Hello faithful readers,
When I was about six I remember watching an episode of Doctor Who called The Hand of Fear, and this was a pretty standard, although companion heavy episode about a malevolent alien who could control humans through the power of a special ring. In the end, it was a pretty easy fix for the Doctor, even though the whole of England was threatened with nuclear meltdown a couple of times and poor Sarah Jane was hypnotised and made to do a few pretty heinous things.
At the end of this episode though, my whole world turned upside down. Arbitrarily, and out of the blue, the Doctor made a decision on his companion, and, for one of the only times in the show's history, decided it was time for them to leave. Of course, he had a good reason (sort of), that he had been called to Gallifrey and that humans weren't allowed - but this really doesn't hold water, as before and since humans have been to Gallifrey, and it's never been mentioned since. Retro-fixing things, as us fans do, the new accepted "canon" is that the Doctor sort of knew what was in store for him on Gallifrey - a meeting with his best enemy - The Master - and that Sarah would not have been safe. With her own protests on how she had been treated recently still ringing in his ears, the Doctor sacrificed his relationship with his best friend and left her on Earth as he whizzed off, alone, in the TARDIS. The TARDIS appears in a suburban street, a normal road, and despatched Sarah Jane Smith, and her goodies, and the Doctor left.
More recently, the Doctor's need for a companion has seen him struggle with the dangerous he puts them in as opposed to the need to show off to someone. "Go home, Rose Tyler," he tells the love of his life, and he baulks against Donna and flatly refused to take Christina. In his knew regeneration he's been much more keen to show off again - his TARDIS has bulged more than ever before, whether it be Amy Pond, the Williams, River Song or even Canton III and he's not averse to going back looking for help from old friends.
But at what cost? The constant in his Eleventh Persona has been Amy Pond. Little Amelia, the girl who waited, sitting on a suitcase until she fell asleep in her garden, whisked away in her nighty the day before her wedding, and her whole life rewritten at least twice.And where do we start that as a mother Amy has had the most traumatic time of all companions - her whole self being a facsimile, her child stolen from her, her husband killed, more than once, wiped from her memory, and reinstated. All because of the Doctor, that raggedy man, and his need to show off.
During the encounter with Fenric, the seventh Doctor, Time's Champion, realised it was as dangerous to love him as it was to hate him - Fenric feared faith, feared the concept of unconditional love, and that love for the Doctor saw Ace, another companion who's life was so wrapped up in what and who the Doctor was it became a paradox of itself, actually having the ability to stop the Doctor saving everyone. Her very faith in him resolving the matter was the very thing stopping him.
Amy has that unconditional love for the Doctor. She has waited, more than once, for decades, for centuries for him. She knowns, without a doubt, he'll always come back. That he is a hero.
But at what cost? Is the Doctor being selfish? In Let's Kill Hitler he asks the TARDIS for an interface he can trust. It shows him Rose, Martha and Donna, all of whom the Doctor admits to having crushing guilt for - Rose, trapped with a half Doctor in another universe, Martha, her family tortured and enslaved, her own heart broken, now not a Doctor but a soldier and Donna, a shallow, mouthy wanderer when she is so, so much more. So the Doctor feels guilt for his past companions. But not for the Ponds?
The Ponds (Williams) time is coming. It surely must be. In The Girl Who Waited, Rory voices his concerns on how the Doctor changes people, how his seemingly charming and easy going nature gets people killed. Real people, in real situations. The fact Rory and Amy are still talking to the Doctor is a miracle. Death, rewritten histories, stolen children... and all for the TARDIS. "Offer a child a suitcase of sweets," the Doctor says... "Offer them the whole of Time and Space..." he then muses and the girl he's with, Rita, isn't daft - "Have you just done it again?" she asked.
The Ponds have been a great team for the Doctor. They have been patient, tolerant, brave and loyal. The Doctor, the hero, the man who always comes back, surely isn't that selfish? Surely the Ponds have been through enough? Perhaps for them to leave, it doesn't need alternate universes, temporal paradoxes or world destroying threats? Going with the themes of intimacy in series 6 - particularly 6b - perhaps all it needs for the Doctor and the Ponds to part company is for the Doctor to realise, like he did with Sarah, like he did with Christina, that, in the end, they're better without him?
The Doctor's middle name, he tells Amy, is Bad Penny - it gets some funny looks when he fills out forms - so he'll always turn up, so I don't think this is the end of the Ponds - indeed, now, with the Anniversary year approaching, it would be unrealistic to think we've seen the last of them - and, of course, Steven Moffat has been treating us with lots of loose ends being tied up, so the finale to Series 6 - including a Pond wedding again - would really suggest we haven't seen the end of them. But the Doctor, and the Ponds, in the TARDIS... those days aren't just numbered, but over.
I wonder who's next?
Happy Times and Places
Eddie
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