(TV
movie spoilers ahead.)
Grace
doesn’t feel out of place to me now, but I’m sure that, when the TV movie came
out, a lot of people probably didn’t know what to make of her as a companion. These days, absolutely no romantic interest
(requited or otherwise) between the Doctor and a female companion is no longer
SOP. In ’96, though, anything resembling
a Doctor/companion romance had up till that point been strictly subtext. I imagine that for some, it was hard to
adjust to Grace.
Because
it seems that’s what’s best remembered about Grace, what comes up first when
she comes up at all. Since she’s only in
the one televised adventure, you can’t really call her relationship with the
Doctor a romance, but it’s definitely flirtier than what generally came
before. He kisses her in a moment of
exhilaration (so I guess there’s precedent for Eleven doing the same,) and she
dazedly requests that he “do that again.”
Later in the story, she laments, “I finally meet the right guy, and he’s
from another planet!” I can’t quite tell
how much of this is their actual dynamic versus how much is the way Grace
interprets it. While the Doctor is
definitely taken with her, Eight has this romantic, whirlwind personality that
can be misleading. But whatever the case
may be, Eight and Grace are credited with paving the way for Nine/Rose and
further developments in the new series.
But
there’s more than that to Grace as a companion.
She has a tall order to fill – again, she’s only in the TV movie and, 90
minutes or not, that’s still just one story
to go through her entire character journey.
It doesn’t help that, as a surgeon meeting a recently-regenerated,
wildly discombobulated Doctor, she naturally assumes he’s escaped from the
psych ward. Even as things go all weird
and sci-fi, she continues to insist that there must be a rational, non-alien
explanation for everything, and we don’t get a ton of time to see her come
around. Since we of course know the truth, that means Grace spends a big chunk of
her only screentime playing catch-up to us.
Luckily,
she has some good traits to balance that out.
She’s very dedicated to her work and cares a great deal about it. And while she’s not quite ready to believe in
aliens, she is willing to believe in
things that seem impossible. She insists
to her superior that the Doctor has two hearts, to the detriment of her boss’s
confidence in her; even though she doesn’t know how it could be true, she knows that it is. She’s a good judge of character, she’ll help
a stranger in a pinch, and her scientific curiosity usually wins out over any
other instinct. Plus, I like that she
likes opera. True, it’s a bit of
shorthand to help the Doctor recognize her after his regeneration, but it’s
also rare that a companion has a really specific, concrete interest, and I wish
it happened more often. Yes, the
companion is the audience insert, there for us to imagine ourselves in their
place beside the Doctor, but they’re also people, and people have hobbies, pet
peeves, and favorite songs. Madame Butterfly provides a nice extra
character wrinkle for Grace.
(Also? I love the shot of her running down the hall
to the O.R. in her opera gown. It says a
lot about her – that work always comes before fun, that she likes to look nice
but isn’t afraid to look messy – and it’s a gorgeous moment to boot.)
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