Companions past and present

[nick1235 @nick1235]

@purofilion And Orson Pink. Not sure If I quite get that one. Not a long English speaker. So pardon me if I don’t get any fancy word.

@whisht Eh…? Again, pardon me If I do came in here looking like a troll.

Somebody gotta guide me real quick and real nice around here. xD

Cheers,

Nick

[TenthDoctorFtw @tenthdoctorftw]

For me the best companion was Donna Noble.

[Anonymous @]

@nick1235

no worries mate. I was referring to tact -saying the truth without fancy words. The new doctor, number 12 (Capaldi)  doesn’t have much tact- he says what he feels like. Also , if you saw the last series, Danny Pink was Clara’s boyfriend. He wasn’t interested in hiding the truth either =no tact.

That’s what I meant.

Keep writing and give your opinions; you’ll improve your English in no time. What’s your native language and where are you from?

Kindest, puro

[nick1235 @nick1235]

@purofilion Cheers mate! It’s sort of like straight forward person eh? I kinda did google’d the Tact meaning but an explanation wouldnt hurt much though, right? 😀

I’m from Indonesia, our native language is Bahasa, I am considered pretty good in English around here. I achieved 597 points in TOEFL test, not sure how good it’s considered in europe. All in all, I’m trying to speak to native English speaker in order to improve my English more. But i’ll try my best to keep up with the fancy word you guys are using, might come in handy sometime.

Cheers,

Nick

[Anonymous @]

@nick1235

Yes Indonesia has a ton of dialects -the most complicated place on earth. Years ago, I went to Indonesia and of the four translators, only 3 of them could speak the dialect of the region in which I was working. Very interesting country and very beautiful. I’m from Australia -we talk OK, mate, but good? Not sure, man 🙂

Keep up the good work

puro

[nick1235 @nick1235]

@purofilion I think we’ve been introduce on each other at the Pub earlier when I first join the forum, not sure if you remember though 😛 If I may say so, I’ve also been to Australia, Sydney and Adelaide to be precise, even to the outback of the Coober Pedy. 3 different place with 3 different feels. To be really frank, Australian has really strange accent, I feel like I can’t listen to you guys without subtitles, there’s this police women asking me to move faster when I was crossing the street, I ended up asking her to repeat it TWICE just to get ” oh well, go on ” and then I realize what she was talking about. LOL.

My ear need some recalibration after listening to Englishmen speak and then switch to Australian. But just like a sight in the dark room, it gets better time to time.

Anyway, let’s stay on topic. My favorite companion is probably Bad Wolf. Or Jack Harkness. What’s yours?

Cheers,

Nick.

[Anonymous @]

@nick 1235 I used to live in both Sydney and Adelaide -both beautiful cities and Adelaide had the distinction of being very well planned. I drove to Cooper Pedy with my parents as a child during which we always ruined. We had to strap them to the top of the old V8 Holden where all four or five would be repaired before the return journey.

It was hot and the sandwiches had to be eaten under a blanket on account of the flies which were an epidemic. In QLD, where I now live, it’s midges (sand flies) and mosquitoes which bite and sting. The horse flies are enormous and slow but also bite and then there’s the bees! But that’s on topic, as the bees disappearing were always a fav of the original show runner, Russel T Davies.

As for fav companion- hard to say, as I’m definitely warming to Clara.

I loved Liz Sladen -when she reappeared in Tennant’s era for a while it was poignant and she’d hardly changed at all. I thought Harkness was terrific in the early episodes of 2005 (with Eccleston) but he’s not one I’d like to see back. River Song is undoubtedly a mysterious and powerful companion but I had a soft spot for Donna Noble – a grating personality, but very different to the previous females in the TARDIS.

As Series 5 is my fav of the Who series, I’d have to finally go with Rory and Amy Pond – a terrific textured relationship with enough mystery and metaphor to drive the plot forward. Like all good shows, the companions need to balance the story out and demonstrate the most important point -who are these people and why is it that I like them? It’s all about character interplays for me -the time travel and the monsters are the side plate!

Kindest, puro

[ichabod @ichabod]

@purofilion  With you on that — it’s the people, all of them really; the rest is icing on the cake, but usually *interesting* icing, not car-chases and beatings and vicious, bloody murder on every hand.

I liked Amy and Rory quite a bit, and loved it that they got away scathed but still healthy.

I’ve come to appreciate Season 8’s Clara, and I’m worried that she’ll get messed over in Season 9 for terrible plotty, arc-y “reasons”.  Bringing somebody else on board too might provide some restraint through slowing things down a bit . . . ?  As long as it’s not Missy!

I like Clara’s impulsiveness, her strong emotions and quick thinking, plus her new confidence in herself (“What would the Doctor do?  No. What would *I* do?” in Flatline).  I hope Danny wasn’t her last chance at solid human warmth and support (which is something the Doctor can’t provide even if he wants to, certainly not consistently enough for a human’s needs).

[janetteB @janetteb]

@ichabod It will be interesting to see where Moffat takes Clara’s character this season. She has been plot device then the human cost. I don’t think there is much room left for new character directions now. I would opt for a wiser and sadder Clara after the events of last year but that may not be dramatic enough.

In AG Who companions have all suffered some degree of damage from travelling with the Doctor. I hope too that Clara does end up with a happier resolution than we have seen thus far. I suspect that might involve Orson. Only about eight months to wait now.

@Purofilion I suspect that Donna will long be many fan’s favourite AG  companion.  She really set the benchmark for the perfect Doctor/Companion relationship. That was overall a good series too which helped.

@nick1235 Your English is remarkably good. Accents can be a problem though. When I first went to the U.K I could not understand the locals especially when working behind a bar. “yer want what!!” Not being familiar with the drinks didn’t help either. Colloquialisms always make things difficult as well.

Cheers

Janette

[Anonymous @]

@janetteb you mean 8 months? eight? Bugger!

