Doctor Who: the companions' best and worst performances (part 3)

Completing my alphabetical look back at the actors who’ve played companions on Doctor Who, and judging their best and worst performances. To start from the first chapter of this three-part essay, click here; to take a look at the Doctors’ best and worst performances, click here. In the previous chapter, I noted that writer David Whitaker had penned a lot of best performances: Hartnell, Padbury, O'Brien, John and -- if I hadn't eliminated "Enemy of the World" because of the dual-role aspect -- Troughton. I wondered if there were directors who, similarly, had been responsible for a lot of the actors' finest work, and a cursory look back revealed that seven of the best performances were guided by Paddy Russell or Fiona Cumming. They were, in fact, the only directors responsible for more than two. Both women: is that a coincidence? (And if we're looking at female directors, we'd need to add in Alice Troughton, who helmed Tennant in "Midnight.") I don't want to fall back on reverse sexism, but did the female Who helmers tend to devote more time to shaping performances than their male counterparts? As the kids say on social media, discuss. Meanwhile, let's finish our look back at the Doctor Who companions, below. As always, although I bold the actors’ best and worst performances, for easy scrolling, I vary the order in which I list them — so presume nothing.

Peter Purves (Steven Taylor): Purves does whatever is asked of him, diligently: this week, we need you to essay a role that was written for Barbara; next week you'll need to take all the Doctor's lines; after that, you'll be the only regular for an episode — oh, and by the way, can you sing? Whatever the assignment, whatever the tone, whatever the characterization (and there's a tricky shift from the end of "The Chase" to the start of "The Time Meddler," which he navigates with ease), he's willing and able. Much more than able: he’s splendid. His best performance? Well, of course, it's “The Massacre," and not just because he's the lead and handles the role with both authority and humility, and not just because of his verbal laceration of the Doctor at the end, the best scene of its kind until the coda of "Kill the Moon" nearly half a century later. “The Massacre” is a very good script that struggles with two challenges: it has to make a convulsive and convoluted period in history clear to Doctor Who viewers, and it has to make the fate of Anne Chaplet so important that the final showdown between Steven and the Doctor truly matters. It doesn’t fall to Purves to solve either of these issues — that’s the responsibility of the writers — but notably, the writers don’t solve them; Purves does. And he does by upending the very premise of Doctor Who. Since “An Unearthly Child” (and continuing to this day), Doctor Who has held to a promise. As much as the companions immerse themselves in the worlds they visit, they never abandon the role they play for the viewer: they’re our surrogates, our “way in.” Except Steven in “The Massacre.” Steven loses himself in the French Wars of Religion. And it’s not in the script; it’s there only in Purves’s performance, and it’s so subtle, it’s easy to overlook. In developing Steven Taylor, Purves had given the character sharp, angular vocal inflections — it felt appropriately “modern.” (He was, after all, playing an astronaut from the future.) On his first day in 1572, Steven does what all companions do in an unfamiliar situation: he adapts. Purves shows Steven adjusting his style of speech to better suit his surroundings. (As Purves plays it, Steven’s natural skepticism and stubbornness seem tailor-made for the era.) But by the second day, two things start to happen: both unexpected. First, new traits emerge in Steven, ones that we presume no previous adventure had inspired. There’s occasional hesitation — even wistfulness — in his delivery, and when he visits Nicholas after the attempted assassination of the Sea Beggar, his voice overflows with compassion and camaraderie. And the next part is even more startling. As Steven continues to obsess over the people and the politics, Purves manages a finely-drawn shift in his manner and diction, until he completely assimilates into the era. He's no longer an outsider looking in; he seems — like the others — a character in a period drama. Purves loses none of his ability to command the screen, but we're no longer able to view the adventure "through his eyes"; we're forced to pay equal attention to all the exchanges — even the ones from which Steven is absent — and as a result, a complex story paradoxically becomes more lucid. And because Steven is so absorbed into the era that he comes to see the other characters as peers and friends, his fury with the Doctor for leaving Anne to die seems fully justified. There are any number of Who stories where the companion gets caught up in the complexities of a culture (e.g., Barbara in “The Aztecs”) — or finds it hard to shake an adventure after the fact (Donna in “Fires of Pompeii”). But that’s the very point of those stories. Nowhere does the script to “The Massacre” suggest that that’s what happens to Steven; it’s purely what Purves brings to his performance — but by doing so, he transforms the story. It’s an inspired piece of acting. So moving on: Purves’s worst performance. Or at least, his weakest. ..... Nah, can't be done. He’s the most consistent companion in Who history — he never had an off week.

