Originally published in Doctor Who Magazine 449, as the magazine was unusually being published in the same week as Valentine’s Day. You may note that as this was written in January 2013, it is before The Enemy of the World was returned to the archive, otherwise I would have definitely included Colin and Mary.
DOCTOR WHO’S GREATEST LOVE STORIES
Doctor Who isn’t
just about aliens invading the Earth and travels in time and space. It’s also
about love stories. Love stories about the Doctor’s companions, about the
Doctor himself and various women, and about the people he meets. Love stories
that end in bliss and love stories that end in tragedy. Stories about understated
love, about unrequited love, about unlikely love, and about uncontrollable love. In Doctor Who, love actually is all
around...
1 Rory Williams and Amy Pond (The Eleventh Hour (2010) – The Angels Take Manhattan (2012))
Magic moment: “Don't you dare talk to me
about waiting outside a box, because that is nothing, Rory, nothing, compared
to giving you up.”
For the last
three years, Doctor Who has been love
story of Amy and Rory. More than anything else, it’s been about an extremely
mixed-up, prickly, passionate girl and her long-suffering, doting fiancé. And
their love has conquered anything the universe can throw at them, and I mean
anything. Death? Rory has not only survived drowning and being dissolved by an
Eknodine, he has survived being shot by a Silurian and erased from existence.
He’s been resurrected as a Nestene duplicate of himself and waited two thousand
years outside the Pandorica for Amy to recover. Why did Amy have to go into the
Pandorica? Because the Nestene duplicate of Rory had killed her, but don’t
worry, she survived that too. That’s not the only time she’s died either, as
she killed herself in the Dream Lords’ reality after Rory was dissolved. Given
the choice, Amy would rather not live in a world without Rory. Rory’s choice
was no less difficult; after Amy waited thirty-six years for Rory to rescue her
on Apalapucia, Rory had to decide between saving the Amy who had waited or to
change history so that the Amy who had waited never came into existence. And
that’s not the only adversity they’ve had to overcome. They’ve had to overcome
Amy’s hot-blooded attraction to the raggedy Doctor, the unwilling extra corner
to their love triangle. They’ve had to spend three months apart, on the run
from the Silence in the USA. They’ve had to deal with the unbelievable trauma
of having their baby stolen from them by Madame Kovarian (a baby they didn’t
even know existed until it was due to be born). And they’ve had to overcome the
greatest obstacle of all, their own stupidity, as they nearly get divorced due
to each of them feeling they had let the other down in Asylum Of The Daleks. Though an inability to communicate has been a
constant fixture of their relationship, ever since it began with Amy assuming
Rory was gay and Rory being terrified of Amy finding out that he fancied her.
But somehow they’ve managed to make their dysfunctional dynamic work, partly due
to Rory’s patient, submissive nature (he’s spent his whole life trying to be Mr
Pond) but mainly because no matter how much they get their wires crossed, and no
matter how much pain they face, they love each other more than they can
express. So when Rory decides to kill himself to create a paradox and prevent
himself from becoming a Weeping Angel food source, Amy decides she will go with
him. And if anything sums up their relationship that’s it; Amy and Rory, locked
in a loving embrace, plunging to their death. But even that wasn’t the end;
when a Weeping Angel sends Rory back to the 1930s, Amy makes her last choice, to
follow Rory and make sure that, no matter what, they will spend the rest of
their lives together.
Love theme: Complicated
2 John Smith and Joan Redfern (Human Nature/The Family Of Blood (2007))
Magic moment: “How can you think that I'm not
real? When I kissed you, was that a lie?”
It’s taken
two months, but finally the time has come for Joan Redfern to make her move. In
1914 it’s not easy for a widow to ask out an eligible bachelor, and for all her
hints John Smith is remarkably slow on the uptake. He doesn’t pick up on her
hints about them making a good team, or being invited to the village dance. He
seems oblivious to her mentioning that nurses, like herself, make such good
wives. But eventually the penny drops, and John Smith invites her and kisses
her after adding a sketch of her to his Journal
Of Impossible Things. Because, for some reason, he keeps having these
dreams about another life, about a mysterious Doctor. At first Joan presumes
it’s wish-fulfilment, that this heroic Doctor with an eye for the pretty girls
is the man John would like to be. But after the village dance, she begins to
suspect that it is more than that, and even as she falls in love with John
Smith she learns he is not real, he is the creation of the mysterious Doctor,
and that she must lose him. It’s beautifully written and played, as Joan starts
to realise that Martha has been telling the truth, and that the fob watch and
the magical blue box are not just dreams written down in a journal but are
real. She becomes the one who has to convince John Smith; David Tennant is
never better than in the scene where Joan points out that John’s history
doesn’t make sense and that his whole life has been a lie. That the only real
thing in his life is his love for Joan and he can’t even have that; to save the
world he has to become a man who is lonely, who wouldn’t even consider the
possibility of falling in love, a man who will never find happiness with Joan.
A man who has caused innocent people to die by attracting the Family of Blood
to Earth. And for all the Doctor’s protests that John Smith lives on within
him, when John Smith becomes the Doctor the man that Joan loves is gone.
Because John Smith is the best that the Doctor is capable of, without the
darkness – a Doctor-lite. Just as Joan’s heart is broken at the loss of John
Smith, and John Smith’s heart is broken at the thought of losing her, one of
the Doctor’s hearts is broken because the love that John felt for Joan still
burns inside him, but she cannot love him back. That’s why he goes to see her
great granddaughter before he regenerates in The End Of Time to see if she found happiness. It’s not for himself but for whichever of his hearts that was the
heart of John Smith.
Love theme: Human
3 Professor Clifford Jones and Jo Grant (The Green Death (1973))
Magic moment: “Look, will you excuse me? I do
think I'm going to be wanted on the telephone.”
The Green Death is an astonishing thoughtful of work,
not least the way it writes out Jo Grant. Not for her the hasty goodbye added
to the script as an afterthought. She gets a love story, all about how her new
love, Cliff Jones, will be taking the Doctor’s place in her life. Even before
she’s met him he already reminds her of a younger Doctor; the Doctor, he
recognises this as the first sign that Jo will soon be leaving him, that she
has started to think of him as old. Then, when she first meets Cliff, their
meeting is a conscious echo of Jo’s first meeting with the Doctor, interrupting
a delicate science experiment in a clumsy rush of scatterbrained enthusiasm.
