Moderator's Notes: This is Mike's original Ben summary:

I guess the writers thought we had to have a young male companion along with Polly, so we wouldn't think the Doctor was a dirty old man (they got over this inhibition during the Pertwee era). Ben was solid, but uninvolving. He would have made a good character on "EastEnders."



It has occurred to me that it might be the other way round - that the writers always had to have a young female companion so that we wouldn't think the Doctor was homosexual. They daren't leave him alone in the TARDIS for more than two minutes with a male! The Second Doctor and Jamie would have made a great team, but no, they had to drag in Victoria and then Zoe; The Fifth Doctor and Turlough's tete a tete was soon interrupted by Peri; the Fourth Doctor and Adric were rapidly joined by TWO women. The First Doctor and Stephen made it through almost the whole of The Massacre without an official female companion, but that doesn't count because a) they were separated throughout, and b) Dodo unfortunately appears at the end.

Anyway, getting back to Ben Jackson for a minute, was he in love with Polly? It was certainly implied in 'Short Trips' but I'd never noticed. But then, it's hard to notice when the BBC BURNT ALL THEIR STORIES!

I guess the times have changed; the 8th Doctor is going to have a male companion name Fitz, starting in one of the upcoming 8th Doctor novels. Sam is leaving, so that means Boys Night Out in the TARDIS.

Hey, it's me! Wow! I never watched this (I didn't even know it ever existed until a couple years ago) but what an amazing coincedence! Cool!

Emily: The War Machines was Ben and Polly's first story and it is still around.

And three out of four episodes of The Tenth Planet exist.

Yes, well, the fact that a few episodes managed to survive the massacre by an act of (non-existent) God does not negate the general point I'm trying to make, i.e. the BBC should be put on trial for crimes against humanity (well, against Whovians, anyway - some may say there's a difference) for what they did to the Hartnell and Troughton tapes.

Sadly, the BBC was not alone in this kind of idiocy. It seems to have been a fairly common practice of radio, TV and movie studios up till the late 70's or early 80's. Once TPTB felt there was no more profit in a product, they would burn the film to recover the silver and other items to make room on the shelves for more product.

Emily, perhaps you shouldn't make such sweeping statements. All you had to say was "BURNT *ALMOST* ALL THEIR STORIES" and your argument would have been qualified. Hyperbole is very tiresome.

Well, I'm sorry you find me such a bore, but I fully intend to continue making sweeping statements until either a) I am ordered to desist by Mike the All-Powerful Board Moderator, or b) I am politely requested to desist by someone whose opinions I respect.

In any case, the fact that one or two Ben n'Polly stories miraculously remain in existence does not for a moment negate my statement that the BBC burnt them. It just means that copies later turned up in the basement of a Mormon Church, behind the BBC filing cabinets, in Nigeria, Hong Kong, etc.

As long as sweeping statements aren't being made just to insult people, sweep away.

Sometimes hyperbole is good. Ever read any Walt Whitman?

Just to add to the anti-BBC sentiment going around (at least with the unwanted and idiotic DESTRUCTION of all but 12 of Ben and Polly's 40 episodes), I have so far seen 'The War Machines' and 'The Moonbase', episodes 2 and 4. After having watched these episodes I am indeed disappointed to say the least that so many of these episodes have been deleted. Ben and Polly appeared (to me, at least), as 2 companions who really worked (thankfully, after the poor performances of Dodo and, allegedly, Katarina). I suppose I will have to live with the episode reconstructions to see how their other episodes went..

Touchy, Emily, very touchy.

Regarding the 'Boys Night Out' predicted by Mike in April...not a chance. Poor Fitz - just when he was finally going to have the Doctor all to himself, the writers panic and draft in the first female they see, even if it unfortunately happens to be Compassion. Looks like my theory was right after all.

Was the Doctor ever alone with Chris in the New Adventures?

Yeah, from Bad Therapy to Lungabarrow.

Oops. I forgot about Chris (easy to do). Let me see...Chris was off for most of Bad Therapy seducing a Toy, he was completely separated from the Doctor for the duration of Eternity Weeps (bar an hour or two when the TARDIS, not to mention planet Earth, were disintegrating) and...OK, I suppose they did manage to see each other briefly in Room With No Doors and Lungbarrow, in between the nervous breakdowns and the massacres and the being-buried-alive. So I take it all back. It's the Doctor and Chris against the universe, or as the Doctor said, 'The Doctor and Chris FOR the universe, I hope' (Bad Therapy).

