and in news of Doctor Who past
Apr. 2nd, 2013 03:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakI just came across this excerpt of a conversation between Katy Manning and Russell T. Davies which is from an upcoming dvd audio commentary on The Green Death, in which they discuss Jo Grant. Observe me going awwwww.
When I started to get into Doctor Who and watched old and new episodes, Jo was a companion who kept getting bad references; she was held up for ridicule and described as the "screamer", the useless one, etc.,, contrasted to her disadvantage with the two other Third Doctor companions, Liz Shaw and Sarah Jane Smith, not to mention later companions like Romana or Ace. It therefore caught be by (very pleasant) surprise how completely I fell for Jo when I actually watched her episodes. I fell in love so completely that the most exciting thing about the Sarah Jane Adventures two parter "Death of the Doctor" (spoiler: he doesn't die) wasn't that Eleven would guest star in SJA (Ten had already done so), but that Jo would, and we'd get a meeting between her and Sarah Jane. And what made me even more excited was that our former Welsh overlord, RTD, said that he disliked that Jo in the DW tie in media, the books, had gotten a divorce and cancer, that this was not the fate of Jo, and he would change that. Which he did con brio. As of SJA tv canon, Jo had a splendid adventurous post Doctor life, and a family of world saving hippies, and is still full of joie de vivre. (And the occasional klutziness.) (While he was at it, our Rusty also gave a happy ending to a dozen other Old Who companions as indicated in Sarah Jane's closing monologue as to what had become of them.) Just when I was feeling a bit blasé and jaded and DW, this interview excerpt brought back not only the Jo containing SJA two parter but a wave of program love. In conclusion: Jo Grant: still groovy. Also: awwwwww.
When I started to get into Doctor Who and watched old and new episodes, Jo was a companion who kept getting bad references; she was held up for ridicule and described as the "screamer", the useless one, etc.,, contrasted to her disadvantage with the two other Third Doctor companions, Liz Shaw and Sarah Jane Smith, not to mention later companions like Romana or Ace. It therefore caught be by (very pleasant) surprise how completely I fell for Jo when I actually watched her episodes. I fell in love so completely that the most exciting thing about the Sarah Jane Adventures two parter "Death of the Doctor" (spoiler: he doesn't die) wasn't that Eleven would guest star in SJA (Ten had already done so), but that Jo would, and we'd get a meeting between her and Sarah Jane. And what made me even more excited was that our former Welsh overlord, RTD, said that he disliked that Jo in the DW tie in media, the books, had gotten a divorce and cancer, that this was not the fate of Jo, and he would change that. Which he did con brio. As of SJA tv canon, Jo had a splendid adventurous post Doctor life, and a family of world saving hippies, and is still full of joie de vivre. (And the occasional klutziness.) (While he was at it, our Rusty also gave a happy ending to a dozen other Old Who companions as indicated in Sarah Jane's closing monologue as to what had become of them.) Just when I was feeling a bit blasé and jaded and DW, this interview excerpt brought back not only the Jo containing SJA two parter but a wave of program love. In conclusion: Jo Grant: still groovy. Also: awwwwww.
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Date: 2013-04-02 01:44 pm (UTC)But Katy Manning herself is so warm and wonderful and if you get past conventional fandom wisdom about her, it's clear that infuses her character as well. In so many ways, Jo takes as much simple delight in bouncing about the universe as the Doctor does, eager to dive into those adventures. And it was very funny to watch my husband meet Katy when she was at Gally a couple of years back fall completely in love with her because she's so wonderful and become much more fond of Jo because of it. (His reaction when she was announced as a guest was "Eh"; his reaction to the announcement she'd be a guest for 2014 was "Goody!".)
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Date: 2013-04-03 08:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-04-02 08:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-04-03 07:46 am (UTC)