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Post by Brunhilde on Jun 15, 2010 12:48:17 GMT
So I've been browsing a bit and Liz doesn't appear to have a thread. Admittedly she was in one season, and she left without a goodbye scene, but....
Seriously, she is awesome. By far my favourite companion and in my opinion hugely underrated.
Discuss??!
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Post by primsong on Jun 15, 2010 14:21:27 GMT
I didn't take to Liz as much as the other companions in that era (and I include the UNIT family as "companions" there), but I thought her no-nonsense approach suited her, and it was interesting the way she sort of came at the Doctor's eccentricity as if she were the adult and he were a child that needed keeping in line - I don't know if I'd really seen that since Barbara.
She had great chemistry with the Brig - some folks would say literally, hence all of the Brig/Liz fic floating about out there - and was a good, strong female character in spite of the mini-skirts, which she managed to wear with complete confidence somehow.
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Post by Brunhilde on Jun 15, 2010 16:07:50 GMT
She had great chemistry with the Brig - some folks would say literally, hence all of the Brig/Liz fic floating about out there. Not that I add to that in any way...not at all.... *giggles* She did suffer from a very short run as companion, but like you I enjoyed the way she interacted with the Doctor. Not his equal, certainly, but I think the closest he would get until Romana. And for a character who in Spearhead from Space was a very severe, very sarcastic career scientist, her personality certainly developped over the course of time. And the skirts/dresses...if only I could wear such things with her complete confidence. *sigh*
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Post by primsong on Jun 15, 2010 20:21:26 GMT
Agreed - while I *technically* could wear a mini-skirt I don't think the results would be too flattering, hah! My youthful legs were pretty good, but my middle-aged ones definitely need help...and I never looked like Liz. :-D I like your point regarding his not really having a strong 'equal' female til Romana, though I would differ only slightly with nods to Zoe's intelligence and Barbara's ability to keep him in his place.
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Post by clocketpatch on Jun 15, 2010 21:17:42 GMT
Some of Liz's outfits put Amy to shame (and they're both redheads too... hmm...) and then there's that one story arc (I'm thinking it's the Silurians, but don't quote me on that) that starts with the Doctor lying down working on Bessie and Liz standing over him and... just saying.
I like her as a companion. I like her with the Brig. I like her no-nonsense note leaving, um, leaving. My only problem is that season 7, though awesome, contains some of the most drawn-out stories in all of Whodom. I love Spearhead and Inferno, don't get me wrong, but the other two bore me to tears.
Sorry Three.
(I still love you and your ruffles though)
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Post by jjpor on Jun 15, 2010 21:48:08 GMT
Well, it was because it was cheaper for them to make fewer long stories than more short stories (only had to pay for new sets and costumes once per story, basically). But yeah, as much as I like S7 (I like The Silurians as well as the other two. I've only ever seen Ambassadors of Death once, a long time ago, and probably need to see it again to form a proper opinion of it), just about all of those stories could do with a trim. Apart from Inferno, because you can never have too much Eyepatch!Brig. But yeah, Liz. I think Liz is great; I love her interaction with the Doctor, and with the Brig as well (Liz/Brig is totally canon...in my mind, at least). As much as I enjoy much of the later Three stories (and let's face it, Delgado Master is awesomeness personified), I do think they lost something over the S7-S8 transition, becoming much cosier and more formulaic. Not that there's anything wrong with cosiness, but sometimes you want something a bit stronger.
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Post by Brunhilde on Jun 15, 2010 22:28:16 GMT
I like your point regarding his not really having a strong 'equal' female til Romana, though I would differ only slightly with nods to Zoe's intelligence and Barbara's ability to keep him in his place. Yes, I wouldn't disagree with you there, they were both extremely strong characters. Liz seems perhaps like an amalgamation of the two, with her own distinct personality thrown in to the mix? As for the stories...I liked them. I can see why you don't, and ironically, of all of them, Inferno is the one I found the dreariest - although not the alt!universe scenes, because it's true, Eyepatch!Brig is awesome (and he was definitely sleeping with his Liz....). And...Liz/Brig is so canon. Really it it.