This also sets up the later moment where Jo’s clumsiness provides the answer to
the green death infection. There are other echoes too; when Cliff becomes
infected, Jo spends hours at his bedside, just as she has spent so many honours
nursing the Doctor during one of his regular comas. Cliff Jones has his own
‘moment of charm’ comforting Jo after the news of Bert’s death, and it’s Cliff,
rather than the Doctor, who rescues Jo when she wanders into trouble. There’s
even a deliberate call-back to her first story when Jo gets her uncle at the
United Nations to fund Cliff Jones’ work. It’s revealing that the thought of joining
Cliff’s alternative community excites Jo far more than the thought of
travelling to Metebelis Three with the Doctor. She turns him down even when he
offers her all of time and space. She still
wants the thrill of adventure, but adventure with a purpose, to save with world
by travelling up the amazon to find a protein-rich toadstool. It’s clear that
Cliff is perfect for Jo in a way that King Peladon, Mike Yates and Latep never
could be (and not just because of the obvious chemistry between the actors Katy
Manning and Stewart Bevan). But what makes this love story truly special is
what it tells us about the Doctor, about the sadness and loneliness of his life
as his companions grow away from him. There’s a touch of jealousy about the way
he tries to sabotage Cliff and Jo’s romance by steering Cliff away from Jo just
as they were about to kiss; but later, when Cliff proposes, he tactfully makes
himself scarce. And while Cliff and Jo
head off to happier times, the Doctor drives off into the sunset, alone.
Love theme: The Scientist
4 Doctor and Madame
Du Pompadour (The Girl In The
Fireplace (2006))
Magic moment: “I’m
the Doctor. And I just snogged Madame de Pompadour!”
Before River Song there was Reinette, the first story of a romance
conducted by skipping through the pages of history, and the first out-and-out Doctor Who love story. Yes, it may have
clockwork robots and spaceships but they’re just science-fiction trappings to
reassure little boys that they’re not watching a programme made for girls. You
can’t get more romantic than The Girl In
The Fireplace. For the first time, we’re shown the Doctor falling in love
(unless you count Cameca, see later); after decades of the Doctor being oddly
asexual, he is now capable of falling
in love and of physical attraction. You only have to look at his face when he
notices how Reinette has grown. And whereas the Doctor’s kiss with Grace was
entirely innocent, with Reinette he revels
in the fact that she’s grabbed him and kissed him. He’s giddy with excitement.
And why wouldn’t he be, when Reinette is more than a match for him? She’s not
just beautiful and accomplished, she is quick to understand that the Doctor is
stepping through chapters of the book of her life. She isn’t thrown by the
clockwork robots or the Doctor’s ageless appearance, and when the Doctor looks
into her mind, she looks into his mind just as easily and finds out more about
him than he does about her. It’s easy to believe that the Doctor would be happy
‘stuck on the slow path’ with her and the thought of her joining him on his
travels is such a gorgeous prospect you can’t help wishing that it will work
out, even if you’ve seen the episode half a dozen times. But of course it
can’t, and just as we’ve seen a Doctor capable of passion, we now see that he
is also capable of having his hearts broken, as the accelerated passage of time
that brought him and Reinette together also takes her away from him. Bearing in
mind what came later, though, the surprise with this love story is actually how
straightforward it is; there may be a clear influence of The Time Traveler’s Wife with the Doctor meeting Reinette as her
imaginary childhood friend, but all their encounters are in strict
chronological order. A larger influence, I suspect, may have been Russell T
Davies’ Casanova; in particular its
conclusion, where Casanova fails to be reunited with his love because he leaves
it too late. Who, watching that, wouldn’t wish that Casanova could pop back six
months in a time machine?
Love theme: Time
After Time
5 Doctor and Idris (The Doctor’s Wife (2011))
Magic moment: “I just
wanted to say hello. Hello, Doctor. It's so very, very nice to meet you.”
The love story of the Doctor and Idris is, of course, really
the love story of the Doctor and his TARDIS, the rackety old type-forty he
stole from Gallifrey all those years ago. But after all those years of the
Doctor referring to it as an ‘old girl’ and references to the TARDIS being
alive – 1972’s The Time Monster
introduces the idea of it being telepathic, while the 1996 TV movie has the
TARDIS being a ‘sentimental old thing’ by bringing Grace and Change Lee back to
life – after all those years, The Doctor’s
Wife is the pay-off. For the first time, the TARDIS can speak, its matrix –
or ‘soul’ – having been stuck in the body of Idris, a human living in a
junkyard outside of time and space. Now at last it can say all the things it’s
ever wanted to say. We learn that the TARDIS doesn’t perceive time linearly,
with past, present and future all mixed up, and that it can archive control
rooms that haven’t been created yet. We learn that the first thing the Doctor
ever said to the TARDIS was that she was the most beautiful thing he had ever
known, and that when he’s on his own, he calls her ‘sexy’. We learn that, as
far as the TARDIS is concerned, she stole the Doctor, deliberately leaving her
door unlocked so that he would steal her to leave Gallifrey; we learn that she
finds it hard to tell apart the various ‘strays’ the Doctor travels with; we
learn that she has been guiding the Doctor’s seemingly haphazard travels for
all these years. And we learn that the TARDIS regards the Doctor as her
‘beautiful idiot’ because he’s spent years opening the TARDIS door the wrong
way. While it places the whole history of Doctor
Who in a new context, it doesn’t undermine it. In fact, it’s so true to the
original, magical ethos of the show’s earliest years that it feels like it was
planned all long. But the tragedy of this relationship is how-short lived it
is, as holding the TARDIS matrix causes Idris’ body to shut down, and we
discover that even as she was delighting in being alive, she knew she was about
to die. Or at least, to return to being the Doctor’s TARDIS, never able to
speak to him again. It’s not just a Doctor
Who love story, it’s a love story about Doctor
Who, about the Doctor and his TARDIS and the whole romance of his travels
in time and space.
Love theme: You’re
Beautiful
6 Pete Tyler and
Jackie Tyler (Father’s Day (2005)
– Journey’s End (2008))
Magic moment: “But
you’re dead. You died twenty years ago, Pete.”
Looking at Pete and Jackie as a couple in 1987, you wouldn’t
think theirs was a great love story. In fact, looking at the way they are
together, you would be surprised if they lasted more than a year. Pete can’t do
right for doing wrong, he’s a failure as a businessmen and Jackie is convinced
he’s being unfaithful. And when he is killed in a road accident (averting a
wound in time and saving the world in the process) it looks like that’s the
end. It would take a universe-shattering event to bring them back together and
fortunately that’s exactly what happens, twenty years later. On a parallel
Earth Pete Tyler has become a success thanks to Vitex soft drinks. He’s also
working as an informer for the Preachers, trying to prevent the rise of the
Cybermen. In this universe, he’s married to Jackie Tyler, who wealth has made
vain and avaricious – ‘ where’s my Zeppelin?’ Again, you’d be surprised if they
lasted, and sadly they don’t, as Jackie is transformed into a Cyberman
.Meanwhile the Jackie from ‘our’ universe has moved on with her life. She
remembers her Pete with more fondness than she showed him at the time, but has
started seeing other men - notably Howard, Rodrigo and Billy Croot. So you can
imagine her surprise when she’s being attacked by two Cybermen in Torchwood HQ
and they collapse to the ground having been shot by her dead husband. Who
doesn’t look a day older (though Jackie seems to think he does). It’s one of
the greatest moments of Doctor Who,
overshadowed by Rose’s departure, but in its way, utterly touching and
beautiful. Pete and Tyler reunited – in a sense – with the person they thought
was dead, but alive, older, and shaped by events to be perfect for each other.