OK...time for me to confess I got it totally and utterly wrong in January when I claimed the writers just shoved the nearest available woman - Compassion - into the TARDIS when Sam left.

Well, how was I to know that the entire story-arc revolved around her and the way she *SPOILERED* into a *SPOILER*?

How come Ben had a cockney accent when BBC policy decreed that Dodo was not allowed to have one, resulting in her mysteriously changing accents every other episode?

Hey does anyone else find Ben incredibly cute and sexy????

No.

Oh well it must be just me and my mate. Nevermind.

So...Ben and Polly, running an orphanage together. How...sweet. Presumably they're...together? That RTG has a real mania for marrying off Companions, even the ones that aren't HIS. So was there ANYTHING going on on-screen between them during their time in the TARDIS? I certainly didn't notice, but then, they could have spent the entire duration of their space n'time travels giving each other lingering, meaningful looks and how the hell would we KNOW?

Ben and Polly would be 68 and 69 in 2010 - is RTD making them out to be like Mother Teresa - the charity work in old age i mean

God, that IS really, really old. And there's no indication that THEY haven't aged...

...Or is there? Maybe THAT'S what tipped Sarah off? After all, lots of people run orphanages. And the TARDIS DID return Polly n'Ben on the same day it took 'em, so no big dramatic disappearances. And they didn't exactly have many thrilling adventures in modern-day London where they might have been spotted...I think they were in a nightclub for most of War Machines, and unconscious for most of Faceless Ones...

I always had the impression Ben spent his time aboard the TARDIS yearning to get back to his precious 'ship' (of the non-space-'n-time-variety). (Albeit not moaning and shrieking about it like Tegan and her bloody plane the whole time.) So why, in War Machines, does he say he's in barracks for six months due to a shore posting?

And...why does the git accuse Polly of ENCOURAGING the man she TOLD to remove his arm? Why does he accuse her of being 'stuck-up' when she's gone out of her way to befriend him? Why does he sarcastically call her a 'regular little ray of sunshine'? Why does he then agree to let her buy him lunch?

Faceless Ones:

'Go catch your ship and become an admiral' - HE'S GOT A SHORE POSTING YOU MORON! THERE IS NO SHIP TO CATCH!!

Ah, that's sweet. Ben offers not to leave if the Doctor needs them (he seems to be including Polly in this generous offer without consulting her). Is this the ONLY time a Companion puts the Doctor first in this way?

'Might see you sometime' - Ben to Doctor. Not bleeding likely, Sunshine.

"'Go catch your ship and become an admiral' - HE'S GOT A SHORE POSTING YOU MORON! THERE IS NO SHIP TO CATCH!!"

This is marginally more forgivable than the constant references to Jamie being from 1745, even though they picked him up after a battle fought the following year.

"'Might see you sometime' - Ben to Doctor. Not bleeding likely, Sunshine."

Not considering that both actors were effectively sacked, and written out before their contracts had expired.

This is marginally more forgivable than the constant references to Jamie being from 1745, even though they picked him up after a battle fought the following year.

*Sigh* Yes, it's not a major historical faux pas, AND given the way Ben spends his life moaning about getting back to his ship, the Doctor can be forgiven for assuming he's got a ship to get back to.

Not considering that both actors were effectively sacked, and written out before their contracts had expired.

Well, I suppose if they're VERY LUCKY they'd've caught a glimpse of a skinny white guy with really great hair hanging around their Indian Orphanage, but as Ben took quite a while to accept that TROUGHTON was the Doctor (admittedly Troughton's behaviour didn't exactly help) then they were highly unlikely to put two and two together and realise this was the Happiest Moment Of Their Lives.

So, who wants to debate Ben's sexism in The War Machines?

What's to debate? It's quite disgusting. Polly gets sexually harrassed by a thug, and Ben...blames Polly. I realise that was the norm in those days (hell, frequently in these days too) but he displayed a bit of bloody chivalry during the rest of his time as Companion so what exactly was his problem HERE? And how could Polly possibly go off and run Indian orphanages with this guy?

so what exactly was his problem HERE?

Maybe she did something to seriously annoy him off-screen, such as putting too much milk in his tea that morning. That wouldn't justify his behaviour, of course, nothing could do that, but it might explain it.

And how could Polly possibly go off and run Indian orphanages with this guy?

Because he's the only man she knows who can understand what she's been through. If something reminds her of The Underwater Menace, he won't laugh since he too remembers those terrible days beneath the waves.

Technically, she could marry someone else, and just sneak off to see Ben when she needed some sympathy, but her husband might well jump to conclusions.

