Celebrating Companions: Steven Taylor

Taking a moment to celebrate one of Classic Who's most underrated gems: Steven Taylor!  The man who escaped a Mechanoid City and nearly died for a teddy bear who goes on to become a leader uniting Elders and Savages. Noble, headstrong, a tad  immature, and a more than a bit silly, Steven deserves more love y'all.

Steven is arguably the Companion to the First Doctor who goes through the most--and he changes the most because of that experience! Our first companion to a "hero" Doctor, he is the first to be the "right-hand man" and friend to the Doctor, the first companion to embody the role we generally see companions play going forward.

NOTE for Clarity: I mention that Steven struggles with empathy...I think a better way of putting this would be he intellectually struggles with "perspective-taking." He deeply cares about people and has great sympathy for their suffering, but he struggles to understand when others see the world differently from him (which leads to him sometimes being a bit pig-headed/stubborn). I think the First Doctor actually has almost the opposite problem wherein he struggles to emotionally feel/connect to others but learns (mostly from Ian/Barbara) to understand multiple perspectives and ways of seeing the world.  In the most simplistic terms: Steven is all HEART, and the Doctor is all HEAD.


Upcoming:

Serial #26: The War Machines
4 episodes that all exist!!!
The Doctor and Dodo arrive in "present day" London where scientists have been experimenting with a computer that can think for itself....
Monday, December 12th

Special thanks to Cathlyn "Happigal" Driscoll for providing the beautiful artwork for this podcast. You can view her work at https://www.happigal.com/

Do feel free to get in touch to share the love of all things Doctor Who: throughthevortexpodcast@gmail.com