As Pete points out, he isn’t her Pete and she isn’t his Jackie, but in the end
it doesn’t matter. This Pete and this Jackie have both seen each other die, and
now they’ve been given a second chance. It’s a combination of the domestic and
the absurdly space-operatic, and it’s uniquely, heartrendingly Doctor Who.
Love theme: Un-break
My Heart
7 David Campbell and
Susan Foreman (The Dalek Invasion Of
Earth (1964))
Magic moment: “Well,
I’m giving you that, Susan. I’m giving you a place, a time, an identity.”
The saying goes that the way to a man’s heart is through his
stomach. The same, it seems, holds true for female Gallifreyans, because food
is the key to David’s seduction of Susan Foreman. After all, what is the first
they say to each other? He asks her what can she do, and she replies ‘I can
eat’. So what does David do? He goes out and brings her apples which, in
Dalek-occupied London, is harder than it sounds. Having made the first move,
Susan responds by inviting David to join her and the Doctor in the TARDIS; he
refuses, saying that running away isn’t the answer and Susan, who has been
running away all her life, begins to realise that there is an alternative.
Later, he invites Susan to help rebuild the Earth and she answers ‘yes’ almost
without thinking about it. But the key moment comes on their journey to
Bedfordshire, when David brings Susan more food. This time it’s a fresh fish,
which he dangles on her neck after creeping up on her. And despite the fact
that this is clearly not the time for practical jokes, what with them being in
a wood hiding from the Daleks, Susan finds
it funny and a passionate clinch ensues. That’s love for you, as the Doctor is
quick to notice (though he’d already had his suspicions that something was
cooking when Susan disagreed with him when he suggested they try to leave). And
it’s the Doctor who makes Susan’s decision for her, in the end. He’s inside the
TARDIS listening and hears David tell Susan that he loves her and Susan reply
that she loves him. As soon as she says that, he closes the TARDIS doors on her
so she no longer has to choose between him and David. The Doctor is heartbroken
but for Susan this is just the beginning of a new life, a life of David
bringing her fresh farm produce. It’s Doctor
Who’s first major farewell, and because it’s given time to build, and time
to play out, it feels emotionally true; just as with Cliff Jones and Jo, the
only thing that could take the Doctor’s child away from him is a younger
Doctor.
Love theme: Suzy-Hang-Around
8 The Doctor and
River Song (A Good Man Goes To War (2011) – Forest Of The Dead (2008))
Magic moment: “You've
got all of that to come. You and me, time and space. You watch us run!”
The Doctor and River’s love story had ended before it began.
Literally. The first we – and the Doctor – knew of their relationship was when
they met at the Library and River died preventing the auto-destruct. But she
mentioned the last time she’d met him was at the Singing Towers of Darillium.
Before that, she was pardoned of killing the Doctor and met him and the Weeping
Angels in New York. Before that was the crash of the Byzantium. Before that,
the Pandorica opened. Before that, River escaped the Stormcage Facility to
visit the Doctor in Utah. Before that, she visited Demon’s Run. Before that,
the Doctor took her to see Stevie Wonder at a frost fair. Before that, she
fought with Sontarans at Calderon Beta. Before that, the Doctor took her to
Calderon Beta for the first time. Before that, she was imprisoned in the
Stormcage for apparently killing the Doctor. Before that, she married him.
Before that, she was recruited by Madame Kovarian. Before that, she enrolled at
Luna University. Before that, she gave up her regenerations to save the Doctor.
Before that, she attempted to kill the Doctor with the poison of the Judas
Tree. Before that, she regenerated, having been shot by Hitler. Before that,
she met the Doctor for the first time and told him to take her to kill Hitler. Before
that she grew up with Amy and Rory as their friend Melody. Before that, she
regenerated as a young girl in New York. Before that, the Silence placed her in
an orphanage in Florida in an Apollo spacesuit. Before that, she was kidnapped by
Madame Kovarian before that she was born at Demon’s Run, and before that she
was conceived in the TARDIS by her parents, Amy and Rory. I hope that makes
everything clear. To put it simply: the Doctor and River’s love song has a
melody that hits all the right notes... but not necessarily in the right order.
Love theme: If I
Could Turn Back Time
9 The Doctor and Rose
(Rose (2005) – Journey’s End (2008))
Magic moment: “And
I suppose... if it’s one last chance to say it... Rose Tyler...”
When Doctor Who returned
in 2005, one major difference was that rather than consigning love stories to
romantic sub-plots, it could make the whole series into a love story. And
that’s what it was for two years, the story of Rose falling for the Doctor (and
choosing him over her boyfriend Mickey) and the Doctor falling for Rose.
Although there are moments between Rose and the ninth Doctor – Rose
flirtatiously asking whether he ‘dances’, for instance – it’s not until he
regenerates that things get serious. Rose and the Doctor spend whole stories
delighting in each other’s company, almost to the point that they seem
complacent and smug, but that’s the whole point. Pride comes before a fall. In School Reunion Sarah warns Rose that one
day the Doctor will break her heart and leave her, but Rose refuses to believe
it. By The Impossible Planet she’s so
in love with the Doctor she jokes (in a way that isn’t joking at all) about
them settling down together. And by Fear
Her she’s convinced that nothing will ever break them up – though the
Doctor doesn’t share her conviction. It’s all part of the build up to the
events of Doomsday, where Rose has to
choose between her family and the Doctor. She chooses the Doctor – but when she
finds herself falling into the Void, the choice is made for her by her father,
and she ends up trapped in another universe, leading to the most heartbreaking
farewell scene of them all. Of course, it wasn’t quite the end, and Rose would
return and eventually get her own (half-human) Doctor, but that doesn’t detract
from the power of the moment where Rose tells the hologram of the Doctor that
she loves him, and he begins to say it back.
Love theme: Never
Tear Us Apart
10 King Yrcanos and
Peri (The Trial Of A Time Lord (1986))
Magic moment: “What
is that? ‘Love’?”
Considering how loud and unreserved King Yrcanos is, his
courtship with Peri is remarkably subtle. The first hints come when they rest
in the tunnels of Thoros Beta to eat some flay-fish; when Peri comforts
Yrcanos’ equerry Dorf, it sends the king into a brief jealous rage. It’s clear
that there is something going on; Peri’s first instinct with Yrcanos is to take
the mickey as she finds him fairly ridiculous, patronising him with ‘There’s a
good warlord’, while Yrcanos immediately casts Peri in the role of a warrior
queen. But it’s only when they are imprisoned together that romance starts to
blossom, as Peri confides in Yrcanos that she’s missing being with people she
loves, prompting Yrcanos to wax lyrical about the afterlife. Something has
happened, something that means that when they are parted, Yrcanos’ farewell of
‘Die well, my lady’ is more heartfelt, and that when he gets the chance,
Yrcanos is determined to rescue his ‘Bride to be’ – only to face the horror and
heartbreak of finding that he is too late, her body now being occupied by Kiv.