I hope Clara isn’t damaged -I’d like companions to be happy. Sarah Jane was happy-eventually. The dog was too -but then, ‘electric dog’. I think Rory and Amy were content. Admittedly no mobile phones, colour TV or  internet, but better than dead I s’pose or ‘mind wiped’ like poor Donna.

Yes, Donna was probably my favourite. I think! I’m always changing my mind. In the end, S5 was my fav series thus far -for complex reasons. I end up watching it a lot: therefore it must be my fav, right?

[janetteB @janetteb]

@Purofilion don’t panic. I exaggerated. It is probably only about six months now. (I hope)

I agree that none of the companions have had “bad” lives but they have all paid a price. Rose ends up in an alternate universe with an alternate Doctor, Martha suffers least, though she does go through the unrequited love issue, Amy and Rory essentially lose one child and are unable to have another though they do adapt. They are also relocated to another time and place though again it is implied that they did have a good life. Clara has lost Danny. Had she chosen not to return for this series then I suspect the aged Clara scene would no have been part of the dream. I left Donna out because her fate was by far the cruelest. I think I would have preferred her to die (this being a story and all) than go back to the angry, unhappy, defensive person she was before travelling with the doctor and lose all that she had gained.

It is good to keep changing one’s mind. Every series has moments which are brilliant, moments that are not so.

Cheers

Janette

[nick1235 @nick1235]

@purofilion Couldn’t agree more, Adelaide always have more of this soothing kind of felling than Sydney, I stayed in Blackwater in Sydney at my cousin’s house, and at the Hilton in Adelaide it was a pretty fun time and I can’t wait to go on more travelling in my latter days, now for me it’s time to learn and earn.

Ahh, the flies and the mosquito, I’ve one now here sucking my blood dry while I’m typing this post. Seems irresistible when it’s summer, like a bunch of Vashta Nerada trying to eat me out.

It’s hard to say this but as Tennant said to Jack Harkness, he’s a faulty, he’s a fixed point in time and space, I think he’s still going to be part of Doctor Who somewhere in the future, be it as still Barrowman or as another multiform. We’ve also been introduced to the sort of spoiling on how Jack eventually dies.

@janetteb how kind and uplifting I thank you for your compliment, ah accents, that’s the icing on the cake if i may say so myself. To me communication is a powerful tool though in current society, I’ve seen lot of people lose their wits and not able to communicate and solve problem in the end, thus creating much more. Colloqualism-, or something like that, that’s the word I was looking for, I was actually leaning towards “slang” but I don’t think that’s the proper term.

@purofilion @janetteb @ichabod

I’ve been reading one too many manga in these past few weeks, one quote I’ll remember for the rest of my life is : <span style=”color: #2c353c;”>Humankind cannot gain anything without first giving something in return. To obtain, something of equal value must be lost. That is Alchemy’s First Law of Equivalent Exchange (Fullmetal Alchemist). Despite the fact of that law is true or not, I think it’s completely make sense. As we already see, all these companion past or present has to lose something in order to gain something, or vice-versa ( Saibra has to lose their abilities in order to regain normal life. ) I’d highly doubt that this will be the message of the Doctor to us though, cause it might seem a bit dark.</span>

To me, in the end, those companion who eventually left the Doctor or even abandoned by the Doctor can actually rationalize themselves in order to regain stability, and rationalizing has always been the trait and curse for the humankind. I’ve discussed this topic with my father not so quite long ago, and we’ve come up with nothing. I guess human mind is much more deeper than Time itself.

That Blue Box is much more like Pandora Box if we care enough to think deep to that point. In which case, if we don’t open it, we’re missing out on witnessing something big, powerful and ancient, but if we do open it, we ought to lose something in the end.

Sounds naive, my thoughts, but that’s the best I can do. Maybe much more 🙂 It’s always been refreshing to be able to talk my mind. Sorry for the long post, I’ll gladly give you potato if we meet someday. (That’s a troll-term from reddit, again :P)

Cheers,

 

Nick.

[ichabod @ichabod]

@nick1235  On that law — You *do* lose something in the end, no matter whether you choose to open the Blue Box or not.  Before me at every instant there lies a spread of choices, some intermingled, some starkly singular because they branch off so sharply from the main trunk of the tree of Made Choices that follows me.  What people tend not to notice is that (usually) every time you choose A over B-Z, you are also choosing *against* all the choices that are not-A.  Sometimes possibilities crop uf later on in recognizable form, sometimes not, but even so the returned chance for Z, say, isn’t the same as it would have been before you chose A.

So there’s an enormous cost right from the get-go to every choice you make: you give up massive amounts of potentiality, + and -, and then you do that again at the next fork in the stem you’re following/creating.  In this sense, you pay for *every* choice, but there’s no telling how much, or how much you gain either, not while you’re still up the tree and climbing.  This is why Clara’s “indecision” over who to spend her time with, Danny or the Doctor, is all about cost-benefit but she has to do it *blind* (as we all do most of the time) because she can’t really foresee everything to be gained/lost on the one hand or on the other (no wonder she keeps trying to put off the decision!).  But it’s very clear that life with the Doctor does not in anyway “equal” life with Danny.

As for better or worse — ????  How could you know, before, during, or after, for that matter?  Every choice brings lessons; in my view, all lessons are valuable.  The big difference appears not in the choice and its outcomes, but in how you, the chooser, deal with it, and that varies hugely too, over the course of a lifetime.  And even weighing the +- of that varies over a lifetime.

The companions always leave the Doctor, one way or another, don’t they?  Simply because he’ll outlive them if for no other reason, even if he has to regenerate into another body to do so.  If they survive to take up a sans-Blue Box life post Blue-Box life, they have to cope with a different set of choices (with memories of the Doctor, but usually without the Doctor himself any more).  They’ve gained whatever wonders (+ and -) they’ve met, and paid with everything they’ve “missed out on” (+-) by not living ordinary lives during their Blue Box time instead.  The people they’ve become aren’t the people they would have become via ordinary experience, too, so they’ve “lost” being those other people instead of these (and v.v. if their choice went the other way).

