Ace Sophie Aldred

• An Exciting Companion by Oliver Thornton
• A Review by Rob Matthews
• Plastic Explosive by Mike Morris
• "...an emotional cripple, a social misfit" by Terrence Keenan
• "Wicked!" by Joe Ford

An Exciting Companion by Oliver Thornton 26/3/98

I have memories of different Doctors going back to Peter Davison in Resurrection of the Daleks, but the first companion I really remember is Ace, even though I grew up past the "hide-behind-the-sofa" stage long before she appeared. I think this is because in that period, Ace was the only companion who actually did something while with the Doctor. Too often, I felt, the companions before that had simply been an excuse for the cliff-hangers at the end of each episode. Ace had a bit of zest to her, and was someone to whom I could relate.

Ace, despite her boisterous exterior, was also quite a vulnerable person with a disturbed background. Through her journeying with the Doctor, however, she came to terms with a lot of her history, often through the specific planning by the Doctor. She was always a strong personality, but by the end she was also a more secure one as well.

Ace was also a companion who was not afraid to stand up for herself. Instead of screaming, she was more likely to arm herself and fight back at the monster. Her irreverent relationship with the Doctor (like insisting on calling him "Professor") gave a new energy to the show, and her passion for big bangs reinforced the image.

After the "niceness" of those who went before her, Ace was a rebel and the ideal anti-hero. She was to them what the Doctor was to the other Time Lords on Gallifrey, and the excitement was just beginning.

A Review by Rob Matthews 3/4/01

First time around, I was no fan of Ace. Her name! Her jacket! Her use of phrases like "Wicked!"! Her unlikely proficiency with homemade explosives! I was having none of it.

Now my attitude has changed. While I still think she was rather ill-conceived to start off with, the character was so well attended to by Cartmel and his cohorts that in the long run she became one of the best. Certainly I'd rank her above fan favourite Sarah Jane, who was admittedly delightfully likeable, but who came to the show a tenacious feminist journalist and left it a soppy dependent girlie.

And now enough time has passed, I see Ace as sort of similar to my other favourite companion Jamie. Her street cred nonsense doesn't grate anymore because she's become a 'period' companion. Just as Jamies was a Jacobite, Ace is, let's say, a Thatcherite. She comes from a world of council flats and pseudo-tough lingo. She's the Eighties Companion.

But she's not just that. She's unique among the Doctor's roll call of assistants in having almost a whole series to herself. In season 26, all of the stories bar Battlefield take Ace's fears, insecurities and personality disorders as their psychological mainspring. The Greatest Show in the Galaxy did so too and so, to a lesser extent, did Remembrance of the Daleks and The Happiness Patrol.

The author of The Pocket Essentials Doctor Who, incidentally, saw this as a pretentious effort to be 'adult' that, along with McCoy's darker Doctor, destroyed the show. Which seems silly to me because surely the only kind of stories that work in any medium are ones that ring true psychologically. If you ask me, the crap of season 24 put viewers off for good. People remember McCoy's Doc not as a chess master but as a spoon player, precisely because that was the point at which they switched over to watch Corobloodynation Street instead.

While Ace had a 'tough' and occasionally violent attitude, I'd say she was actually one of the most vulnerable companions. Fear, as a wizened muppet once said, leads to hate. Ace struck out against what she hated because she was so frightened of it. She was overcompensating, dammit.

Compare, for example, Ace's episode with the stuffed animals in Ghost Light to Peri's capture by Shockeye in The Two Doctors. Ace is a lot more frightened by a lot less, because, although Peri was one of the screamers, her attitude was consistently one of indifference and irritation. Shockeye wasn't the embodiment of her nightmares but merely a colossal pain in the arse, one more alien git to run away from. She was frightened of the baddies she encountered, but only in a general, indiscriminate way. Ace's fears were specific, therefore she was more interesting.

And it was through her that the behaviour of the villains was traced back to human cruelty. "White kids firebombed it". From 'No Coloureds' to 'No Kaleds', you might say.

All in all, I'll forgive the bomber jacket.

Plastic Explosive by Mike Morris /8/02

Before I start, I'll just mention that this is a review of Ace as seen on TV only.