It’s a fate that spurs Yrcanos into a suicidal rage; except, of course, we are
later told that this never actually took place, and that Peri survived and
became Yrcanos’ warrior queen. The irony being that after travelling with the
most explosive and bombastic of Doctors, she should end up marrying someone
even more rambunctious and outrageous. Of one thing we can be sure; their life
together isn’t going to be quiet.
Love theme: Just
Can’t Get Enough
11 Kazran Sardick and
Abigail Pettigrew (A Christmas Carol
(2010))
Magic moment: “We've
had so many Christmas Eves, Kazran. I think it's time for Christmas Day.”
Every Doctor Who love
story to sparkle out of Steven Moffat’s keyboard has a four-dimensional twist,
and in this case, it’s that Kazran and Abigail fall in love over the course of
six Christmas Eves, but while this is six years as far as Kazran is concerned,
it’s seven continuous days as far as Abigail is concerned, as after each one
she is returned to cryogenic storage. It’s also seven continuous days as far as
the Doctor is concerned, in his role as time-travelling matchmaker. The Doctor
is determined to give Kazran a chance to change. He has never known love, but thanks
to the Doctor, has his past re-written to include a whirlwind romance with
Abigail, flying across the rooftops in a shark-drawn sleigh, visiting the Great
Wall of China, Egypt, Paris, New York, Frank Sinatra’s hunting lodge, as well
as spending a Christmas Eve with Abigail’s family. But Abigail is terminally
ill and soon all but one of Abigail’s remaining days have been used up. Kazran
can’t face reviving her; thanks to the Doctor, he is no longer heartless but
heartbroken. The Doctor finally pulls Kazran out of the dark by showing his
young self what the future holds, and Kazran is changed enough to agree to awaken
Abigail. The last we see of them, they are enjoying a sleigh-ride together on
what we know will be the last day of her life.
Love theme: Lonely
This Christmas
12 The Doctor and Doctor Martha Jones (Smith & Jones – Last Of The Time Lords (2007))
Magic moment: “You
had to, didn't you? Had to go and fall in love with a human. And it wasn't me.”
Some of the greatest love stories are about unrequited love;
after all, it’s relatively easy to love someone who loves you back, but to love
someone who doesn’t register the way you feel about them, someone who you can
never tell how you feel out of fear of losing them, that takes real love. It’s
painful, and it’s destructive, and it’s nearly as heartbreaking to watch. Why
couldn’t the Doctor return Martha’s affections? Why did he have to raise her
hopes by kissing her in Smith & Jones
and suggesting they share a bed in The
Shakespeare Code? She may pretend not to be interested, but it’s obvious
from the way she looks at him, the way she reacts whenever he brings up Rose.
Worst of all, when he becomes Doctor John Smith in Human Nature, he still doesn’t
look twice at her. This is the final straw for Martha; in The Last Of The Time Lords, even as she is making the whole world
fall in love with the idea of the Doctor, she can, at last, move on and find
someone else; first there’s the Tom Milligan from the year that never was, then
the Tom Milligan from the year that actually
was, and then Mickey Smith. Martha Jones – not prepared to be second best.
Love theme: I
Know Him So Well
13 The Doctor and Doctor
Grace Holloway (The Doctor Who TV
movie (1996))
Magic moment: “Good!
Now do that again!”
Before the Doctor staggered into her life, Grace Holloway
was in a bad way. Her boyfriend, Brian, had finally left her for good (after
repeated threats) because she had to abandon an opera date. But then the Doctor
appeared, full of the joys of life and a broken length of surgical probe. After
a walk in the park and a few words about warm Gallifreyan nights, they are
sharing their first kiss. For the Doctor, it’s an innocent expression of delight
at remembering who he is and some well-fitting shoes, but for Grace, it’s
something far more sensual. The Doctor literally sweeps her off her feet and
onto a motorbike in a race against time (it’s something to do with an atomic
clock). When the Earth has been saved, and fireworks are exploding to celebrate
the millennium, the Doctor asks Grace to join him on his travels. Grace answers
by asking him to stay with her, even though she knows that he never would, so
their next kiss is a kiss goodbye. But the Doctor has given Grace back her
dreams.
Love theme: Two
Hearts
14 Billy and Delta (Delta And The Bannermen (1987))
Magic moment: “I
can't condone this foolishness, but then, love has never been known for its
rationality.”
There is no greater testament to the power of love than that
demonstrated by Billy the motor mechanic. Some men might think twice when the
girl they’ve been serenading turns out to be an alien queen. Some men might
have reservations when she turns out to be a single mother. Some men might
consider being the last of her species, pursued across the galaxy by the
genocidal Bannermen was a bit too much baggage. But not our Billy. When he sat
down to dinner with Delta at the Shangri-La, he knew she was the one. Soon he
was serenading her with Why Do Fools Fall
In Love and taking her and her pea-green progeny on a tour of local beauty
spots. This is more than enough to win Delta over; it’s not every day someone
subjects themselves to alien infant formula in the hope that they will mutate
into the same species as you at the risk of their own life. Fortunately in
Billy’s case it seems to work out, and they depart together to rebuild the race
(which means plenty of you-know-what). But spare a thought for poor Rachel Defwydd;
it can’t do much for your self-esteem when the boy you love chooses an
extra-terrestrial over you.
Love theme: Love
Changes Everything
15 Craig Owens and
Sophie (The Lodger (2010))
Magic moment: “I
love you, too, Craig, you idiot!”
Craig and Sophie love each other. That much is obvious to
everyone. Apart, that is, to Craig and Sophie. They’re flatmates, they enjoy
each other’s company, and evenings of pizza-booze-telly, but neither of them
can quite pluck up the courage to make the first move. They don’t want to risk
their friendship, or risk rejection because they both think the other wouldn’t
be interested. So instead they potter along, joking about ‘settling’ for each
other. Until the Doctor turns up and sticks a sonic screwdriver into the works.
Only the Doctor – and a homicidal spaceship parked upstairs – can stir Craig to
action. Seeing Sophie admiring the near-naked Doctor and giving him air-kisses
rouses his jealousy. The possibility of
Sophie leaving to look after monkeys puts his fear of losing her into stark
relief. But it takes the threat of the homicidal spaceship killing Sophie and
the human race to finally make Craig declare his love, to Sophie, to her face,
and seal the deal with a kiss. The world is saved, his house loses an upper
storey, and all because a boy and a girl realised what everyone else already
knew.
Love theme: Then
I Kissed Her
16 The Doctor and
Cameca (The Aztecs (1964))
Magic moment: “Oh,
sweet-favoured man, you have declared your love for me, and I acknowledge and
accept your gentle proposal.”
