Talk:Sara Kingdom

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[edit] How many episodes?

Which episodes of her single adventure did she appear in? Asa01 23:45, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Parts 4-12. I've added that. --khaosworks (talk • contribs) 00:34, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Appearances

I was going through the companions putting their appearances in a list (as discussed at WT:WHO), but wasn't sure whether it's needed here. Sara appeared in only one television serial and one published short story that I know of, and they're both already mentioned. Should I bother with the standard-format list as well?

Also, where is "The Last Song I'll Ever Sing" from? I don't see it at DWRG. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 08:43, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

It's from Missing Pieces. Not an "official" licensed product as such, but with sufficient contributions from pro Doctor Who writers to lift it above your average fanfic. --khaosworks (talk • contribs) 08:54, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Oh, right. I even have that one... —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 09:39, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] No evidence that she's a companion

I don't think this article convincingly tells us why or by whom Sara "is sometimes considered a companion". Citation is given for the notion that she wasn't a companion, but we've nothing to base the positive assertion on. Until some sort of evidence appears that she was actually intended as a companion, she shouldn't be classed a companion. She's really very little different than Ray from "Delta and the Bannerman". Someone who could have been a companion, and maybe they were even "trying on for size", briefly, but whom they very clearly settled against early in the process. In fact, Ray was probably in discussion longer, because that character was cast as a possible companion, whereas Sara wasn't so cast.

To me, though, one of the biggest disqualifiers is the BBC's own website, which doesn't list her as a companion whatsoever. Indeed, the webisite specifically calls Sara's status as a companion a "myth".

Granted, there is no definition for the term "Doctor Who companion", but surely we can agree that, at a minimum, the production staff should have at least intended her as a companion when cast (or, in the case of Nyssa, offered a renewed contract). Behind the scenes, Marsh was contracted as nothing more than a temporary guest star to finish out the back end of the longest serial in history. Indeed, my understanding of the situation is that the character was considered and rejected by the production staff as a companion before casting even took place. Narratively, the character was killed off at the conclusion of the story, so there's not much wiggle room to believe she was meant for future use. Indeed it was known the character was going to die before Marsh was contracted[1].

Unless we have evidence to go against the official website, here, we need to remove references to her as a companion across the WikiProject. Thus, I'm slapping a factual accuracy tag on the page. CzechOut 08:00, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

I think the problem is the lack of a clear definition for a companion. While the intent of the production staff is important, it isn't everything. While it's true that the decision was made that Sara would not continue before the part was cast, the same is true of Katarina. (Katarina's death scene was the first scene Adrienne Hill filmed.) If you accept Katarina as a companion and not Sara - maybe because Katarina spans two serials - then you're accepting an arbitrary rule beyond production intent. Also, in the new series, Donna only appears in one story (two if you count the last few seconds of Doomsday) and was never intended as an ongoing character, but Catherine Tate's name in the opening credits suggests the producers consider her a companion as much as Rose. Also - the BBC page doesn't categorize Sara's status as a companion as myth, it says the idea that she was intended to continue past this serial is a myth. [2] I'm not saying that she necessarily is or isn't a companion, and I agree that there should be better sourcing of her confusing status, but I think the factual accuracy tag is unnecessary. --Brian Olsen 15:09, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

If the simple yes/no question, "Is Sara Kingdom a companion?" elicits contradictory responses from people, then the facts are in doubt. I think the first paragraph of the article might be accurate, in that it hedges its bets and says that she's sometimes considered a companion. If greater support for this notion could be found and referenced further down in the article, it could stay. But it's her use in all the lists and category tables which seems unfounded to me. The article says "sometimes", yet the tables and lists make it seem like an absolute fact. That's what the factual accuracy tag is really about. If you include Sara in these lists, what's next? Chang Lee as an Eighth Doctor companion? The Master as a Third Doctor companion?