What they do with all of that experience — Danny or the Blue Box — what they do *after* — is a matter of more choices: forget? Pine away missing stuff you no longer have?  Rejoice in newfound (comparative) peacefulness and, one hopes, wisdom?  All of the above, none of the above, part of the above?  When — as soon as you step off the Tardis?  Ten years later, when you look back and see it a) differently than it looked to you at the time and b) also and inevitably distorted by memory?

Add in the possibility of time travel, and it all becomes wildly more complicated in both potentiality and in fact as you make your choices.  You pay and you gain for choosing the Doctor over Danny.  You pay and you gain for choosing Danny over the Doctor.  Me, I like to think that I’d choose the Doctor; how I’d feel about that choice afterward — impossible to predict, from one moment to the next (see: Chinese farmer + stray horse).  You pays your money, and you takes your choice.

I like to think that I’d choose the Box every time.  But that’s a wish; no accurate prediction can be made about a real opportunity, except that A, or B-Z, I’ll win some and lose some, and come out a different person than I would have been if I’d chosen B.  Or C.  etc.

I’ll have that potato now, please.

[janetteB @janetteb]

@ichabod Well said. I often think of the Companion’s travels with the Doctor as equating to the working holiday/gap year adventure that so many of us embark on when young. We know that it can’t go on forever. There comes a time to turn one’s back on adventure, to settle down to daily life which in comparison can appear to be very mundane. There is one more way of dealing with that and that is to enjoy the memory, to feel enriched by having those memories. Even if I had never been able to travel again after my three years abroad I would still enjoy remembering those days and appreciate how those experiences enriched my life. (And I am still in the process of scanning and “photoshopping the photos” and used my experiences as the basis of a novel.)

I have learned that there are always more adventures to be had but time Travel is a hard one to live up to and when one is young everything feels so much more final. I understand how Clara felt about giving up travel with the Doctor while at the same time knowing that she had a future on earth to attend to.

Cheers

Janette

 

 

 

[ichabod @ichabod]

@janetteb  Enjoying the memories is certainly an option, and a good one, provided you don’t, say, get obsessive about it and lose your way in your own post-Blue Box life on account of it.  The variations on response vary widely across possibilities and forward in time.  After death, maybe backward in time, too, as you (or some version of your spirit) looks over those memories in the future . . .

I was guest speaker yesterday at a class at the Honors College at UNM (a local colleague runs a course called “Meet the Authors” there every spring); and one of the questions the instructor asked me was, “How would you like to be remembered?”  In context, I assume he meant how would you like to be remembered as an author.  I said that I didn’t much care, since there are 7 billion people on this planet and counting right now, so why should I (or, by implication, almost anyone) be remembered at all, give or take 100 yrs, or 500, etc., and besides most written work is specific enough to its time that it runs out of connections for future people simply by becoming “dated” after a while.  Yes, Shakespeare, but not forever, not even him.

It occurred to me afterward that a few years ago I’d have given a different answer, or ten years go, or forty, or probably even yesterday.  I can hardly be exceptional in that, and all it implies.  We talk a lot about change, and its massive presence in our lives, but I don’t think we really examine that idea and assess how it’s impacting us very much — maybe not until you’re old.  All those choices behind you now: what did they mean?  Which ones would you undo, if you could?

If you had — a time machine, and all of space, all of time?

 

[janetteB @janetteb]

@ichabod Re’ the undoing choices, I think now that I wouldn’t change any of my choices, not even the bad ones, because they are got me to where  I am now. It certainly isn’t where I wanted to be when I was twenty but I am happy and there are still plenty of possibilities ahead. I guess that is really one of the central themes of all time travel based fiction and of course the core dilemma of the time traveller.

If I had a time machine I would just want to pop back to relive some of the better moments or visit my boys when they were babies and say good bye to a family member whom we lost unexpectedly. I would not change anything though. I might be tempted to pop back to Dark Ages Britain and do a little first hand historical research. Just think of the possibilities for a historian..

A few years ago I had a rather close encounter with mortality. It changed me a lot and, I believe, gave me a much better appreciation of life. One thing  I leaned what that so much of what preoccupies us becomes meaningless in the face of death. I didn’t care about my unpublished novels, my failures, or the fact that there would only be four people at my funeral. Those things didn’t matter. All that mattered to me was my immediate family and how they would manage without me. My youngest son was only five at the time. It was a very humbling experience but a lesson I don’t regret. (Thanks to the wonderful Swedish public health service I recovered fully, scarred by wiser.)

Cheers

Janette

 

 

 

[ScaryB @scaryb]

@nick1235 Welcome back, and agree with others, your English is fine. I’d be wary of repeating too much of what you come across in here in your English class tho – ” arse-brained fuckwittery” may not go down too well with your teacher, haha

@pedant 😆 at your post #38354 (the source of the aforementioned “arse-brained fuckwittery” (dangit! another computer screen splattered with coffee!))

@Purofilion We may be close to falling out*. First (ages ago, but I’ve been AWOL) you have a go at my fave AG Dr – Ten (well he was till 12 turned up… 12 may have pushed everyone down a place 😉  ) and now your saying my fave companion Donna was “abrasive” Abrasive?? Donna…??? Oh, well, maybe just a little! But I agree her end was more than tragic. She learned so much (then lost so much) in her time in the blue box.

@janetteb

 I often think of the Companion’s travels with the Doctor as equating to the working holiday/gap year adventure that so many of us embark on when young. We know that it can’t go on forever.

