#Jacqueline Hill's appearance on the series

[mariocki]

A young Christopher Lee guest stars as dastardly Larry Spence - a rising star in the world of journalism, turned blackmailer and then murderer - in The Vise: The Final Column (1.16, ABC, 1955); the episode wasn't seen in the UK until 1963, as part of ITV drama anthology Tension

[pers-books]

Obituary

William Russell obituary

Stage and screen actor who was part of the original cast of Doctor Who

Michael Coveney Tue 4 Jun 2024 17.40 BST

William Russell, left, as Ian Chesterton, with William Hartnell as the Doctor, Jacqueline Hill as Barbara and Carole Ann Ford as Susan in the Doctor Who serial The Keys of Marinus, 1964. Photograph: BBC

On 23 November 1963 – the day after the assassination of President John F Kennedy – the actor William Russell, who has died aged 99, appearing in a new BBC television series, approached what looked like an old-fashioned police box in a scrapyard, from which an old chap emerged, saying he was the doctor. Russell responded: “Doctor Who?”

And so was launched one of the most popular TV series of all time, although the viewing figures that night were low because of the political upheaval, so the same episode was shown again a week later. It caught on, big time, with Russell – as the science schoolteacher Ian Chesterton – and William Hartnell as the Doctor establishing themselves alongside Jacqueline Hill as the history teacher Barbara Wright and Carole Ann Ford as Susan Foreman.

Russell stayed until 1965, returning to the show in 2022 in a cameo appearance as Ian and, since then, participating happily in all the hoop-la and fanzine convention-hopping, signing and schmoozing that such a phenomenon engenders.

Before that, though, Russell had achieved prominence in the title role of the ITV series The Adventures of Sir Lancelot (1956-57) – he was strongly built with an air of dashing bravado about him; he had been an RAF officer in the later stages of the second world war – and as the lead in a 1957 BBC television adaptation of Nicholas Nickleby, transmitted live in 18 weekly episodes.

William Russell on the set of the 1950s television series The Adventures of Sir Lancelot. Photograph: Mirrorpix/Getty Images

When Sir Lancelot went to the US, the first British TV import to be shot in colour for an American audience, Russell rode down Fifth Avenue on a horse in full regalia, like some returning, mystical, medieval knight in the heart of Normandy. The show was a smash hit.

By now he was established in movies, playing a servant to John Mills in The Gift Horse (1952) and a clutch of second world war action movies including They Who Dare (1954) opposite Dirk Bogarde, directed by Lewis “All Quiet on the Western Front” Milestone – he met his first wife, the French model and actor Balbina Gutierrez on a boat sailing to Cyprus to a location shoot in Malta – and Ronald Neame’s The Man Who Never Was (1956), the first Operation Mincemeat movie, in which he played Gloria Grahame’s fiance.

Until this point in his career, he was known as Russell Enoch. But Norman Wisdom, with whom he played in the knockabout comedy farce One Good Turn (1955) objected to his surname because he felt (oddly) that it would publicise a vaudevillian rival of his called Enoch. So, somewhat meekly, and to keep Wisdom happy, he became William Russell, although, in the 1980s, for happy and productive periods with the Actors Touring Company and the RSC, he reverted to the name Russell Enoch. Later, he settled again on William Russell. All very confusing for the historians. His doorbell across the road from me in north London bore the legend “Enoch”.

He was born in Sunderland, the only child of Alfred Enoch, a salesman and small business entrepreneur, and his wife, Eva (nee Pile). They moved to Solihull, and then Wolverhampton, where William attended the grammar school before moving on to Fettes college in Edinburgh and Trinity College, Oxford, where his economics tutor was the brilliant Labour parliamentarian Anthony Crosland.

But Russell didn’t “get” the economics part of the PPE (philosophy, politics and economics) course and switched, much to Crosland’s relief, to English. In those years, 1943-46, he worked out his national service and appeared in revues and plays with such talented contemporaries as Kenneth Tynan, Tony Richardson and Sandy Wilson.

Derek Ware, a fight co-ordinator, runs through a scene with Russell during a break in filming the Doctor Who story The Crusades at the BBC studios, Ealing, in 1965. Photograph: Mirrorpix/Getty Images

On graduating, he played in weekly rep in Tunbridge Wells, fortnightly rep at the Oxford Playhouse and featured, modestly, in the Alec Guinness Hamlet of 1951 at the New (now the Noël Coward) theatre. He had big roles in seasons at the Bristol Old Vic and the Oxford Playhouse in the early 60s, while on television he was in JB Priestley’s An Inspector Calls with John Gregson, and was St John Rivers in Jane Eyre.

He played Shylock and Ford (in the Merry Wives of Windsor) in 1968-69 at the Open Air, Regent’s Park, before joining the RSC in 1970 as the Provost in Measure for Measure (with Ian Richardson and Ben Kingsley), Lord Rivers in Norman Rodway’s Richard III and Salisbury in a touring King John, with the title role played by Patrick Stewart.

His billing slipped in movies, but he played small parts in good films such as Superman (1978), starring Christopher Reeve, as one of the Elders; as a passerby drawn into the violence in the Spanish-American slasher film Deadly Manor (1990); and in Bertrand Tavernier’s Death Watch (1980), a sci-fi futuristic fable about celebrity, reality TV and corruption, starring Romy Schneider and Harvey Keitel.

With John Retallack’s Actors Touring Company in the 80s, he was a lurching, apoplectic Sir John Brute in John Vanbrugh’s The Provok’d Wife, possessing, said Jonathan Keates in the Guardian, “a weirdly philosophical elegance”; a civilised Alonso, expertly discharging some of the best speeches in The Tempest; and a quick-change virtuosic king, peasant, soldier and tsar in Alfred Jarry’s 1896 surrealist satire Ubu Roi in the Cyril Connolly translation.

Back at the RSC in 1989, he was the courtly official Egeus in white spats (Helena wore Doc Martens) in an outstanding production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream by John Caird, and both the Ghost and First Player in Mark Rylance’s pyjama-clad Hamlet directed by Ron Daniels. In 1994 he took over (from Peter Cellier) as Pinchard in Peter Hall’s delightful production of Feydeau’s Le Dindon, retitled in translation An Absolute Turkey, which it wasn’t.

He rejoined Rylance in that actor/director’s opening season in 1997 at the new Shakespeare’s Globe. He was King Charles VI of France in Henry V and Tutor to Tim in Thomas Middleton’s riotous Jacobean city comedy, A Chaste Maid in Cheapside. Many years later, in 2021, his son Alfred Enoch (Dean Thomas in the Harry Potter movies), would play on the same stage as a fired-up Romeo.

Russell is survived by his second wife, Etheline (nee Lewis), a doctor, whom he married in 1984, and their son, Alfred, and by his children, Vanessa, Laetitia and Robert, from his marriage to Balbina, which ended in divorce, and four grandchildren, James, Elise, Amy and Ayo.

 William Russell Enoch, actor, born 19 November 1924; died 3 June 2024.

-- I'm a bit annoyed there's no mention of the fact that William continued to play Ian Chesterton for Big Finish.

[doctorwhogirlie]

The Aztecs:

Interesting facts about the story:

The Aztecs was Jacqueline Hill's favourite Doctor Who (1963) serial.

Margot Van der Burgh (Cameca) returns to the Doctor Who series seventeen years later as Consul Katura in "The Keeper of Traken" (1981) along with Tom Baker's Doctor.

Fans voted this number 21 in a countdown of the 163 Doctor Who (1963) stories in Outpost Gallifrey's 40th anniversary poll in 2003.

Susan only appears in a pre-filmed insert in order to give Carole Ann Ford a holiday during production. It was filmed during production of Sentence of Death (1964).

Source

[rachelbethhines]

Speed-running Doctor Who - 4th Doctor

A quick and dirty guide for those who want to get into the show, but don't want to watch everything from the beginning.

For Those Who Just Wanna Get An Idea of the Era

State of Decay - S18E4

The Fourth Doctor technically has like three or four eras within it, and State of Decay is sort of a blend of all of them.

Produced under JNT's time on the show, with a companion introduced during Douglas Adams' previous season, using a script that was originally submitted for season 15, when Robert Holmes was head writer.

Therefore I deem it the best summarization of the entire Fourth Doctor run.

Plot Important Episodes

Entrances, Exits, Enemies, Lore Drops, and Character Development

Robot - S12E1 (Fourth Doctor's first story and introduces Harry)

The Ark in Space - S12E2 (Harry's first trip in the Tardis and kicks off the season's 12 stranded story arc)

Genesis of the Daleks - S12E3 (first appearance of Davros, the creator of the Daleks)

Revenge of the Cybermen - S12E5 (the team finally makes back to the Tardis ending S12's stranded arc and the Cybermen return after being off screen for several years)

Terror of the Zygons - S13E1 (introduces the Zygons, Harry leaves the Tardis, last appearance of the Brigadier for a long while)

Pyramids of Mars - S13E3 (The Doctor faces Sutekh for the first time)

The Android Invasion - S13E4 (Benton's last story and Harry's final appearance)

The Brain of Morbius - S13E5 (the Sisters of Karn are introduced and its the beginning of the of the very controversial Other/Timeless child theories)

The Seeds of Doom - S13E6 (final UNIT story for a very, very long while, no UNIT regulars appear marking the end of that story line)

The Hand of Fear - S14E2 (Sarah Jane leaves the Tardis)

The Deadly Assassin - S14E3 (The Doctor returns to Gallifrey and we meet the "Decayed" Master)

The Face of Evil - S14E4 (meet Leela)

The Talons of Weng-Chiang - S146 (character development for Leela, and there's also Jargo and Litefoot if you care about spin-offs)

Horror of Fang Rock - S15E1 (meet the Rutans; while they haven't reappeared in the series yet, they're the Sontarans adversaries in their never ending war and so are named dropped often)

The Invisible Enemy - S15E2 (K9 comes aboard the Tardis)

The Invasion of Time - S15E6 (Leela's last story)

The Ribos Operation - S16E1 (Meet Romana the First, also the start of the Key To Time arc and the introduction of the Guardians)

The Pirate Planet - S16E2 (character development for the tardis team and more plot progression for the Key to Time arc)

The Armageddon Factor - S16E6 (The ending of the Key to Time arc and the last story to feature Romana I)

Destiny of the Daleks - S17E1 (Romana the First regenerates into Romana the Second)

City of Death - S17E2 (the randomizer is introduced as a means to escape the Black Guardian)

Shada - S17E6 * (perhaps the most remade Doctor Who story ever, you might want to watch a version just to see what all the hubbub is about)

The Leisure Hive - S18E1 (The end of the randomizer arc.... also Harden and Mena are the best couple in Who)

Meglos - S18E2 (I only recommend this story because it's the last time Jacqueline Hill appears on the show, but sadly she's not playing Barbara)

Full Circle - S18E3 (Adric's first story)

Warriors' Gate - S18E5 (Romana and K9 leave the Tardis)

The Keeper of Traken - S18E6 (Meet Nyssa, oh and the Master regenerates into Anthony Ainley)

Logopolis - S18E7 (The Fourth Doctor's final story and Tegan is introduced)

Personal Favorite and Least Favorite Stories

Because one man's trash is another man's treasure and vice versa

Favorite: The Sontaran Experiment - S12E3

Least Favorite: The Planet of Evil - S13E2

(disclaimer: no spin-offs or extended universe stuff was considered when making this list)

Up Next: The Fifth Doctor

[lestiroirsdepopps]

Random thoughts about The Haunting of Hill House.