I don't think I'm being unfair to say that Ace is, generally speaking, a very popular companion. She should be. More effort went in to establishing Ace's character than any other Doctor Who companion, and it's hard to think of any Doctor Who girl who got as many big emotional scenes all to herself. One thing that springs to mind is an article by Kate Orman that pops up in Licence Denied; in it she calls Ace the strongest female character in Who and says that never before had their been a companion as well-rounded as Ace (I'd quote but I don't have the book to hand). Many Who fans would readily say, I think, that Ace was the best companion of the eighties - if only because there isn't that much competition for the title.

The fact that Ace is an 1980's companion is obviously important, not only because a lot of her character is based on the zeitgeist (yes, I hate that word too) of the time, but also because 1980's companions are fundamentally different to other Doctor Who companions. Prior to the 1980's, they just tended to turn up without any real backstory, and their character was formed largely by the actress who played them. Some of the more memorable companions were off-the-cuff decisions included almost by chance (Leela) or a chemistry between the actors (Romana Mark II).

In the 1980's, though, rather more effort went in to the companions - to give them background and a place. By the end of Logopolis Part One we've met a member of Tegan's family, had her salient qualities emphasised with a sledgehammer ("I promise I'll get organised some day"), and know far more about her than we ever learn about, say, Sarah Jane Smith. This wasn't, its fair to say, a healthy development, as the 80's companions became defined by who they were rather than what they were like. 1980's companions tend to be less believable generally, which is an odd product of more attention being paid to them. Sarah is a believable person simply because no effort is made to give her any kind of background. The character brief is really no more than, "average somebody" and the rest is in the hands of the writers and Elisabeth Sladen.

And so, Ace is the quintessential 1980's Doctor Who Girl, in so far as we find out far more about her than any companion you care to name. Chemistry exams, previous jobs, family background. It's hard to imagine Sarah mentioning that she once worked as a waitress. By and large, Ace is successful. With conditions. Ace often annoys me and frequently doesn't ring true. I don't accept that she is remotely "well-rounded"; and while Jo's environmentalism and Sarah's feminism have been dismissed as caricatures (Kate Orman again), early on Ace is embarrassingly cartoon-like, a combination of shallow gestures towards some kind of post-post-post-feminism who rarely seems like a real person. Talk of her being the best Doctor Who companion ever is, well, questionable.

Ace, we're often told, is a strong female character. "Strong" is an odd word, and has a different meaning within the world of SF to the world of general drama. Soap opera isn't my favourite type of programme (in fact I find it paralysingly dull), but as it's all about characters, those characters tend to be well-conceived. An average episode of Eastenders will showcase plenty of strong, interesting women - as strong can mean a lot more in soap than it tends to in sci-fi. It can mean mothers holding a family together, or shopkeepers contemplating affairs, or all sorts of things.

In SF, a "strong" woman is usually a girl who can beat someone up. Ripley is probably the best example, or maybe Sarah Connor from Terminator, who transforms from downtrodden waitress to gun-toting megabitch in ninety minutes. As SF is, generally, an action genre, that's understandable, but not right. In science fiction "strong" is a shallow term with a very narrow meaning.

Phew, hell of a digression there. What all this leads to is that, just because Ace blows things up, it doesn't make her a feminist icon. Her pyromania hides a myriad of faults (and only in sci-fi could pyromania hide faults); she is insensitive and has an irritating Mockney jargon that would have driven the Doctor mad if the Beeb hadn't gone and cancelled the series. Worst of all she's emotionally childlike, capable of love, anger and wonder but very little else - certainly not the less showy emotions, like regret, loneliness, concern, despair, and awareness of others - which, in "real" drama, is where strength really comes from.

But; that's okay. I don't really care whether Ace is a female role model or not. It's just that the political gestures at some kind of active feminism disguises the real question, which whether or not Ace entertains me. Just like the 'Girl Power' debate obscured the fact that none of the Spice Girls can sing.

Does Ace entertain me? Yes, to an extent.

