Tales of Who's Past: Barbara

I wonder if anyone outside of classic series Doctor Who fans really cares about dusty old black-and-white companions. But Barbara was the first (along with Ian) the very first, and that makes her-to my mind at least-the archetype, the blueprint, the sounding board for all the companions since. And what a fine example of a companion she is.

In the beginning, before we had a codifier for what the series should be, we had a primordial soup of ideas and roles to fill. But the characters, the actors, grew and changed. Barbara is iconic. Barbara was strong and feisty before it was a thing. Barbara is the first person to ever put the Doctor in his place ( The Edge of Destruction, fact fans). That's right, Barbara, the humble history teacher of Coal Hill School, gave the First Doctor a stern talking to, arguably changing the Doctor's character forever, more so than any other companion has ever managed.

Barbara Wright didn't have it easy through the shows first two years. Surviving savage cavemen, the first person in the series ever to encounter a Dalek, meeting Marco Polo and Kublai Khan, questing for the Keys of Marinus (including being...erm...menaced by a mountain man), then arriving in an Aztec temple in Mexico....

Barbara's stand out performance comes in The Aztecs, where she takes center stage, being mistaken for Yetaxa, a god in human form. Attempting to change the course of history for the better (another first), only for things to turn out as written leaves Barbara shaken.

And on and on, Barbara stands out as not just a cypher, but as a well rounded character, with a shining performance from Jacqueline Hill, falling in love across time and space, lost and scared, but always so brave and so determined. Barbara isn't just one kind of companion, she represents all kinds of companions, she showed us what a companion could be and for that, I'll always be grateful.

Until all of history is changed ('Not one line'), I remain

frogoat