● Shirley feels guilty for stopping paying for Luke's rehab and that's why she is angry and rejecting him.

● The Haunting and Ducktales share the same universe. In the episode 10 season 3 of the reboot series Ducktales. We learn about "the most haunted house" named Hazel House. Like Hazel Hill.

● Hill without H is ill. I KNOW, I'm very intelligent... but it's funny that every member of the Hill family is ill and everyone who enters the Hill House is getting ill.

● What do you think of if I tell you about a story narrated in a disjointed way about a living labyrinthine house with surnatural creatures that drain families energy and using their fears against them to drive them mad and kill them?

House of Leaves, of course ! I wonder if Mike Flanagan read the book.

● Hazel killed Poppy's kids.

We know for sure that Poppy suspects Hazel of killing her children.

Her son was sick and bangs his head on the wall permanently, maybe he died of his disease... or maybe Hazel looses patience.

Her daughter seems to have suffocated/drowning for a pretty long time, and one day, she died. Maybe she had pneumonia, maybe she had allergies... or maybe she was poisoned.

We will never know the truth about Poppy's children death. HOWEVER 🤨☝️

Hazel surely killed the Dudley's first daughter.

Horace explains to Hugh that Hazel forbade Clara to take maternity leave or slow down her work pace... she actually gave birth during her service. A particularly exhausting service during these months of pregnancy because Hazel's health was declining.

If Hazel had allowed Clara to rest during her pregnancy, her child would surely not have been stillborn. Soooo... maybe Poppy wasn't paranoid about the kids in Hill House.

● Why did Olivia saw 2 parents and 3 kids in her "déjà vu" moment ?

First there were the 2 Hills that built the house and their 2 children, William and Hazel. William had 2 kids with Poppy, a boy (who was is a wheelchair) and a girl (who died drowned in her own lungs. We don't know their names.

Hazel had 2 children (with someone we don't know) named Edward (the ghoul in the basement) and Jacqueline (the owner of the cup of stars).

So, why 3 children ? Another family killed in the house ?

Expose me your theories please !

● Comparison between Magritte "Prof", 1954 and William Hill standing figure.

● The yellow wallpaper.

"The yellow wallpaper" is a book from Charlotte Perkins Gilman who describes the story of a young woman and her husband. He imposes a rest cure on her when she suffers "temporary nervous depression" after the birth of their baby. They spend the summer at a colonial mansion, where the narrator is largely confined to an upstairs nursery.

After days, weeks in the nursery, she slowly became paranoid about he yellow wallpaper in the room.

She describes how the longer one stays in the bedroom, the more the wallpaper appears to mutate. With no stimulus other than the wallpaper, the pattern and designs become increasingly intriguing to the narrator. She soon begins to see a figure in the design. Eventually, she comes to believe that a woman is creeping on all fours behind the pattern. Believing she must free the woman in the wallpaper, she begins to strip the remaining paper off the wall.

I am watching the episode 4, "the twins" right now and when I hear the blind man describing how he went crazy seeing the "egg yolks eyes" everywhere and particularly in the wallpaper I immediately thought about the novel. BUT when I was coping Wikipedia I remembered the story and some part of the resume make me thinking of Olivia Crain.

Their stories are different but I see a pattern and I want you to let me know if you see it too !

● What if there were no ghosts in the house ?

What if the dead were dead but the house by consuming them while they were alive could copy 100% of their appearance and personality, like the Crain family recreated for Nell. Just to trap its prey like a predator. Poppy, William, Hazel and others could be just the house playing tricks and no soul is involved.

TO BE CONTINUED...

[heavenboy09]

Happy Birthday 🎂 🥳 🎉 🎈 🎁 🎊 To You

1 Of The Most Well Known and Captivating British Actress 👩🇬🇧 Of The 1960s

Born On September 13th, 1944

Bisset was born Winifred Jacqueline Fraser Bisset in Weybridge, Surrey, England, the daughter of George Maxwell Fraser Bisset (1911–1982), a general practitioner, and Arlette Alexander (1914–1999), a lawyer-turned-housewife.

She is a British actress. She began her film career in 1965 and first came to prominence in 1968 with roles in The Detective, Bullitt, and The Sweet Ride, for which she received a Golden Globe nomination as Most Promising Newcomer. In the 1970s, she starred in Airport (1970), The Mephisto Waltz (1971), Day for Night (1973), which won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, Le Magnifique (1973), Murder on the Orient Express (1974), St. Ives (1976), The Deep (1977), The Greek Tycoon (1978) and Who Is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe? (1978), which earned her a Golden Globe nomination as Best Actress – Motion Picture Comedy or Musical.

Bisset's other film and TV credits include Rich and Famous (1981), Class (1983), her Golden Globe-nominated role in Under the Volcano (1984), her CableACE Award-nominated role in Forbidden (1985), Scenes from the Class Struggle in Beverly Hills (1989), Wild Orchid (1990), her Cesar Award-nominated role in La Cérémonie (1995), Dangerous Beauty (1998), her Emmy-nominated role in the miniseries Joan of Arc (1999), Britannic (2000), The Sleepy Time Gal (2001), Domino (2005), a guest arc in the fourth season of Nip/Tuck (2006), Death in Love (2008), and the BBC miniseries Dancing on the Edge (2013), for which she won a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress - Series, Miniseries or Television Film.

Bisset has since appeared in Welcome to New York (2014), Miss You Already (2015), The Last Film Festival (2016), Backstabbing for Beginners (2018) and Birds of Paradise (2021). She received France's highest honour, the Legion of Honour, in 2010. She speaks English, French, and Italian.

Please Wish This Very Well Known & Dedicated Stunning British Actress👩‍🦳 🇬🇧 Of The 1960s, A Very Happy Birthday 🎂 🥳 🎉 🎈 🎁 🎊

SHE IS FROM AN AGE OF CLASSIC MOVIE MAKING 🎥

SHE HAS THE ALLURING BEAUTY OF A AGELESS GODDESS

& SHE IS A WORLD CLASS BRITISH ACTRESS IN CINEMA 🎥

THE 1 & THE ONLY

MS. WINIFRED JACQUELINE FRASER BISSET AKA JACQUELINE BISSET 👩‍🦳🇬🇧❤

HAPPY 80TH BIRTHDAY 🎂 🥳 🎉 🎈 🎁 🎊 TO YOU MS. BISSET 👩‍🦳🇬🇧❤ & HERE'S TO MANY MORE YEARS TO COME

#JacqulineBisset

[yeonchi]

Doctor Who 10 for 10 Part 4/10: Series 4

This is the dream team, ladies and gentlemen. Following her brief appearance in The Runaway Bride, Catherine Tate was given the opportunity to reprise her role as Donna Noble, which she quickly accepted. During a tweetalong for that same episode in December 2020, Russell T Davies threw out the idea of returning to Doctor Who and asked Catherine Tate and David Tennant if they were interested. The two of them accepted and now, RTD is back as showrunner with David Tennant and Catherine Tate returning for three 60th Anniversary Specials in November 2023. But for now, let’s focus on their original series from 15 years ago.

This instalment will encompass the 2009 Specials alongside Series 4. During the production of Doomsday, RTD, Julie Gardner, Phil Collinson and Jane Tranter agreed to do two more series before putting the series on a break with a year of specials as they prepared to transition to a new production team, with Steven Moffat accepting the role of showrunner in September 2007. David Tennant had been offered to continue on for Series 5, but he ultimately declined and he announced his departure via livelink at the National Television Awards on 29 October 2008.

Interestingly, the production of Series 4 is probably the most documented out of all of Doctor Who. This is thanks to a collaborative project between RTD and Doctor Who Magazine writer Benjamin Cook, starting off as emails to create a series of articles in the magazine, but as the amount of correspondence grew, it was decided to create a book with them, resulting in The Writer’s Tale being released in September 2008 covering emails (and text messages) from February 2007 to April 2008. Later on, it was decided to compile another 18 months worth of emails up to September 2009, eventually resulting in The Writer’s Tale: The Final Chapter being released in January 2010. In those books you can get the biggest insight behind-the-scenes and see just how much planning and time goes into the production of a series of Doctor Who. You can also see RTD’s health slowly deteriorating as he oversaw three flagship programs over six years. Seriously, it makes me look like a joke, compressing decades worth of work into 10 years, and that’s mostly just writing, not all the filming and work that goes into pre-production and post-production.

Anyway, let’s jump into the retrospective for Series 4.

1. A Noble return

During the planning for Series 4, RTD intended for the companion to be a “leftover” woman in her mid-30s called Penny Carter, however when Catherine Tate agreed to return (possibly also because Penny’s character was similar to that of Donna’s), the plans were changed and Penny’s story became a continuation of Donna’s story.