Ace, of course, gets off to a rather shaky start. In Dragonfire, she's saddled with a terrible dialect and the need to shout at everyone. And worse, she's gimmicky. Yes, gimmicky, to the point of her having a million-and-one trademarks; a catchphrase, a bomber jacket with her name on, a rucksack, a rope-ladder, and cans of nitroglycerine that register nine on the Richter Scale. When people talk about Ace, the utterly believable street-urchin, they're forgetting this - and, in truth, the five stories that followed. They're thinking of the Ace we see from Ghost Light onwards. Here, Ace is no more well-conceived than Mel. For fitness freak, read double-hard pyromaniac. Mel has her diets, Ace has her can of nitro-nine. Sweep away the cartoonish touches and they're both composed of cardboard.

In Dragonfire, there are two exceptions. One is the scene where Kane tempts Ace to become a mercenary, the other is where she tells Mel about her past. Both these scenes are excellent, the latter in spite of more overdone dialogue ("there weren't nowhere else to go")and hint that the production team are going to put more effort into Ace than previously.

They do. In the following season, Ace gets a nice emotional scene in every story. She gets to be betrayed by Mike, to tell Susan Q that she's not Happiness Patrol material, and to tell the Doctor that she's scared. Unfortunately these scenes are uniformly poor, badly scripted and poorly performed by a talented but inexperienced actress. The scene with her and Mike would be too hammy for The Bold And The Beautiful - "all the time you were..." she says, then breaks down in tears mid-sentence in a way that only happens in bad television drama and never in real life. "They stand for everything I hate," she tells Susan Q - again, you could hardly call it naturalistic. And her scene in Silver Nemesis is horribly written and performed even worse, Aldred not helped by McCoy delivering his lines in a way that's nauseatingly saccharine.

These scenes undermine the good qualities of a character who is obviously artificial, but fun, and aided by Aldred's breezy portrayal. In Season 25 Ace is at her best in the moments where no effort is made with her; her "the landing pattern of some kind of spacecraft" conversation in Remembrance is the best example, McCoy and Aldred having an easy rapport that establishes something 1980's Doctor Who rarely established; simple, natural performances in the middle of decidedly unnatural dialogue. Another highlight is in the same story, when Ace hugs and comforts a child who moments earlier was trying to kill her.

She would have been better without the jacket, without the nitro-nine, and without the stupid name. Hearing Ace shouting "Who are you calling small?" at a Dalek makes me wince. Seeing her overacted "I want to nail those scumbags... I want to make them very very unhappy" scene is equally embarrassing. It's noticeable that, in Ace's three best stories, the shouting and the Nitro barely make an appearance. But just as one can't ignore Season 24 when reviewing the McCoy era, you can't ignore Season 25 when reviewing what Ace is like as a companion. I'm afraid that she was often very poor indeed, a hollow and not-too-successful attempt at appealing to what's become known as "yoof culture".

The most interesting comparison is the other teen companion of the nineteen-eighties; Peri. On the whole, Ace was certainly better. But a well-written Peri was as interesting as a well-written Ace; and interesting because the two characters, in their strengths and weaknesses, are polar opposites of each other. Where Ace is written as a working-class delinquent from a broken home, Peri is a spoiled brat from an affluent family, who has an easy but rather artificial relationship with her stepfather. Where Ace is (annoyingly) in your face, Peri is more bitchy, sneering good-naturedly at "octoganerians from Miami Beach." And where Ace has common sense and an ability to think on her feet, Peri has a large amount of book-learning to her name but very little common sense at all.

Both Ace and Peri have surface characters that aren't wildly likeable - and they would probably have despised each other if they ever met. The interesting thing about Peri, though, is that beneath the social training that she's been given by her white-teeth background she's a damn sight tougher than she looks, emotionally quite independent and well-adjusted, and has a depth of caring that, one could argue, softens the Sixth Doctor's character over time. And what makes me like Ace, by contrast, is that she's nowhere near as hard a bitch as she makes out to be. And this is what shines through in her four best stories; Greatest Show, Ghost Light, The Curse of Fenric and Survival.