William Russell (Ian Chesterton): “The Space Museum” was Russell’s penultimate serial, and sad to say, he seems ready to leave. He looks tired during the first episode, and although his energy returns after that, he feels at time like he’s going through the motions. At one point, Ian is being pursued and seeks refuge beside the TARDIS; guards approach and don’t see him, even thought he’s mere feet away and in plain sight. As staged by Mervyn Pinfield, the scene is a travesty, but Russell doesn’t work to make it any more realistic; he just accepts that the moment is preposterous, and lets it go at that. “Space Museum” is not a good showing for Russell, but he was too generous, dynamic and consistent an actor for us to focus on his few bad days. So let us turn our attention to “The Romans,” as I come to praise Russell, not to bury him. In premise and tone, “The Romans” represents a departure for the series, and Russell is charged with acclimating the audience. First, he has to convince viewers that a “TARDIS team on holiday” premise can be a valid one; he has to persuade us that the idea of the travelers not having an adventure can be just as winning and entertaining as them actually having one. (Otherwise, we tune out after 10 minutes.) Russell manages it within seconds. On the heels of the previous episode’s literal cliffhanger (which ended with the TARDIS plummeting into a ravine), we open on a shot of Ian lying prone and still — apparently injured, or worse — that turns out to be Ian in repose, blissfully feeding himself grapes. He proves the most welcoming of hosts: matching wits with the Doctor, lounging with Barbara and flirting with bangs. And all the while he’s quoting famous passages from Julius Caesar that are just as awkward and adorable as you’d expect Shakespeare to sound coming from a staid chemistry professor who’s literally decided to let down his hair. (Ian is given to exclaiming “o tempora o mores” every chance he gets, not because it fits the situation, but because he thinks it sounds good on his voice.) Russell’s comic skills were never sharper, and his charm never more winning. And once the Roman holiday goes south, and the Doctor and his companions embark on a historical adventure that’s far cheekier in tone than any we’ve seen (at times verging on Plautine farce), Russell must assure us that no matter how many silly pratfalls and comic chases ensue, underneath is a tale just as consequential as any that’s come before it. And he does. As the Doctor and Vicki engage in musical tomfoolery and Barbara becomes embroiled in a bedroom farce, Ian’s journey grows unrelentingly oppressive — a slave ship, imprisonment in Rome, and a sword fight to the death — and as episodes go by, his face becomes wizened, his vitality dwindles and his desperation grows. Director Christopher Barry captures Russell in stark close-up, practically breaking the fourth wall; the serial counts on him to convey all the degradation and brutality the era was known for. And each time Ian has given up hope, he gets a glimpse of Barbara, and is reminded of his mission: not to save himself, but to rescue her — and that just makes Ian all the nobler, and Russell’s story-line all the sturdier. (The “Ian sets out to rescue Barbara” plot is used so many times — starting here, in three consecutive serials — that it practically becomes a trope.) While everyone else is having fun, Russell is making the story weighty and convincing. And when the travelers finally escape the burning of Rome, it’s Russell who’s tasked with reassuring us that all is well, as Ian busies himself by chasing Barbara around their villa, mumbling with a mouthful of grapes, and purloining a wine jug and goblet as a souvenir. His bliss restored, he allows us to shake off the adventure and move on.

Elisabeth Sladen (Sarah Jane Smith): “The Android Invasion" arrives at a point where both Tom Baker and Lis Sladen are at the peak of the powers, and it may well contain their finest scene work. Sladen, in particular, puts lovely, fizzy spins on her lines; her intonation and intent change seemingly from sentence to sentence — sometimes from syllable to syllable. Early on, she and the Doctor have taken refuge in the backroom of a pub, momentarily startled by the influx of unexpected patrons. The customers assume their customary places in the pub, but remain still and silent until a chiming clock restores them to life. “Extraordinary,” the Doctor remarks. “What’s the matter with them,” Sarah Jane asks, startled, the “matter” rising an octave above the rest. “I haven't the faintest idea,” the Doctor notes, “but I intend to find out.” Sarah Jane doubles the intensity of her stage whisper: “How?” The Doctor explains, then urges her to “stay here and keep an eye on things” — but he’s barely finished the sentence before her jaw drops, releasing a pulse of air that magically forms a skeptical, mockney “Eh?” He assures her she’ll be all right, but dubious, she lowers her pitch two octaves in response: “I’ve heard that before” — inverting the standard line-reading, so that the “heard” gets the stress, and the “fore” rises a fifth above the rest. “Can you find your way back to the TARDIS,” the Doctor inquires, and her assuredness prompts an ad-libbed “tsk,” then a slangy delivery — pure music hall — of “Course I can.” Five consecutive lines — a mere fifteen words — and not a syllable duplicated, in inflection or approach. Sladen’s vocal dexterity is dazzling. Sometimes her voice cracks subtly on a syllable, as if confusion or surprise has stifled her airflow. Other times, she lets a word or phrase escape from the corner of her