COMPANION PIECE

I don't claim to be an expert on 'Doctor Who' - so many episodes I've never seen, so many details I end up forgetting from those that I have. And I can't study just one tree when there's the whole Toobworld forest to watch over.

So I usually depend on others to find the tidbits from the show on which I can work some televisiological punditry that hopefully I can get away with.

One of the continuing discussions I've found online which has proven to be of interest to me is: "What constitutes a true Companion for the Doctor?"

I first noticed this after the Christmas special "Voyage Of The Damned", as some commenters in various bbs forums debated whether or not Astrid Peth should be considered one of the Doctor's Companions. One of the arguments against her inclusion has been that she never traveled in the TARDIS.

Yet she accompanied the Doctor on the short trip down to Earth that Christmas Day, and he basically accompanied her on the journey of the Titanic through space getting to Earth. So what if the TARDIS wasn't involved?

But if that's the criteria, then Kazran Sardick and Abigail Pettigrew have to be considered the latest Companions for the Doctor. Think of all the trips they made with him in the TARDIS on all of those Christmas Eves, as well as that first trip to escort Clive the shark (so named by the crew, but in the episode it was a female shark) back into the crystalline clouds above Sardicktown.

And with those trips came adventures, just like all the other Companions have experienced - the Statue of Liberty and the Empire State Building in New York City, a party at Sinatra's in 1952 Hollywood, the Sphinx and the Pyramids in Egypt, and the sweetest of all - a chance to visit the Christmas Eve festivities of Abigail's family. So there are several 'Doctor Who' sites I often visit which catalog the Companions as part of their concerns, and I'll be checking back in with them over the course of the next few monhs to see if they have updated their lists to include Kazran and Abigail.....

BCnU!