So, Caroline John is the first Doctor Who companion actor to pass away since I started this Blog. In fairness to Caroline I know she did a lot of work outside of Doctor Who but it is through the character of Doctor Elizabeth Shaw that most of us know her and have appreciated her as a performer - both in the 1970 TV series and in the P.R.O.B.E. videos of the 1990s, as well as more recently in the Big Finish Companion Chronicles CDs. I wanted to post something to honour Caroline's memory, but instead I found myself reconsidering Liz Shaw and the impact she had on the show.
I've recently re-watched Spearhead From Space and Inferno, read the Virgin 'Missing Adventures' The Eye of The Giant by Christopher Bulis and The Scales of Injustice by Gary Russell and also The Devil Goblins From Neptune by Keith Topping & Martin Day, which kicked off the BBC 'Past Doctor Adventures' range in 1997.
One thing is clear to me: Caroline John was a very capable actor and Elizabeth Shaw was a very capable character, but I don't think either of them were well-served by Doctor Who at the time. From the character's perspective this has been slightly rectified by the books. From the actor's and the character's perspectives the P.R.O.B.E. videos and the Big Finish Companion Chronicles have allowed both to shine more effectively outside of the format restrictions of Doctor Who.
There's any amount of discomfort about Caroline only getting a TV role because she sent Shaun Sutton a publicity shot of herself in a bikini, having worked for several years with the cream of the acting profession at the National Theatre and RSC. Janet Fielding would have a field day with that nugget. At least the BBC then didn't give her a bimbo role to play, so some ground was made up there. Enter Doctor Elizabeth Shaw, scientific advisor to UNIT - allegedly.
Season 7 of Doctor Who is famous for being unlike almost any other season in the show's original run, and vastly different from those that preceded it. Besides being in colour for the first time it's grittier, more serious and jam-packed with seven-part stories that both thrill the viewer and try the patience. Producer Derrick Sherwin decided that the Doctor should be exiled to Earth, so he'd need a family unit around him - UNIT in fact, which had been given a dry run the season before in The Invasion. Having set this up, Sherwin then moved on to other projects straight away, leaving incoming producer Barry Letts to pick up the pieces of his ideas and the rest the season. Letts didn't like the set up, neither did script editor Terrance Dicks who'd also served under Sherwin - that's not a good start.
I think the problem was that Sherwin's ideas were only half thought through: they'd restricted the format, not actually changed it. It's still recogniseably Doctor Who: the Doctor faces the dangers but they come to him, not him going to them, he now has an organisation behind him, but even so he still has a 'companion' to act as the viewer's reference. That could be anyone from UNIT, as it turns out it's an attractive young female. It's ensemble, but not ensemble enough, if you see what I mean - it's still Doctor Who not Torchwood.
Liz Shaw quickly becomes a victim of this format because her role within UNIT vanishes before she can even take it. She hasn't even got her feet under the lab bench before the Doctor arrives and effectively supercedes her, so she assumes the role of assistant, automatically fulfilling what the established format demands - which wasn't as proactive then as it could be. For example in Spearhead From Space in the waxworks museum Liz is happy to ask the Doctor if the models are really plastic when she could easily reach out and touch one and decide for herself. She's supposed to be an intelligent, proactive woman. That would still tell the audience that the models are plastic and we would still know what's going on, it doesn't have to come from the Doctor. It's a minor point, but it struck me on re-watching it because it shows unnecessary subserviency. The shame is that none of the Season 7 stories really make the best use of Liz as a character. She's hastily introduced in Spearhead From Space as an unwilling, slightly frosty recruit before the Doctor wakes up, but he's always going to be the main focus and she's not given much impact before the Doctor takes over in episode 3. Liz is bullied into answering the phones in Doctor Who and The Silurians rather than helping to find the cure for the plague. The Ambassadors of Death probably makes the best use of her, kidnapped for her skills to help the captured aliens. Inferno is largely considered the pick of the already excellent bunch, but she is very much the assistant in this and it's the worst story for Liz. The saving grace is the alternative universe material where Caroline gets to shine as an actor, playing the jack-booted Section Leader Elizabeth Shaw. It's something of a relief, I think, that they didn't try to tack a leaving scene on to the end of Inferno, as Liz didn't play a sufficiently significant role to justify it.
Gary Russell writes a very moving leaving scene for her at the end of The Scales of Injustice instead, having built it up throughout the book with some astute observations and offering Liz the chance to come out from the Doctor's shadow and do great work on her own. It's something of a shame, then, that The Devil Goblins From Neptune which is set after, was written after but comes from a different range, doesn't acknowledge this and bring Liz back in from some other work elsewhere. The latter is easily the best read of the three Season 7 books, but it's frustrating that it ignores earlier works and also disregards the received wisdom that UNIT stories take place a few years in the future. Everything in this book is 1970, so that's chronology out the window then!
Basically the format of the TV show in 1970, not having changed in essence, only in appearance, demanded a subservient companion - like Jo Grant - not necessarily female or weak, but someone who would take the role of the audience and needed certain things explaining. Derek Sherwin should have realised this and found a way around putting Liz Shaw in that role, which was not in her character. Barry Letts came in, reviewed what he'd been left with, decided what he could do with it and set about changing it so that it fitted his ideas instead. Result: we lost Liz Shaw and the stories got less gritty.
I believe the character of Liz was an unfortunate victim of the show trying to find it's new direction and of ideas not being fully thought through before being put into practice. She would have worked much better as a colleague occasionally brought in for assistance or given her own subplots to follow if the UNIT idea was more fully developed as an ensemble. But the character clearly struck a chord with fans and she has endured in her own spin-offs. This is much down to the performance of Caroline John as it is to those who created the character and wrote for her.
In the original novels the authors are keen to show Liz using her skills and her knowledge to both assist the Doctor and to drive the stories forward. She gets subplots doing her own thing, and also gets decent character moments showing a life outside UNIT and pondering whether she's getting the most out of a life as second fiddle to the Doctor. As an actor Caroline John was clearly thinking the same as she came to the end of her year's contract and decided she wouldn't be back for another series (baby notwithstanding) - although Barry Letts had made his decision regardless of these factors anyway.
It's interesting to note something similar happened several years later when Mary Tamm had the same experience as Romana. The format of the show, then, wouldn't allow for the companion to stand at the same level as the Doctor. That started to change with the 7th Doctor and Ace and is very much the case with the new series on TV. It's striking the balance between the audience having the necessary information they need and allowing the companions to be more than mere ciphers.
I'm glad that Liz Shaw got to be more than that eventually, and that Caroline John could make that journey with her. Thank you for those times.
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