Consigned to the Garden of Peace, a sort of Aztec retirement
home, the Doctor’s interest in Cameca is initially entirely prosaic. He wants
to know about the construction of the temple, in the hope of discovering
another way in, and Cameca may be able to provide a meeting between the Doctor
and the son of the temple’s designer. But the Doctor’s charm offensive
backfires when Cameca mistakes his intentions as romantic, particularly when he
offers to make her a cup of cocoa as a token of his esteem. Having become
accidentally betrothed, the Doctor continues to use Cameca to help him gain
access to the temple and such is her love for him she assists, even though she
knows that by doing so she will lose him (she displays remarkable prescience in
deducing this from the sight of the Doctor building a wheel). But the Doctor
isn’t pretending to be fond of Cameca out of self-interest; he seems to be
genuinely tempted at the thought of them retiring to tend a garden together,
and in the final episode, rather than discarding her token of love for him, he
recovers it from the tomb and takes it with him.
Love theme: It’s
Never Too Late To Fall In Love
17 Donna Noble and Lee
McAvoy (Forest Of The Dead (2008))
Magic moment: “I
made up the perfect man. Gorgeous, adores me, and hardly able to speak a word.”
Donna Noble hasn’t been lucky in love. Her fiancée, Lance,
was only interested in dosing her coffee with Huon particles for the Racnoss;
he only agreed to marry her to prevent her running off, despite finding her
conversation ‘a never ending fountain of fat, stupid trivia’. As for his
replacement Shaun, well, if Wilfred Mott is to believed, Donna is ‘making do’,
though a winning lottery ticket may help things along. No, the true love of
Donna’s life was Lee McAvoy, an easy-going man with a stammer she met within
the computerised reality of the Library. Within minutes they were married and
had two children. It was all too good to be true, and certainly too good to
last. When Donna returned to reality she could only conclude that she had
imagined him. The truth, though, was that Lee was real, and really did adore
Donna, but just as he was struggling to call out her name and tell her he
existed, he was cruelly teleported away. If only he’d just shouted, ‘Oi! You!’
Love theme: Don’t
Stop Believin’
18 Bellboy and
Flowerchild (The Greatest Show In The
Galaxy (1988))
Magic moment: “Come
on! Deal with me as you dealt with Flowerchild!”
At the Psychic Circus, Bellboy was responsible for the robot
clowns and Flowerchild made the kites. They were happy, before the circus came
to the planet Segonax. Then everything changed, and the robot clowns fell under
the spell of the circus’ new owners, and the kites were used to prevent any
escape. As we join the story, Bellboy and Flowerchild are making a final desperate bid for freedom; but they
become separated, and Flowerchild is killed by one of Bellboy’s robots.
Tortured and on the brink of insanity, he is only kept alive so that he can
repair the robots, and in the end the only thing left for him to do is to
instruct them to end his pain. Doctor
Who’s darkest and most harrowing love story.
Love theme: I Am
Not A Robot
19 Elton Pope and
Ursula Blake (Love & Monsters (2006))
Magic moment: “Don’t
touch me! Oh, Elton, I’m so sorry. You can’t touch me...”
Love stories don’t come much stranger than that of Elton and
Ursula. Brought together by a shared fascination for the Doctor (having got in
touch over the internet) they immediately hit it off, but would they ever have declared
their love for each other if it hadn’t been for the malign influence of Victor
Kennedy? If Elton hadn’t found himself in the firing line of Jackie Tyler’s
seduction technique, would he have realised that Ursula was the girl he really
wanted to be with? And if Victor hadn’t threatened Elton, would Ursula ever
have revealed her love for him? As I so often the case, just when they were
about to get it together and go for a chinese at the Golden Locust, tragedy
struck, Ursula being maliciously abzorbed (along with another
couple-who-never-made-it, Mr Skinner and Bridget). For a moment, it looked like
Elton had lost Ursula, as her face dissolved into a paving slab, but the Doctor
came to the rescue, allowing them to cement their relationship forever.
Love theme: Turn
To Stone
20 Tremas and Kassia (The Keeper Of Traken (1981))
Magic moment: “If all
the stars were silver, and the sky a giant purse in my fist, I couldn't be
happier than I am tonight.”
Poor Kassia. The day she and her beloved Tremas get married,
the Keeper of Traken turns up to not only steal their thunder but to announce
that Tremas will soon be his replacement, condemned to sit in an art nouveau
throne controlling the Union’s power source for the rest of his life. Faced
with such a prospect, the thought of their life together being cruelly taken
away, Kassia can be forgiven for allying herself with the Melkur when it offers
to save her husband. She will doing anything to save him – even covering up the
Melkur’s murders – unaware of the final twist of cruelty that it has planned
for her. She will be able to save Tremas, yes – but only by taking his place as
Keeper. They will never be together, and another, even more terrible fate
awaits Tremas (almost as though the forces of destiny had a penchant for
prophetic anagrams...)
Love theme: (Everything
I Do) I Do It For You
21 Stott and Della
Magic moment: “I knew
it was him looking at me. In the Eden picture, someone staring out.”
The story of Stott and Della has all makings of a great love
story – except it’s missing one crucial thing. At the outset of the story Della
believes that the love of her life, Stott, is dead, having been mortally mauled
by a Mandrel. Even though she’s caught glimpses of him in the Eden projection,
she’s convinced herself she is seeing things, such is her state of denial. It’s
been even harder for Stott, looking out at Della; he’s even considered
committing suicide. And yet, with all this build-up, we never get to see the
moment that Stott and Della are re-united. Surely we could have had a scene of
Della waking up in the medical bay with Stott at her bedside, offering her a
glass of lucozade? I’m sure, given the circumstances, they would have embraced
with a passionate ferocity that would have put even the Mandrels to shame.
Love theme: Back
For Good
22 Larry Nightingale
and Sally Sparrow (Blink (2007))
Magic moment: “Pants?”
There is absolutely no wish-fulfilment element to the
relationship between Larry and Sally. He’s a bit of a geek, an unshaven Shaggy
from Scooby Doo-type who works in a
DVD shop, and who spends his spare time on internet forums. And she is Sally
Sparrow, the most gorgeous girl in the universe, self-assured, smart and so
utterly un-geeky she only owns seventeen DVDs. But, from the very first moment
that Larry walks into his kitchen naked, Sally has a sneaking affection for
him. That doesn’t stop her from flirting with Billy Shipton (how many broken
hearts has this girl left in her wake?) and it takes a whole year, and a brief
meeting with the Doctor to provide a sense of closure, before she is willing to
take Larry in hand. But these two nominal lovebirds are clearly meant for each
other, even if their surnames do
sound like an ITV drama series.
Love theme: Angels
23 Greg Sutton and
Petra Williams (Inferno (1970))
Magic moment: “Well, if you really want to show your
gratitude, there are one or two things.”