Jacqueline King and Howard Attfield were signed back on as Donna’s parents, Sylvia and Geoff Noble, however during the filming of Partners in Crime, Attfield broke his leg after only having filmed a few scenes on a hill. After some quick discussions, Attfield was replaced by Bernard Cribbins as Donna’s maternal grandfather, Wilfred Mott, who was featured in the 2007 Christmas Special, Voyage of the Damned (the highest-rated episode of the revived era, presumably thanks in no part to the appearance of Kylie Minogue) and the scenes on the hill were refilmed. Cribbins’ character was originally named Stan, but after he signed on for Series 4, his character was changed to accommodate (luckily his name was never mentioned in the special so all they needed to do was change his name in the credits). If you ask me, given what we see in those scenes, I think Bernard Cribbins was a better fit in them, given what he was saying about aliens in the special. Attfield died a couple weeks after the recast, with his scenes being included as deleted scenes on the Series 4 DVD box set. The return of the Nobles marked the beginning of a storyline that tied the Doctor and Donna’s fates together, which would be concluded in the finale and later extended to the 2009 Specials.

The Nobles weren’t the only characters returning in Series 4, however. As RTD intended for this series to be his last, he wanted to make the finale as big as possible. Rose Tyler made a surprise appearance in the season premiere, followed by two brief appearances (filmed for one episode then added to the other) before her main involvement in the series finale and the episode before it. Martha Jones rejoined the Doctor for three episodes before returning again in the finale. Jack Harkness and Sarah Jane Smith also returned for the finale, bringing in characters from their respective spinoffs, namely Gwen Cooper, Ianto Jones, Luke Smith, Mr Smith and K9. Harriet Jones, Francine Jones, Jackie Tyler and Mickey Smith also returned in the finale as well. Most of them would appear again for cameos near the end of The End of Time Part Two, including Alonso Frame (who was originally scheduled to return in The Stolen Earth but declined due to other commitments) and Verity Newman, the great-granddaughter of Joan Redfern from Human Nature and The Family of Blood.

Additionally, there were plans for the Shadow Proclamation scene in The Stolen Earth to feature various aliens from across the RTD era, but that was cut for time and budget, resulting in the scene only having a group of Judoon. A similar scene would be realised in The End of Time Part Two.

2. Warnings from the future

After Donna officially joined the Doctor, their first adventure (in The Fires of Pompeii) was to Pompeii in the year 79 AD, right on Volcano Day. Since they knew what would happen that day, the Doctor insists that they can’t change anything about it, even though Donna tried her best to do so. This story also shows that while an actual historical event was hijacked by alien forces, the Doctor’s intervention allowed history to continue as normal. Other examples would come later in Series 6 with the Silence and Series 11 with Rosa Parks.

The Pyroviles’ homeworld was lost, though a group of them managed to escape and crashed to Earth, eroding to dust in the core of Mount Vesuvius. Following an earthquake in 62 AD, the soothsayers began to predict the future accurately, but they were never able to predict Volcano Day because the Pyroviles were using Vesuvius’ power for their plan to convert Earth into their new home planet. When the Doctor and Donna managed to expose their plans, the Doctor explains that he can invert the system and blow up the Pyroviles, but in doing so, he would be the one to cause Volcano Day.

The Doctor and Donna push the lever together and they manage to get back to Pompeii. As they head back into the TARDIS, Donna insists to the Doctor that he at least save someone, and he briefly goes back to rescue Caecilius and his family.

Karen Gillan, who played a soothsayer in the episode, would be cast as companion Amy Pond for Series 5 onwards, while Peter Capaldi, who played Caecilius, played John Frobisher in the third series of Torchwood before being cast as the Twelfth Doctor in 2013. In the behind-the-scenes episode, RTD suggested that Frobisher may have been a descendant of Caecilius and that his conclusion was time reasserting itself after the Doctor saved Caecilius in the past. This was confirmed by Moffat in 2015, but the rest will have to wait until we get to Series 9.

3. Double returning villains

Series 4 saw the return of not one, but two villains from the classic series. The Sontaran Stratagem and The Poison Sky saw the reintroduction of the Sontarans in a story that has them utilise humanity’s reliance on cars, GPSes and petrol to turn Earth into a cloning planet. Aside from Martha’s return in this story, we saw the Doctor’s attitude to soldiers and weapons, as evidenced by his aversion to weapons and people saluting him.

Davros, the creator of the Daleks, also makes a return in the series finale, with him reuniting with Sarah Jane Smith many years after their first meeting in his debut episode, Genesis of the Daleks. Although the Sontarans and Davros appeared considerably less than the Daleks, Cybermen or the Master, the production team’s confidence in bringing back gradually obscured villains from the classic series was proven by the success of the series so far. A scene featuring a young Davros in the past was scripted for the finale, but like the aforementioned Shadow Proclamation scene, was scrapped for time and budget.

4. The end of the river

After two single-parter episodes in the last two series, Steven Moffat’s contribution to Series 4 was Silence in the Library and Forest of the Dead, his last two-parter in the RTD era to round off his first two-parter in Series 1. The story featured the debut of River Song, a character at the end of her timeline who would become more relevant in future episodes as the Doctor’s timeline continues and her past is gradually explored. I think Moffat wrote the story knowing that he was going to be taking over from RTD and so he wanted to get a head start on his storylines.

The story also features the Vashta Nerada, carnivore piranhas of the air that live in shadows (thereby creating another innocuous thing for people to be scared of) and an underlying storyline involving the mind of Charlotte Abigail Lux, or the command node CAL. A century prior, CAL tried to save the 4022 people that were in the Library when the Vashta Nerada began to emerge, but since she was unable to teleport them away, she had to save their minds to the data core, leading to Donna being “saved” as well when the Doctor attempted to teleport her back to the TARDIS. In the end, River sacrificed herself to teleport Donna and all 4022 people out of the data core, but the Doctor managed to upload her data ghost into it, where she lived with the data ghosts of the rest of her crew and the avatars of CAL and Donna’s children.

5. Thematic story arcs

The story arc of this series was teased more subtly compared to previous seasons as multiple elements from the finale were scattered across the episodes of the series. Those elements included the bees disappearing, the Medusa Cascade, lost worlds, the return of Rose Tyler and the DoctorDonna. Other elements from other series were also resolved in this series, such as Harriet Jones, the mystery of the Doctor’s hand (which the Doctor retook possession of at the end of the last series) and Dalek Caan of the Cult of Skaro.

After Evolution of the Daleks, Dalek Caan’s Emergency Temporal Shift somehow took back into the Time War, which was meant to be time-locked. He travelled to the Gates of Elysium, where he managed to save Davros from the jaws of the Nightmare Child. Although his mind was damaged in the process, he gained the ability to clearly see through time, allowing him to manipulate events as he saw fit.

Davros was brought to the present day, where he used the cells from his body to create the New Dalek Empire before creating a reality bomb to destroy every reality. To power it, they stole 27 planets, some from different times, and relocated them to the Medusa Cascade one second out of sync from the rest of time. This caused some bees from Melissa Majoria to leave Earth as they sensed a disturbance.

Without the Doctor to stop it, the reality bomb’s effects began affecting other universes as stars began disappearing. Rose Tyler journeyed out from Pete’s World in search of the Doctor and ended up in Donna’s World, a world created around her when a Time Beetle was attached to Donna. It was revealed that reality had been bending around her since she was born, causing her to meet the Doctor again and be dragged into two parallel worlds, the other instance being in the data core of the Library.

In the Doctor’s universe, however, the Doctor’s absence led Harriet Jones, the former Prime Minister of Britain who was deposed thanks to the Doctor’s words near the end of The Christmas Invasion, to activate the Subwave Network in an effort to find anyone who could help contact the Doctor. Harriet found the Doctor’s former companions and used the network to call the Doctor, but the Daleks tracked her down and confronted her, but not before she gave control of the network to Torchwood.

Harriet was apparently exterminated by the Daleks, but in the anthology Now We Are Six Hundred written by James Goss and illustrated by RTD, there is a poem that details how Harriet managed to escape the Daleks by falling through a trapdoor and riding away on her motorbike. Phil Collinson was apparently not happy with RTD killing off Harriet Jones and “nagged” him about it ever since, so RTD took the first opportunity he could to send the poem to him. Collinson asked RTD if it counted and he said that he did. During the lockdown tweetalong for the Series 4 finale on 19 April 2020, RTD elaborated on Harriet’s escape, even going so far to suggest that it was a part of the Trickster’s long game, “but that’s a story for another time”.

6. My Choice, My Life, My Death

Fun fact - the title to this was the former title for my version of Turn Left in my personal project, which was a result of me ripping off bits of the RTD series while writing the first few series of Doctor Who.

Turn Left was the Doctor-lite episode of the series, double-banked alongside Midnight as the companion-lite episode of the series. As a result of the Time Beetle mentioned in the previous topic, a parallel world was created where Donna never met the Doctor, which led him to die in what would have been the events of The Runaway Bride. The timeline would continue to go on with the following differences; Sarah Jane and her group would take over the events of Smith and Jones before dying alongside Martha; the Titanic replica crashed into Buckingham Palace, destroying London and flooding all of southern England with radiation; the Adipose seeding happened in America instead of London; and the Sontarans activated ATMOS to convert Earth into a clone planet, but Captain Jack and the Torchwood team gave their lives to stop them.

Rose Tyler found Donna while in search for the Doctor. She kept Donna alive by diverting her away from London before the Titanic replica crashed into Buckingham Palace because she realised that she needed the Doctor and Donna together to stop the oncoming darkness. With the help of UNIT, Rose sent Donna back in time to where the split in the timeline happened and Donna ended up sacrificing her life to ensure that her past self wouldn’t make the decision that would inadvertently create the alternate timeline. Rose did manage to leave a message for the Doctor - “Bad Wolf” - to catch his attention.

7. The mystery of the Doctor’s hand and the DoctorDonna

After the Doctor regained possession of his spare hand at the end of Series 3, it has ended up playing a significant role in two Series 4 stories.

In The Doctor’s Daughter, the Doctor’s hand appeared to react as the TARDIS was brought to Messaline, which happened due to the creation of Jenny from the Doctor’s genes. Later on in The Stolen Earth, the Doctor was shot by a Dalek upon reuniting with Rose and proceeded to regenerate, sparking speculation as to whether David Tennant had resigned despite it being reported that he would be in the 2008 Christmas Special. In the next episode, Journey’s End, the Doctor ended up directing most of his regeneration energy into his spare hand, leading to speculation over the years as to whether a regeneration was actually used, though that was dispelled in 2013 when Steven Moffat confirmed as such in The Time of the Doctor. I wasn’t a fan of the regeneration twist initially, though I understand how it was needed for the rest of this storyline to work out.

