Donna Squee

[neadods]

I'm reccing mtgat's latest essay on Firefox Your Friends Are Not Watching The Same Show You Are (and that's OK) because it's worthy and readable as all her essays. But one line has really stood out for me:

While no one yet seems to be watching the "Donna Noble Show"

I am. I really am.

Each of the companions has had something for me to identify with: Rose's impetuousness and love of exploration. Martha's education and science fiction geek background. (If I wasn't bombing out to work shortly, I'd look up the link for the "Martha is me" post.)

But Donna is rocketing rapidly to the top of my "favorite new companion" list, and not just because she's the flavor of the month. I've recced Runaway Bride more than once as a good gateway show to New Who, and I know it captured at least one person into the fandom. Donna is also me - she's older, she's done a bunch of different things and (this is the part that seals the deal for me) she is bringing her variety of experiences into the adventures.

Off the top of my head, I only remember Rose using her specialized knowledge once - when she used gymnastics to save the Doctor in "Rose." Equally off the top of my head, I can't remember a time when Martha's specialized medical knowledge made a major plot difference. (ETA: I've been corrected: Martha's done CPR on the Doctor and restarted one heart, so she has directly saved the Doctor's life with her skills.) And the addition of the underlying love story made both women - both young, both to some degree remaking their lives - malleable to the Doctor's blandishments. (This isn't meant as character bashing, but to point out unused potential and the differences in the relationship all three had with the Doctor.)

Donna, however, has a rock-solid sense of who she is, what she wants, and what she has to bring to the table, and has no problem overwhelming anyone who tries to change any of that. (In a way, she reminds me of another much-loved pair of literary figures: Granny Weatherwax and her protegee Tiffany Aching.) When she wanted stability, she hunted down a husband (a bit literally). When she wanted adventure, she went looking for it, and when that wasn't enough, she promptly and calmly widened her research field and went hunting again in a successful plan that brought her back in contact with her self-chosen mentor.

Her family may not like her methods, but she certainly gets results!

And now that they're together, she continues to rise to the occasion. Faced with a decision more difficult than any new school companion and many old-school ones had to face, she not only did the right thing for history in Pompeii, despite having fought as hard against it as she could, she also comforted the Doctor. I've squeed before about her in Oood, having the compassion and curiosity to want to hear the song, but also the unashamed self-awareness to admit it was too much. And now in Sontaran Strategem, she didn't ask "Doctor, what do I do?" or sit around waiting (common companion occupations) - she demanded her own salute and then marched off to do what she knew would be useful from her own experience - and indeed, it was the key to the plot.

How cool is that? Seriously, how cool is that? Here is someone who makes no apologies for her life as it has been lived, and how many characters in any fandom can say THAT?

to be x-posted to marriedonmars when I'm not late for work.

Comments

[neadods.livejournal.com]

That's what I get for posting on my way out to work - I'd forgotten that scene. But the restarting the heart in Shakespeare ... bugger, I just typed "Shakespeare Strategem"... again off the top of my head, that's the only time she saved him with medical knowledge? The "talk to the hand and all the bones in it" scene showed knowledge but wasn't a plot point; for the freezing machine in 42 and the scanner in Smith & Jones, she stopped to read the manual.

I have, however, edited the essay, because no, that certainly wasn't in vain!

[spiralsheep.livejournal.com]

Well, unless he was holding his breath or something in Smith and Jones (I can't remember), she saved him with cpr in that too and there might well be further occasions I've forgotten cos I don't bother to remember details like that. :-)

I'm fairly sure she used medical knowledge in The Lazarus Experiment too but I don't remember if that actually saved the day or not. And she tried to revive a redshirt in The Shakespeare Code and Jack in Utopia and... and... she did use her medical knowledge a lot and it's not the character's fault if the writers didn't let it count as a plot resolution. ::shrugs::

[neadods.livejournal.com]

Restarted his heart in Shakespeare Code (although arguably this wasn't her training as he was giving her orders on what to do), CPR in Smith and Jones (noted in essay now), collected DNA (via allowing her hand to be kissed; this does assume Gatiss/Lazarus is a sloppy kisser, ew!) in Lazarus which did advance the plot, although it was gathering more data about what they already knew rather than sending the plot in a whole new direction.

This really isn't meant as Martha bashing. She is well away in the lead in Saving The Doctor's Bacon - she saved him far more often than he saved her (especially if you count The Year That Wasn't). And as a tech writer, I'm thrilled beyond belief that she read the manual in Smith and Jones and 42. Plus she is so far the only companion in ever who came on to the TARDIS with some knowledge of time travel fiction and was asking specific questions about the rules, and I've aways been a bit pissed that the Doctor was a dick about it.

Martha is fabulous. I still see a lot of myself in her. But I also see a whole heck of a lot of myself in Donna.

[spiralsheep.livejournal.com]

I didn't take it as Martha "bashing". I've always tended to like the current characters best, although season 1 Rose has a special place in my affections. The only reason I'm not attached more to Donna is because I'm not interested in new Who in general at the moment. ::shrugs::

I wasn't trying to correct you. My memory isn't detailed enough to rival the knowledge of most fannish people, especially fic writers who obsess about canon, heh. I was trying to be helpful but maybe that sounded like Donna-squee harshing or companion competitiveness, in which case I'm sorry cos I wouldn't want to harsh your obvious fan-happy. :-)

[neadods.livejournal.com]

De nada on the squee; mine is too bubbly to flatten right now, but I don't want it to come across like I'm lauding Donna at the expense of the other two companions. Not always easy to phrase on the Internet.

But I do want to be sure that I credit Martha where due!