Now, if Polly had just stayed in England, and Three had given her a little thought, he could have introduced her and Ben to his UNIT friends. I believe Benton was single, and Ben could probably have been seconded to UNIT.

Maybe she did something to seriously annoy him off-screen, such as putting too much milk in his tea that morning. That wouldn't justify his behaviour, of course, nothing could do that, but it might explain it.

Sadly...this is their first meeting. The ONLY thing Ben knew about Polly was that she was a female at a nightclub who was making herculean attempts to get a scumbag to leave her in peace. I don't think even the most misogynistic god-botherer could have accused her of asking for it. (Aside, obviously, from being an unaccompanied female at a nightclub. Almost certainly (knowing Polly) wearing mascara. Which come to think of it would be more than enough to get her stoned to death in some societies.)

If something reminds her of The Underwater Menace, he won't laugh since he too remembers those terrible days beneath the waves.

He may not laugh but he'd probably accuse her of GAGGING to be turned into a fish-person.

Technically, she could marry someone else, and just sneak off to see Ben when she needed some sympathy, but her husband might well jump to conclusions.

It's a no-win situation, isn't it. Marry a fellow Companion and your mutual knowledge that the most exciting time of your lives is well and truly behind you will drag you both down. Marry a stranger and have the hideous dilemma about whether to Tell All - resulting in him/her either having you committed or getting sick to the back teeth of competing with a Lonely God they think can't POSSIBLY be that wonderful - or keep your gob shut, thus suppressing the ONLY part of your miserable existence that made it worthwhile.

I suppose the least worst option might be, as Jo and Leela did, to marry someone who has been exposed to Doctorish glory ONCE, thus quite understanding why their wife would spend the rest of her life obsessing about such a guy whilst not developing an inferiority complex cos the raving nutcase chose you above Him.

Though personally I'd prefer the Sarah Jane-style bitter spinsterhood, myself.

Now, if Polly had just stayed in England, and Three had given her a little thought, he could have introduced her and Ben to his UNIT friends.

It is QUITE UNBELIEVABLE that the TOTAL GIT spent YEARS exiled to Earth just a few years after he dumped Ian and Barbara and Polly and Ben and didn't even THINK of looking 'em up. (Dodo I'm not complaining about...) Honestly, THESE days the Doc can't even be stuck on a BUS with someone without signing 'em up to UNIT.

'There's a Gravitron power-pack, but that's thermo-nuclear. No one could get near it once it's going' 'Why not?' 'Well, because, duchess, the temperature inside is about four million degrees, that's all' - worship Ben, the universe's most unlikely thermo-nuclear expert!

'It would vaporise in the vacuum before it hits 'em!' - and he knows all about vacuums and everything! I want to have his babies!

'Not you, Polly. This is men's work' - sod off and DIE, Ben!

Wow, one could get whiplash doing a 180 degrees like that.

I'm guessing those were Hartnell's lines redistributed.

Gotta wonder about the effect of the Gravitron on that embryo.

Wow, one could get whiplash doing a 180 degrees like that.

More importantly, why didn't POLLY get whiplash?

She and this male chauvinist pig end up MARRIED! (Running an Indian orphanage together. Whatever.) So why don't we SEE her react to his blatant chauvinism (here OR in The War 'You were totally asking to get sexually harrassed in that nightclub Polly! I mean, you're a WOMAN! In a NIGHTCLUB! Not wearing a Burqa!' Machines)? Sure, she defies his ludicrous only-men-can-attack-Cybermen-with-the-weapon-YOU-invented-Polly edict, but she NEVER gives him so much as an embarrassing Sarah-Jane-style lecture on Women's Lib!

And HE never displays any interest in HER. Unless you count an embarrassingly macho squaring-up to Jamie over the fact he too insists on going Cybermen-fighting, which is OBVIOUSLY (according to DWM if nothing else) a masculine rivalry for Polly's affections.

Oh. Right. It was probably all in the facial expressions. The ones that the BBC merrily chucked in the flames.

I'm guessing those were Hartnell's lines redistributed.

Well, wouldn't it have been more sensible to DISTRIBUTE THEM TO TROUGHTON?

Gotta wonder about the effect of the Gravitron on that embryo.

WHAT embryo?!

Gotta wonder about the effect of the Gravitron on that embryo.

WHAT embryo?!

The one who is, presumably, incubating inside the Moon, either the old one not yet hatched or the new one the old one laid just after it hatched.