mouth, like a cartoon gangster. You can grow dizzy with delight just listening to her — but none of it feels arbitrary or artificial. Sarah Jane just seems so shrewd, attentive and spontaneous that her inflections seem to be outpacing her thoughts. Sladen was never more in control of her formidable technique, and the camera seems content to bask in her features: to capture every shift of emotion. Her performances remain remarkable through Season 13, then — in her final two stories — she disengages a bit, injecting the sort of jokiness that would come to stain Tom Baker's tenure on the show. And it reaches its nadir in her final Classic Who serial, “The Hand of Fear.” Perhaps she took her cue from her costume — those red, striped overalls that have become so popular at conventions — because she plays much of it like a pouty, naughty schoolgirl. You forgive the performance while she's under Eldrad’s control, but once she comes to, her go-for-broke approach — full of odd tics, comic bits and ill-advised double-takes — is peculiarly at odds with the material. With an explosion imminent, Sarah Jane is cautioned to plug her nose and open her mouth, to prevent damage to her eardrums; Sladen decides to make a funny face, crossed eyes and all. As the Doctor makes his way to the nuclear plant, to confront Eldrad, she elects to skip beside him. At the tensest times, she slouches distractingly with her arms behind her back, or stuffs her hands nonchalantly in her pockets. It wouldn’t be so baffling if Baker were also distancing himself from the material, as he would in later years, but he’s still as intensely focused as he was in Season 13, resisting all urge to break the fourth wall — while Sladen is merrily play-acting beside him. At the end, the Doctor gets summoned to Gallifrey and drops Sarah Jane off on Earth, and it's supposed to be heartbreaking. Well, it is, because her farewell scene is the one time Sladen returns to her customary, devoutly honest style of playing — but given that she’s gone out with her worst performance, it's a sad departure in more ways than one.

Mark Strickson (Vislor Turlough): Like at least three actors before him, he comes out of the gate with his best performance. Partly, it’s the nature of the showcase, because Strickson could chew the scenery with the best of them, and “Mawdryn Undead” invites it. But what’s striking here is how often he resists the urge to chew. John Nathan-Turner conceived Turlough to fill a function (as someone who “wants to kill the Doctor”), but Strickson takes pains to be more than a plot device. Some line-readings are unexpectedly introspective, conveying the quiet despair of a young man dissatisfied with his life and tempted by the possibility of escape; at other times — as when the Black Guardian invades his dreams — he howls in terror, horrified that he let his despair lead him down a potentially fatal path. And in his scenes with Hippo, he’s a charming rogue, one whose machinations you quite enjoy watching. As an actor, Strickson’s choices are precise, and he knows how to use his expressiveness to good effect. (Staring up at the voice of the Guardian, his eyes are unblinking and his blue pupils transfixed — it’s a great look.) He’s solid, too, with props: when he struggles to discard the crystal, and it sticks to his palm, it’s wholly believable, and when he bangs the hospital door, frantic to escape, that door gets a workout. His worst? Well, he's pretty dead behind in the eyes in "The King's Demons," but once you've read the script, that's a reasonable response. For me, Strickson was plagued by an issue larger than any one script. He was a talented juvenile who often seemed frustrated with the limitations of his role. Once Turlough is invited to join the TARDIS crew, Strickson can't quite seem to settle in or settle back — and his reflections about his time on Who are revealing. Although Turlough was written as one of the most proficient of TARDIS companions, Strickson felt he was stricken with "terminal stupidity." Although he calls Peter Davison "the first three-dimensional Doctor," he categorizes his own assignment as "two-dimensional acting" ("like a cartoon"). There's a disconnect between the role he was handed and the way he viewed it, and a few serials suffer because of his inability to merely inhabit the role rather than “perform” it — in particular, “Warriors of the Deep.” A lot of his line readings seem too severe (“Face it, Tegan — he’s drowned”) — and none worse than his final one. The serial has built to a scene where the Doctor has plugged himself into a computer to save the people of Earth; he's willing to fry his own brain to save humanity, and he's strong and stubborn enough to pull it off. At the end, surveying the wreckage, Turlough informs him, “They’re all dead, you know” — and his delivery is way too much for the moment. Abandoning any effort to show concern, either for the slaughtered crew or the shaken and singed doctor — and even unwilling, it seems, to let the line be merely factual, a setup for Davison’s final pronouncement — Strickson makes it sound inexplicably accusatory. As an actor, he seems anxious to make a statement — but it’s precisely what’s not called for. (Thank heavens Davison’s response — “There should have been another way” — is spot on.) Strickson has described how Davison taught him "how not to act whilst still acting,” and indeed, you’re never aware of Davison acting, but he always seemed present, focused and — most of all — engaged: what's often referred to as an "actor's actor." It’s a lesson Strickson seems to have struggled with during his time on Who.

