Actually, I think she would make a great Dr’s Assistant. She’s have one of the Tardis’ many rooms converted to a drum room in no time. They’d land on some barren rock out beyond the Andromeda Galaxy and Tom would say with that toothy grin, “Come on Joy, lets explore”, and she’d say, “Hang on a bit, you hunk, I have a great riff to practice” but she’d be on his flying coat tails – with her own blond hair flying too – in a minute with notebook in hand to blog a great piece about the Dalek incursions across the borders and Bill Clinton’s role in it. No sexist, feminist stuff either. And she’d outdo all the Drs in the wardrobe department too.

By the way, Joy, there’s a book you must read that has been reviewed as being the next best thing to ‘Animal Farm’.

It is ‘Cry Wolf’ by Paul Lake – an American Professor of Lit and a Poet, so you don’t need a transltor – about a ‘Green Pastures’ farm peacefully inherited from a kindly old owner who has died, by the animals. The wild forest outside is populated by predators but gradually the pleasant order of the well run and civilised farm is disrupted by a misplaced compassion that allows ‘prey’ creatures in from beyond the borders. They breed faster than the domesticated old-timers and form voting blocks to express their view ‘democratically’ and no-go areas to ‘protect’ female creatures. Even a fox manages to con his way in. Gradually the Laws are ‘interpreted’ and the farm’s mottos and maxims are abolished, destroying the cohesion and bringing ruin – and the predators ! At the end, as the bears circle, the last Old Bull girds himself for his last stand….

Not sci fi but in the very best Orwellian tradition of soc fi.

You’d love it.

Indeed, I think most people who frequent MND would love it.

The review I read was by Hal Colebatch in the Quadrant Journal (Australian, intellectual, slightly Right of Ghengis) and he – usually truculant – was unusually enthusiastic.

Read or drum, Gal, but write too.

But I agree with amfortas…they are really laying the women on thick. And as the older Dr. Who (Tom Baker) hardly ever visited the earth, this one can’t seem to get off of it and all it’s “new world order” problems. I like this actor, but long for a “Leela” return (now there was a feminist!) …and the imagination from the older series, of which STAR TREK stole many a plot.

They seem to be trying for that bored middle-aged woman audience, instead of making it a fun kid’s show…

When they make the doctor a “she” I bet it doesn’t last too long. Even in this age, even the women want a TIME LORD…to be a MAN…at least I speak for myself here.

And I bet a lot of women will miss “THE DOCTOR” even if he is a bit wussified.

It makes no difference to me, of course, whether you are entertained by these shows – as with any entertainment, it’s a matter of personal taste – but do you get the fact that they are very, very popular? They have been culturally significant for decades.

(I also have the original BBC television version of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy on DVD – and have read the book as well as other very successful books by Douglas Adams. For fans of such things who haven’t read Adams’ stuff – do it!)

Sorry, folks Dr. Who sucks….I couldnt even watch it for the pretense, let alone for entertainment.

Oh, I suppose I haven’t achieved the level required to “get it”

Within half an hour she is killed – by a nasty man of course – and after the Dr buggers off all dejected, she is brought back to life by a ‘Gaia Gas’ and goes off to ‘Independantly’ save the Universe, just like her old dad. (and maybe get an education).

He is blissfully unaware of this and goes on his merry way with that awful woman who masquerades as his assistant (but who would be better suited to washing the Tardis floors, with a tea cloth on her head and a fag** in her mouth).

Even the pretty black girl with the medical certificate from a post office box No in Yellowknife leaves him, knowing she just cannot compete with Mrs Mop.

I have a bet pending that the Dr finally carks it in the next few episodes and Miss Who PhD takes over. Clearly his brain is gone already.

Who says Sci Fi is fun. Once a femibred writer get his hands on it, it’s doomed.

God help me, I wish Rose would come back. The Dr just might get his once in ten thousand years shag before he goes.

** Cigarette, that is.

And hey – it used to be fun.

Here’s an old picture of me with The Doctor (Jon Pertwee, in the role 1970-1974).

http://www.geocities.com/rogerfgay/other/WHO.jpg

BTW: The TARDIS did seem bigger on the inside.

Lurking beneath the surface of this last Dr Who series (he cannot regenerate again; he is on his last life) is a creeping menace. Feminism. The whole series has deteriorated under a welter of Independant, sassy women who side-line the Dr., who in turn seems to have become blinded by the charms of the memorable but MIA Rose.

His several, rapid-turnover ‘assistants’ who have considerably less staying power compared to their 60/70s predecessors, interfere and drag their entire fatherless families – including rhumy-eyed grand-dads and welfare dependant mothers and cranky grandmothers – into whole swags of irrelevent script that seem to go on forever. You’d think the the Beloved British of the Dr’s experiences over ten thousand years, have all turned black or slaggy.

Now for the finale. Bugger transgenics, here comes the FEMALE Dr Who. Yes, it seems that all these years Dr Who has been a ‘Deadbeat Dr Dad’ who left behind a daughter, who comes back with a flip and a lip as a sort of mini, blond, Angelina Jolie, whacking chaps of all species left and right. None of your communication skills and empathy. Just a kick and a zap and the ubiquitous face-slap.

Dr Who is soon to be dead; long live his little girl.

She has 12 lives ahead too.

God help us all.