Somehow I started thinking Tenth Planet instead of The Eggbase. Either in spite of or because just having finished watching the first three Cybermen stories back-to-back.

WHAT embryo?!

The one who is, presumably, incubating inside the Moon, either the old one not yet hatched or the new one the old one laid just after it hatched.

Oh.

Yeah.

THAT embryo.

I honestly never gave it a THOUGHT during The Moonbase.

And it obviously never even occured to me when people started talking about 'the embryo'. ('Are you implying Ben's knocked Polly up ALREADY!' did cross my mind, however.)

Let's just hope that, like the Doctor being from 'eons and universes' away, and 'living forever barring accidents' and Pertwee being 'several thousand years old', this whole moon-as-giant-chicken-dragon-egg-laying-embryo-thing just won't TAKE...

just having finished watching the first three Cybermen stories back-to-back.

Wow.

Respect.

It'll be a while before I watch another black-and-white Cyberman story, I can tell you.

No one thinks about Kill the Moon during The Eggbase, except possibly when the Cybermen start talking about "stupid Earth brains" and we realise they have a point.

Actually I was too busy wondering what the hell the CYBERMEN were DOING sneering at 'stupid Earth brains'. Doesn't that display a bit of...emotion? You could try to claim it's just a statement of fact, but (providing you're not watching Kill The Moon or That Godawful Thing With The Forests In Comparison With Which Kill The Moon Is The Epitome of Scientific Accuracy) you've gotta bear in mind that - as the Doctor considerably pointed out - WE invented the Gravitron and the Cybermen...didn't.

'In the early stories, he has a very oral voice, and everything bounces off his hard palette, he's all up the front. Then, as the stories go on, it becomes slightly more pharyngeal, it sits further back. I don't know whether that's because he's simply relaxed into his role...' - I would ignore this gibberish about Ben's 'oral' voice (well, after sending a copy to Private Eye's Pseud's Corner) but as it's by Elliot Chapman, the audio's brand new Ben Jackson...

Ben: This is my ship, and this is my shore leave. And, this is how i always get them confused. One time, tragically at a wedding...

Maybe there'll be a line in Twice Upon a Time to explain away this fifty-year mystery...

From Moffat? The only way he would explain that away is if he could deliberately introduce another mystery and then cackle that it's the fan's job to explain it, not his.

True, well, maybe he'll kill off Ben and bring him back to life a few times, that might explain how Ben mislaid some crucial braincells (of course, that wouldn't help ONE BIT with his Moonbase knowledge of nuclear physics but hey, one can't have everything).

Shouldn't the title of this section be "Benjamin Jackson; "Ben"" ?

Has he EVER been referred to as Benjamin? On-screen?

Harry Sullivan has been revealed to be a Harold (!) in the novels but I can't go with the novels/audios or I'd get into an 'Dorothy McShane/Gale (Ace)' fiasco...

Doctor Who has done this a few times, just calling characters by a short form of a name.

Jenny Flint, for example, was never called Jennifer. I presume that was her full name, but perhaps she preferred going by Jenny.

Vince was never called Vincent. In my first Timelost story, when he's just been defrosted, someone calls him "Vincent" (based on the files that Torchwood Southampton had on him), to which he says he prefers "Vince".

Harry Sullivan has been revealed to be a Harold (!) in the novels

He could be just plain Harry.

Or his full name could be Harrison or Henry (both of which Harry is short for).


I can't go with the novels/audios or I'd get into an 'Dorothy McShane/Gale (Ace)' fiasco...

RTD has canonized Ace's name as Dorothy McShane.

If you accept RTD's authority when he canonized Ace's name, will you accept it if and when he canonizes the Timeless Child?

Well that throws a wrench meanwhile of course Ace would have a last name.

Unless you're going full mukokuseki and naming characters "Sette Peccati Capitali".

Canonizing Ace's name as Dorothy does not take a dump over decades of canon.


Unless you're going full mukokuseki and naming characters "Sette Peccati Capitali".

??????????

One of my OCs is named such.
https://www.ncls.it/g/archives/tag/sette-peccati-capitali

And Ace was already named Dorothy in the show.

ACE: There's something I've never told anyone. Do you promise not to laugh, and not to tell no one?
MEL: Of course.
ACE: It's my name. It's not really Ace. My real name's Dorothy. That's how I knew they couldn't be my real mum and dad. My real mum and dad would never have given me a naff name like Dorothy. Come on.

Of course. Ace is English and no English parents would name their daughter after the lead of an American novel. ;-)

Let's get back on track.