What these four all do is, rather than give Ace an isolated scene or two and then have her behave like a cartoon, make themselves actively concerned with Ace's character. Greatest Show does this through the clowns angle. For the first time Ace isn't grinning wildly at all sorts of bad guys, or threatening to sort them out, but she's actually scared - and better still, won't admit it. We also see the sense of wonder in her character and the easy way she makes attachments to people in her scenes with Bellboy and Kingpin. And we also get a director seizing on Sophie Aldred's main strength; her astonishingly expressive face. Ace's best moment in the story is reacting to Bellboy's confused tale in the workshop, when she doesn't say a word, just gets some damn fine close ups. Most of the best Ace scenes tend to be close-ups of her expressing her emotions facially; her confrontation with the Doctor in Fenric, her conversation with a guard in the same story, the "white kids firebombed it" scene in Ghost Light, and her tear-drenched watching of strange happenings in Survival. It's Aldred's physical gift for expression that makes these scenes great, so much so that one might wonder what it would have been like if she'd been written as a more broody type - or even, perhaps, as a mute. Anyone here seen Sweet and Lowdown?

Ghost Light, of course, is actively about an element of Ace's past. The fact that Ace burnt Gabriel Chase down is far more real than those cans of Nitro Nine, and once again she's scared and confused for large proportions of the story. The "white kids firebombed it" scene is a masterpiece of emotion (even if it does use another thing that only happens in TV-world - namely, if you're having an important conversation with someone, it's customary to turn your back on them and talk to the nearest wall instead). Rather than have Ace's cor-blimey persona as the whole point of the character, Ghost Light makes it obvious that this is a veneer - and the angry, frightened and betrayed Ace is a thing of beauty.

In the same way, The Curse of Fenric is actively about Ace's past, about the Doctor's methods, and touches on her relationship with her mother in a delightfully subtle and uninformative way. I don't know if the time-storm idea was originally intended from the start or just inserted in on the hoof, but by golly it leads to a hell of a finale. Again, we see that Ace's supposed independence is a complete lie, and emotionally she's very dependent on the people around her. The contrast with Peri pops up again; if the Doctor had called Peri an emotional cripple, she'd just have told him to screw himself and left. For Ace, it's the worst thing that could happen. It annoys me when people criticise the Ace/Sorin relationship as being a silly case of true love popping up in five minutes; this is just another example of how Ace forms deep attachments very, very quickly, unhealthily so in fact. Her love of Kathleen and Audrey is another example, and the way that Ace feels genuinely rejected by Jean and Phyllis when they call her a "baby doll" is one more. This gives Ace a vulnerability, and a naivety, which makes her loveable - in the same way that Doctor Who's naivety is one of the most wonderful things about it.

Survival pulls off a similar trick, showing Ace forming a relationship with Kara. Ace's journey here is the most complex and difficult to evaluate; it could be about the darker side of her nature, or a metaphor for her sexuality, or a descent into savagery. I like to believe it's all three. There are obvious sexual overtones to the tale, and the delight with which Ace takes to her new-found nature as a savage fits well with a character who can't really handle emotional relationships all that well. The darker side of Ace, the hunt-and-kill life that she finds so attractive, is another interesting thing, a reference to the baseball-bat wielding persona that she has adopted. The script doesn't show that it's not the "real" her, instead saying that it's part of her - acknowledging that the surface personas we adopt rapidly become a very real part of our character no matter how artificial they are to begin with.

One might argue that Ace's artificiality in her early stories is deliberate, to set up the peeling away of those layers later on. I don't buy that. I think we just have to accept that in Dragonfire, Remembrance, Patrol and Battlefield, Ace isn't scripted very well. She's entertaining a lot of the time, because the gimmicks on which she's based lead to big explosions and everybody likes big explosions. It's just that there's not much of a real person under there, and we don't get the sense of the Doctor using her, or educating her, as we did with the Fourth Doctor / Leela partnership. Leela was far more alien, but also far more believable, and hence far easier to relate to - although she did degenerate into an excuse for Janus thorns and knife-wielding in a most disappointing way, undergoing a journey the reverse of Ace's.

I reviewed Peri a long time ago, and said that although she wasn't a great companion she did touch greatness on occasion. I think the same applies to Ace, although she could never plumb the depths that Peri did and she touched greatness far more often. I still say give me Tegan, or Sarah, or Romana any day of the week; my taste is for natural people who react in natural ways, not cobbled-together responses to the mood of the times. Ace, though, did work - in spite, not because of, the Nitro Nine and the threats to rivet people's kneecaps together.

