Favorite Characters: Victoria Waterfield (Doctor Who)

Actress Deborah Watling’s remarkable talent for screaming like the devil was chasing her causes some to dismiss Victoria as a woefully out-of-date companion – just a good-looking, mostly useless girl whose chief contributions are usually getting captured and maybe asking the occasional good question.  While I understand where that perception comes from (her screams really are many and mighty,) I don’t think it paints the whole picture of who Victoria is (a few spoilers for “The Evil of the Daleks.”)

We meet Victoria halfway through her first encounter with aliens – by the time we get our first glimpse of her, she’s already been a Dalek prisoner for quite some time.  As a prisoner of the universe’s shrillest genocidal maniacs, she’s understandably freaked, and as a 19^th-century young woman of at least moderate class, she really has no context in which to understand what’s happening to her.  Furthermore, it means she probably hasn’t been raised to be much more than decorative, so it’s likely that her education is lacking and her experiences of the world are limited.

All of which is to say, Victoria’s been through a lot without having much in the way of means to acquire the tools she needs to handle it.  Not to mention, she comes aboard the TARDIS under far sadder-than-average circumstances – her beloved father, her only family, has just been killed by Daleks.  Joining the Doctor and Jamie is more about survival than a lust for adventure.  So, her mindset going in is very different than what you usually see.

Despite all this, however, Victoria holds her own fairly well.  She regularly demonstrates curiosity and initiative, sometimes urging Jamie to go out with her and explore when he’s feeling much more wary.  She can pick a lock with a hairpin, she often resents being told to stay behind for her own safety, and when she sets her mind to something, almost no one can talk her out of it.

I’ll admit that Victoria’s characterization can feel fairly inconsistent at times.  While she’s usually quick to run into danger (intentionally or otherwise,) she can fall to pieces once she’s there, giving over to screaming and general helplessness.  I’m not sure what all this is about.  One might say it shows that Victoria often has brave intentions but underestimates her resolve, or it could mean that she continually chooses to do the brave thing even when she knows how frightening it is.  It doesn’t really feel as cohesive as that, though.  Unfortunately, it feels more like the writers just making her act as it suits their purpose, even if that means doing a complete 180 multiple times in the same serial.  (Although, I feel the need to point out that being scared isn’t a bad thing – given the typical companion lifestyle, all of them are bound to feel scared out of their wits at least sometimes.)

It doesn’t get a lot of attention, but Victoria also has a pretty lovely relationship with the Doctor.  One of my favorite moments from her entire run on the show comes in “The Tomb of the Cybermen,” when the two of them are keeping watch while the rest of the party is sleeping.  She’s so sweet, fussing over him because she’s recently learned that he’s 450 years old and figures he needs to take it a little easier.  Meanwhile, he empathizes with her just beautifully over the loss of her father, telling her about how he remembers his own loved ones.  Gorgeous – I love it.