Sarah Sutton (Nyssa): Peter Davison always said Nyssa was his Doctor’s ideal companion. If she'd always been as good as she was in "Snakedance," I would have agreed. (I probably agree anyway.) She's so deliciously alive in that one. At the top, she appears in a new outfit, courting a compliment from the Doctor; she sulks briefly at his inattentiveness, then gets to work, troubleshooting the latest issue with the TARDIS. Three distinct beats in a matter of seconds. Sutton tended to fasten onto an emotion and hold it until it was no longer useful; it suited Nyssa’s background as a child of privilege on Traken, and her methodical mind. Her acting choices are far more numerous and vivid in “Snakedance,” and it seems tied to the evolution of her character. Sutton was determined to have Nyssa mature for Season 20, and “Snakedance” is pretty much the only serial where you actually see the manifestation of that newfound maturity. Sutton’s performance captures a girl in that awkward stage just shy of womanhood: in Nyssa’s case, a time when she's prepared to confront and disagree with the Doctor, even as she continues to prove his most valuable asset. You never quite know which side of Nyssa you’re going to get in “Snakedance,” but it all seems consistent with her character. Near the end, when the Doctor tries to help her over some shrubbery, her curt response — “Thank you, it wasn’t necessary” — is perfect; Nyssa refuses to be treated like a child — especially by someone who refuses to see her as an woman. But this is also the character whose background in bioelectronics allows her to deduce the origin of the Great Crystal, and whose devotion to the Doctor leaves her stricken with terror as he submits to Dojjen’s ritual. “Snakedance” finds Sutton acting as the Doctor's confidante, his conscience and his occasional critic — and excelling at all three. (As a sidenote, “Snakedance” stands as one of only two stories where both the Doctor and his companions were serving up series-best performances.) But Sutton’s newfound range doesn’t last long; she seems at sea throughout the following serial, “Mawdryn Undead.” Early on, while the TARDIS team is exploring Mawdryn’s ship, Tegan makes a string of typically dry remarks (e.g., critiquing the decor: “It's more like the Queen Mary than a spaceship” — then, when they find themselves alone, “I take it back. It's not the Queen Mary, it's the Marie Celeste”). The old Nyssa would have suppressed a giggle, or (if she didn’t understand the reference) given her friend a quizzical look, or (if she didn’t understand the reference, but appreciated her friend’s wit) smiled in solidarity. Sutton just nurses a blank stare; she seems trapped between the girlish responses that were so lovely in her first full season and her attempts to age her character gracefully in her second. Sutton nurses a blank stare for much of “Mawdryn,” and when she has lines, she delivers them factually, without urgency or impulse. She seems to have no take on anything. When Tegan and the Brigadier approach the TARDIS in Part 2, Tegan warns that the charred figure inside might not be the Doctor, and Nyssa responds, “But he is. The transmat process induced a regeneration.” It’s said like an info-dump. Is Nyssa concerned? Adamant? Panicked? We have no idea. Almost all her lines in “Mawdryn” are delivered without flavor; it’s baffling, and you can only imagine that Sutton has grown too muted in an attempt to appear mature. In “Snakedance,” she seems as varied as her multi-color outfit; in “Mawdryn,” her performance again mirrors her wardrobe: it’s a study in gray.