And if she had done nothing else worthwhile, I would like her simply because of a single scene - the "I didn't know she was my mum!" scene in The Curse of Fenric. That's the ultimate Ace scene, and one my favourites in Doctor Who's history. It's a gut-wrenching portrayal of Ace as someone lost, confused, struggling with their emotions, with "love and hate", and not able to work out who they are and how they feel. Struggling beneath the surface of her anger and fear and bewilderment and love, trying her best to find meaning in a tangled mass of emotion. A person coping with the toughness of real, grown-up life.

Just like the rest of us, after all.

"...an emotional cripple, a social misfit" by Terrence Keenan 6/10/03

Ace came about by necessity. JN-T and Cartmel had a silly Doctor and a pure cardboard companion in their TARDIS, and with the upcoming changes in the Doctor's character, Mel's departure was inevitable. So, the creative team came with a companion who is the mutant offspring of Sarah Jane Smith and Leela -- a violent teen, very much rooted in the Eighties, and in need of guidance and education.

In hindsight, it was a bold move after several one-note characters had traveled in the TARDIS -- Adric through Mel -- to bring in a companion who would serve the normal functions, but have depth (any depth) of their own.

Alas, it would take a full season to see the deeper dimensions come into play. Remembrance is a step in the right direction after Dragonfire's mediocre introduction (save that Ace/Mel scene) in the scenes where the Doctor imparts wisdom on her. The end moment, where Ace hugs the girl who was under the Black Dalek's thrall is nice touch, but the plotline with Mike falls short. Sorry, I don't buy the quick attachments argument. It comes off more as plot contrivance than character development. Silver Nemesis and The Happiness Patrol turn Ace into a cartoon of violence and slang. It's almost as if Remembrance didn't happen.

The Greatest Show in the Galaxy puts the potential into action. This is by far Ace's best story. She really does come across as a teen with some baggage (mood changes, the attention span of a gnat). Her fears about circuses and clowns are played for real. And we also she her trying to grow and deal with the people she encounters as an adult (the scenes with Bell Boy). By the end, she has grown emotionally and faced down her fears.

Battlefield brings us back to Cartoon Ace. The wrong notes hit in Remembrance are magnified, with none of the good stuff.

Ghostlight is the other great Ace serial. The story revolves around Ace's burning down Gabriel Chase 100 years hence. I'm going to take a controversial view here in saying that the "White Kids firebombed it" (Manisha's flat) is not as important as people have made it out. The importance (for Ace's character) was that there was any event that made her angry enough to burn down Gabriel Chase in 1983. It could have been that her mom pimp-slapped her in front of friends, that her dad left her, whatever. The anti-racist angle is being used in the same way as Jo's environmentalism and Sarah's feminism -- a socio-political stance in order to set the character apart from an apolitical like Tegan. I'm not saying Ace's anti-racism is patronizing; it's more a marker of the times. (Note: I could be very wrong, but it seems that England was only starting to face racism head on in the 80's. I'm an American, so feel free to send me a line and tell if I have my head up my ass.)

The Curse of Fenric tries very hard to expand on ideas from Ghostlight and GSitG. However, it hits all the wrong notes, IMHO. It goes for too many oohs and aahs (the Ace's Mum storyline is the biggest offender) instead of subtler approaches of its predecessors. There are more quick attachments that ring false. And the moment where Ace's faith in the Doctor is broken wants to be a big character moment, but comes across as just another bad plot twist.

Survival makes up for Fenric's sins by bringing Ace back home, less messed up and wiser for her travels with the Doctor. Ace's kinship with Karra and her affinity with the Cheetah Planet focus more on Ace's desires, than her neuroses -- new territory for the character. Such a shame the series ended here, because Ace's desires might have given the character more depth.

Book Ace is a whole different matter. And best left for another time.

I'll touch on Sophie Aldred's performance in the role. It took me a long time to get over the obvious fact that Sophie is a twenty-something trying to play a teen. Her performances in all the Ace stories save GSitG have more bad moments than good. And in a short run of stories, the bad moments stand out more. Also, Aldred can't play angry to save her life, like Syl. Sophie is at her best when she underplays the part, which is another reason why GSitG is my fave 7th Doc/Ace story. The low point is Battlefield; vomit-inducing is a polite way of judging Aldred's performance.

In the end, Ace is potential realized, undercut by missteps in character and performance.

