Well start by going right to back to 1963, proving that at the beginning (whatever its problems with some female characters were), Doctor Who had a strong female presence onscreen as well as off. As well as being conceived as the programmes method of teaching children about history, Barbara was definitely the mother figure of the earliest groups of Tardis travellers. Especially to Susan, effectively being a surrogate mother to her during their time together. She was also an eternal optimist, doing her utmost to save the entire Aztec civilisation by steering them away from human sacrifice despite the Doctors warnings of it being impossible. All out of empathy for people shed never even met and who had died centuries before she was even born, and in the hope of improving the world around her. And despite being a more motherly and reserved person; when the situation arose, she could just as big an action hero as anybody else. Very few companions would have the balls to not only run over Daleks in an antique lorry, but to also lie straight to their eyepieces about an impending revolution against them and briefly succeed.
JG Moore is a writer and filmmaker from the south of England. He also works as an editor and VFX artist, and has a BA in Media Production from the University Of Winchester.