Mary Tamm (Romana I): Like Louise Jameson (directly) before her, Tamm was given an uncommon role and knew exactly what to do with it — but in Tamm’s case, it wasn’t what the writer had in mind. When Robert Holmes introduces Romana in “The Ribos Operation,” he writes her as he had been writing Leela (Chris Boucher's conception to the contrary): as an unwanted companion in need of instruction and worldview. But Tamm doesn’t play it that way, and director George Spenton-Foster doesn't shoot it that way; every time Holmes invites Tom Baker to indulge in one of his bombastic life lessons, Spenton-Foster inches the camera over to Tamm and lets her button it with an aloof, withering look. Tamm isn’t going to play Romana as a callow sidekick, but as a screwball heroine: skeptical and irreverent, funny and glamorous, and mysteriously, triumphantly untouched by all the surrounding mayhem. And by the following serial, the creative team eagerly follows her lead. It's difficult to watch Season 16 of Classic Who — in which a stylish Time Lady arrives to keep the Doctor in check, and in which their ensuing bickering betrays a burgeoning affection — without recalling the screwball comedies of the Thirties and early Forties. And it's impossible to watch "The Androids of Tara" without seeing the Doctor and Romana as Nick and Nora Charles, with K9 as their beloved Asta. For over a season, Tom Baker had looked like he'd rather be fishing; writer David Fisher turns that into a character trait, and hands off the detective work to Tamm — and she rewards him with her most radiant performance. Some Who actors — in interviews and DVD commentary — have no idea which scripts showcased them well, or inspired their best work. Tamm knew. In her autobiography, she cites “Androids” as her favorite serial, and it’s not hard to see why; it give her more chances to shine, as a character (many characters) and an an actress — and she basks in the opportunities. The best moment in "Androids" might be a throwaway line by Tamm near the top. Romana has followed the Doctor to a stream where he's determined to spend the day fishing. "But what about the fourth segment?," she reminds him. "You get it," he insists, and she accepts the dare, making plans to meet him there in an hour's time. Satisfied, he asks, "Would you mind standing aside, please? You're casting a shadow. It frightens the fish," and she mutters to herself, in a verbal eye-roll, "Frightens the fish.” That one aside — "frightens the fish" — might be the best thing about "Androids of Tara," because you have no idea if it was scripted or improvised, but it's hilarious. Baker and Tamm give the illusion, as did all the great screwball couples, of being so comedically in tune that they've achieved a spontaneity, an unrestraint and a zest for life that most of us can only aspire to. And Tamm in “Androids” embodies that image of sensual detachment that infuses all screwball: where the fun of the party is crashing it — not belonging to it. Sadly, immediately after proving as incandescent as any Thirties heroine, Tamm is saddled with “The Power of Kroll” (which Tamm liked least of her serials, again for good reason), where Romana is reduced to peril monkey and useless companion: strung up for sacrifice, then losing the Key to Time tracer, and ultimately relegated to questions like "what is it?" and (when the Doctor disappears to do something important) "where are you going?" and (when he returns from doing something important) "are you all right?" Holmes obviously had no idea how Tamm had transformed Romana, and hadn't developed any further affection for the character since the last time he scripted her, as he once again subordinates her to the Doctor and has her indulge in the psychological profiling that was her least attractive attribute in "Ribos Operation." ("Emotional insulation is usually indicative of psychofugal trauma.") Tamm does what she can with the material, and to her credit, her disaffection never bleeds onto the screen, but she has few opportunities to shine. It’s a dutiful performance, but — for Tamm — a drab one.

Catherine Tate (Donna Noble): Tate could do it all, couldn’t she? She could toss off one-liners with the best of them, but she could also soar to magnificent dramatic heights. She could be caring one moment and indignant the next; momentarily disenfranchised, then ultimately empowered. But although Tate could do it all, it’s interesting to watch how she does it all. In her earliest episodes, you can see the shifts in her state of mind; she hits all her marks, but she arrives there very deliberately. (One could say of “The Fires of Pompeii” that it contains a lot of wonderful Catherine Tate performances that never quite coalesce into one Catherine Tate performance.) But learning on the job — particularly on a unique one like Doctor Who — isn’t unusual, and Tate was a quick study. For me, her most extraordinary performance comes in “Forest of the Dead”; nowhere does her newfound mastery of technique and expression — and the various forces that drive Donna Noble — seem clearer. It’s a story that presents an enormous challenge for Tate, because all the pulse-pounding action is happening elsewhere: aliens foraging in the shadows, archaeologists decaying into fossils, a girl with a magic TV remote and a woman with a mysterious diary. And the Doctor scrambling to save them all. Tate’s story-line runs counter to that, in Donna’s dreamworld, and that plot, filled with traditional moments from an imagined life — from meeting a mate to marrying him, from caring for children to seeing them to sleep — needs to be just as fascinating as the life-altering events occurring in the library. And furthermore, Tate is charged with highlighting the “normality” of her story-line; the more surreal aspects (her memory lapses, the shifts in time) need to feel like mere hiccups. (When Doctor Moon advises Donna to remember or forget, the transitions Tate makes are eerie and astounding — like an LP skipping and then continuing.) Yet within this rigid format, Tate’s range remains as rich as ever, and her shifts of mood are never smoother. She eases into every transition without letting you see how she got there, be it her obtuse outrage when informed that she’s been living a dream (“But I’ve been dieting!”) or her hushed hysteria as she lies to her children to calm their fears. (“Of course you’re real — you’re as real as anything.”) Donna Noble, the woman who abandoned an ordinary life so she could sail among the stars, is made to star in a drama about the life she never had. “Turn Left” will riff on the same theme, of course, but there the choices are life-and-death. Nothing in Donna’s dream is consequential; Tate has to sustain our interest merely through the details she provides, the enormous rapport that she’s forged with the audience, and her newly-honed ability to switch tone as effortlessly as the rest of us breathe. Although I can’t really fault a Tate performance in Series 4, I can admit to one moment I rather dislike, and that’s when Donna awakens to save the day in “Journey’s End.” I’ve never cared for the episode’s descent into pure comedy, as Donna’s newfound Time Lord brain allows her to vanquish the Daleks with a couple of keystrokes. She tells us she has the Doctor’s mind, but apparently just the funny part, because there’s no trace of so many other qualities — passion and purposefulness, to name two — that would have been fascinating to see. (The much-prophesied Doctor-Donna turns out to be merely a cheekier version of Donna.) And because there’s no urgency in her performance, a dramatic climax — one we’ve been building to for an episode and a half — comes off like a comic lark. What Tate had managed in Series 4 — particularly in the latter half — was to weave all of Donna’s colors into one luxurious tapestry. Near the end of “Journey,” I feel like we start to see threads again. Even before Donna’s memory is wiped, I feel something is lost.