"Wicked!" by Joe Ford 15/4/04

Let me tell you a story. Once upon a time there was a reasonably popular show known as Doctor Who. It had a number of actors who played the main role, this helped to keep the show fresh and interesting and it also allowed it to continue (mostly) uninterrupted for 26 years. To help keep the audience watching the Doctor travelled through time and space with a number of intruging companions, characters like you and me who we, the audience could relate to (and sometimes characters I hope nobody could relate to: Adric, Dodo...). Alas these friends of the Doctor tended to fall into a predictable category, earning the show a bit of a reputation. They would scream until their lungs burst, trip over any old twig or crisp packet (or anything that is lying around as a convenient plot device) and generally be a bit useless allowing the Doctor to rush to the rescue and prove what a (swoon) hero he was all along! Plus they they tended to be a bit sexy, even the males ones which always helped the ratings.

After time the fans grew restless, they didn't want helpless moaners anymore; the 'old' style companion had fallen out of fashion. There was a demand for stronger women, girls who were physically capable and intelligent, who could rival the Doctor (gasp!) for attention on screen. What they wanted was a character like Ace. And for a while it seemed to be working a treat, Ace was indeed a compelling character to watch. Despite her cod-eighties slang she lit up the screen with her charismatic personality and provided some thought provoking 'issues' for the show to deal with. It seemed for a 25-year-old year there was still much more ground to cover.

And for a time the reputation of Ace was impossible to slate. Fan reaction was so impressive she even got her own slot in the DWM comic strip and was immediately picked up again when the book range began. But something scary started to happen, Ace was changing, not so much the eternal child of the eighties now she was a twisted and emotional wreck (a sure sign of a character developed in the nineties!). In a shocking twist that tore fandom in half Ace leaves the Doctor when he allows a man she loved to die. It would appear that it was finally time to let Ace go.

But no, the editors of the New Adventures were not satisfied that Ace had had a good enough innings. They thought we wanted more. So she returned and displaying all her worst characteristics in abundance. Gone was the engaging, adventurous teen that accompanied McCoy on screen, now we had to put up with a miserable, sadistic and emotionally crippled character that actively sought to destroy well-written books. There was no two ways about it, this New Ace (as she was coined) was a nasty bitch and only occasionally did we see through the cracks in her armour at the vulnerable and intimate woman we loved so much. Things got better over time but that feeling of distaste and borderm of the character grew so much that when she eventually did exit for good it was a blessed relief.

As if that was enough of Ace for anybody Big Finish decided to call up Sophie Aldred and ask if she would like to take part in their audio series. Hurrah, McCoy and Aldred together again, surely their chemistry will be resurrected? Alas no, despite a few strong stories this partnership has now gone a bit stale, it was the product of a decade past and her macho slang and explosive temper paled in comparison to characters such as Evelyn Smythe and Charley Pollard, companions who were specifically designed to represent the new millennium. Plus McCoy is decidedly uneven in his performances and this caught on like a plague, Aldred overdoing her dialogue in some top cringe-worthy moments. But to this day the Doctor and Ace still have audio adventures, it would appear their travels are far from over...

But wait! What's this? Mike Tucker and Robert Perry have also written four past Doctor adventures for Ace! Oh hurrah! More slang! More bombs! More bomber jacket! Will this Ace fuelled nightmare ever end? Apparently not, Dale Smith, Mark Michalowski and Robert Perry/Mike Tucker have added further Ace stories recently. Even Lloyd Rose is getting in on it this year!

The sad truth of the matter is that fandom (or rather me) has had enough. The creators of the series/audios/books have taken something that was popular for its first couple of years and bled it dry; there is a plethora of Ace merchandise now that if I put all the Ace books/videos/audios on display in my bedroom there would be no more room for my furniture! Its just sad that something that started out so promisingly got totally out of hand to the point that now people (okay me) groan with despair when they hear that another Ace story is due for release. Just what else can be said that hasn't already been said in her multi-media adventures???

Whoopsie... that was only meant to be the opening paragraph! I got a little carried away there. My point is I AM fond of Ace's character but I am absolutely sick of it by now. She is like candy floss, have a little and its sweet and delicious... if you eat more and more and more you just want to throw up. There is no balance when it comes to this companion... she's just everywhere. Inescapable which would be okay if she wasn't handled so clumsily all the time...

