07-21-2014, 11:59 PM
(07-21-2014, 10:34 PM)SpaceAnJL Wrote: I think both characters are essentially disdainful of everyone who isn't as smart as them, regardless of gender. (As was early Sheldon.) The Doctor is a bit less obvious about it, most of the time, having had longer to observe various social behaviours.
(The Companion bit - the show was originally supposed to be educational, Susan as the audience stand-in, and a couple of teachers as chaperones, until they made her a grandchild. The New Who, with the much lesser visual age gap, let the fangirls off the leash. The progressively more special the snowflake gets, the more irritated I get - it just turns into Self-Insert Mary-Sue when the audience POV character becomes the pivot of all space and time and the only one that can save the multiverse. Bleh.)
Moffat created companions have no life outside of their man. River Song was initially interesting but the more you learned about her the more you realize every moment of her existence was in service to the Doctor despite them spending very little face-to-face time together (I don't believe the Doctor considered himself really married to her but let her think they were because he found it useful). How many times did Amy Pond kill herself when she couldn't be with Rory any more? 2-3 times? Clara existed to save the doctor, says it explicitly in the prologues.
Eleven often makes "ugh women! who can fathom them jokes" and is more overtly sexual despite being less sexy e.g. All the nudity and consent issues in the Time of the Doctor -- Gross.
Whenever he wrote an episode during the RTD era he obviously didn't know what to do with strong complex woman that were the regular companions so they were shunted to the side and he would introduce one of his flimsy puppet companions (River, Reinette, Sally Sparrow) or a man (Capt Jack).