Why I like Adric and other Doctor Who Companion musings

Per a request from nhw I am posting a little ramble on the reasons I happen to like one of the apparently least-liked companions in DWho history.

Adric was, to me, a quintessential geek -- a genius with an insatiable curiosity. He was one of the few DW characters I could personally empathize with. He was a KID, too -- not one of the grown-ups whose job is to be stupider than they might otherwise be in order to allow the Doctor to look as brilliant as he was. He was impulsive, but not stupid, and willing and able to improvise a decent plan of attack to deal with problems he encountered.

He didn't seem to get into trouble as SENSELESSLY as many other companions; being a kid excused many of his actions, and he demonstrated level-headed thinking and a willingness to learn and act under direction -- again, which other companions often did not.

All this changed, of course, when Peter Davison took over, though the seeds were sown in the preceding eps. Nyssa slowly took over all the Smart Companion tasks, leaving Adric to play (a rather unbelievable) second fiddle.

Adric worked best with the pseudo-family dynamic of the Doctor, Romana, and Adric. This was, I believe, intentional.

I therefore saw the slow shift -- taking Adric from "bright semi-adopted kid with a potential to adapt and learn ANYTHING due to his origin" to "token Rebellious Kid played off against Better Companions", as a disservice to the character I learned to love in the beginning. And his ENDING crystallized things back to that original character, his last lines echoing back directly to the original Adric: "Oh, now I'll NEVER know if it would work."

NOTE: According to a number of sources, behind the scenes there were other reasons for Adric's departure; apparently the actor had a drinking problem early on and was hard to work with. But as viewers, we don't see any of that.

My favorite (old series) companion was undoubtedly Leela. In addition to her obvious appeal to any young male viewer, the important thing about Leela was that she was tough as nails, afraid of almost nothing, and saved the Doctor on almost as many occasions as he saved her. (Has ANYONE ever killed a Sontaran with a simple melee weapon before or since?)

Romana and K-9 were my other top favorites, again because they brought a level of competent usefulness to the Companion role which was in general absent from most other companions, who were more foils and sounding boards than anything else.

Mysterious Malady getting worse...

For several months -- 8 months to a year -- I've had occasional problems swallowing. I swallow something, it seems to stop -- with a sort of painful spasm -- and causes symptoms like a panic attack or the stage of the flu JUST before I start vomiting. Along with this, a feeling of doom, that if whatever is ABOUT to happen happens, I will find that it will lock off my breathing, I will black out, and that's it. I also have had symptoms of reflux disease off and on.

It was very infrequent, and when I did -- a couple months ago -- have someone look into it, they had me do the barium swallow test, which showed nothing very remarkable. They told me not to eat after 8PM, in general, to sleep with my head and upper body elevated when possible, etc.

This morning I had another incident, leaving my shaky, lightheaded, and with a constant pressure feeling in my chest that did NOT abate. I couldn't finish eating, and after making a call to my doctors, was sent to the ER where I spent a large portion of the day. Obviously cardiac is another possible source of trouble, and they tried to rule that out. This hasn't happened, though they did use nitro tablets to see if it eased my symptoms. I will likely be having an endoscopy soon. I just wish I knew what the hell was causing this.