Out of date Who

It was the end of an era at the weekend, as I finally watched the last ever episode of 70's children's classic, The Tomorrow People; a four parter entitled The War Of The Empires. It was a suitably epic finale, with the Earth caught in the middle of an interstellar war between two alien races and the Tomorrow People having to defy the bureaucratic handwringing of the Galactic Federation and save the day on their own.

Of course, as the cast oh so gleefully point out on commentary, the epic nature of the finale; itself a fluke, since this was never intended to be the end; is undercut slightly by the fact that one of said alien races look like giant rubber penises. This show , it seems, was destined to never quite tick all the boxes at the same time.

A Sorson

But as I keep saying; and I guess I have to mean it this time; I'm not just here to talk about The Tomorrow People. Nope, this week I'm going to have a little something to say about...

Now, I've not talked about Doctor Who for a long time. I stayed away from the 'is the extended break a sign that the show is in trouble, even though the ratings are as high as ever' nonsense; I stayed away from the 'is Steven Moffat a big old sexist' faff, (but seriously, have you watched Press Gang?) and I declined to comment on the new companion announcement (but since we're on the subject, I approve). I feel that the time is right to break my silence now though, because, well, I had nothing else to talk about and I had a sudden random memory of something Who related and thought 'that'll do'.

See, way back in the dim and murky past; when Moffat was first setting up his stall; he created Amy Pond.

All, and I do mean all, of the speculation surrounding that first series; at least on the boards I frequented; was related to her. People believed, quite rightly as it turned out, that Moffat would have some trick up his sleeve and the clues pointed to that trick being Amy related. I begged to differ. I said that Amy was a red herring and that any importance she had, over and above just being a great companion which in my view is importance enough, would be entirely circumstantial. River, I said, would be the main thrust of Moffats tenure. The phrase I used was, 'Moffats Rose', a character that would drop in and out of the show and come to define his era, in the way that Rose had done for the RTD years.

The main points that were thrown at me, to prove me wrong, were as follows;

"She lives alone, with no adults!" Well, she mentions an Aunt. "Yes, but we never see the Aunt!"

"She doesn't remember the Daleks!"

"Her village is weird! The duck pond with no ducks, and the dates on things being a bit off."

And as we are all now aware, each of those points was... nothing to do with Amy. Her Aunt existed, we just didn't see her in the opener because we didn't need to for the story. In fact, she probably would have derailed it.

She didn't remember the Daleks because no-one remembered the Daleks.

The duck pond had no ducks because of the time cracks. Which had nothing, personally, to do with her.

The dates in the village were, if I had to guess, intentionally fudged to make it difficult to pinpoint exactly when her 'present' was, given how often she is said to have to wait years for the Doctor. Certainly, it never becomes a major issue in the storyline.

No, Amy's main claim to fame, as it were, was not as a shapeshifter, or a construct, or a 'cuckoo' sent to spy on the Doctor. It was that she was River's Mother. So, you know, reflected importance from the character whose story Moffat really wanted to tell.

I'm not saying this to in any way denigrate the character of Amy because as companions go, despite a rocky start, she's a good 'un. If anything, I'll be glad if we can move even further away from the idea of Companion as Myth, after the Rose/BadWolf, Year of Martha, and Doctor/Donna stuff. So if I say she was ordinary, I mean it in the best possible way.

I've held off on pointing out this staggeringly brilliant prediction because, I'll be honest, I kept expecting something to happen that would derail my victory celebrations, but I think that I can rest easily now; she only has a handful of episodes left and I doubt very much that anything she does in them is going to overshadow the whole, 'Mother of the love of the Doctor's life' thing.

So there you have it, this weeks post is simply an excuse for me to gloat over winning  a 3yr old argument no-one else even remembers having. What! It's my blog, if you don't like it you can bugger off. (But please dont bugger off)

Next week will be yet more Moffat talk, because I am finally about to watch Jekyll, which I started when it aired but never saw the end of. I'm expecting great things. I'll see you then.