You can’t fight destiny. That’s the story of Greg and Petra,
the love sub-plot of Doctor Who’s
precursor of Sliding Doors. On ‘our’
Earth, or on a version of Earth where Britain is ruled by a fascist
organisation of monocular monomaniacs, the story is the same; Greg is brought
to the Inferno Project as an expert on drilling, and slowly works his way
through Petra’s hard, frosty crust. And when all hope is lost, they can’t help
reaching out to each other. But while, in the parallel Earth, Greg and Petra
are doomed to be engulfed by a tide of lava, on ‘our’ Earth their prospects are
a little more propitious. In fact, they’ll probably get on like a house on
fire.
Love theme: Burning
Love
24 Captain Jack
Harkness and Algy, Alonso Frame, Angelo Colasanto, Estelle Cole, his executioners,
Ianto Jones, the real Captain Jack Harkness, John Hart, Lucia Moretti, Christopher
Isherwood and Marcel Proust (various).
Magic moment: “Don’t
forget me.”
Captain Jack has never suffered a shortage of romance in his
life. His good looks, charm and seemingly bottomless amorous appetite means
that it might be quicker to list all the people in Doctor Who and Torchwood that Captain Jack hasn’t had
an affair with. Because, for all we know, he may have had a one night stand
with the Servo Robot from The Wheel In
Space. But the greatest love of Captain Jack’s life has to be Ianto Jones,
the coffee-brewing, waistcoat-wearing, Cyberwoman-smuggling Torchwood agent who
tragically breathed his last in Jack’s arms, infected with an alien virus. But
his memory – and, inexplicably, his Cardiff shrine – live on.
Love theme: Anything
Goes
25 Seth and Teka (The Horns Of Nimon (1979))
Magic
moment: “The Nimons are finished. Seth defeated them. I knew he
would!”
Teka’s faith in Seth never wavered. Despite the fact that
they had been sent to Skonnos as a sacrificial tribute, she was convinced that
Seth would find some way of defeating the Nimon (and couldn’t stop bringing it
up in conversation, much to his embarrassment). Even when Teka was consigned to
the Nimon larder she never lost faith. And so, when Seth came to her rescue, Teka
concluded that he had been the person
responsible for defeating the Nimon. Never mind the Doctor and Romana; as far
as Teka was concerned Seth was the hero of the hour, and she was going to make damn
sure everybody heard about it.
Love theme: Holding
Out For A Hero
26 Za and Hur (100,000 BC (1963))
Magic
moment: “Now you are Leader. You are as strong as the beasts.”
Back in the stone age, there was little opportunity for
romance. The rule of the tribe encountered by the Doctor in his first adventure
was simple; whichever man can make fire will become the leader and be given Horg’s
daughter Hur as his ‘wife’. Hur wants this to be Za but Za doesn’t have the
secret of fire, while Kal, an interloper in the tribe, courts popularity by
bringing in fresh meat. But Hur remains true to Za and, with a little help from
the Doctor, has Kal banished.
Love theme: Stand
By Your man.
27 Davitch Pavale and
Female Programmer (Bad Wolf/The
Parting Of The Ways (2005))
Magic
moment: “Am I supposed to say, when this is all over, and if we’re
still alive, maybe we could go for a drink?”
Sometimes the timing is never right. Davitch has been
working at the Game Station for years. He only joined the programme so he could
be near to his beloved. But despite repeated invitations to spend their spare
time together she’s always turned him down. Only when the Game Station is under
imminent attack from a Dalek fleet does she start to warm towards him, and by
then, of course, it is far too late.
Love theme: Never Let Her Slip Away
28 Lieutenant John Andrews and Claire Daly (Carnival Of Monsters (1973))
Magic
moment: “John and I thought we'd take a turn around the deck.”
When the SS Bernice was captured by the Miniscope,
Lieutenant Andrews and Claire Daly found themselves trapped in a nautical Groundhog Day, doomed to forever turn
down the offer of a cocktail from Major Daly to instead walk around the decks,
enjoying the glorious evening whilst discussing the merits of musicals (she’s a
big fan of Fred Astaire and Chu Chin Chow,
he thinks they’re a load of nonsense). Returned to Earth, they were freed from
the time-loop – and we never found out whether they parted or coupled when they
finally reached Bombay.
Love theme: You
Spin Me Right Round (Like A Record)
29 Altos and Sabetha (The Keys Of Marinus (1964))
Magic
moment: “The man who loves me cannot betray me.”
Sent by Arbitan to recover the keys to the conscience
machine, both Altos and Sabetha became ensnared in the Morpho brains’
hallucinogenic velvet web. Once freed, they joined the Doctor and his
companions in their odyssey to recover the keys, only to be captured by Yartek,
the leader of the alien Voord. Yartek somehow manages to detect that Altos is
in love with Sabetha (despite Altos not having shown the slightest interest in
her previously); he must have an antennae for these things.
Love theme: You
Never Can Tell
30 Prince Reynart and
Princess Strella (The Androids Of
Tara (1978)
Magic moment: “If
only she were real, I'd marry her.”
In The Androids Of
Tara, everyone is in love with someone. Reynart’s in love with Strella,
Strella’s in love with Reynart, Mademe Lamia’s in love with Count Grendel and
Count Grendel is in love with Count Grendel. Admittedly the real Reynart and
Strella never meet until the end of the story, but with so many doubles of
Strella available, it’s a sign of his true love that he still wants the one who
does nothing but sit around sewing tapestries all day.
Love theme: You’re
The One That I Want
31 Sir Robert
Macleish and Lady Isobel (Tooth And
Claw (2006))
Magic
moment: “I must defend her majesty. Now, don't think of me, just go!”
As Lady Isbobel had been taken hostage by the Brethren, Sir
Robert had no choice but to co-operate with their plan to lure Queen Victoria
to Torchwood House so that she could become the next host of the werewolf
infection. In the end, Sir Robert gave his life defending his queen, so that
his wife could remember him with honour, and by creating a top-secret
organisation named after his house.
Love theme: I’d
Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That)
32 John and Carol (The Sensorites (1964))
Magic
moment: “Can you imagine what it's like being in love with someone,
to look at them, to see them and know they've been destroyed?”
Over the course of the story, John and Carol undergo a
transformation. At the beginning, Carol is in a state of suspended animation
while John has taken to skulking in the shadows, whimpering, as his hair turns
grey. By the end of the story, John has been restored to full mental health and
dark hair while Carol has had a complete make-over. After all she’s been
through you can hardly blame her.
Love theme: No Matter
What
33 Laszlo and
Tallulah (Daleks In
Manhattan/Evolution of the Daleks (2007))
Magic moment: “Laszlo?
My Laszlo? Oh, what have they done to you?”
It’s the classic Phantom
Of The Opera tale, the story of a New York city show-girl and her stage-hand
boyfriend who has been transformed into a Dalek pig slave. But he still leaves
a rose on her dressing table, and despite his snout and tusks, Tallulah never
stops loving him. She’s not superficial like that.