I love that, and quite agree. Not to mention that time (spent) travelling when you’re young seems to go on forever. Then suddenly you’re looking at it thro the wrong end of the telescope. Memories are good and to be cherished (they don’t always last forever either). Your second post about regrets and near misses moved me very much. So glad you’re still with us to contribute to this forum. (As well as for your boys of course!) And you’re so right – our perspectives and priorities change with age. But our mistakes are part of who we are, they’re how we learn. If we never make mistakes we’re not trying hard enough.

 

*Just kidding about the falling out  Puro 😉

[Anonymous @]

@scaryb

No, I understand, it’s the naughty step for me!

I did adore Tennant -so much so that I didn’t want to like Smithy at all!

it was probably later, hearing about his leading man hijinks that pissed me off a bit and the razzle dazzle in interviews -not exactly modest, I thought.

So, I’m not dead to you, then? 🙂

Also, I liked Donna. Because she was very strong in personality -and grew in the time she was in the TARDIS, but also because most of the men I knew -dad, older brother, etc.. didn’t like her. And so I wanted to stand up for her – I knew why they didn’t like her all that much!! They wanted some sweet but strong, good looking, young female wearing tight jeans.

When I asked, “like Martha, you mean?” They said, “yes, just like her”.

Men.

 

[ScaryB @scaryb]

@Purofilion

Ah, that was it sorry, forgot to mention that. You can’t blame the actor for the number of interviews they get pitched into, there’s not usually much choice.  Usually organised through the programme press office, and it will be written into their contracts that they have to do them.  Lots of people, especially actors when they don’t have their character to hide behind, tend to overcompensate on the enthusiastic chatter side. (But I don’t know him so I could be wrong. I often am, haha)

So, I’m not dead to you, then?

Naaah 😉 Course not. And I agree with you about Donna. Loved her outspokenness, and she and Tennant had great (non sexual) chemistry)

[Anonymous @]

@scaryb

yes, thanks for mentioning that -I’m sure soon as RTD knew he had an enthusiastic supporter of his show, poor David had to appear on everything -every late night and morning show possible. There’s some weird dude who offers odd drinks (should I say ood?) to his ‘panellists’ and yet every little of interest is said. I expect Tennant thought it all a blast and enjoyed the fun.. After all a while, it might get on one’s nerves. But yes, press management/agents -it’s all contracted I suppose.

Capaldi manages just the right tone and doesn’t say the same thing twice. Even Clara (God, whatshername?) is very professional and modest.

[nick1235 @nick1235]

@ichabod Well said, although, I might need to re-read that potato potata a whole lot more.

In most cases I’d be doing this one.

@scaryb Thank you, and that one is duly noted for ehm-… pre-planned future magic word. 😛

 

Cheers,

Nick

 

[Anonymous @]

Heres my list of faves from new doctor:

1. Rose (duh)

2.Amy/Rory(the kissogram and the centurion)

3.Martha-Donna(Who could choose?)

4.Clara(don’t get me started)

[ichabod @ichabod]

@JeanetteB  Re changing your past — Well, there is that little crux of the matter, which is, how much do you like your current self?  If you like her fine, then why would you go back and make major changes that would result in a different you now (and chances are, even smallish changes could bring significantly large results)?

Mind you, I have “regrets”, as most (all, if they’re honest?) people do.  Funny, though, how the further I age from those regrettable moments, the less I a) think about them at all, and b) would consider, if I had the chance, time traveling to go fix them (assuming a major shift in my future self would *not* be a collateral effect, because I do pretty much like me these days — except for the besetting sin of impatience, which I’ve never been able to get much of a handle on, and a few other things).  The weird thing is, when I *do* look back, I often find that whatever I thought I’d learned from “failing” somehow in a currently regrettable moment, looking at it now I see other lessons.  And I wouldn’t want to give up the whole range of learning, over the entire lifetime, from one pudding-brained mistake, for the (imagined) lessons of having taken a different (presumably better) course at that past moment.

Thing is, I guess I just don’t believe that a “smoother life” (with the pudding moments reversed or finessed in some way) is or would be necessarily *better* than the one I got/made.  I don’t think we (as souls) come here (into bodies) to coast on some friction-less course from birth to death.  For one thing, it would make an awful, boring, insignificant story . . . I mean, imagine if that were the Doctor’s life story!  Would we still be watching, after 50 yrs?

DW is still going strong; Star Trek, which was designed as an illustration of how a more mature and advanced human society might get along by trying to minimize conflict and violence, is gone some time now, apart from re-runs and the occasional movie.  As a friend of mine told me once, “Nobody gets out of here unscathed; we *come* here to be scathed!”

Damn it; Craig, this surely doesn’t belong here on “companions”?  If it belongs anywhere on this forum site (I know I’ve gone off the deep end again), can you shift it there please?

 

[janetteB @janetteb]

@ichabod I thought the same thing when I was composing my last post but then I thought, no, we are talking about time travel and how it changes people so I thought it kind of does tie into the topic. Anyway I guess it is finally Craig’s decision whether to leave this discussion here or move it. i am happy either way.

Re changing your past — Well, there is that little crux of the matter, which is, how much do you like your current self?  If you like her fine, then why would you go back and make major changes that would result in a different you now (and chances are, even smallish changes could bring significantly large results)?

My mother always wanted to change her past. She spent her entire life bemoaning her choices rather than just getting on and making the best of the present. I realised eventually that the crux of her problem was that she did not like herself and it would not have mattered what choice she made she would have regretted it. We do all make bad choices but, as I used to remind my mother, we also have the power to change the outcomes of those choices.

Rather than change the past I would like a few more years tacked onto the future so I can utilise all that I have learned. I often wish I had known as much as I know now when I was young but that isn’t something that time travelling would solve. The companions are negatively affected in terms of aging by their travels. (a token attempt to tie the conversation back to the topic.) They gain in wisdom, (with the brutal exception of Donna) but they age because just as the calories consumed on board the Tardis do count so does the passage of time.

