It is almost time for Amy Pond to leave Doctor Who.
Good. Never in the 50 years of this show have we had to endure such a smug, self-centred, undeserving, unrealistic companion. I would happily have pushed her out of the Tardis into the black vacuum of space. Whenever she faced a Dalek, I was rooting for the Dalek.
The trouble was that Amy always seemed so ungrateful about the opportunity she'd been given to travel through the universe and thought, like so many young women do, that her emotions were the centre of it. This made her an exception in the long line of Doctor Who companions.
Take Adric for example. Adric was the young mathematician who travelled with the Fifth Doctor, Peter Davison. He died while trying to save earth from being blown up by Cybermen. Or Romana, the Time Lord friend of Tom Baker who gave it all up to fight for the right of slaves on a distant planet. They were selfless and strong and, even though they came from the planets Alzarius and Gallifrey respectively, were essentially British.
Which goes right to the heart of what has gone wrong with the companion. In the classic series, a companion would bite their bottom lip in the face of apocalypse and if they had to say goodbye to the Doctor, it would be with a handshake rather than floods of self-centred tears. It also doesn't help that Amy's words are written by a middle-aged man who thinks one-liners are more important than a good plot.
Unfortunately, the signs are that things will not improve with Amy's successor, Oswin, who is cut from the same shallow cloth. What has happened is that Doctor Who – that wonderful, escapist show – is now part of a society that thinks how you feel is more important than what you do, even if that is saving the universe.
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