The Daleks brought the TARDIS up to the Crucible and ordered everyone out. Donna became distracted by a heartbeat in her head and found herself unable to leave when the TARDIS locked her in. The Daleks dumped the TARDIS into the core of the Crucible, where it was to be destroyed, but as Donna fell to the floor, she reached for the Doctor’s hand, which formed into a copy of the Doctor while the ensuing biological meta-crisis gave Donna the Doctor’s mind, though it laid dormant until Davros shocked her. This allowed Donna to deactivate the reality bomb and send the stolen planets back to their original places in space and time. As such, Donna became the DoctorDonna, with the Meta-Crisis Tenth Doctor’s creation being the cause of the timelines converging around her, allowing her to meet the Doctor again despite missing events in previous stories through coincidences.

Sadly, the Meta-Crisis Tenth Doctor and the DoctorDonna weren’t able to stay in the Doctor’s universe for long. After destroying the Daleks in one fell swoop, the Doctor left his meta-crisis self with Rose in Pete’s World, because he was like himself when he first met Rose and he needed her to change him. As for Donna, she began to find herself being overwhelmed by her newfound knowledge, which would have killed her if not for the Doctor wiping her memories of their adventures together, thereby “killing” her mercifully. When the Doctor told Sylvia and Wilf of this, he noted to them that there are worlds out there singing praises of Donna, for she was the most important woman in the whole universe, though she can never know it.

8. The Time Lord Victorious

As stated at the start, there would be a series of specials broadcast throughout 2009 in lieu of a fifth series, which would come later in 2010 with a new production team. The Next Doctor saw the return of the Cybermen and a special guest companion, Jackson Lake, who began to see himself as a new incarnation of the Doctor due to an incident with the Cybermen. Planet of the Dead was an Easter adventure with scenes filmed in Dubai and the beginning of a mini-arc that would see the end of the Tenth Doctor’s life - “He will knock four times.”

The Waters of Mars shows the Doctor at his most reckless as he tried to avert a fixed point in time by saving Adelaide Brooke and two of her crew from Bowie Base One when an aqueous viral infection known as the Flood infested the rest of the crew. Originally, Adelaide was supposed to die with her crew and the cause of Bowie Base One’s destruction remained unknown. After the Doctor returned to Earth, Adelaide allowed the surviving members of her crew to leave and share their story. As the Doctor proclaimed to Adelaide that he was the Time Lord Victorious, Adelaide became horrified and angry at the potential of the Doctor’s power, so she took her own life in an effort to preserve the timeline, which led the Doctor to realise the seriousness of his actions, though he seemingly remained defiant.

I suppose I would have liked to see this attitude continue into the final specials, but it would be revisited a decade later with the multi-platform Time Lord Victorious series, covering books, comics, audios, games and webcasts. The series explored the Tenth Doctor going into the Dark Times, where he encountered a species known as the Kotturuh, who assigned lifespans to species based on their significance to the universe. By stopping the Kotturuh, the Tenth Doctor rewrote history and altered timelines, eventually resulting in the Eighth and Ninth Doctors allying with the Daleks and a group of vampires to make their future incarnation see the error of his ways.

Ironically, in the 2015 Titan Comics miniseries Four Doctors, the Tenth Doctor defied his fate and became the Time Lord Victorious again, conquering the universe before he was assassinated by a Raxacoricofallapatorian.

9. The evil of the Time Lords

Originally, three specials were commissioned for 2009, but in April 2008, Jane Tranter pushed for David Tennant’s final story to be a two-parter, and as such, RTD had to work hard in order to make The End of Time the big story that it was. The 2008 global financial crisis led to budget cuts across the BBC and with countries like Canada and Japan no longer deciding to buy rights to the series, RTD feared that the two-parter would be cut to 45 minutes each or that The Waters of Mars would be dropped, but luckily, Julie Gardner managed to raise the money to make all four specials possible. Both parts of The End of Time made up the 2009 Christmas Special and the 2010 New Year’s Special, the latter being the first of its kind before the Chibnall era decided to move the Christmas Specials to New Year’s Day.

Part One saw the Master being resurrected thanks to his contingency plan, but an accident left him with an energy deficit. Meanwhile, Wilf was contacted by a mysterious woman who told him to take up arms. Wilf manages to find the Doctor to see if he can bring Donna’s memory of him back, but he refuses to go to her. On Christmas morning, the Doctor finds Wilf again in an effort to find the Master, which he does thanks to a subconscious suggestion from Donna. Wilf goes with the Doctor to the Naismith mansion and confronts the Master, who uses the Immortality Gate to transform every human (except for Wilf and Donna) into himself, creating the Master Race.

Part Two sees two Vinvocci rescuing the Doctor and Wilf while the Master uses the Master Race to trace the origin of the drumbeat inside his head. The drumbeat was revealed to the the work of the Time Lords, who put the signal in the Master’s head when he was eight years old and was taken for initiation to the Time Lord Academy on Gallifrey. This was an effort by Rassilon and the High Council to win the Time War by breaking Gallifrey out of the time lock and ripping the Time Vortex apart, which was what made the Doctor destroy Gallifrey to stop them (apparently). Only two Time Lords opposed this plan, with one of them being the woman that contacted Wilf. The Doctor fell back into the Naismith mansion and confronted the Master and Rassilon, struggling to choose who to kill until a glance from the woman leads him to break the link, sending the Time Lords back into the Time War, with the Master going as well in an attempt to exact revenge for turning him into what he was.

In all honesty, it feels kind of surreal to see Rassilon becoming a villain in this story, given how he was revered by the Time Lords and also the fact that the Time Lords were written in a better light during the classic series (but what would I know, the only Gallifrey-related classic series episode I really watched was The Five Doctors). Then again, I don’t think the Doctor ever saw eye-to-eye with the Time Lords in the classic series, so it kind of makes sense how he wouldn’t see eye-to-eye with them in the revived series.

10. The grandest farewell

Once Rassilon and the Time Lords were sent back into the time lock with the Master, the Doctor was initially relieved to still be alive until Wilf knocked four times. After ranting about how he could do so much more, the Doctor couldn’t bear leaving Wilf to die and allowed himself to absorb the Immortality Gate’s regeneration to get him out of the control chamber. He then dropped Wilf off at home and went off on his final reward, visiting all his previous companions and other people he met (even those from spinoff media and the classic era, as would be revealed in SJA Series 4), seeing Donna at her wedding, and visiting Rose on New Year’s Day 2005 before struggling back to his TARDIS, setting it into flight and regenerating into the Eleventh Doctor, setting the console room on fire in the process.

Aside from the returning cameos in The End of Time, there was some bonus farewell content from the production team to celebrate the end of the RTD era. At the wrap party, two videos were produced by Jennie Fava for the cast and crew; a video of everyone singing to The Proclaimers’ I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles) and The Ballad of Russell and Julie, featuring David Tennant, Catherine Tate and John Barrowman.

Although The End of Time was David Tennant’s final episode, he would also be involved in the filming of the 2009 BBC One Christmas idents and the SJA episode The Wedding of Sarah Jane Smith, which would premiere that October.

Unlike Christopher Eccleston, David Tennant readily embraced his role even after his time on Doctor Who, appearing at the Birmingham Lords of Time Fan Convention in September 2012, reprising his role in the 50th Anniversary special The Day of the Doctor in 2013 and making his Big Finish debut with the first volume of The Tenth Doctor Adventures, released in May 2016. And then of course, he returned again at the end of The Power of the Doctor in preparation for the 60th Anniversary Specials in November 2023.

In the end, there were too many things to say about Series 4 to summarise in 10 topics, so I’m putting in some honourable mentions below:

Was Mr Copper ungrateful?

One of the most notorious things about Series 4, or rather Voyage of the Damned, is the Doctor Who Magazine interview with Clive Swift, who played Mr Copper in the special and also Jobel in Revelation of the Daleks (he was also due to star in a Big Finish audio in 2003, but he withdrew due to a family illness). When Benjamin Cook interviewed Swift (on set in his trailer towards the end of the shooting), he didn’t seem to take the interview seriously, complaining about why Cook taped the interview instead of using shorthand and commenting about how he wasn’t getting paid for the interview. In 2017, Cook commented that RTD and Julie Gardner had to approve the interview before it was published, suspecting it was “testament to what a sod he’d been on set all month”.

Apparently, it was rumoured that RTD was going to have Clive Swift reprise his role in The Stolen Earth, but he changed his mind after the DWM interview. This was never confirmed, however his character was mentioned, as it is implied that Mr Copper established the foundation that developed the Subwave Network.

When Swift died in 2019, RTD apparently claimed that he should have not allowed the interview to be published as he felt that he had a duty of care to Swift, just as with any other actor. Although the only source for this is someone else’s Twitter without any primary source to back it up, it’s very likely that RTD actually said this because Benjamin Cook has replied to people replying to that tweet.

Something that can be verified, however, is a letter that RTD emailed to Doctor Who Magazine shortly after Swift’s death. This didn’t seem to have gotten much attention, but someone managed to take a snapshot of it and posted it online, which I’ll also attach below.

What do you think of RTD’s response? Do you think it made Swift seem less ungrateful about his experience on Doctor Who? Feel free to let me know what you think.

Keeping it (the timey-wimey) in the family

I’m gonna get flamed for the title to this, I just know it. But nonetheless, I’m still stating the obvious.

Peter Davison reprised his role as the Fifth Doctor for the 2007 Children in Need sketch, Time Crash. About a week before it aired, Davison’s daughter, Georgia Moffett, was cast as Jenny in The Doctor’s Daughter, meaning that a daughter of a Doctor was playing the daughter of the Doctor. After Tennant and Moffett married, Peter Davison became the former’s father-in-law.

Although Jenny was shown to have been killed near the end of The Doctor’s Daughter, the ending of the episode showed her being revived, unbeknownst to the Doctor, before stealing a shuttlecraft and leaving to go on adventures. Georgia Moffett was interested in returning to the series and although she hasn’t reprised her role onscreen, her character has returned in extended media, with Moffett returning for a Big Finish audio series featuring Jenny in 2018.