Lalla Ward (Romana II): Up to now, I’ve mostly avoided labeling actors' first filmed performances their “worst” (e.g., Colin Baker in “Twin Dilemma”), because I figure, well, they’re allowed at least a couple episodes to get their bearings. But the things that go wrong in Ward’s first serial are so unusual and so simultaneously sad and comical that it’s hard not to discuss them. Ward had taken over the role of Romana when Mary Tamm elected not to return for a second season. “The Creature From the Pit" is her first serial filmed, and David Fisher, with no idea what Ward would bring to the role, writes Romana as he'd been written for Tamm — to disastrous effect. The bad line readings pile up like a traffic jam. "Go ahead and kill me": Tamm would have been nonchalant, amusingly indifferent; Ward is just pouty. "That's the first intelligent question you've asked": Tamm would have tempered the insult by being the teensiest bit impressed; Ward seems haughty. "Then what are you doing here skulking about in a pit eating people?": Tamm would have been fascinated by the possibilities; Ward sounds downright nasty. Tamm balanced Romana's aloofness with a gentle fascination that mirrored our own; it was a feat that in no way came naturally to Ward — but why should it? The series will ultimately play to her strengths; at this point, it simply has no idea what those are — and the ultimate impact of Tamm’s lines coming out of Ward’s mouth is to make Romana II seem like a real pill: the most unpleasant companion until the arrival of Tegan “you’ve lost me my job” Jovanka. (Fisher had penned two of Tamm’s best serials in Season 16: “Stones of Blood” and “Androids of Tara.” In retrospect, “Creature From the Pit” might just be the most Romana-ish script that Fisher ever wrote; it just ended up going to the wrong Romana.) Season 17 goes through a whole lot of growing pains before it figures out how to display Ward’s charm, natural empathy and ebullience. It’s not till “The Horns of Nimon” that Ward manages to navigate an entire serial with confidence and grace. In “Nimon,” writer Anthony Read relegates the Doctor to the scientific stunts (and Baker busies himself with his amiable mugging), and hands Romana the more essential role: she gets all the interpersonal scenes. And Ward finally gets a chance — five serials in — to show assurance and range. She sizes up the other characters quickly, and as they interact, adapts her tone and approach to achieve her aims; it's a far cry from Romana I's amused indifference. When she befriends one of the boys being shipped to Skonnos for sacrifice, she coaxes his backstory from him with maternal concern. When she encounters the elderly Sezom, whose greed destroyed his planet and whose grief and guilt are now destroying him, she secures the information she needs by treating him as a peer, as a fellow elder. And when she goes head-to-head with Graham Crowden in the final act, it's as an adversary, as she unleashes four episodes of pent-up outrage. It's the scene where, famously, Crowden thought it was a camera rehearsal, and went to town in a performance dripping with discomfiting camp. But you're not really watching him; Ward's too self-possessed. He's the one screaming, but she's focal, and in her red fox-hunt jacket, she's not only verbally but visually dominant. There are lots of reasons to beat up on "Horns of Nimon," but it's also a chance to enjoy Lalla Ward in her best Doctor Who performance, and that compensates for a lot. It has to.