The other side to time travel is whether we are best to have some foreknowledge of our own futures or not. Had I known, when I was twenty, where I would be now I would have been deeply depressed, appalled even, by the prospect but I am happy. I accept that nice though it would be to be as wealthy and successful as J,K.Rowling that for 99.9999% of people is pure fantasy and that the life I have is pretty good.

Had Amy and Rory known they would end up living in 1930s New York would they have continued travelling with the Doctor? I am certain that prospect would have depressed, even appalled them. But they appear to have had a happy life there. Had Donna known that she would have had her memory wiped would she have gone on? Maybe, maybe not. Had Martha known that the Doctor was never going to return her attraction then would she have continued to be the companion but in the end she finds unexpected happiness. Clara’s story remains to be resolved and I am really looking forward to seeing where Moffat and Jenna take the character in series 9

Cheers

Janette,

 

[ichabod @ichabod]

@janetteb   Hmm; if any of the companions *had* known beforehand where and how they would be post-Doc (as it were), they could have asked him to return them to their pre-Doc pasts, couldn’t they?  Even just knowing that their time with the Doctor was coming to an end, they could have at least asked about going back and choosing not to go with him, to spare themselves sad retrospection on their Doctor-days from some duller, more difficult future?

Of course, he’d have had to say no — his own life with them would be changed, too, and all those adventures abolished or rewritten, and besides, there is that basic insecurity about and reluctance to mess about in the past unless you have no choice, isn’t there?  They’ve set up the “fixed nodes” to keep the prospect of time travel from causing total chaos and unrecognizable history for a reason — part of it being, I suppose, to prevent most characters from being able to “go back” and mend errors or make some planned change in the course of history.

As for life being pretty good these days — I hear myself saying sometimes in conversation, “I’ve been very lucky” (I have — not Rowling lucky by any means, but yeah, lucky) and also “I’ve probably got about 5-10 good years left, good years defined as not spent mainly in the waiting rooms of doctors’ offices or fishing through dumpsters for a meal”.  Both are true.  From this vantage point, why in the heck would I want to go back and give some event a twist toward what looks like a more positive outcome when that could end up with me dead 15 years ago after a nasty clutch of unlucky years?

At any rate, who with a spark of spirit and intelligence would choose to un-live a period of travel with the Doctor?  Sheesh!  People made of play-dough, maybe?  Turnip-people?  There I go, slandering turnips again . . . !

[lisa @lisa]

I like that we all get to time travel thru books and tv and the net that we are all lucky to have
brains sophisticated enough to explore all of this stuff
To go time traveling like the Doctor does in his blue box in the realm of the gods is a great idea
but personally I rather be the observer. You really have to have a very adventuring spirit to be with
the Doctor. As much as I like traveling I still rather take more peaceful trips. The Doctors
companions don’t seem to get much of that. They are too busy unlocking the secrets of the universe.
Plus even though it transforms them I don’t correlate that with being always a positive either.
But I still appreciate that they all have given us the ability to ‘visit’ with them and enjoy
all the magic of their journeys.

[janetteB @janetteb]

@lisa I also prefer to be the viewer in the Doctor’s stories most of which are great, afterwards. I am certain that when chained to a rock in the desert without the vibro cutters Clara was wishing that she had opted to stay home. However if I had the offer of a trip back to the dark ages for some first hand historical research without the inevitable Whoish monster encounter I would almost certainly say yes. (I mention that period specifically because so little is known about that time.)

Cheers

Janette

[ichabod @ichabod]

@lisa   Heck, I’d skip the Dark Ages altogether, if I were invited there, or almost anywhere else, in realty.  Plague; typhus and typhoid fever; bad water, so lots of beer instead (and if you had chronic pain from an injury, beer was about it for that, and pretty much everybody in the workaday world had injuries all the time, from lots of work with heavy animals — horses, oxen); everybody had lice and fleas and didn’t bathe because the Church looked down on pampering the beastly body and besides there was no heat in the house except fireplaces if you were lucky and somebody had to schlep the water; no public plumbing to speak of, nor private either; urban cemeteries already bursting their bounds and being overused, so phew . . .

And so it goes, the whole concept of “comfort” and being “comfortable” having been invented somewhere around the Renaissance (you can tell by the chairs: cushioning, or no cushioning).  So let me close with one last caveat: no dentists!

You’d actually be a bit better off in Ancient Greece or Rome, if you could manage not to be a slave (though even slaves had a Bill of Rights in Rome at one point, and could sue their masters for maltreatment, says my friend who writes very well-researched historical fiction — about a vampire, but still — ).  The Romans were quite advanced (they seem to have invented the idea of eyeglasses, but they also — probably — invented *garum* — ick — and their tenement buildings for housing the poor tended to collapse, due to corruption in the concrete building trade, kind of like in Mexico today — oh, and they invented the best cement ever, and much else that was let go to ruin during the Dark Ages because Barbarians didn’t know how to even maintain serious engineering and tech so they don’t).  Me, I’m okay with modernity, thanks, awful as it may be and frequently is.

Isn’t the Brother Cadfael mystery series set in the Dark Ages?  There are quite a few really good historical mystery series by writers who have done massive amounts of research on your behalf.  There’s also a TV series called The Vikings that’s supposed to be good  with accuracy, probably about 9th c, as I recall.  Maybe you’re already into all this and more?  Some of it is *almost* as good as a real visit . . . !

 

[lisa @lisa]

@Janette and @ichabod – So yeah – maybe I do have a bit of prima donna to my attitude and no I don’t
mind – so cement has been an interesting aspect in western culture to move water which helped to create
cities which in turn helped to create that thing that happens when folks come together and agree to
make compromise — and then the dark ages which why do we refer to this period as being so dark anyway?
So maybe this was philosophically being examined during the renaissance as to the idea of comfort
but I would gently examine the possibility that human folks were always after the comfort place all thru
human history! Since way back before ancient records. In which case — fleas and injuries and schlepping
aside this is why the Vikings moved onto other places to find ideas to bring back and improve there
societies. So in the back of my mind Doctor Who is in the great grand arc about improving the social
order too. But there are obstacles. This is how life is whether human or Timelord. It sort of in a way
makes us all equivant species. However I still don’t equate all this with being positive notions or
negative either — its just how species evolve.