On a side note, former TVB actress Corinna Chamberlain (a Westerner) is literally Georgia Moffett and you cannot convince me otherwise.

That Time Lady

The identity of the Time Lady who contacted Wilf has never been openly explained on-screen, although the popular explanation seems to be that it was the Doctor’s mother since it was what RTD told her actress, Claire Bloom, and the production team. However, RTD acknowledged that it could have been any other Time Lady, such as Romana, Susan Foreman’s mother (aka the Doctor’s daughter) or even the Rani. And before anyone says it, it can’t be Tecteun because she would be with Division.

Another similar woman appeared in Series 9’s Hell Bent when the Twelfth Doctor returned to the drylands of Gallifrey. Steven Moffat said that he would rather leave it to the fans to decide who that woman was, whether she would be the Doctor’s mother, or even if she was the same woman from The End of Time.

“How many have died in your name?”

In Journey’s End, Davros reveals the Doctor’s soul, telling him that while he may abhor violence and never carry a weapon, his self-sacrificing nature convinced the people he meets to do the same, thereby making them into weapons, which makes him recall Harriet Jones and all the people who gave their lives in his name, including River Song and Jenny (again, he didn’t know that Jenny was revived). I’m sure there are many more examples of this from both before and after the RTD era, but that would be way out of scope for both the original episode and this retrospective series. I suppose I like to think that the people who are still alive are proud of having met the Doctor and would do anything they could to help him if he needed it. I mean, that’s what Harriet Jones did, didn’t she?

In my opinion, Series 4 and the 2009 Specials were the peak of the revived series, or rather the first of few. I didn’t get into Doctor Who for a few more years when this series came out (though I did watch one or two stories here and there), but even in Australia, the appeal of the show was as profound as it was in the UK. In primary school, I knew three kids in my year level who were fans of the show; one of them invited me to his house (or maybe his mum invited my mum and brought me along as well, idk) and we watched a story from Series 1 together; and the other two I played with in a Doctor Who-esque LARP with some Dynasty Warriors added in to boot; that LARP was one of the origins of my personal project which I would put to pen and paper (or rather, document and keyboard) in a few years’ time.

When I finally got into Doctor Who around 2011 or 2012, I took my time to watch the RTD era episodes as well; looking back, I only wish someone drilled it into me to start watching Doctor Who, whether by buying the DVDs or watching the episodes as they premiered on ABC, but knowing my mum back then, she would always have something recording on weekend nights, on the one DVR that could receive digital television, so I’d have to settle with watching on analog because the idea never came to me to buy the DVDs or find some way to watch it online (my 10GB internet data plan didn’t help things either).

This ends the Tennant and RTD eras of Doctor Who. Stay tuned for Part 5 as we enter the Smith and Moffat eras with my 10 takes on Series 5.

[47burlm]

Jacqueline Fraser Bisset LdH (/ˈbɪsɪt/ BISS-it; born 13 September 1944) is a British actress. She began her film career in 1965 and first came to prominence in 1968 with roles in The Detective, Bullitt, and The Sweet Ride, for which she received a Golden Globe nomination as Most Promising Newcomer. In the 1970s, she starred in Airport (1970), The Mephisto Waltz (1971), Day for Night (1973), which won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, Le Magnifique (1973), Murder on the Orient Express (1974), St. Ives (1976), The Deep (1977), The Greek Tycoon (1978) and Who Is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe? (1978), which earned her a Golden Globe nomination as Best Actress – Motion Picture Comedy or Musical.

Bisset's other film and TV credits include Rich and Famous (1981), Class (1983), her Golden Globe-nominated role in Under the Volcano (1984), her CableACE Award-nominated role in Forbidden (1985), Scenes from the Class Struggle in Beverly Hills (1989), Wild Orchid (1990), her Cesar Award-nominated role in La Cérémonie (1995), Dangerous Beauty (1998), her Emmy-nominated role in the miniseries Joan of Arc (1999), Britannic (2000), The Sleepy Time Gal (2001), Domino (2005), a guest arc in the fourth season of Nip/Tuck (2006), Death in Love (2008), and the BBC miniseries Dancing on the Edge (2013), for which she won a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress - Series, Miniseries or Television Film.

Bisset has since appeared in Welcome to New York (2014), Miss You Already (2015), The Last Film Festival (2016), Backstabbing for Beginners (2018) and Birds of Paradise (2021). She received France's highest honour, the Legion of Honour, in 2010. She speaks English, French, and Italian.

Jacqueline Bisset

[lboogie1906]

Orlando Jones (born April 10, 1968) is a stand-up comedian and actor. He is known for being one of the original cast members of the sketch comedy series MADtv, for his role as the 7 Up spokesman, and his role as the African god Anansi on American Gods.

After hosting Sound FX, he became one of the original nine cast members of MADtv. Perhaps his most popular and enduring television appearance was in a series of humorous commercials as the spokesperson for 7 Up. He was given his late-night talk, The Orlando Jones Show. He continued to make additional television appearances. He appeared on The Bernie Mac Show and Girlfriends. He decided to return to television on The Evidence. He has appeared in two episodes of Everybody Hates Chris.

He expanded his cinema résumé. He appeared in a bit part in his first big-screen film, In Harm’s Way, Sour Grapes. He appeared in Woo, Office Space, Liberty Heights, and Drumline. He has appeared in Magnolia, New Jersey Turnpikes, and Bedazzled.

He played the role of Clifford Franklin in The Replacements and From Dusk till Dawn 3: The Hangman’s Daughter. He landed the lead role in Double Take and Evolution. He was in Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant and in The Time Machine. His other more recent films include Biker Boyz, Godzilla, Runaway Jury, and Primeval. He appeared in an uncredited cameo and played in Grindhouse Planet Terror.

He appeared in the documentary film Looking for Lenny. He starred in Meridian.

He has been featured in many voice-acting projects over the years. He appeared in Yuletide in the ‘hood and he made a guest appearance in King of the Hill. He lent his voice to the TV series Father of the Pride and the video game Halo 2 as the marine Sergeant Banks as well as other African American marines and L.A. Rush. He co-created, produced and voice acted for The Adventures of Chico and Guapo.

He married former model Jacqueline Staph (2009-2011) and they have a daughter. #africanhistory365 #africanexcellence

[companionsofthedoctorwho]

Companions Original Post List

Color Sorted by what Hogwarts House I Think They're In. (Feel free to argue if you think otherwise. If they're blank, it means either that I'm just not sure, I haven't reached them yet, (I am on season 22 of the Classic Doctor Who and on season nine of the revived one but I haven't watched either in a while because I got hooked on Criminal Minds.), or I think they're Hufflepuff but the Tumblr thing on my laptop doesn't have yellow as a color. Neither does my phone apparently all of a sudden. The closest is orange.

First Doctor (Many of his episodes are missing so companions often appear and disappear)

Susan Foreman/Arkytior (High Gallifreyan for "Rose) (Played by Carole Ann Ford) - Fifteen-Year-Old Gallifreyan Granddaughter of the Doctor left behind when she fell in love but she left to fight in the Time War and it is presumed that she died.

Ian Chesterton (Played by William Russell, aged 99 as of 2023--Tragically died June 3, 2024 at the age of 99 due to pneumonia; but his character and legacy lives on)

Barbara Wright (Played by Jacqueline Hill, Tragically died in 1993 of breast cancer but her character lives on)

Vicki Pallister (Played by Maureen O'Brien, aged 80 as of 2023; Most of her episodes are missing)

Steven Taylor (Played by Peter Purves)

Katarina (Played by Adrienne Hill, tragically passed away from cancer at age sixty in 1997) - The shortest companion of the first Doctor (I think; she had five episodes and four of them were in the same serial so really two episode adventure-wise) and the first companion of the entire Doctor Who series to die while traveling with the Doctor.

Dodo Chaplet (Played by Jackie Lane)

Second Doctor (Also many of his episodes are missing so companions just appear and disappear)

Ben Jackson (Played by Michael Craze) - Companion of the First and Second Doctor

Polly Wright (Played by Anneke Wills) - Companion of the First and Second Doctor

Jamie McCrimmon (Played by Frazer Hines) -- First Scottish Companion; The Time Lords wiped his mind of any adventures in the Tardis after his first adventure with the Doctor and returned him back to Scotland

Victoria Waterfield (Played by Deborah Watling) -- One of the youngest companions to travel with the Doctor at around fourteen or fifteen however she was a "screaming woman" character and grew tired of the constant dangers and departed.

Zoe Heriot (Played by Wendy Padbury) -- A genius who's intellect impressed the Doctor whoever her memories of traveling with the Doctor and Jamie were erased by the Time Lords.

Alistair Gordon Lethbridge (Played by Nicholas Courtney) -- Perhaps the longest recurring companion of the Doctor, from the Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth, and Seventh, he was only mentioned in the revived series until he was cofirmed to have passed in season six.

John Benton (Played by John Levene) -- More of a companion of the Doctor when he was banished the Earth and the Time Lords wouldn't let him use his Tardis (also he didn't know how fly her). John only traveled in the Tardis once in the ten-year anniversary serial: The Three Doctors.

Third Doctor

Liz Shaw (Played by Caroline John)

Mike Yates (Played by Richard Franklin)

Jo Grant (Played by Katy Manning)

Sarah Jane Smith (Played by Elisabeth Sladen)

Fourth Doctor (Played by Tom Baker, the longest Doctor)

Harry Sullivan (Played by Ian Marter)

Leela (Played by Louise Jameson)

K-9 (played Voiced by John Leeson)

Romana I (Played by Mary Tamm)

Romana II (Played by Lalla Ward)

Adric (Played by Matthew Waterhouse) -- I think Adric gets a bad rap

Tegan Jovanka (Played by Janet Fielding) -- Is it me or does she seem remarkably similar to Donna Noble? On TVtropes.org, it points out that her "Establish Character Moment" (which is basically what it sounds like, it's a moment for a character you're being introduced for that tells you just what kind of person this character is) states: "When Tegan gets lost inside the TARDIS, instead of being astonished by it, she goes and looks for someone to yell at." Which is also exactly what Donna does (however, she has a rare intro to the Tardis where she sees in the inside first yet she is not the one to say "it's smaller on the outside" which would've been perfect.")