Matthew Waterhouse (Adric): An irony of Waterhouse's tenure on Doctor Who is that, during his first season, when his acting abilities are at their most limited, Adric at least makes himself useful to the Doctor; the following year, when his skill set has expanded, the new writers and story editors don't have a clue what to do with him. In Season 18, there’s pretty much only one serial where he acquits himself nicely, and that’s “The Keeper of Traken.” (It helps that he’s given someone his own age to play opposite.) In Season 19, the only serial he threatens to undo is “Kinda,” and that’s mostly because the acting from the ensemble is so strong — most of them walking a fine line between a naturalistic and a more heightened approach — that Waterhouse’s penny-plain delivery is bound to stand out. (In Part Three, trapped in a dome with two madmen, he's meant to project mounting desperation to escape, but mostly he conveys the impatience of a teenager anxious to ditch his parents on a Saturday night.) His worst serial is easily “Warriors’ Gate,” and — as with other Doctors and companions: Pertwee, Davison, Ward, Coleman — it’s a serial basically designed to defeat him. “Warrior’s Gate” riffs on language, images and ideas, with less emphasis on character. The dialogue is full of spaceship technobabble ("High-tension cable. We'll run it to his feed point. That ought to boost him." "You want to bet?" "Connect the cable and switch on." "We're closing in on something." "We're heading for a time rift!") and TARDIS-team mumbo-jumbo ("Never heard of the I-Ching?" "Superstition." "Random samplings that affect the broad flow of the material universe." "The holistic view?"), and this is not where Waterhouse lived. Throughout the serial, he and Clifford Rose seem to be having a contest to see who can give the worst line-readings; Rose shows he can make something as straightforward as "Give me a printout" sound senseless, but Waterhouse tops him by making something as basic as pointing and exclaiming “Look!” seem beyond him. (Sidenote: he gets a second shot at the “look!” bit in “The Visitation,” and does much better by it.) Waterhouse’s last three serials filmed easily represent his best work, as he blithely stuffs his face in “Black Orchid” and helps the Doctor defuse a bomb in “Earthshock.” But it’s in “Castrovalva” that he has his strongest showing, and watching, you can’t help but feel it’s in good part because Fiona Cumming — instead of ignoring his issues — chooses to address them head-on. Knowing well that Waterhouse had no idea what to do with his hands (and that they could often prove a distraction, both to the audience and to himself), she straps them down whenever she can, forcing him to emote with his voice and his face — an old acting trick that works wonders. (And when she can’t do that, she shoots him in profile or from behind.) There’s unusual precision to his performance: the way his voice cracks with surprise when the regenerating Doctor asks if he’s ever been to Alzarius, and he responds, “But I was born there, Doctor”; a nice combination of desperation and exhaustion as he tries to warn Tegan about the block transfer computation; the artful yet unforced way his head drops and his body slumps when the Master renders him unconscious; his raw, sweaty fury as he threatens the Master (“I’ll fight you! I won’t let you harm the Doctor!”), and the way he lifts his pitch and tightens his diction as he briefly pretends to join forces with him — alerting us that it’s a ruse. Without having to worry so much about his body language, Waterhouse is better able to find and hone the emotional impulse behind his lines, and truly, you didn’t think he had it in him.

Deborah Watling (Victoria Waterfield): “The Abominable Snowmen” is one of two stories — the other being “Snakedance” — where both the Doctor and his companions are serving up series-best performances. Right from the start, Watling makes it clear that Victoria is her father’s daughter: she’s inquisitive and headstrong (except when it comes to facing danger, and then she’s content to leave the heroics to Jamie). In the opening scenes, when the Doctor instructs Jamie and Victoria to wait in the TARDIS while he explores the mountainside below, Victoria takes it upon herself to monitor the Doctor’s progress on the scanner. Two serials in, and she’s already working the TARDIS controls. (“I want to see where the Doctor's gone. Now if I turn this to the left it should... Ah ha, that's it!”) And from her first moments in the monastery, Victoria senses that something is amiss — they are too many forbidden rooms and unanswered questions — and she sets it upon herself to find answers. (At one point, confined to her quarters, she mimics food poisoning to make her escape. She even manages to imprison her guard Thomni, whom she’s newly befriended. Victoria is a crafty one, and not above playing dirty.) Victoria was never more intriguing than in this story; touching down in a time period not too far removed from her own, she gains cunning and initiative, and Watling — given a chance to be capable and focal — proves just how good she can be when she's not consigned to simpering and screaming. Not that there was anything wrong with her simpering and screaming; Victoria, after all, was designed as a damsel in distress — and the protectiveness the Doctor and Jamie felt towards her made both characters more dynamic. And no one simpered and screamed better than Watling, who could manage both while staying firmly in character — and she brought a host of other wonderful qualities to the series, including an uncommon blend of charm, vivacity and reserve. She also brought enormous discipline; there’s hardly a scene that Watling doesn’t elevate — often subtly — by her presence. Oh, she’s a bit muted in her first off-world story, “The Tomb of the Cybermen,” but that’s not inappropriate for a character beginning a series of adventures in time and space. (It may be that Watling getting her bearings proved a perfect fit for a story in which Victoria is doing the same, or it may be that Watling knew exactly how to pitch it.) And in her final story, “Fury From the Deep,” writer Victor Pemberton and story editor Derrick Sherwin lay a series of potential traps for her — forcing her to moan constantly about the dangers the team has faced, which risks alienating the audience; using her penchant for screaming as a comic means of defeating the monsters, which threatens to undermine her legitimacy — but Watling navigates them beautifully. There’s only one spot where I find her acting forced, and it’s in episode 5 of “The Web of Fear.” Everything has been pitch perfect up to that point, but then Professor Travers — Watling’s real-life father — is possessed by the Great Intelligence, and Watling rather overplays Victoria’s fear, both when he appears with an ultimatum and when he takes her hostage. Her performance reduces to a whole lot of unsubtle quivering, and who knows: perhaps she felt she was aiding her father’s performance — essentially making him seem more fearsome — by playing up her own character’s terror. It’s about the only false note I can find in a season of solid work.