Again, the point this article needs to make is who, specifically, ever said she was a companion? How did the word "companion" and the name "Sara Kingdom" come to be used in a sentence together? It was a fleeting idea in the minds of the writers that never even made it to the first draft, much less to the production stage, and not at all to the broadcast stage. She succeeds her brother, Bret Vyon, in terms of the narrative structure of the play, not Katarina.

Honestly, I think the best thing to do is to completely remove reference to her as a companion from all the lists of companions circulating around the WikiProject, and just include a section, in this article only, in which her status as a companion, to the extent she has such status, is discussed.

As for what the BBC page is calling a myth, it's exactly this sentence. "Sara Kingdom was going to be a replacement companion for Katarina". It then goes on to use the word "companion" in connection with Sara only in quotation marks, indicating that Sara's character was companion-like, but not really a companion. But, really, Sara's role in the actual narrative is to further the Bret Vyon leg of the story. In fact, she literally takes over from her brother, by killing him at the end of part four.

In the absence of an actual definition of the word companion the standard is very likely the BBC-published list on the web. If we're going to include someone not on that list, or exclude someone who is, we have to give very strong evidence to support the decision either way. i think it's also significant that the cast list given by the BBC on this story's page only puts the Doctor, Stephen and Katarina at the top of the list, leaving Sara to languish amongst all the other alphabetically-listed guest stars.

Unlike other parts of the BBC website, like the episode guide, the text for the companion section is wholly novel to the site. Thus someone at the BBC has actually written it for the usage there, implying a more direct editorial intent for the companion list than other sections of the site. Sara and Chang Lee were left off the list; Katarina and Grace were put on the list, and that's the way the BBC want it.

Why do we want it some other way?

(As for Katarina, I have my reservations as well. However, the fact that her death scene was filmed before her introduction rather proves she was a companion, with a specific story contribution to make. If they'd really wanted to give up on her, they certainly had time to write her out of "The Myth Makers". They may have changed their minds from thinking she was going to be an ongoing companion, but they wanted the audience to believe that she was meant to be a companion. Otherwise her death would've had no impact. She may, in fact, be the only companion to have a planned story arc in the whole of the classic series—a neat precursor to Rose. Sara's death, by contrast, feels more like justice for her part in assisting Mavic Chen and killing her own brother. The only reason she ever sets foot in the TARDIS, after all, is that she had given an order to kill the Doctor and Stephen, and was in pursuit of that goal when all three of them get transmatted accidentally transmatted to Mira. An attack by creatures on Mira forces the three into an alliance of convenience, and once she and the Doctor and Stephen steal a Dalek ship, she has to abandon her plans to kill him, because she's now gone against her employer, Chen. There's a scene in episode 5 in which Stephen and the Doctor talk Sara over to their side of the war, but it's the viewer's guess as to how "real" her reformation actually is. Thus, her death at the end by the weapon she'd played a part in defending is the traditional henchman's comeuppance, not the loss of a companion.) CzechOut 23:16, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't have access to any of the Peter Haining books at the moment, but I'm fairly sure (ie, completely unsure) at least one of them, or one of the other reference books, does refer to her as a companion. --El Zoof 03:35, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Although short lived, there is certainly evidence that she is considered a companion. She appears in the companion flashback sequence in 'Revelation of the Daleks' when the Doctor's mind is regressed through all his travelling companions (although Leela is not seen I don't think her status is in doubt!) and she has an entry in John Nathan-Turner's book 'Doctor Who - The Companions' (where she is referenced as "The shortest-lived companion in Doctor Who's history") and that was the view of the show's longest serving producer. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 86.29.124.152 (talk) 11:04, March 28, 2007 (UTC)

But that view is notably inaccurate. Katarina served for only 5 episodes. As evidenced both in this statement, and in many details which crept into his serials, JNT was not a credible source about the show's past.

JNT's frequent revisions of Doctor Who's past do not, however, stop the statement from being useful for inclusion in a future section in which Sara's status as a companion is discussed. At a minimum, he's a contributor to the "myth" of Sara's companiondom.CzechOut 11:35, 28 March 2007 (UTC)