Influential Women In Doctor Who

[Rob McCow]

It's International Women's Day - http://www.internationalwomensday.com/ you blind male fools! Leona Lewis has been declared the "Favourite Influential London Woman" for services rendered to pop.

So who do you think have been the most influential women in Doctor Who?

[SiHart]

Verity Lambert is the right answer.

Si xx

[Si Hunt]

Jon Pertwee.

Si.

[SiHart]

Jon Pertwee.

... is the wrong answer!

Si xx

[Dino]

I'll agree with Verity, but as for the show...
Sarah Jane Smith? Or BARBARA! But only if you shout it like Ian Chesterton did. (She was a teacher! A position of authority!)
Ace was more influenced by Ian Briggs perception of teenagers than influencing anything.
I'll stick with Sarah Jane.

[Lissa]

Mary Whitehouse is probably 2nd or 3rd on the list for all the damage she did.

[Jon Masters]

Begonia Pope - a woman who was greatly influential by doing women's work without having to steal a man's job.

[Captain Tancredi]

Delia Derbyshire springs to mind- like Verity, another woman without whom the early years wouldn't quite have been the same.

Our office is marking IWD on Friday by making some of the male staff dress as women (not bloody likely!). I can't help feeling that something which sends out the message that dressing as a woman is humiliating for a man is missing the point slightly, but as I pointed out to a colleague, it's a shame we didn't black up on Martin Luther King Day or all wear yellow stars and false noses on Holocaust Memorial Day.

[Antony Cox]

(Sir) Paddy Russell

[WhiteCrowNZ]

Erm - the obvious answer is Billie Piper, as she helped to make the New Series happen ...

[shada pavlova]

Roslyn De Wynter.

Come on, admit it, those insect movements were amazing.

[Ian Lethbridge-Stewart]

Julie Gardener - maybe?

[Jonno]

Indeed, and is it Jane Tranter I'm thinking of who was the BBC1 Controller at the time that it was resurrected - 2003?

[SiHart]

Lorraine Heggessey maybe?

Si xx

[Dave Tudor]

It would be difficult to argue against Verity or Delia, but I think Lis Sladen would also be a very strong contender - after all, she's still actively making a mark on the show after nearly forty years.

[WhiteCrowNZ]

I think Lis Sladen would also be a very strong contender - after all, she's still actively making a mark on the show after nearly forty years.

I think seriously, there is an ego that does not need feeding any more! ;-)

I absolutely agree though with the choice of Verity Lambert.

[Lissa]

This is the problem with any question like this about "most influential woman" or "most powerful woman" - there are so few that people start interpreting "influential" or "powerful" in ways they wouldn't with a man. Lis Sladen is not "influential" or "powerful" - she is an actress who says the lines she's given. She has opinions (high ones where she's concerned) but that's all.

I'm glad no one has mentioned Helen Raynor - she may have had a job in the office but she was there to dot the i's and cross the t's while RTD actually edited the scripts.

[Jon Masters]

I'm glad no one has mentioned Helen Raynor - she may have had a job in the office but she was there to dot the i's and cross the t's while RTD actually edited the scripts.

Unless 'Influential' means 'wrote one of the worst Dalek Stories ever '

[Jason Thompson]

This is the problem with any question like this about "most influential woman" or "most powerful woman" - there are so few that people start interpreting "influential" or "powerful" in ways they wouldn't with a man.

I agree with that, but would say there is a more fundamental problem with the question, which is: how do you define 'influential' in the first place?

Just for my own two penn'orth, the only two women I can think of who truly deserve the term 'influential' are Verity Lambert and Delia Derbyshire. Lambert took a show that was never all that well regarded within the corporation as it was being made and made a huge contribution to steering it towards the success it became (lest we forget, in just one example she overrode Sydney Newman's insistence that no BEMs should apear, and if she hadn't done that the Daleks would never have been in the show). Delia Derbyshire took a composition by Ron Grainer and realised it in such a bizarre way (literally assembling it beat by beat and note by note) that it was like nothing else on TV, and the fact that Doctor Who is one of a very small number of programs for which just the opening theme is often singled out for its effect on the viewers is a testament to the genius of her realisation. True, Ron Grainer gets the credit for the musical composition, but would it have become so popular had it been simply realised with some orchestral arrangement? To me, any of the themes after 1980 (as good as the various arrangements have been) never had the same quality as the origial version, and I don't think it's a coincidence that 1980 was the point after which all the theme versions were played and recorded as musical compositions in real time. Murray Gold's first rendition of the theme sounds so good because it does return to the original 'assembled' version as its basis.

Now this is not to belittle the achievements of any other female contributor to the series, but can any of them claim to have had such a long-lasting and profound effect on the show as it was after they did their bit?

[SiHart]

That's why I nominated Verity Lambert in the first place. And since she was the one who asked the Radiophonic Workshop to produce the theme and is thus responsible for Delia's involvement, I think Ms Lambert is the only choice really.

Si xx

[Lissa]

We don't know how much influence Julie Gardner had during the planning of Series One. She was probably the only person that was close enough to RTD and powerful enough to help shape his vision. Whether she did or not is another matter.

A far less easily quantified influence would be someone like Mrs Troughton who is supposed to have asked her husband to quit the series. The series could've been very different had Troughton done a year or two longer.

[Rob McCow]

From 'The Writer's Tale' it would seem that Julie Gardner's input was mostly organisational. She did a superb job and kept the show rolling, so her influence was probably more along the lines of keeping the show on air and on budget.

Deborah Watling was influential in a different way. After Debbie, all of the new companions were billed as 'breaking away from the traditional screaming companion'. While old Leatherlungs proudly declared that she screamed her way into the series and screamed her way out. So her influence was to be the benchmark screaming companion. The fact that she was so great even with the screams makes the later attempts to break away from this seem perhaps a little misguided?

Or maybe it's Honor Blackman, who paved the way for stronger female roles on British TV by taking the lead on The Avengers. Though I suppose she wasn't technically IN Doctor Who, at least not while she was being influential.