Not all companions were screamers or queriers. Rose isn't the first one to be useful.

I seem to recall Ace being pretty useful, but that could be my Ace crush talking.

ita - quite right.

Laura - I spent a week timeshifting and watching the first week of Passions being re-run on Scifi. Had to make myself stop while I still could!

Companion = device. Agreed. Leela. Mmmmm.

Actually, Rose reminds me most of her. It's so nice to see a person-sized woman on tv, who isn't a joke.

Rose [link] kept reminding me of a character from General Hospital (don't know if she still is on the show) named Felicia

I can see that. GH actually recast the role of Felicia not that long ago. the person playing her bears a pretty good resemblance to Kristina Wagner, but i'm still bitter that they're continuing the trend of getting rid of the old guard. i just realized i'm not in Minearverse where soaps talk is appropriate. so i'll leave it at that. *g*

I have a bronzer friend that could be Billie Piper's sister or doppleganger. i'm reminded of her every time i watch.

Will I be looking for previous Who's soon? If so, do I start at the beginning and watch em all? Start with the first Doctor? Are there some Doctors I should skip?

Unless PBS goes back to viewing Classic Who, I doubt that those eps will be widely available outside of DVD/video. If you do decide to do some renting, the videos haven't been released in order--only select eps are available for each Doctor.

As for starting with the first one, those are very limited, due to the BBC's old policy of getting rid of entire episodes to make room in the storage facility back in the 1960s/70s. Even though I consider myself a big Who fan, I've never seen any William Hartnell (#1) or Patrick Troughton (#2), outside of the reunion eps.

Jon Pertwee (#3) is fun, but his story thread is unusual in that the majority of his eps he's tied to Earth and working with UNIT (a paramilitary group based in England), instead of gallivanting around the universe. Tom Baker (#4) is considered the uber-Doctor, because of his length of tenure (7 years is the longest in the role so far) and because he was the Doctor most Americans knew first since his eps were the first to be picked up by PBS. Peter Davison (#5) is probably the one best known for his non-Doctor roles, especially in All Creatures Great and Small. Colin Baker (#6) is the one I found the most annoying, but others I'm sure disagree with me. Sylvester McCoy (#7) was the last in the Classic Who line, and his eps did more experimenting with the Doctor's backstory and made him more of a manipulator in the universe. Whether or not the new series is going to continue this plotline, I don't know.

As for which ones to watch, Doctor Who is more like CSI or L&O in that it doesn't really matter if you watch eps in order or not. Watch them in order, and you'll get a bit more character development, and in the rare season-long arcs (namely, the Key to Time season and the Trial of a TIme Lord), those are available in boxed sets for rental.

Romana was very useful indeed. But then she was a Time Lord. (Not Time Lady; don't ask me why.)

I'm really really loving the current Who: bitter and sweet and funny and heartbreaking. And I loved Rose's epiphany so much ("I don't have any A levels and I don't have any future ... but I do have gymnastics, and I won a bronze!") Rose is so great a character because she's working-class in a dead-end job, and yet she's bright and perceptive and you can see what a waste society at large is making of her talents. I also love that the new Whoverse is multicultural.

I just Netflixed the Jon Pertwee "Carnival of the Animals", and it was wonderful as a standalone. We have all of the Key to Time eps because the whole family is sick; I find Tom Baker palls pretty quickly. He's a bit self-consciously quirky.

You know, if you'd told me just two years ago that I'd be watching and enjoying both Battlestar Galactica and Dr. Who, I'd have looked at you very funnily indeed!

Thanks for the recap Kathy. I'm um acquiring Doctor Who One seasons 1-4 now to take a look for historical purposes.

I also love that the new Whoverse is multicultural.

ITA. I also liked Mickey's reaction to the conspiracy theorist's nice middle-class neighborhood, and the looks that he as a young black man was getting from the residents--it explained to me why he didn't start yelling for help when he got eaten by the garbage bin.