[Mudlark @mudlark]

@ichabod    The term ‘Dark Ages’ isn’t much used these days, at least not by us archaeologists.  When it was/is used it generally refers to the centuries immediately following the fall of the Roman Empire in Western Europe – a period for which few written records survive, hence ‘dark’ in the sense that it is very poorly documented, historically speaking.  There is a growing amount of archaeological evidence, but that on its own provides a very limited and partial picture of what was happening.  The historical darkness begins to dissipate once the rulers of the Saxons, Angles, Franks and other assorted ‘barbarians’ had got themselves more organised and begun to appreciate the value of literacy, and the term ‘early medieval’ is perhaps more appropriate for e.g. the Carolingian empire in continental Europe and the Wessex of Alfred the Great in England.

According to that definition, the medieval period in which the Cadfael stories are set (late 1130s/1140s) post-dates the Dark Ages by a considerable margin, though the ‘anarchy’ of Stephen’s reign must undoubtedly have seemed a dark enough time for many of those who had to live through it.

I agree with @janetteb  that  it would be fascinating and rewarding to be able to travel in time to observe first hand what was happening in Britain in those ‘dark’ centuries – what was the nature of the Saxon/Anglian/Friesian/Jutish incursion and settlement, for example (certainly more complex than it is portrayed by Bede); what, if anything, did the British retain of their Romanised past, and for how long, and how exactly did they organise their resistance against the Saxon advance.  On the other hand, I wouldn’t want to live there for any length of time.

All things considered, though, I would make a pretty poor companion for the Doctor because, although I would love to be able to visit past and future and see the further reaches of the universe, my instinct would be to observe and record, and I would do all I could to avoid having any ‘adventures’ of a more alarming kind.  In fact, if I caught sight of any monsters I would undoubtedly turn tail and scuttle away as fast as my little legs would carry me (though it would be a point of honour not to scream).

 

[Mudlark @mudlark]

@lisa

why do we refer to this period as being so dark anyway?

For my answer to this question (for what it is worth), see my response to  @ichabod  above.  You must have posted just after I logged on, otherwise I would have referenced you as well.

[Mudlark @mudlark]

@ichabod    garum  – ah yes; fermented fish gut sauce. Yum!

I have always imagined that, once suitably aged, it tasted something like heavily salted anchovy paste.  Has anyone ever tried making it?

[Bluesqueakpip @bluesqueakpip]

@ichabod

didn’t bathe because the Church looked down on pampering the beastly body

One of the great myths about the Middle Ages, that one. The reason there are so many fulminations against baths is because they were mostly in public bathhouses – and that means you have take your clothes off in public. This leads to Ungodly Things Happening. 😈 The medieval bathhouse often bore the same relation to ‘having a good wash’ as the modern massage parlour does to ‘curing my backache’. 😉

It’s quite true that many stories of saints include their miraculous inability to take a bath already – leading to at least one angelic visitation which included the instruction ‘please take a bath’ (apparently angels have a sense of smell). But that’s saints. They do weird stuff that ordinary mortals wot not of.

Ordinary mortals washed their hands before dinner. If you read Leviticus, you’ll discover that God is quite keen on hygiene. 🙂

[lisa @lisa]

@mudlark Totally agreed – regarding dark in the written documentation but rich in so many other attributes.
Its a worthy time in western history in terms of exploration and how we progressed into who we are now.
Sad that literacy was so exclusive then. Sadly reminds me of those in the USA that use religion to denigrate
science literacy even in the present era! So what is that about??? Are these folks so afraid of scientific
truths that they chose to cloak themselves from reality? In the future will we be seen by some as dark in
a similar respect? No idea but even the Doctor still likes to think of himself as a traveling idiot so how
do you know? @bluesqueakpip – at least I think the hygiene bit has much improved cause dirty is appalling
and clean is a so much improved condition. 🙂

[Bluesqueakpip @bluesqueakpip]

@lisa

Sad that literacy was so exclusive then.

It was largely seen as a job skill. Certainly the levels of literacy (where there are records that can be used to assess whether people could sign their own names) rise sharply in cities like London or Cambridge – where there would be a lot of jobs that needed literate workers.

Certainly, when you get to the Early Moderns (1640’s), male illiteracy averages between 74% and 64% – except for London (22%) and Cambridgeshire (45%).

[ichabod @ichabod]

@mudlark  Thanks for updating my lagging info on all this — been lazy about that lately!  “Early Medieval” sound fine to me.  I picked up a book not long ago supposedly clarifying some of the obscurity of the “Dark Ages”, but it was so weak on real info that nothing remains in my head about it.  Do you know of any historical mysteries set in that period?  Probably not, if there’s so little known about it.  I agree about “adventures” — I’m strictly an armchair adventurer, certainly these days.  I do recall reading somewhere about a modern effort to make garum — it seemed to involve stuffing a barrel (waterproofed how, in Roman times?) with whole small fish (maybe it was anchovies) and water and salt and letting it rot down to juices (though you’d have to sieve out the bones, wouldn’t you?) = garum.  The stench was hellacious, and I don’t know that the experiment was ever completed.  I’d hate to have been a Roman poor enough to have to live near the garum works . . . which were probably next to the tanneries and the dye pits . . .

I always wondered what the heck the Vikings spent their stolen gold on, given that those northern nations had very rough economies, particularly crap soils to farm, and not much (that I know of) in the way of manufacture that wasn’t weapons and jewelry for the upper class.  I’ve always thought of them as something like the highland Scots, or most mountain peoples — mountains are pretty, but tend to have harsh climates, poor soils, and small (but tough) populations.  This makes for excellent brigands, who raid the richer lowlands for a living as the Vikings raided the European coasts and islands.

