions
Message-ID: <770@sunybcs.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 26-Oct-84 19:09:25 EDT
Article-I.D.: sunybcs.770
Posted: Fri Oct 26 19:09:25 1984
Date-Received: Sat, 27-Oct-84 03:47:40 EDT
References: <4948@duke.UUCP>
Organization: Where real Chi Omegas don't take Physics
Lines: 48

[Can I kill him now, Doctor?]
Quoting N. L. Tinkham here (duke!nlt):
>                          ..... Sarah next to Pertwee's Doctor
> was a headstrong feminist; next to Baker, she faded into the background.

Indeed.  Sarah first appeared in "The Time Warrior", when she posed as her
aunt, viologist Lavinia Smith.  I remember her active role in the stories
"The Monster of Peladon" and "Planet of the Spiders".  As soon as Tom
Baker took over as the Doctor, she had become more of a tag-along.  The only
other time she was forceful was during "The Hand of Fear", where she said
the now-famous line (all right, everyone, 1.. 2.. 3..)
   "Eldrad *must* live!"

>    That doesn't explain Nyssa, of course, as she was with the fifth
> Doctor.                      ..... There might have been time to
> develop her character more fully if she had travelled with the Doctor
> alone for awhile between "Time-Flight" and "Arc of Infinity".

I didn't see "The Keeper of Traken" or "Logopolis" yet, so I can't say how
Nyssa was in the last two Tom Baker stories.  She does speak up quite
vehemently to one of the members of the High Council in defense of the Doctor 
in the story "Arc of Infinity".

Now quoting from Rob DeMillo (uwmacc!demillo): 
>    What's all this I keep hearing about Sarah Sutton!? My God, she's
>    absolutely awful!! She can't act, she can barely speak her
>    friggin' lines - and she is NOT particularly attractive, in my opinion,
>    either....

Everyone's entitled to their own opinions; the world would be a boring
place if we all agreed with everyone else, wouldn't it?  I would have to
say that one of the reasons I like Nyssa is because the character is close
(+/- 5) to my own age.  When I first started watching, I wasn't particularly
too fond of Leela because she was "too violent".  (I've grown to like her
since then.)  And I didn't like Tegan in "Castrovalva"; she was a bit too
much of a "mouth on legs".  (She isn't that way in "Resurrection of the
Daleks", however.)  By the way, Sarah (Sutton) has been going to the 
Guildhall College of the Performing Arts (I'm not sure on the name) to
get a teacher's degree in speech and drama.  She'd have to be able to act
in order to TEACH how to act, right?  (Doctor Who does not have that many
well-known stars in it, other than some guest roles.)
-- 
From under the smogberry trees.... 
Jim Poltrone  (a/k/a Poltr1, the Last of the Raster Blasters)
uucp: [decvax,watmath,rocksvax]!sunybcs!acsgjjp
ARPAnet, CSnet: acsgjjp%buffalo@CSNET-RELAY

   Don't forget to STAY DEMENTED!