Love theme: Never
Gonna Give You Up
34 Thara and Vana (The Krotons (1968))
Magic moment: “Vana,
you're all right now. You're home.”
When the announcement comes that Vana is to become a
companion of the Krotons, Thara can’t believe his ears. He begs Vana to run
away with him, but instead she reluctantly submits herself to the dynatrope. But
Vana rows that he will always remember her. Gond, but not forgotten.
Love theme: Baby
Come Back
35 Hal Korwin and
Kath McDonnell (42 (2007))
Magic moment: “I
love you.”
Realising that her husband Korwin has been killed and
re-animated by the consciousness of a living
sun, and that she was responsible, McDonnell decides there is only one course
of action available to her. She lures him into an airlock, embraces him and
ejects them both into space.
Love theme: You
Are My Sunshine
36 Oscar Botcherby
and Anita (The Two Doctors (1985))
Magic moment: “Please
take care of my beautiful moths.”
To be honest, Oscar has done pretty well to catch Anita, his
‘dark-eyed naiad’. He’s not exactly the most masculine of men and his idea of a
fun day out is to wander the countryside killing butterflies. But clearly she
sees something in him, and is devastated when he gets pinned like one of his
moths.
Love theme: Stuck
On You
37 Lazar and Vira (The Ark In Space (1975))
Magic moment: “It's
over, Vira. You and I are alive again.”
It’s only in part
three of this story, after Lazar has nearly completed his transformation into a
Wirrn, that we learn from Vira that she and Lazar had been ‘pair-bonded’ for
life on the new Earth, and just for a moment Vira’s composure wavers as she permits
herself a moment of grief.
Love theme: Self
Control
38 Tony Mack and Doctor
Nasreen Chaudhry (The Hungry
Earth/Cold Blood (2009))
Magic moment: “I've
got what I was digging for. I can't leave when I've only just found it.”
Just like Greg and Petra, it was an ill-fated project to
drill into the Earth that brought Tony and Nasreen together, with a moment of
passion in a besieged church. After Tony became infected by a Silurian sting
they decided to join the Silurians in hibernation, to start a new life in the
future.
Love theme: How
Deep Is Your Love
39 Arthur Terrall and
Ruth Maxtible (Evil Of The Daleks (1967))
Magic moment: “Arthur!
What's the matter?”
Ever since he returned from the Crimea, Ruth’s fiancé Arthur
has been behaving oddly. He’s become cold, belligerent, started having painful
headaches and has started wearing an enormous cravat. The Doctor soon discovers
the reason – a Dalek control device attached to Arthur’s neck. Freed from Dalek
influence, Arthur and Ruth depart faster than you can say ‘irrelevant
sub-plot’.
Love theme: My
Ever Changing Moods
40 Brigadier Alistair
Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart and Doris (Battlefield
(1989))
Magic moment: “Exactly
how far are you intending to go, Doris?”
The love affair between Lethbridge-Stewart and Doris has
always been shrouded in mystery. In Planet
Of The Spiders (1974) we learned that she gave him a watch in a hotel in
Brighton ‘to mark her gratitude’. Even when Doris finally appeared on screen,
15 years later, we still didn’t find out what it was she was grateful for.
Love theme: Mysterious
Girl
BOX OUTS:
IS SHE REALLY GOING OUT WITH HIM?
As well as all the obvious love stories that have graced Doctor Who over the years, there have
also been numerous romantic sub-plots which have been a little more ambiguous
in nature. Where the relationship itself is implied, not so much by what is
said but what is left unsaid, and by the actors’ performances. The classic
examples being the romances of Dassuk and Venussa in The Ark (1966) and Leo Ryan and Tanya Lernov in The Wheel In Space (1968); in both cases
the relationship isn’t mentioned in the script but exists because the actors
decided to make their characters flirtatiously tactile with each other.
Similarly, the evident chemistry between Tom Baker and Lalla Ward during the filming
of City Of Death (1979) suggests that
the Doctor may have been particularly fond of the second Romana, probably.
There’s also an element of wish-fulfilment to it too. We’d
like to think that Ian and Barbara got together after they had left the Doctor,
and that Ben and Polly also made a go of it, and we finally got our wish in the
Death Of The Doctor (2010) instalment
of The Sarah Jane Adventures which
established that Ian and Barbara got married and became professors in Cambridge
(and never aged) and that Ben and Polly moved to India to run an orphanage. In
the same episode Sarah mentions that she ‘loved’ Harry, but sadly it seems that
nothing ever came of it (as School
Reunion (2006) implies that Sarah has been alone since her travels with the
Doctor). However, it seems we will never know whether Lieutenant Jeremy
Carstairs settled down with Lady Jennifer Buckingham after the events of The War Games (1969); (it’s possible,
though, that they may have had a grandson who followed in their footsteps and
became a colonel with UNIT, and another grandson who became the Head of
Research at the Nuton Power complex. After all, there is a conspicuous family
resemblance).
There have also been a number of outwardly homosexual
couples in Doctor Who over the years;
not explicitly stated, of course, but what else are we to infer when Guiliano
refers to Marco as his ‘companion’ in The
Masque Of Mandragora (1976)? Or the obvious affection between Amelia
Rumford and Vivian Fay in The Stones Of
Blood (1978), sharing a cottage and a disparaging attitude to the male gender?
Or Australian backpackers Robin Stuart and Colin Frazer spooning in their
sleeping bags in Arc Of Infinity (1983)?
Or Gilbert M and Joseph C, running away together in a spaceship at the end of The Happiness Patrol (1988)? There might
also have been something going on between Ricky Smith and Jake Simmonds in Rise Of The Cybermen/The Age Of Steel (2006);
there certainly was in the script, though all references to their sex life
ended up on the cutting room floor.
Similarly open to interpretation have been the various Doctor Who ‘workplace romances’. I can’t
be the only person to suspect there is something going on between the President
of Earth and General Williams in Frontier
In Space (1973); why else would she put up with him mooning around the
office all the time? There’s also Morgus, who seems to have chosen to have a
deliberately small elevator fitted to his building just so he can share
intimate moments with Krau Timmin in 1984’s The
Caves Of Androzani; how much greater her betrayal if they were also lovers?
Vogel would also appear to be far more than a secretary to Kara in Revelation of the Daleks (1985); why
else would all their dialogue be laced with innuendo?
By way of contrast, though, there have been several couples
in Doctor Who which seem so utterly
lacking of passion it’s hard to believe they are supposed to be romantically
linked. Kimus and Mula in The Pirate
Planet (1978), for instance, seem to have more interest in K-9 than for
each other, while Jondar and Areta in Vengeance
On Varos (1985) just seem embarrassed to be in each others’ company. But
the least convincing couple of all have to be Mykros and Vena from Timelash (1985), who barely acknowledge
each other’s existence over the course of the story. Or maybe that makes them
the most convincing couple of all.