@bluesqueakpip  Good grief, unGodly hijinks in the bathhouse!  Who’d a thunk it!  I forgot about the baths.  We toured some Roman ruins along Hadrian’s Wall some years ago, and there was always a bathhouse; those Romans, again.  Lacking a well-appointed Roman structure with slaves in the basement (?) heating the stuff, hot water didn’t come out of a tap; a lot of fuel was used to heat it, and water in general had to be lugged around, so what the heck, use more perfume.  Or not . . .

Easy to lose sight of all the grim and grubby work to do in pre-industrial society.  It tends not to show up in Doctor Who, I think — nice to have the Tardis somehow do your laundry (*and* dry cleaning) and the cooking and washing up.  There should at least be some version of one of those robots we already have that putters around cleaning the floors.  Have we ever seen anybody having a meal inside the Tardis (a snack of fish fingers and custard isn’t what I have in mind)?  At least in Star Trek, there was a sort of dining hall/cafeteria.

No wonder the Doctor gets lonely without companions; nobody to talk to over a nice plate of hot something.  Of course CapDoc doesn’t look as if he eats at all, skinny man — though with the metabolism that goes with that, he’d probably be burning up calories like mad, so he should be hungry a lot, shouldn’t he?  But never seems to be . . .

What I’ve seen of Gallifrey looked pretty pre-industrial to me (the Barn) (which is odd, for people whose Lords, at least, can travel by Tardis), so you’d think there’d be regular cooking in the Doctor’s background.  ??

[ichabod @ichabod]

And it’s odd too that neither the Doctor nor his companions ever seem to think about keeping any sorts of records, of their adventures or what they find/see out there in space.  Well, that’s me speaking — I write stuff down so I won’t lose it all in a blur of confused memories.  I suppose the brain as big as a piano, figuratively speaking, would have all the necessary storage space right there — but, 2,000 yrs?  Does the Doctor wish *not* to keep records?  Clara’s a teacher — you’d think she’d maybe try making some notes some time?  Though as noted, time spent writing notes would not be time spent having adventures . . .

[lisa @lisa]

@ichabod – River kept a diary. So I think the Tardis must keep some sort of backup record. I know
they kept records on Galifrey. I recall in the ‘Deadly Assassin’ TOMDoc traveled into the record
keeping machine or something like that.

[ichabod @ichabod]

@lisa — Oh, of course, I’m a dolt!  It’s a space/time SHIP, right?  The Tardis undoubtedly keeps a ship’s log, though apparently nobody since TomDoc seems to have bothered to ever look at it.

[lisa @lisa]

@ichabod The record log Tom Doc went into was not on the Tardis it was on Galifrey. That was
another Master story btw where he was creating pretty much the same havoc. A good episode
however and gives a little glimpse of Timelord culture

[Anonymous @]

@ichabod @lisa Myth! I tell you Metabolism Myths!  Other than some serious illnesses, most people share the same metabolism -Capaldi’s body type is no doubt a mixture of genetics and …well, maybe eating less.

I remember people always saying these things to me: “look at you, you’re such a bird, more meat than on a bicycle, your metabolism must be so fast.”

Oh Bah! I actually went and had tests during which the specialists (endocrinologist et. al) spoke about the myths of weight gain/loss and metabolism. Apparently I was totally ‘normal’ -I just walked to work (1 car per family -how rare here) and ate very little during our hot QLD summers (which are eight months long)!

You know, I’m always fascinated by the food and bathroom nuances in telly land. Years ago, when I watched any Hollywood movie, it would always peeve me off that the characters, at some restaurant/café scene, would never eat very much! I felt like this about the TARDIS. Yes, where is the kitchen?

How do these travellers and companions pay for their meals should they eat out at some waffle restaurant on the Planet of People Made of Ears! Does the Doctor even have a bedroom? How much does he sleep? He’s not a vampire right, so he needs sleep? 🙂

I could be mixing up Buffy with Doctor Who now and rather, sadly, Twilight where the ‘good’ vampires eat mountain lions and don’t need beds…unless they’re copulating which, in Steph Myers world, they apparently do a lot of. A year 12 student told me that -a Twi-hard, is the term, I believe?

Ichi: there’s a great book (but not a novel) that I dare you to put down called ‘Cathedral, Forge and Waterwheel’. Marvellous stories and anecdotes turning upside down some of those ‘medieval myths’ of the ’70s and ’80s.

[lisa @lisa]

@purofilion – Its just not the same adventure when there’s lots of eating and sleeping.
As for eating on the planet of the people made of ears I think he probably uses his
sonic on the local atm to pinch a few quid – but that’s just my bonkers theory 🙂

[Anonymous @]

@lisa yes, you’re right. He does! I remember the time Donna needed money (“pockets? D’you see pockets in my wedding dress?”) to catch a cab back to the Church to marry man-in-love-with-spider and TenDoc (you came up with ‘CapDoc’ and ‘TomDoc’!) used his whatsit to kablooey the ATM.

Also I echo @craig in thanking you  for putting up the Chabon link -I listened to most of it. I haven’t read his last two books at all. No time for a really good read. I also have, thanks to @pedant and other members, a list of excellent sci-fi/fantasy books to start reading pronto.

[ichabod @ichabod]

@purofilion  Myths maybe, but I’ve known two skinny people who ate like industrial vacuum cleaners and both have told the same story — generally healthy but high-strung, running very hot almost all the time, gobble gobble gobble just to keep up.  My next door tenant was like that; I was envious.  He said, Don’t be, it’s a pain in the ass.

Well, he wasn’t a medical man and neither am I, but . . . I have a heavy bias towards the reality of personal experience, no matter how anecdotal.  As a general rule for everybody, though, there must be studies that show that your Doctor is right.

