Doctor Who Blog

The Companion Departures - #17 - Vicki

Vicki’s departure shouldn’t work so well.The audience has to swallow the notion that a sophisticated girl from the future is willing to live in times that are incredible primitive and uncivilized by comparison. And yet, The Myth Makers is able to sell this idea to the audience reasonably well.  I think this is because the love story which is introduced as a mechanism to remove the character from the show is actually quite sweet (and unlike with Leela, isn’t suddenly introduced into the story at the last minute). Vicki has the chance to leave in the TARDIS, abandoning her fellow teenager (or perhaps early 20’s - difficult to tell by the audio soundtrack alone) and lover in Troy as the Trojans have been brutally defeated by the Greeks - not in soccer game, but in a bloody war. And yet after the TARDIS departs Troilus, a survivor of the bloody defeat, searches seemingly in vain for his love who has apparently betrayed him, and discovers that she hasn’t - at least not personally. She has given up everything - her safety in the TARDIS, her sophisticated lifestyle, her de facto “adopted grandfather” (ie. the Doctor) and stayed behind for him.  And as Vicki finds Troilus on the fields of Troy, there is even a satisfying happy ending as Troilus’ cousin Aeneas arrives with Trojan reinforcements and helps the young lovers escape from the area and into safety. Vicki gambled big time - but because she went with her heart, and she won as a result. Not a bad message to go out with at all.

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