Anneke Wills (Polly): Wills had sparkle and presence, and Polly, that product of the Swinging Sixties who worked hard by day and partied hard by night, was a good fit for her talents. What’s remarkable about Wills is that, for an actor whose character who was designed to reflect the times, she’s at her most disarming in the historicals. Polly wasn’t an obvious fit for the period pieces, but in both “The Smugglers” and “The Highlanders,” Wills fully convinces that Polly — set down in eras of which she has only a cursory knowledge — has the capacity not merely to survive, but to thrive. And her feats of derring-do don’t seem outrageous; Wills has a talent for showing the speed at which Polly’s mind works, and for making every action and every result seem plausible. Imprisoned with Ben in “The Smugglers”, she remains upbeat: “I find it pretty exciting.” She’s quick to get Ben focused (“The point is, how on earth are we going to get out of here?”), brainstorming, “In the seventeenth century. they were terribly superstitious” — and within moments, arrives at “I think I've got a plan.” Polly seems so rich in “The Smugglers,” but “The Highlanders” takes her characterization a step further. “The Highlanders” is a lurching, overpopulated serial about slave trading, but none of that sticks in your mind. What you come away remembering — what holds it all together — is Polly’s story-line, and how Wills approaches it. On paper, she’s charged with outsmarting a Lieutenant, one Algernon Thomas Alfred Ffinch, but Wills adds an unexpected element: she shows Polly relishing her power over him. (“You’re not in charge now,” she gaily informs him as she strips him of his belongings — then, coyly christening him “Algy dear,” leaves him stranded in a ditch.) As Polly runs into Ffinch periodically during the serial and emasculates him by whispering threats of blackmail in his ear, Wills plays up the delight Polly takes in puncturing his ego. There's a whiff of sexual sadism in Wills’ performance that’s hard to overlook, and harder still to resist. (It’s easy to imagine that, for Polly, it’s like having her revenge on every alpha male who ever hit on her at the Inferno.) It’s an amusing and daring performance. And it’s followed by the nadir of Wills’ time on Doctor Who, in “The Underwater Menace,” in which she’s mostly reduced to screaming and whining. Wills could manage a lot: she could be an effective voice of humanity in “The Tenth Planet”; she could handle the “instant scientist” transformation that Kit Pedler demands of her in “The Moonbase.” And when called upon to scream, well, she could do that, too. (There’s a terrific one at the end of episode 3 of “The Smugglers.”) But nonstop screaming seems all wrong for the character, and when Polly is tied down in the first cliffhanger in “Underwater Menace,” the whining and shrieking demanded of her — without any of the expected bargaining or strategizing — rings false, and Wills seems at a loss how to play it. One moment especially confounds her. When Polly escapes, Ben asks what happened to her, and she responds, “They tried to turn me into a fish.” Because Wills’ gift was to make the unlikely seem altogether plausible, she can’t approach the line with horror and relief as, say, Deborah Watling might have done; she’s forced to underplay it — the way you’d brush off the memory of a bad date. But that leaves Michael Craze uncertain how to pitch his response, and Will uncertain how to pitch her response to his response — and the exchange becomes a bit of a mess. And by the time writer Geoffrey Orme turns Polly into a defeatist at serial’s end, that cunning creature who lit up “The Smugglers” and “The Highlanders” nearly vanishes altogether. It’s a bad serial for almost everyone involved, a rough one for Polly, but a particularly unfortunate one for Wills.

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Want more Doctor Who? My recent (loving) look back at the Second Doctor’s missing serial “The Abominable Snowmen” quickly rose to become my most popular essay ever. Elsewhere, I look at the eleven actors who've played the Doctor for more than one full-length story, and assess their best and worst performances. In a 16-part series, I rank and review all 158 Classic Who serials, starting here. I also take an affectionate look at the William Hartnell era; do an overview of the Jon Pertwee era; and take an expansive look at the Peter Davison years. And finally, I offer up reviews of seven Classic Who stories that I consider unfairly neglected or maligned, one for each Doctor: "The Ark," "The Wheel in Space," "Death to the Daleks," "The Leisure Hive," "Terminus," "Attack of the Cybermen" and "Delta and the Bannermen."