A QUESTION OF LUST
Of course, not every moment of ardour in Doctor Who is the product of true love.
When Cassandra – in the body of Rose Tyler – grabs the Doctor and snogs his
face off in New Earth (2006) it’s
pure lust. And it made a nice change for the Doctor to be the one fending off
unwanted advances, as that has usually been the preserve of his female
companions. For a while it seemed that Peri couldn’t step out of the TARDIS
without having some alien sleazeball slavering after her; Sharaz Jek claimed he
couldn’t live without her beauty, while Jobel and the Borad’s motives were much
less wholesome. At least Shockeye only wanted to cook her; quite what Mestor the
slug intended boggles the mind.
But while Peri had her work cut out dealing with gastropods
that found her strangely pleasing, she wasn’t the most lusted-after of the
Doctor’s companions. That unpleasant honour falls to Barbara Wright. To be
fair, Leon Colbert’s advances were (ostensibly) noble, and Ganatus was a
charmer, but the same can’t be said for Vasor the fur trapper, the Emperor Nero
and El Akir. Maybe it was her backcombed hair, maybe it was her cardigan, but
there was something about Barbara that drove men wild. No wonder Ian couldn’t
resist accompanying her to that junkyard; it was only his bad luck that it
turned out to be one of the most disastrous dates in history.
LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT
But let’s not
be cynical. There’s actually something rather endearing about the way
Ping Cho falls for Ling Tau in Marco Polo
(1964), and the way Malcolm Wainwright immediately sets his cap at Kathy
Nightingale in Blink (2007). It’s a
pity that Ace’s burgeoning romances with Sergeant Mike Smith (in Remembrance Of The Daleks (1988)) and
Captain Sorin (in The Curse Of Fenric (1989))
were both so brief and tragic (she clearly has a thing for soldiers, although
judging by her flirtation with Sergeant Leigh her chat-up lines are so cryptic
that even the Ultima machine couldn’t decode them).
More recently, John Riddell and Queen Nefertiti found love
in the face of adversity in Dinosaurs On
A Spaceship (2012); unfortunately by the time the episode was broadcast
evidence had come to light that Nefertiti did not mysteriously disappear but in fact remained in Egypt ruling
with her husband Akhenaten until his death. But Vicki’s lightning liaison with
Troilus in The Myth Makers (1965)
played equally fast-and-loose with matters of historical accuracy, as the story
of Troilus and Cressida (Vicki’s new name given to her by King Priam) is actually
not part of the legend of Troy but
dates from the twelfth century. So clearly love is no respecter of established
historical fact.
But Doctor Who’s
most infamous case of instantaneous attraction has to be that of Leela and
Andred in The Invasion Of Time (1978)
where, despite having barely spoken a word to Andred during the course of the story,
Leela decided to stay with him on Gallifrey. One can only conclude that love
blossomed off-screen while the Doctor was out cold, or that Leela’s amorous faculties
were still addled from being subjected to the pacifier in Underworld (1977) which caused her to make doe-eyes at Orfe.
LOVING THE ALIEN
The Doctor Who universe
is an extremely broad-minded place. If gender, age, mortality, being from
different periods of history, or even being in entirely the wrong universe is
no obstacle to love, why should the species barrier be any different? As we’ve
already seen with Billy and Delta, so long as both parties look approximately
human it would seem to be the case that anything goes. You can have humans
forging romantic relationships with Argolins (Hardin and Mena in The Leisure Hive (1980) clearly have a history,
and a future, together). You can have humans interbreeding with Cat People
(Thomas Kincaid Brannigan and Valerie in Gridlock
(2007)), giant wasps (Clemency Eddison and Christopher the Vespiform in The Unicorn And The Wasp (2008)) and no
doubt Bannakaffalatta the Zocci would, given the chance, have found some kind
of bliss with Astrid Peth (Voyage Of The
Damned (2007)). You can even have somebody falling in love with a disguised
segment of The Key To Time, as in the case of Merak and Princess Astra in The Armageddon Factor (1979) – although
one wonders whether their offspring would resemble the contents of an ice tray.
You see, with these cosmically cosmopolitan couplings, the
trick is not to think about them too hard. The love felt by a Dalek android
(Professor Edwin Bracewell) for a girl (Dorabella) that it remembers from a
stolen memory implanted into its electronic brain may be authentic enough to
prevent it exploding (Victory the Daleks (2010))
but let’s not think about what will happen when he finally catches up with her
and she finds herself being courted by a one-handed robot with a brass torso.
(He would stand a better chance on Penhaxico Two, where the ladies are very
fond of metal). Similarly, let’s draw a diplomatic veil over precisely how much
‘nefarious excitement’ was shared by Scaroth, the last of the Jagaroth, in his
guise as Count Trancredi with the Countess (City
Of Death (1979)). Let’s just assume their chateau had separate bedrooms and
Scaroth was happy to delegate his domestic responsibilities to their butler
Hermann.
The point is, even the most unlikeliest couples can get it
together, and there can be no better example of this than Madame Vastra and her
wife Jenny Flint (A Good Man Goes To War (2011)).
Vastra is a green, scaly Silurian from prehistoric Earth while Jenny is a
cockney. It’s the ultimate upstairs-downstairs relationship; one of them has
spent her life on the surface, while the other has spent millions of years
buried underground. One of them has an extendable tongue and is quite happy to
eat human beings, while the other is
a human being. In fact, the only thing they have in common is that they’re both
Victorian crime-fighting lesbians. So somehow they make it work, and if they
can make it work, so can anyone.
HAVE YOU EVER NEEDED
SOMEONE SO BAD
More touching, though, are the love stories that never quite
got started. Jamie managed to get a goodbye kiss from Samantha Briggs when she
left him in 1967’s The Faceless Ones;
a year later, he gives Victoria a single kiss when she breaks his heart by
leaving a year later in Fury From The
Deep (1968). Their final scene together, sitting in the garden, is one of
the most poignant scenes the show has ever had, followed by a dialogue-free
scene as Victoria waves the Doctor and Jamie goodbye on the beach (reminiscent
of the scene where Rose and the Doctor part in Doomsday (2006)).
The other great unrequited love story is that of Marriner the Eternal and Tegan in Enlightenment (1983). Marriner starts the story as a blank, but finds himself fascinated by the contents of Tegan’s mind. As he puts it, she’s ‘not like any ephemeral he’s ever met before’. It’s an uncanny, submissive form of obsession. It’s not love; it’s something clinical, devoid of emotion, culminating in a fabulous scene where he tells Tegan ‘You are life itself. Without you I am nothing’. When she asks him if he means he’s in love with her, he doesn’t even understand the concept. But for all its creepiness, you can’t help feeling sorry for Marriner when Tegan finally rejects him because there is something innocent, almost childlike, in the way he pursues her. I just don’t recommend using his chat-up lines.
