That comment by fellow Crossoverist Ivan Ronald Schablotski back in May got me thinking about the status of Barbara Wright and Ian Chesterton in today's Toobworld.
I take the statement about the Doctor's first Earth-born Companions literally. We've seen far stranger things happen to the people in the Doctor's life - Grant is now a super-hero; Nardole is a cyborg, with his humanoid head attached to a robotic body; River Song "lives" inside a computer simulation; Clara is "alive" in between her last two heart-beats; and Ashildr aka Lady Mee (my preferred spelling) has been rendered immortal via that talisman/medi-chip in her forehead.
And then there's Captain Jack Harkness, of course.....
And then there's Captain Jack Harkness, of course.....
Immortality seems to be a running theme then.....
But Time marches on for the actors who play these characters, for all of the characters - aging is the main problem in reuniting the various actors who have played the Doctor. (Death even more so for the first three Incarnations, the law firm of Hartnell, Troughton, and Pertwee.) They've been able to get around it a bit - first with Richard Hurndall stepping in for William Hartnell to play what I consider to be a younger version of the First Incarnation. Then there were those silly dummy heads for Hartnell and Patrick Troughton in the "Dimensions In Time" reunion. Tom Baker came back for the 50th anniversary special, but wisely they had him playing a future Incarnation, now known as the Curator. Peter Davison's aging (once the youngest Doctor which held through to his regeneration) was "splained" away with a touch of techno-babble banter.....
That would also splain why the Second Incarnation looked so old when he interacted with the Sixth Incarnation.
And speaking of the Sixth Incarnation....
Colin Baker has transformed the most since his stint in the TARDIS. That's Life. But I would still like to see him return to the series. And with what I had in mind, I could see him coming back on a recurring basis!
First off, we would just have to toss aside any hopes of seeing him back as the Doctor. I think that's too big of a time differential to pull off. But Baker had been in the series before, playing Commander Maxil of the Gallifreyan Guard. Why not bring him back to bedevil the Doctor, perhaps holding him accountable for any demotions he might have been given?
Or why not have him take on the role of the Master? Because of the Curator, apparently a Time Lord can "revisit" some of the old faces. And since the Sixth Incarnation and Maxil seem to have "taken a face from the ancient gallery" as it were, the same face, why couldn't the Master do the same? He might find it amusing to carry out his nefarious deeds while wearing the visage of his oldest frenemy.
Wait a minute. I wasn't talking about them. This was supposed to be about Ian and Barbara!
Humans can't regenerate. It's one of the few splainins for a Terran recastaway which I can't use. And I wouldn't want to have the roles recast and leave it at that. It would have to be Jacqueline Hill and William Russell or forget it.
Sadly, Jacqueline Hill passed away in 1993. (She basically had the same life-span as my Dad, from 1929 to 1963.) And William Russell, while still alive and still acting (He played the "doorman" at the BBC in "An Adventure In Space And Time"), is pretty old - not the best poster boy for immortality.
That could be the hook though. What if in some unseen adventure, fanfic if it must be, Ian journeyed back in Time to ancient Greece in the Age of Legend? Doesn't even have to be with the Doctor, no matter what incarnation you favor. There are plenty of Time Agents and other resources for reaching back to that time... the Time Tunnel! Why not? I am partial to crossovers, after all.
But if you want to keep it within the Whovian stratosphere, then I think traveling with the Curator might be the best bet. At some earlier stage in their lives, still an unseen adventure, Barbara and Ian gained their immortality. (It may be unseen, but perhaps not unread - I'm sure somebody has addressed the immortality question by now, either in some licensed forum or fanfic.)
However.... Something must have gone wrong in Ian's case. And it didn't become recognizable until he and Barbara, traveling with the Curator, arrived in ancient Greece, during the Age of Legend. Perhaps it was the work of a sorceror or a warlock - using a spell aimed directly at Ian. He was still immortal, with ever-lasting life. But he wasn't granted ever-lasting youth. He became old, and frail, and withered. And among those who witnessed this phenomenon would be a story-teller who would pass on the tale as myth, being the only way the people would come to accept what must have seemed so inconceivable as Truth. (Not too far off from what happened in the present day when the people of Earth Prime-Time easily accepted the emergence of the Cybermen from St. Paul's, the Army of Ghosts all across the world, the Battle of Canary Wharf, the Slitheen attack on Big Ben, and the total removal of the planet from the Solar System Davros and his Daleks, as being mass hypnosis, publicity stunts, whatever to keep them from acknowledging the Truth.)
But after they departed, that story-teller began weaving this new myth, one in which the sight of Ian shriveling down due to the rapid aging process looking rather like an insectoid. And they would forever after be remembered by new names - as the goddess Eos and her lover Tithonus.
Barbara was not affected by that aging spell at all. She would be still looking the same as she did when she left the TARDIS with Ian all those decades ago. But they couldn't stay together with Ian in his aging condition. So the Curator did the only thing possible: he brought Ian to the planet of New Earth where he could be tended by the Sisters of Plenitude while bringing Barbara back to the "present" time.
No clue as to when I would set this story. Thinking in terms of it being televised, it would have to be after William Russell had reached his current appearance. As to the situation with Barbara? Remember that scene in "The Name Of The Doctor" when Clara met the First Incarnation of the Doctor? The same type of technical wizardry could be performed in Barbara's case. Old footage of Jacqueline Hill could be updated and re-worked scripting could keep her confined to the TARDIS during most of the adventure. (You could even use footage from other sources as well if needed.)
Barbara should be considered as still living on Earth Prime-Time; she will never die and she will always look as she did in the early 1960s. I'd like to think that the Curator provided for her in some way, perhaps by setting up living quarters for her in a disused wing of the Under-Gallery. And she would not be wanting for company, as I'm sure that there would always be somebody from the Doctor's band of former Companions who could spend time with her. Who else could understand what a difference the Doctor made in their lives?
And more than likely, Barbara would be kept busy by UNIT. She could spend her time in research, or drawing on her skills as a teacher to impart her experiences to UNIT officials. And she might have taken on a lover or three - she would always love Ian, but she would have accepted that he was but a memory now; Life goes on.
In an earlier post, I pointed out that Barbara had become a writer by the early 1970s, fictionalizing her adventures with the Doctor. Locked away in the Under-Gallery, I'd like to think she's there still, typing up new stories which she could sell. In fact, this idea just struck me - in my vision of Toobworld, it is Barbara Wright-Chesterton who is now the head of UNReel, the organization which is in charge in keeping the public from panic should they ever find out the exploits of the Doctor, James Bond, the men from U.N.C.L.E., and others are actually happening. Better for the general safety of the world that they think it's all fiction.....
BCnU!
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