A Double Romana

It's always strange seeing the two Romanas together. The first time I was watching through Doctor Who, of course, it was strange seeing Princess Astra replacing the original Romana. Last night I finished watching through The Armageddon Factor again, the last serial to feature Mary Tamm as the Doctor's companion, Romana, before the character regenerates at the beginning of the next serial, from which point she was played by Lalla Ward, who confusingly played the character of Princess Astra in The Armageddon Factor.

It always seems to me they could have more artfully explained the change. In The Armageddon Factor, Princess Astra turns out to be a missing, final segment of the Key to Time, a powerful object the Doctor (Tom Baker) and Romana had been assembling over the course of the season (Armageddon Factor is the season finale). They could have worked in some explanation about how Astra's physical form, no longer being of use to Astra herself, was passed on to a critically injured Romana.

Steven Moffat worked in an explanation for why the Twelfth Doctor resembled a character previously played by Peter Capaldi in the Tenth Doctor's run, hinting it was a subconscious choice on the Doctor's part. In Destiny of the Daleks, Romana seems to choose the Lalla Ward shape based purely on personal taste. I'm amused by the scene in which she tries on various shapes, including a bodacious barbarian woman to which the Doctor has an amusingly stunned, almost shaken reply of, "No thank you. Not to-day."

It's hard for me not to read that as him picturing himself going to bed with each model. The scene is also slightly reminiscent of Tom Baker's first episode as the Doctor, when he humorously tried on a variety of costumes before settling on his familiar frock coat and scarf.

A lot of fans have tried to rationalise Romana casually trying out different bodies. My headcanon tends to be that she was using a holographic projection of some kind before finally regenerating for real, that being an aristocrat among aristocrats, Romana's family had more flexible regeneration capacity than riffraff like the Doctor.

Anyway, it's hard for me to see Lalla Ward as anyone but Romana. Even when I saw her playing Ophelia in Hamlet. Both she and Tom Baker put so much of themselves into those roles.

Aunts and Butlers Abound

The Fourth Doctor and Romana I are caught up in a P.G. Wodehouse homage in the Doctor Who audio play The Auntie Matter. I've never read P.G. Wodehouse but I gather this story's business with butlers and an addle-brained, aristocratic chap with many aunts are references to Jeeves and Wooster. It's a pretty enjoyable story, even not knowing Wodehouse.

Taking refuge from the Black Guardian in 1920s England, the Doctor (Tom Baker) and Romana (Mary Tamm) are separated and each heroically battles the same demoniac aunt without ever being aware of what the other is doing. Mary Tamm is particularly funny as she coolly and politely handles tone deaf flirtations from Reggie (Robert Portal).

Part way through yesterday, I realised I'd listened to this audioplay before. I must have been really drunk or something the first time because I barely remember most of it.

This audio play was released in 2013, six months after Mary Tamm's death, and there are a few nice interviews with cast and crew remembering her. Tom Baker sadly points out a number of his younger castmates have been dying, including both Mary Tamm and Elisabeth Sladen. I've noticed this before--it's strange that most of the companions from the 1960s are still alive while most of the ones from the 70s have died. What were people eating in the '70s? Whatever it was, I'm glad Tom Baker apparently avoided it.

Tamm doesn't sound sick or even old in her audio plays. It's easy to picture the beautiful, supercilious young Time Lady catching the eye of the foolish Reggie.

The Auntie Matter is available on Big Finish.

A Rampaging World

"Let that be a lesson to you, my girl," says the Fourth Doctor to Romana. "Never take anything at its face value." An appropriate lesson indeed in The Pirate Planet, a 1978 Doctor Who serial, the first to be written by Douglas Adams. People who appear to be villains turn out to be victims--even characters who prey on villains turn out to be victims of another layer of villainy. But perhaps the biggest facade of all is the entire planet in this wonderful serial.

Naturally there are many clever lines but my favourite comes from Romana (Mary Tamm) and is really very mild. After the psychic powers of her temporary allies have failed, she takes up a rifle to blast an enemy officer. Afterwards, she sighs and observes, "Well, so much for the paranormal. It's back to brute force, I suppose."

More than anything, I think it's Mary Tamm's delivery. There's not the trace of the slightest awareness in her voice of how funny the line is. She just sounds vaguely put upon and cool. The second Romana, played by Lalla Ward, is my favourite companion of all time but Mary Tamm, as Romana's first incarnation, could be just so damned cool.

What made Adams think of turning a whole planet into a sort of broad, silly pirate ship? The parody is over the top in places, as when the crowd cheers unenthusiastically for the announcement of yet another "Golden Age of Prosperity". But is it so strange for a society to become complacently accustomed to wealth suddenly turning up out of nowhere and a blustering, cartoonish bully in charge, taking credit for it?

The Golden Age of Piracy, from the 17th century through the early part of the 18th, coincided with the expansion of European colonies. Resources imported to England like sugar and tobacco could enrich society without most people being quite aware of how it was acquired, the cognitive separation resulting in many innocent people unknowingly benefiting from slave labour, or at least without really understanding what slave labour entailed. To-day, of course, it's much harder to avoid being at least somewhat informed about the brutal working conditions in China that supply the world with cheap commodities. But in the 17th century your average European could scarcely conceive of anything like Barbados sugar plantations. But what if those distant lands were right under their feet and the cognitive separation were still there?

Maybe that's why The Pirate Planet involves people with psychic powers, too. The absurdity of the situation suggests a mental playground somehow. Anyway, Tom Baker is great in it, too, especially since Adams' dialogue isn't merely funny it's also very smart and the Doctor genuinely does seem brilliant orchestrating events in the climax.