Nyssa (Played by Sarah Sutton)

Fifth Doctor (Played by Peter Davison; the start of the family legacy)

Vislor Turlough (Played by Mark Strickson)

Kamelion (Voiced by Gerald Flood)

Peri Brown (Played by Nicola Bryant) -- Interestingly, the actress is British while the character is American and she was forced to speak in an American accent even behind the scenes, only years later when she went to a dinner party did Colin Baker realize she was British, not American; Implications of her backstory added with the violent regeneration the Sixth Doctor had and his attitude towards her make me feel bad for her -- She is currently my favorite classic companion.

Sixth Doctor (Played by Colin Baker; the shortest Doctor in the Classic Series, not counting Paul McGann)

Melanie Bush (Played by Bonnie Langford)

Dorothy "Ace" (Played by Sophie Aldred) -- The last companion on the Classic series.

Eighth Doctor

Grace Holloway (Played by Daphne Ashbrook)

War Doctor (Played by John Hurt)

Ninth Doctor (Played by Christopher Eccleston) -- The shortest main Doctor of the modern series

Rose Tyler (Played by Billie Piper) -- My favorite companion. The companion I started on and the love of the Doctor's life. (Sorry River, Sorry Clara). Companion of the Ninth, Tenth, and Meta-Crisis Doctor.

Mickey Smith (Played by Noel Clarke) -- Not an official traveling companion of the Ninth but got there with the Tenth... for three episodes.

Adam Mitchell (Played by Bruno Langley) -- He was so brilliant to be considered by Van Statten and when he sees the future, he gets surgery to put a door in his head and tries to steal others' ideas when he could come up with his own.

Captain Jack Harkness (Played by John Barrowman)

Tenth Doctor (Played by David Tennant) My favorite Doctor. MY Doctor.

Donna Noble (played by Catherine Tate) -- Companion of the Tenth Doctor, Meta-Crisis Doctor/TenToo, and Fourteenth Doctor

Martha Jones (Played By Freema Agyeman)

Wilfred Mott (Played by Bernard Cribbins) Gone but NEVER forgotten. An honorary Noble.

Meta-Crisis Doctor (Played By David Tennant)

Eleventh Doctor (played by Matt Smith) I wasn't sure at first as I was sad to see David Tennant go but Matt Smith definitely lived up to the challenge.

Amelia "Amy" Pond (Played by Caitlain Blackwood and Pre-Nebula Karen Gillan) I love that they got cousins to play young and adult Amy.

Rory Williams (Played by Arthur Darvill)

River Song (Played by Alex Kingston)

Craig Owens (Played by James Corden)

Kate Steward -- Daughter of Alistair Gordon Lethbridge

Oswin Oswald (Played by Jenna Coleman)

Clara Oswin Oswald (Played by Jenna Coleman)

Clara Oswald (Played by Jenna Coleman) -- Fun fact, the character's birthday is November twenty-third, which is also the birthday of Doctor Who itself, the first Docotr Who episode serial entitled "An Unearthly Child" aired in 1963 however, there had been a low television viewership due to the unfortunate assassination of John F. Kennedy the day before and a power cut in part of England (according the Tardis.fandom.com) This may be intentional due to Clara's deep involvement in the Doctor's lives. -- Clara Oswald is my third favorite companion after Rose Tyler and Amy Pond.

Twelfth Doctor (Played By Peter Capaldi)

--I am currently still on season eight nine--

Nardole

Bill Potts

Thirteenth Doctor (Played by Jodie Whittaker)

Graham O'Brien

Ryan Sinclair

Yasmin "Yaz" Khan

Dan Lewis

Fourteenth Doctor (Played by David Tennant)

Rose Noble (Daughter of Donna Noble; Played by Yasmin Finney)

Fifteenth Doctor

Ruby Sunday (Played by Millie Gibson)

Rogue

[shewhoworshipscarlin]

Lillian Randolph

Lillian Randolph (1914/1915) – September 12, 1980) was an American actress and singer, a veteran of radio, film, and television. She worked in entertainment from the 1930s until shortly before her death. She appeared in hundreds of radio shows, motion pictures, short subjects, and television shows.

Randolph is most recognized for appearing in It's a Wonderful Life (1946), Magic (1978), and her final onscreen project, The Onion Field (1979). She prominently contributed her voice to the character Mammy Two Shoes in nineteen Tom and Jerry cartoons released between 1940 and 1952.

Born Castello Randolph in Knoxville, Tennessee, she was the younger sister of actress Amanda Randolph. The daughter of a Methodist minister and a teacher, she began her professional career singing on local radio in Cleveland and Detroit.

At Detroit's WXYZ, she was noticed by George W. Trendle, station owner and developer of The Lone Ranger. He got her into radio training courses, which paid off in roles for local radio shows.

Randolph was tutored by a Caucasian actor for three months on "racial dialect" before getting any radio roles. She moved on to Los Angeles in 1936 to work on Al Jolson's radio show, on Big Town, on the Al Pearce show, and to sing at the Club Alabam there.

Lillian and her sister Amanda were continually looking for roles to make ends meet. In 1938, she opened her home to Lena Horne, who was in California for her first movie role in The Duke Is Tops (1938); the film was so tightly budgeted, Horne had no money for a hotel. Randolph opened her home during World War II with weekly dinners and entertainment for service people in the Los Angeles area through American Women's Voluntary Services.

Randolph is best known as the maid Birdie Lee Coggins from The Great Gildersleeve radio comedy and subsequent films, and as Madame Queen on the Amos 'n' Andy radio show and television show from 1937 to 1953.She was cast in the "Gildersleeve" job on the basis of her wonderful laugh. Upon hearing the Gildersleeve program was beginning, Randolph made a dash to NBC. She tore down the halls; when she opened the door for the program, she fell on her face. Randolph was not hurt and she laughed—this got her the job. She also portrayed Birdie in the television version of The Great Gildersleeve.

In 1955, Lillian was asked to perform the Gospel song, "Were You There" on the television version of the Gildersleeve show. The positive response from viewers resulted in a Gospel album by Randolph on Dootone Records.  She found the time for the role of Mrs. Watson on The Baby Snooks Show and Daisy on The Billie Burke Show.

Her best known film roles were those of Annie in It's a Wonderful Life (1946) and Bessie in The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer (1947).

The West Adams district of Los Angeles was once home to lawyers and tycoons, but during the 1930s, many residents were either forced to sell their homes or take in boarders because of the economic times. The bulk of the residents who were earlier members of the entertainment community had already moved to places such as Beverly Hills and Hollywood. In the 1940s, members of the African-American entertainment community discovered the charms of the district and began purchasing homes there, giving the area the nickname "Sugar Hill". Hattie McDaniel was one of the first African-American residents. In an attempt to discourage African-Americans from making their homes in the area, some residents resorted to adding covenants to the contracts when their homes were sold, either restricting African-Americans from purchasing them or prohibiting them from occupying the houses after purchase.  Lillian and her husband, boxer Jack Chase,  were victims of this type of discrimination.  In 1946, the couple purchased a home on West Adams Boulevard with a restrictive covenant that barred them from moving into it. The US Supreme Court declared the practice unconstitutional in 1948.  After divorcing Chase, Randolph married railroad dining car server Edward Sanders, in August 1951. The couple divorced in December 1953. 

Like her sister, Amanda, Lillian was also one of the actresses to play the part of Beulah on radio. Randolph assumed the role in 1952 when Hattie McDaniel became ill; that same year, she received an "Angel" award from the Caballeros, an African-American businessmen's association, for her work in radio and television for 1951. She played Beulah until 1953, when Amanda took over for her.

In 1954, Randolph had her own daily radio show in Hollywood, where those involved in acting were featured. In the same year, she became the first African American on the board of directors for the Hollywood chapter of the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists.

In William Hanna and Joseph Barbera's Tom and Jerry cartoons at the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer cartoon studio during the 1940s and early 1950s, she was uncredited for voicing the maid character, Mammy Two Shoes. She voiced Jerry Mouse in The Milky Waif (1946, uncensored version), in the scene where Jerry and Nibbles hide in the closet and disguise themselves as a pair of black people. The character's last appearance in the cartoons was in Push-Button Kitty in September 1952. MGM, Hanna-Barbera and Randolph had been under fire from the NAACP, which called the role a stereotype. Activists had been complaining about the maid character since 1949. The character was written out entirely. Many of these had a white actress (June Foray) redubbing the character in American TV broadcasts and in the DVD collections.

This was not the only time Randolph received criticism. In 1946, Ebony published a story critical of her role of Birdie on The Great Gildersleeve radio show.  Randolph and a scriptwriter provided a rebuttal to them in the magazine. Lillian Randolph believed these roles were not harmful to the image or opportunities of African Americans. Her reasoning was that the roles themselves would not be discontinued, but the ethnicity of those in them would change.

In 1956, Randolph and her choir, along with fellow Amos 'n' Andy television show cast members Tim Moore, Alvin Childress, and Spencer Williams set off on a tour of the US as "The TV Stars of Amos 'n' Andy". However, CBS claimed it was an infringement of its rights to the show and its characters. The tour soon came to an end.

Lillian was selected to play Bill Cosby's character's mother in his 1969 television series, The Bill Cosby Show.[8] She later appeared in several featured roles on Sanford and Son and The Jeffersons in the 1970s. She also taught acting, singing and public speaking.

Randolph made a guest appearance on a 1972 episode of the sitcom Sanford and Son, entitled "Here Comes the Bride, There Goes the Bride" as Aunt Hazel, an in-law of the Fred Sanford (Redd Foxx) character who humorously gets a cake thrown in her face, after which Fred replies "Hazel, you never looked sweeter!". Her Amos 'n' Andy co-star, Alvin Childress, also had a role in this episode. She played Mabel in Jacqueline Susann's Once Is Not Enough (1975) and also appeared in the television miniseries, Roots (1977), Magic (1978) and The Onion Field (1979).

In March 1980, she was inducted into the Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame.

Lillian's daughter, Barbara, grew up watching her mother perform. At age eight, Barbara had already made her debut in Bright Road (1953) with Harry Belafonte and Dorothy Dandridge.

Choosing to adopt her mother's maiden name, Barbara Randolph appeared in her mother's nightclub acts (including that with Steve Gibson and the Red Caps) and had a role in Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967). She decided to follow a singing career.