With Capaldi I was thinking of Coleman’s story of how they were shooting KtM, I think, and he wandered off looking for “a pasty” because he was hungry between meals, and a pasty, as I’ve experienced it anyway, can be substantial fare, being a sort of stew sandwich with the edges sealed up and the whole thing fried (or baked?), right?  I figured, well, gone for a little fill-in food, good for him.  She says, he found a “big red button” and, of course, pressed it, and turned out he was in a shower in this abandoned factory they were shooting in, so he came back wringing wet and had to get changed and blow-dried in a few minutes so they could wind up the day’s shooting while still on the clock; which is why he shows up at the end in a polkadot shirt with his hair all fluffy, resembling my grade school teacher, Miss Brookfield, only she looked more like a bus in *her* polkadot blouse.

Of course, I could be completely mistaken about all that . . . except Miss Brookfield

So the Doc says that food eaten on the Tardis contains no calories (haha), but when the hell does anybody eat any food there?  The Tardis as an actually livable space capable of sustaining a reasonable sort of life, with food and baths and clean clothes to wear and toothbrushes, does nag at me.  It shouldn’t; this is science *fantasy*, after all, with monsters, not NASA footage of the space station.  But.  It bothers me.  Even little squads of adventurers in big fantasy novels drop in at the local inn for a hunk of bread and cheese or a bowl of stew (all they ever seem to eat, but it’s food).  We did see CapDoc and Clara at The Restaurant in Deep Breath, but – – no food was served, let alone consumed.

Clara never walks into the Tardis, sniffs the air, and says, “Smells great — what’s for dinner?”  Not even a glass of water to be seen — the only drink I recall is CapDoc’s glass of — Scotch? — offered to Half-Face, and so far as we can tell, gone to waste.  ??

[lisa @lisa]

@ichabod and @Purofilion About a kitchen on the Tardis – ok maybe but apparently no oven
Why did Clara cook her turkey under ‘the hood’ so to speak in Time of the Doctor?
But I know we aren’t the only folks that suffer great anxiety over such details 🙂
I think there might of been a reason – anybody recall it?

[Anonymous @]

@ichabod @lisa

yes, well my ‘Myths!’ was sort of tongue in cheek. Whilst Doctors assured me this was so, I’m still not inclined to fully believe it. I believe some Doctors tend to get annoyed with the general public’s perception of things like ‘metabolism’ and assume a superior attitude. The same ones who, when they see a woman walking to the local shop in Winter carrying a bottle of water, snigger and say “doesn’t she realise that her stomach is the bottle of water?” On that count, they’re probably right -but on metabolism, I’m not sure. I suspect a genetic sequence could be the answer?

Also, if they’re constantly on the move, they might need a large amount of energy? I used to get up at every single advertisement to do something -coz I couldn’t stand waiting for the next portion of the show -I’d empty the washer, iron, make lunches, until it became a thing…would I win and finish the ‘task’ before the ads were over? 🙂

On kitchens and beverages in the TARDIS:

“But I know we aren’t the only folks that suffer great anxiety over such details
I think there might of been a reason – anybody recall it?”

Well, I know I’m mad, how about you?? 🙂

Are there any episodes (other than 11th hour and Tennant’s first episode) where people are eating? I know that Rory, Amy and the Doctor are drinking coffees in NY and Rose and the Doc eat ‘Number 1 and Number 2’ served by the Oods in the Satan Pit (but that’s free)…other than that? Did Baker eat something in Paris? How could one not eat in Paris?

Another myth: food in Paris and France, generally is always good.

[Anonymous @]

#38562

@janetteb your post above was great -really poignant actually and reminds me of my own parents -despite their lives being rich in so many ways, they regretted some choices and wished they could re-write history. I usually hear my step-mum saying “we should never have left Adelaide” (saying this for 40+ years now) and not aware that their lives may still have ended with the same annoyances and worries no matter their place of habitation. It might be trite, but life is what you make of it and I imagine that many companions of the doctor came away richer and bolder for the experience

[ichabod @ichabod]

@purofilion   Yes, on the constant motion thing — come to think of it, PC sure squirms a lot when he has to sit through an interview — something tells me it’s really hard to find a comfortable chair when you’re long-limbed like that, and mebbe a little bony about the rump, not packing much natural padding on you as it were.  And that interview with the swivel chair a-swiveling obsessively right and left — I think maybe the “hot” metabolism might well be a lesser part of the equation than a whole lot of nervous energy that keeps legs jiggling and lots of small action going all the time.

Hey, I was like that as a kid, and I was a skinny kid, too.  Lately, not so much . . . ou sont les neiges d’autretemps?  Back there with my skinny self, that’s where.  I hope auto spell doesn’t make utter hash of my French, assuming it’s not hash to begin with.

Ah, end of Deep Breath, they go off together for coffee, or chips, or coffee and chips; though we don’t see anybody actually eating, that or anything else.  Coffee, yes — stolen coffee in Listen.  Well, if he lives on coffee and chips — crap.  You wouldn’t see *me* getting on board as a companion.

Paris, oh yes; a bit like New York, in modern times.  There are great restaurants, and wonderful neighborhood hang-outs, but a visitor can’t afford the first or identify the second, and there are tons of over-priced dives with terrible food to trap the unwary, not to mention the good places of yesterday that have become the third-rate tourist-traps of today.  You need a good (and up to date) guide book more for food than for the sights these days.

[Anonymous @]

@ichabod

Yes, the snows of the past and the yester years. I hear you!

Ah, yes, rose and Eccleston wanting hot chips…that was a lovely little scene.

I remember plenty of very good bread and pastry and the best ham -often eaten on the run!

[ichabod @ichabod]

@purofilion  That pastry and ham — that’s you, right (not the Doctor!), eating on the run?  Yes!

[Author]

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