Sam JonesAn EDA Companion |
Smith and Jones by Daniel Coggins 28/3/98
"You're some sort of Outer Planet freak!"
Sam Jones. Samantha Jones. Blonde hair, two sets of biodata, won't touch drugs with a bargepole and seemingly a cross between Ace and Susan in the 1990's. However, she is quite a good companion. If only she wasn't so... so... daft.
She tries to shoot Daleks and she isn't brave enough, dances with a vampire, and falls in love with people who will inevitably die before the story is out. Possibly the most infuriating thing is her erm... well... crush on the Doctor. She gets jealous when women start going goo-eyed after looking at the Doctor-- and even how Emmeline or something is wearing wet, transparent underwear. She works well with Jo Grant in Genocide however, and spends the rest of the story feeling upset about killing a murderous Tractite. However, of all the companions, I don't know why Sam Jones wants to travel with the Doctor.
The ridiculous scene in The Eight Doctors where she takes it all easily when discovering that she's just dived in to an alien's space and time machine. Sigh. The thing I like best about Sam is A) her modern ways and B) her sheer stupidity at times. After all, isn't occaional stupidity a requirement for all companions. However, when she starts believing that a UNIT commander who wishes to wipe out all mankind is in fact kind, and that his large "green tennis ball" syringe contains medicine, not a deadly poison, it may be pushing credulity.
Just a bit.
Time-Travel Spice by Oliver Thornton 2/6/98
Essentially, I agree with a lot of what Daniel Coggins has said. Sam seems to be the "sanitised" version of Ace, and full of "Do the Right Thing" aspirations. In Vampire Science and, to a certain extent, The Eight Doctors, this is actually used to good effect. Sam is someone who actually does things anyway -- protest rallies, making herself heard. She is angry when someone tells her she is really all talk and image. However, ever since those first two appearances she has decended more and more into a foolish, image-conscious, "Girl-Power"-ing and bland individual. In other words, more and more like the Spice Girls she claims to despise. Authors seem to have reduced her to two dimensions because it makes her easier to work with (I won't make accusations of prejudice on grounds of either hair-colour or gender -- they might not be true, I would surely offend the novelists).
Further, Sam has gone from thinking, "What should I do?" when she's in a tricky situation to, "What would the Doctor do?" before deciding that that is beyond her and doing something dumb anyway. "What would the Doctor do?" is no better than previous companions' cries of, "What do we do now, Doctor?" I find it hard to believe that someone who was so independently minded before meeting the Doctor would suddenly assign all responsibility for intelligent behaviour over to another.
I could go on bemoaning the injustices done to Sam by those who write for her, but it would be pointless and tedious. Suffice to say, she turned from a "Rebel with a thousand Causes" to "Time-Travel Spice," and the change is not for the best. I only hope that with Seeing I (which will be by Jonathan Blum and Kate Orman again) she will regain some of her previous qualities.