Time for part five of Liz Shaw’s Best Bits, the last in our four-part series looking at Cambridge research scientist, physicist, biologist, forensic scientist, doctor, meteorite expert, computer scientist, electronic engineer, geologist, chemist, biologist, expert car driver, and feminist and style icon, Liz Shaw, the best companion Doctor Who ever had.
When last we saw Liz, back in Inferno, she seemed quite happy:
After all, in her four season seven stories:
Spearhead from Space: she gets a cracking introduction, taunts the Brigadier, gets recruited to UNIT, taunts the Brigadier, does some experiments, taunts the Brigadier, bonds with the Doctor over science, taunts the Brigadier, steals a key, taunts the Brigadier, tends to the sick, works out where the bad guys are, tells lots of jokes, does some light electronics and SAVES THE DOCTOR AND THE WHOLE WORLD.
Doctor Who and the Silurians: is deadpan, does some analysis, does some biology, does forensic science, spots a liar, is firm with a patient, lies to the Brigadier, blackmails the Doctor, goes caving, stands up for Silurian rights, makes sure the Doctor takes his medicine, refuses to obey orders, stands up to a tyrant, does lots of science, comes up with some good ideas for how to cure a plague, is stoic in the face of a loony plague-ridden tyrant, SAVES THE ENTIRE HUMAN RACE, explains the Van Allen belt and takes control of a nuclear reactor.
The Ambassadors of Death: speaks French without the aid of a TARDIS, masters technology, outsmarts the Doctor over a computer, uses a Geiger counter, does science, has a car chase, engineers an escape, tries to escape again, encourages a scientist to defect, insults a villain, gets offered a job, helps the Doctor build a machine to escape captivity then SAVES THE WORLD.
Inferno: re-wires the TARDIS, does her sums, spots a problem with the drilling project, helps the Doctor with some experiments and tries to save him, pines for the Doctor, tends to his Time Lord medical needs, SAVES THE WORLD, gives the Doctor a great big hug and argues with the Brigadier.
That’s pretty damn good, isn’t it? She’s the Cathy Gale of Doctor Who there. She’s saved the world in every story, she’s got to have car chases, be a CSI, and learnt how to rewire a time machine. More than that, she’s been an equal partner with a Time Lord, filling in the gaps in his knowledge and intuition with her own knowledge and intuition. Would you want to give all that up? Clearly not, judging by that last scene of Inferno.
And yet, by the next season, she’s gone – to be replaced by Jo Grant in this travesty of a scene from Terror of the Autons. Prepare to groan as the entire series takes a massive quality nose-dive:
But what happened to Liz Shaw next? Well, follow me as we take a wander through Mawdryn Undead, The Five Doctors, Dimensions in Time, the P.R.O.B.E series of movies by Mark Gatiss, and a terrible, terrible UNIT cover-up.
Sherlock Holmes is one of those classic characters who gets revived with incredible regularity. You can’t go for more than five years without yet another Sherlock Holmes remake. Sometimes, he gets revived in Victorian times (The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes), sometimes he’s Victorian and gets transplanted to modern times (Sherlock HolmesReturns), sometimes you get a modern day version of him but in another genre (House) and sometimes you just get him in modern times.
Steven Moffat, showrunner of Doctor Who, has also given in to this latter temptation with Sherlock. This sees Benedict Cumberbatch as modern day consulting detective Sherlock Holmes meeting Afghanistan war hero Dr John Watson in 2010, and running around modern day London, solving crimes in his usual ways – but also texting a lot.
When asked what the difference between Sherlock and Doctor Who was, our Stevie said “Sherlock‘s on an hour later” – and that’s about right.