It is interesting to note that Mike Morris does not like what he calls 'uniformly poor emotional scenes' that Ace received in practically every story on screen (although you didn't mind Davison's similar flourishes of audience manipulation, did ya sweetie?) because that was one the things that drew me most to Ace on screen. He cites her breakdown in Remembrance and her quiet scene with Susan Q in The Happiness Patrol as his examples but I find both these scenes strikingly good in comparison to some of the other material she gets in these stories. Ace was always weak emotionally and her discovery that Mike is a fascist, working against them in Remembrance works a beaut next to the pyrotechnics elsewhere. Her tears on screen feel very real because you can see her flirting wildly with him throughout the story; this teen is clearly inexperienced with men (oh gee love I can see so much of me at fifteen in you in this story!) but is excited at the prospect of exploring her sexuality. It is a crushing blow when she realises she hasn't figured him out at all and that he stands for everything she hates. It is a very revealing moment for this scarred character and one that is exploited well later on. Her scene with Susan Q is even better, a genuinely well acted and well written moment in all the dross that pollutes that garish nightmare of a story. Two people on opposite sides of the fight realises they have a lot more in common than they realise, Susan Q lays her heart on her sleeve and Ace listens quietly proving what a mature and thoughtful young lady she really is. I love the fact that Ace is willing to admit she has no talent, very brave to acknowledge your flaws and their cheeky banter at the end of this scene is priceless.

Did Ace on screen ever overdo her trauma? Sometimes, funnily enough it is Mike who disagree with again (hmm no great surprise thereâ^À¦), I think that cliff top scene in Curse of Fenric is taking things to their extremes. Yes we know Ace hates her mum and loved the baby, it was all laid out perfectly in the script but this tacked on ending where she stares at a photo of her mother as a child and wails "I didn't know she was my mum!" (and this may have something to do with Sophie Aldred overdoing the dialogue too) feels indulgent. It feels like the script doesn't trust us enough to work it out for ourselves and we have to have it beaten into us. Its well shot and everything but just goes to show how they enjoyed emphasising that Ace was a new breed of companion. I'm not sure how they could have ended it without this scene but I'm certain a silent return to the TARDIS would have left the audience more unbalanced... the daft comic punchline does the story no favours at all.

That is just a niggle however compared to the plethora of quality Ace moments. As Mike points out the scene in Dragonfire where she goes glassy eyed at the thought of accepting Kane's offer of travel around the nine galaxies is very revealing, it seems to a point that she will genuinely abandon Mel and take him up on it. Another strength of her character is that with a little coaxing she will admit her fears, it is her outwardly strong but inwardly weak nature that makes her so interesting and scenes such as "I'm really, really scared Doctor" in Silver Nemesis, "I've always hated clowns" from Greatest Show, "The house! It was full of hate evil left by him!" from Ghost Light (a million miles better than the similar moment in Curse of Fenric above because it is integral to the plot), "I hate it, it's my mum's name" from Curse and "I'm scared... tell me what to do Doctor, I trust you..." from Survival. They all work because we can see the bolshie Ace rushing about, laughing in the face of danger with her trusty rucksack for every occasion. The boiling emotions only erupt when provoked but the ensuing fireworks are almost always heart breaking.

Ace on screen was fortunate enough to played by Sophie Aldred, by all accounts a lively and bubbly soul in real life too. She was lumbered at times with the most pathetic dialogue that would have made actresses of the calibre of Judi Dench or Maggie Smith struggle (Let's see..."I wouldn't give that pimple head a hundred and one against you Professor!" and "Looks like Colonel Blimp has a fancy taste in hardware" and "This is naff. This is mega naff" are particularly bad examples) but when she was written more as a mature young woman than a defiant adolescent Aldred took the material and produced magic. The last ever scene in the series where she recounts her feelings as she succumbed the Cheetah planet is quietly haunting, her heaving bosom and flirty dialogue with the guard in Curse of Fenric shows just how much she has improved in the dating game and her intense, heart breaking story of why she visited Gabriel Chase when she was younger is one of the scariest moments in the series, playing on both human and supernatural horror. These scenes are all from the show's 26th season and a clear indicator of how the writers improved and got a handle on her character after a shaky start. Plus Aldred has gained a lot of confidence from fan reaction and has more of a chance to flex her acting muscles.