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Post by jjpor on Jun 16, 2010 21:24:09 GMT
It really, really is! I don't even want to speculate about what Eyepatch!Brig and the other denizens of the Infernoverse might have got up to in their off-duty hours...
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Post by johne on Jun 16, 2010 22:50:32 GMT
I don't even want to speculate about what Eyepatch!Brig and the other denizens of the Infernoverse might have got up to in their off-duty hours... I did once, briefly and using Liz as my mouthpiece.
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Post by Brunhilde on Jun 16, 2010 23:17:33 GMT
johne - I like that very much.
Today I managed to disturb my own brain by writing an Inferno!Verse fic....
It wasn't so much the fic itself as it was the associated thoughts. Section Leader Shaw and Brigade Leader Lethbridge-Stewart...just no. It's wrong.
I want it out of my head now, please....
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Post by magnusgreel on Jun 17, 2010 7:53:36 GMT
I seem to remember that there was a great personality-moment with Liz while (whilst in UK?) in the hands of the enemy, but I can't remember anything about it. Anyhoo, I want to like season seven for its long stories which require patience from the viewer, always. Then I get bored and struggle through them. Still, in season five DW drew a sort of line in the sand and said, we're for adults now (adults with a healthy sense of the absurd anyway). Then partway into season eight, they backed away from that a bit.
I like Liz. There was no Susan-surrogate in sight, just a cool alien iconoclast scientist and his cranky human scientist assisant! The pavement had been laid for Quatermass-style adult SF! I admit though, the whimsy level was a bit low, and I really do like Jo too....
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Post by jjpor on Jun 20, 2010 21:50:00 GMT
I think that's the thing, Magnus; it's a definite trade-off between S7 and S8 - on the one hand you have the long, serious (if occasionally exhausting) sort of stories, and Liz, and the more "adult" tone (I think they were trying to position it at that point as the BBC equivalent of the sort of glossy adventure series that ITV were showing, but on a BBC budget, obviously...). On the other hand, you have cool stuff like the Master and Jo and Benton and Yatesy and the gang, but the stories tend to be simpler and, as I say above, more formulaic. So, it's a trade off; both have pros and cons. I suppose Mind of Evil sort of combines the best of both worlds, but that's a bit of an oddity in S8 terms, really.
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Post by magnusgreel on Mar 6, 2011 0:56:26 GMT
For me, s7 (I said s5 earlier, I order you all to ignore that mistake) lingered through Terror of the Autons and Mind of Evil in s8, where we even get Jo Grant in MoE playing a more competent UNIT professional, not a scientist like Liz, but early on in the story at least, she has a more dry, adult personality. These scenes must have been filmed before TotA. Claws of Axos premieres new lighter Three/Jo/UNIT to me.
As the Pertwee years went on, many came to think of those years as being very tame and formulaic. I remember one article in which DW producers were divided into "hawks" and "doves": those who were aggressively creative, and those who played it safe and went by a formula, respectively. Letts was supposed to be the latter, Hinchcliffe the former.
It didn't start off that way, under Barry Letts. DW was Quatermassed, perhaps too much, but I'm totally for making the program grow up. BL says that everything from Axos on was the kind of DW he'd intended to make from the start, though. Well, the DW "personality" and emotional feel needed to be replenished. We could still have had the more adult s7 feel too, and we did to some extent.
Out of those four stories, really, it's Spearhead that tries my patience more than any other, the "short" one. Inferno goes on forever despite being great, because of the scenes we have to see twice, for one thing. Ambassadors I keep wanting to go back and see again.
Anyway, I'm for eliminating bad stories and stretching out good ones to fill the gap. Maybe that's what they did here....
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