Randolph died of cancer at Arcadia Methodist Hospital in Arcadia, California on September 12, 1980, at the age of 65. She was buried in Forest Lawn Memorial Park (Hollywood Hills). Her sister, Amanda, is buried beside her.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lillian_Randolph

[mariocki]

An uncredited Jacqueline Hill appears as an unnamed Irish barmaid in The Vise: Death Pays No Dividends (1.5, ABC, 1954); in the UK, this episode wasn't seen until 1960 as part of ITV anthology The Crooked Path

[recentanimenews]

Random Reads 2/18/21

Are You in the House Alone? by Richard Peck Are You in the House Alone? came out in 1976 and though I totally could’ve read it when I was a teen—and thus still a member of its target audience—I never did.

Gail Osburne is a sixteen-year-old high school junior and native New Yorker who’s not at home in the quaint Connecticut village her family relocated to several years back. I knew that the plot involved Gail receiving menacing anonymous notes and phone calls, and I was expecting these events to get started quickly and the suspense to remain high throughout. But that doesn’t happen.

Instead, the story is told retroactively, so we know Gail survives. Also, obvious culprit is obvious. (I hope the reveal wasn’t intended to be a surprise, but perhaps readers were less savvy about such things in 1976.) Initially, much more of the focus is on Gail’s relationships with her parents, boyfriend, and best friend, and in particular how the latter two are in the slow process of dissolution. Eventually she receives some threatening notes and creepy phone calls, gets scared, is let down by people in positions of authority, and comes face-to-face with said obvious culprit. That happens halfway through this slim novel. The rest of the book is about Gail’s recovery from her ordeal.

I thought Are You in the House Alone? was going to be fun, suspenseful fluff, but it turned out to be fairly serious and occasionally (intentionally) infuriating. I really appreciated how Peck was able to weave in a couple of threads that seemed very random at first and make them integral to the denouement, too. Ultimately, I didn’t love the book, but I kind of… respect it, if that makes sense. It didn’t go the cheap route.

The Automatic Detective by A. Lee Martinez Mack Megaton is a hulking robot who was created to destroy. He developed self-determination, however, and went against his programming. Now, he’s a probationary citizen of Empire City, where mutagens and pollution have created a very diverse population. While some “biologicals” are still “norms,” others have been physically transformed (like rat-like Detective Alfredo Sanchez) and others have been changed in not-so-visible ways (like Mack’s friend, Jung, a talking gorilla with refined literary taste). Mack works as a cab driver and is trying to keep a low profile, but when his neighbors are abducted, he can’t help but try to rescue them. This gets him into all sorts of trouble, of course.

Despite its name, The Automatic Detective isn’t really much of a mystery. I suppose it’s more… sci-fi noir. Mack meets various thugs, beats some of them up, gets beat up himself, etc. Slowly, he makes progress on uncovering a huge conspiracy. At times, I felt like Martinez was a little too enamored of the gimmick he created, and places in the middle dragged a bit as a result, but the ending is pretty satisfying and overall the book was enjoyable enough, even though it’s quite far from the sort of thing I usually read.

As a final note: I really liked that Martinez limited himself when it came time to invent universe-specific profanity. Instead of the text being liberally sprinkled with words like “frell” or “frak,” the phrase “Oh, flurb” appears but once (during a moment where the meaning is 100% apparent) and made me laugh out loud.

I don’t know if I’m necessarily eager to read more by Martinez, but I’m glad I read this one.

The Inimitable Jeeves by P. G. Wodehouse When I read My Man Jeeves back in 2010, I was somewhat disappointed because so much of it was repetitive. While there are some common elements that recur within the eleven stories that comprise The Inimitable Jeeves, it is still so very much superior that I’d now say… forget about that first book. Start here. Go back and read My Man Jeeves for completist purposes, if that’s your inclination, but start here for the best introduction to these characters and Wodehouse’s uniquely charming and amusing writing.

First published in 1923, The Inimitable Jeeves contains a linked set of stories that typically involve affable Bertie Wooster being imposed upon by either his eternally lovesick friend Bingo Little (who is “always waylaying one and decanting his anguished soul”) or his mischief-making younger cousins, Claude and Eustace. One plot thread involves convincing Bingo’s uncle (who provides him with an allowance) to agree to Bingo marrying a waitress. Jeeves comes up with the idea to ply the uncle with romance novels featuring class differences to soften his heart, and it ends up that Bertie is compelled to go visit the old fellow and claim to be the author. In addition to containing the most elegant description of sweat I’ve ever seen—“The good old persp was bedewing my forehead by this time in a pretty lavish manner.”—this situation is referenced a few times in subsequent stories until Bingo succeeds in getting married to a different waitress who really is the author of those romance novels.

So, even though you’ve got episodic happenings, it’s rather a satisfactory conclusion. Bertie is endearing, Jeeves is competent, the writing is excellent, and it made me laugh. (I especially liked when a character was described as resembling “a sheep with a secret sorrow.”) I’m so glad that I didn’t give up on the series after the first book; now I feel as though I finally see what the fuss is all about. I’d also like to give credit to the fabulous narration by Jonathan Cecil. I’m not sure if it’s deliberate, but I hear echoes of Fry and Laurie in his performance, and I heartily approve. I will certainly seek out more unabridged versions read by him.

The Murders of Richard III by Elizabeth Peters This is the second in the Jacqueline Kirby series of mysteries. I haven’t read the first, and wouldn’t normally begin with the second, but the book promised an English country mansion plus “fanatic devotees of King Richard III” so my usual routine flew right out the window.

Even before university lecturer Thomas Carter likened himself unto Watson, I’d noticed the similarities between how this tale is told and the Sherlock Holmes stories. We are never permitted inside Jacqueline’s head. Instead, we see her how Thomas, hopeful of one day securing her romantic affections, views her. It’s fairly interesting, actually, because Thomas’ opinion of her fluctuates, sometimes peevishly. ���You drive me crazy with your arrogance and your sarcasm and your know-it-all airs,” he says at one point. And though he soon after claims “I’m no male chauvinist; I don’t mind you showing off,” the fact is that earlier he was grumbling inwardly about her feigning “girlish ignorance” to reel in mansplainers and then walloping the “unwitting victim” with a cartload of knowledge. It’s true that Jacqueline isn’t especially likeable sometimes, but for remorselessly trouncing the sexist louts she encounters throughout the book, I must commend her!

The mystery itself is somewhat bland, unfortunately. The leader of a Ricardian society has received a letter purportedly written by Elizabeth of York, which would exonerate Richard of the deaths of her brothers, the “princes in the tower.” He calls a meeting of the society, with each attendee costumed as one of the historical personages involved, and summons the press, planning to unveil his find with much fanfare. But someone begins playing practical jokes on the Ricardians reminiscent of the fates of the people they are pretending to be. The book isn’t a long one, and soon the pranks start coming right on the heels of one another. Because of the swift pace—and some shallow characterization—the solution is rather anti-climactic.

Still, while I’m not sure I’ll seek out any more Jacqueline Kirby mysteries, this was overall a decent read.

A Perfect Match by Jill McGown The series of books featuring Detective Inspector Lloyd (whose first name is a secret for now) and Detective Sergeant Judy Hill begins with a short yet enjoyable mystery in which a wealthy young widow is found dead in a small English town on property she’d just inherited from her recently deceased husband. Unlike some mysteries of which I am fond, there’s no preamble where readers get to know the victim or the circumstances of their life. Instead, immediately there’s a policeman discovering the body and then Lloyd turns up to question the victim’s next of kin. This same lack of character development hampers the romantic tension between Lloyd and Hill, leaving me with no idea what motivated Hill to finally decide to act on her feelings for him, betraying her marriage vows in the process.

The mystery itself is interesting enough, however, involving long-married Helen and Donald Mitchell who have ties to both the victim, Julia—her late husband was Donald’s older brother and Helen thinks they were having an affair—and chief suspect, Chris, originally a friend of Donald’s who has fallen in love with Helen. I can’t claim to have mustered anything more than a mild curiosity as to what the outcome would be, but neither did I guess the specifics, so that was good. I liked the interrogation scenes, too.

McGown’s writing had some fun moments. I loved the super-evocative imagery of Lloyd telling Hill that her new perm makes her look like Kevin Keegan. I also really appreciated a recurring bit where each chapter ends with the point of view of wildlife. When Chris is eventually brought in by the police, his arrest is depicted from a bird’s perspective, for example. There are also ducks, a moth, a fly, a cat… I don’t know if this device recurs in later books in the series, but I look forward to finding out.

Reconstructing Amelia by Kimberly McCreight This is the second mystery/thriller I’ve read in which a single mom who is a lawyer with a cold and unfeeling mother of her own attempts to work out the mystery of what happened to a family member (the other being Girl in the Dark by Marion Pauw). Is that some kind of trend these days?

Kate Baron has a demanding job at a swanky firm, but she’s trying her best to be a good mom to her fifteen-year-old bookworm daughter, Amelia. She’s shocked to get a call from Grace Hall, the prestigious private school Amelia attends, saying that her daughter has been accused of cheating, and by the time she makes her way to the school, Amelia has evidently jumped to her death from the school roof. The police are only too happy to classify her death as a suicide, but when Kate gets a text that says “Amelia didn’t jump,” she starts trying to put together the pieces of what happened.

Reconstructing Amelia has quite a few problems. Despite her better judgment (and a promise to her best friend), Amelia joins a clique of bitchy girls at school who end up publicly humiliating her and trying to get her expelled when she falls in love with someone deemed off-limits. It’s hard to muster sympathy for what she ends up going through when one remembers the cruel prank she was willing to pull on someone else as part of the initiation process (largely kept off-camera to keep us from disliking her too much, I guess). We’re repeatedly told about the great relationship Amelia and her mom share, but never shown it. The subplot about Amelia’s dad is the literary equivalent of wilted lettuce. And the fact that the new detective who gets assigned to the case allows Kate to question suspects is absolutely ludicrous.

And yet, I couldn’t hate the book, largely because of Amelia’s friend, Sylvia. For much of the book she comes across as shallow and self-absorbed, but when Amelia really needs her, she’s there. She gives Amelia this tour of “great moments at Grace Hall” to cheer up her impressive pal, right before breaking down about her own legitimate pain. I never would’ve thought at the outset that I would have such immense sympathy for Sylvia, but I do. I find myself hoping that she’ll be okay.

Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane It sure is nice going into a book unspoiled, particularly one as twisty as Shutter Island. I was quite happy with the book as it began, with U.S. Marshals Teddy Daniels and Chuck Aule taking the ferry to Shutter Island to track down a patient missing from Ashcliffe Hospital for the Criminally Insane. It’s late summer 1954, and these guys are manly but accessible, and surprisingly funny. Consider this relatiely early exchange that cracked me up:

Pretentious Doctor: *makes remarks on the lives of violence the marshals must lead* Chuck: Wasn’t raised to run, Doc. Pretentious Doctor: Ah, yes. Raised. And who did raise you? Teddy: Bears.

For a while, all seems straightforward. Then Teddy confides to Chuck that he’s actually come there looking for a patient named Andrew Laediss, who was responsible for setting the fire that killed Teddy’s wife two years before. Gradually, one starts to doubt everything (and there was a point where all of the uncertainty got to be a little much for me) but the ultimate conclusion is a very satisfactory one.

Why Did You Lie? by Yrsa Sigurdardottir Set in Iceland, Why Did You Lie? starts out with three different storylines taking place a few days apart. The first involves a photographer on a helicopter journey to take pictures of a lighthouse on a rock in the middle of the ocean, the second is about a policewoman whose journalist husband has recently attempted suicide, and the third is about a family who returns from a house swap with an American couple to find some of their stuff missing and weird footage on the security camera. Of course, as the book progresses, these storylines converge, and it’s pretty neat when the police activity the helicopter flew over in chapter one turns out to be almost the culmination of the policewoman’s plot thread.

For some reason, I can’t help wondering how Ruth Rendell might’ve written this book. I think Rendell would’ve done a lot more with characterization, for one thing. There’s certainly some here, especially for the anxious husband who struggles to make his wife admit something really has gone wrong with their houseguests, but the primary concern seems to be getting on with the suspenseful action. Quickly, each plot features some kind of creepy lurker and then ominous notes (variations on the “why did you lie?” theme) figure in to all three, as well. Nina, the policewoman, digs around and talks to people and works out that everything connects to a supposed suicide from thirty years ago.

The result is certainly an entertaining book, but not one I could really love. One major issue I had is being able to predict something very significant. The number of characters who could’ve been angry enough about the 30-year-old lies in question to terrorize people in the present is very small. And once the existence of a certain person is oh-so-casually mentioned two-thirds through the book, I thought, “Oh, well, it’s them, then.” And then a little later, I figured out which of the characters it must be and I was right. This made for an anticlimactic ending that was clearly meant to be a shocking one. Also, I would’ve liked to have cared more that one character ends the novel poised to move on with life but, in reality, still in jeopardy.

I still would read more by this author, though.

By: Michelle Smith

[justagenerictardisblog]

Notes on series; Barbara Wright

An early 60′s girlboss you say? Jacqueline Hill’s Barbara was just that; and here’s why.

So, looking at the the major sources for the early companions, ‘Byzantium’ being like gold dust on the subject, it shows Barbara as having an early interest in history and starting to teach the subject at various schools pretty soon after uni, and there’s really not a lot on this that’s interesting sadly, she was written (as with a lot of female characters at that stage) as comparatively two dimensional.

If we go past everything until the night at 76 totter’s lane when she helps Ian break into the Tardis, thus getting kidnapped and becoming a companion, then she starts to have more of a character.

At first it seemed as if the writers were keen to make Barbs an older version of the stereotypical screamer that Susan was being forced into, often having Ian protect her, Cecil Webber going as far as to describe her character as “Handsome well-dressed heroine”. But soon she starts taking on more of the plot heavy characterisation herself, mimicking an Aztec god in one of the episodes, and using a flare gun to kill an enemy.

In the case of the Daleks (and the story they first appear in), she is vehemently arguing to destroy them, as soon as she has the weapons necessary to do so. And in the Edge of Destruction, it’s Barbara who holds her own against the Doctor when he accuses the teachers of messing up his tardis; she very much stands up to the doctor throughout her tenour, and has become symbolic of the early companions.

[colubrina]

Hello there, I love the aesthetic of the book related things you post and I was hoping you might be able to recommend some of your favorite books to read?

But of course!

Castle Hangnail by Ursula VernonOK, I know the target audience of this is probably nine-year-olds but, I swear, it is the cutest thing.  It’s probably at your library.  Get it for the 9-year-old girl in your life. Or for you.

The Fifth Season by N.K JemisinThree terrible things happen in a single day. Essun comes home to find that her husband has brutally murdered their son and kidnapped their daughter. Meanwhile, civilization collapses as most of the world is murdered to serve a madman’s vengeance. And worst of all, across the heart of the continent known, a rift has been been torn into the heart of the earth, spewing ash enough to darken the sky for years. Or centuries. Now Essun must pursue the wreckage of her family through a deadly, dying land. She doesn’t care if the world falls apart around her. She’ll break it herself, if she must, to save her daughter. I picked this book up because I thought, well, every book in the trilogy won a Hugo so they can’t be too awful, and every adult science fiction book I’d read in a while was not to my taste, and the whole trilogy is wonderful and restored my faith in the genre.

The Foxhole Court (which appears to be free on Kindle)I know there are a lot of things ‘wrong’ with this series.   The one-star reviews on Goodreads aren’t insane.  But I devoured it.  I prefer paper books, so I bought the first one as a hard copy, then downloaded 2 and 3 and read them voraciously.  People who sneer at this (and people do) could stand to step back and take a look at how she makes the reader care deeply about the characters and keep turning the pages.

In an Absent Dream by Seanan McGuireYou can read it without reading the others in the series, and you should (Actually, you should read all of them, but you can read this one independently). The ending gutted me.

Kushiel’s Dart by Jacqueline CareySet in a world of cunning poets, deadly courtiers, heroic traitors, and a truly Machiavellian villainess, this is a novel of grandeur, luxuriance, sacrifice, betrayal, and deeply laid conspiracies.  OK, you have a spy/courtesan, a kingdom set to be ruled by a queen determined to marry for love, and the brilliant noblewoman who wants the thone for herself.  It’s long.  It’s languid. I love it.  NSFW.

The Ocean at the End of the Lane  by Neil Gaiman.  A middle-aged man returns to his childhood home to attend a funeral and the unremembered past comes flooding back. And it is a past too strange, too frightening, too dangerous to have happened to anyone, let alone a small boy.  This book is magical, has all the best odd shifting realities of books that deal with otherworldly ones, and beautiful.  This is one of those books I just think of as impossibly perfect.  How does he DO that?

The Secret Horses of Briar Hill by Megan ShepherdThere are winged horses that live in the mirrors of Briar Hill hospital. In the mirrors that line its grand hallways, which once belonged to a princess. In those that reflect the elegant rooms, now filled with sick children. It is her secret.  One morning, when Emmaline climbs over the wall of the hospital’s abandoned gardens, she discovers something incredible: a white horse with broken wings has left the mirror-world and entered her own.

The Scorpio Races by Maggie StiefvaterThis book is just perfect.

Skellig by David AlmondUnhappy about his baby sister's illness and the chaos of moving into a dilapidated old house, Michael retreats to the garage and finds a mysterious stranger who is something like a bird and something like an angel.  Another book I devoured.  The combination of emotional reality and the impossibly magical is flawless.  How are people this good?  How???

[heavenboy09]

Happy Birthday 🎂 🥳 🎉 🎈 🎁 🎊 To You

1 Of The Most Well Known and Captivating British Actress 👩🇬🇧 Of The 1960s

Born On September 13th, 1944

Bisset was born Winifred Jacqueline Fraser Bisset in Weybridge, Surrey, England, the daughter of George Maxwell Fraser Bisset (1911–1982), a general practitioner, and Arlette Alexander (1914–1999), a lawyer-turned-housewife.

She is a British actress. She began her film career in 1965 and first came to prominence in 1968 with roles in The Detective, Bullitt, and The Sweet Ride, for which she received a Golden Globe nomination as Most Promising Newcomer. In the 1970s, she starred in Airport (1970), The Mephisto Waltz (1971), Day for Night (1973), which won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, Le Magnifique (1973), Murder on the Orient Express (1974), St. Ives (1976), The Deep (1977), The Greek Tycoon (1978) and Who Is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe? (1978), which earned her a Golden Globe nomination as Best Actress – Motion Picture Comedy or Musical.

Bisset's other film and TV credits include Rich and Famous (1981), Class (1983), her Golden Globe-nominated role in Under the Volcano (1984), her CableACE Award-nominated role in Forbidden (1985), Scenes from the Class Struggle in Beverly Hills (1989), Wild Orchid (1990), her Cesar Award-nominated role in La Cérémonie (1995), Dangerous Beauty (1998), her Emmy-nominated role in the miniseries Joan of Arc (1999), Britannic (2000), The Sleepy Time Gal (2001), Domino (2005), a guest arc in the fourth season of Nip/Tuck (2006), Death in Love (2008), and the BBC miniseries Dancing on the Edge (2013), for which she won a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress - Series, Miniseries or Television Film.

Bisset has since appeared in Welcome to New York (2014), Miss You Already (2015), The Last Film Festival (2016), Backstabbing for Beginners (2018) and Birds of Paradise (2021). She received France's highest honour, the Legion of Honour, in 2010. She speaks English, French, and Italian.

Please Wish This Very Well Known & Dedicated Stunning British Actress👩‍🦳 🇬🇧 Of The 1960s, A Very Happy Birthday 🎂 🥳 🎉 🎈 🎁 🎊

SHE IS FROM AN AGE OF CLASSIC MOVIE MAKING 🎥

SHE HAS THE ALLURING BEAUTY OF A AGELESS GODDESS

& SHE IS A WORLD CLASS BRITISH ACTRESS IN CINEMA 🎥

THE 1 & THE ONLY

MS. WINIFRED JACQUELINE FRASER BISSET AKA JACQUELINE BISSET 👩‍🦳🇬🇧❤

HAPPY 80TH BIRTHDAY 🎂 🥳 🎉 🎈 🎁 🎊 TO YOU MS. BISSET 👩‍🦳🇬🇧❤ & HERE'S TO MANY MORE YEARS TO COME

#JacqulineBisset