You just can't watch too much of Ace. I usually restrict myself to one McCoy story a month, if that. The Doc seven/Ace combination works in small gulps but I would defy anybody to watch their stories in a row. Like the Hinchcliffe horror and Williams' comedy it is a repetitive formula that doesn't always work. I'm talking about the Doctor's willingness to throw every fear she has in her face for the sakes of her 'education'. It's no wonder she turned out a bit loopy in the NA's!!! It's not the fireworks that upset me, it's all the cutesy scenes that are involved in between. The Doctor is a bit of a wanker putting her through all these nightmares and yet she still giggles when he tickles her nose, shares cheap puns ("Wish I'd blown it up instead!") and generally acts like the doting best friend. For God's sakes love... he's turning you into a gibbering wreck... fight back! It is not until Curse of Fenric that she turns around and gives him a good slap (metaphorically) with her "You always know but just can't be bothered to tell anybody!" but even in this story shes back to the jokes at the end. If it were me I would not be so forgiving.

Mike compares Ace a bit unfairly to Peri, a much more maligned companion. Shockingly enough I prefer Peri simply because you don't expect great things from her with Ace the writers build up your expectations to the point where her character regresses in Battlefield and you're left scratching your head thinking "What was that?" Peri might not have been fortunate enough to have the development of Ace, she grows up sure but it's pretty fast (and between seasons) but I would rather watch her and Doc 6 and their blossoming relationship which drew them closer over time to Doc 7 and Ace who were a bit all over the place. Happy, sad, angry, funny... they were all these things but often all the time. It is an uneven mixture and watching seasons 25 and 26 can be just that, a decidedly uneven experience. Peri deserves points for reminding her Doctor of the horrible things he's done, Ace just sort of forgets.

But McCoy and Aldred do have a certain sparkle in their relationship and even when the writing doesn't always support their characters it is clear these two are friends, they are having a blast and it certainly spills on screen. I don't think I would enjoy McCoy's Doctor much at all if it wasn't for Aldred and that is one of her greatest strengths. She brings out the best (and sometimes the worst) in his Doctor, his manipulation and selfishness, his kindness and tenderness, his humour and aggression. Unbalanced his character may be but when he's with Ace he is usually doing something interesting.

As far as fleshing out the character the books succeeded in exploring her character from all angles but certain areas of her character were concentrated on that made her unlikable. Her malice and fear of betrayal stick to mind, after Ace we were treated to an arc of books that dealt with her mistrust of the Doctor that do nothing to endear her to us. They did succeed in bringing some humanity back into the character and particularly her departure in Set Piece was probably the best Ace story since Ghost Light. The BBC books have taken a particular joy in returning Ace to her roots, setting her books just after season 26 where she was still naïve and quite sweet. There weren't always successful (I beg of you do not read Prime Time) but at times there are some pleasant reminders of her early, bouncy personality (especially her delightful portrayal in Relative Dementias).

The audios don't seem to know what to do with Ace. They seem to be capitalising on her political beliefs to such extremes Ace is almost a mock copy of herself. The Fearmonger represents anti-fascist Ace where she fights against a racist political group. The Shadow of the Scourge is New Adventures Ace, strategist extraordinaire. Colditz is Nazi hater Ace as she is forced to rub shoulders with the ultimate fascists. And The Rapture is emotionally scarred Ace who discovers she has a brother and gets all shouty and weepy and ANGSTY at this sudden revelation. None of this is fresh or original or very interesting, Big Finish are merely reanimating the corpse of a character long dead.

I feel I have floundered and writing this review has confirmed my suspicions, I don't know what to think of Ace. Sure I like her and her quirky dated characteristics but I feel my opinion has been swayed by an indulgence of Ace stories. Right now I would be happy if I never, ever see another Ace story again. But I don't want that to sound like I'm dismissing her character, for a time she was a shining beacon in the show's dwindling days. Aldred deserves praise for her (mostly) compelling performances. But let's just write her off now as a has been before I break my cardinal rule of living and stop buying Who merchandise just because it has Ace in it.

Let her go. She's had her day.