Current mood:

amused

Liz Shaw: Supah-staw (you try getting it to rhyme)
Okey doke. Veteran media journalist Rob Buckley (he writes about the telly) has been reminiscing about some of his favourite TV characters. Notably, he lists Liz Shaw among them, citing her as 'a far more feminist character than basically any other companion'. His eulogising somewhat sticks the knife into Sarah Jane:

'Liz Shaw: Old-school Doctor Who fans will cite Sarah Jane Smith as the first "feminist character". A few will cite Zoe, who was allegedly smarter than the Doctor, but frankly all she did was scream a lot while wearing a sparkly cat suit. But four seasons before Sarah Jane came along and started refusing to make coffee for the Doctor and demanding that everyone take her seriously, Liz Shaw was simply making everyone take her seriously.

A few comparison points for you

1. Liz Shaw got hired as scientific advisor to the most important military operation in the country because she was pretty much the smartest human being in Britain at the time. Sarah Jane… wasn't.
   
   
2. Almost all Doctor Who companions scream. Liz Shaw screamed once - it was more like a yelp actually - when she was pushed off a bridge towards a raging weir. Sarah Jane screamed every single episode (disclaimer: may not actually be true, but it felt like it)
   
   
3. In her first story, Liz Shaw saved the whole world and the Doctor by fixing the very complicated piece of alien machinery the Doctor had built using her brain, rather than twatting it one with a mallet; he was indisposed, being attacked by an alien octopus thing, so Liz Shaw saved the day. Sarah Jane once talked a robot that had fallen in love with her into almost giving up. Once. Oh yeah, and in that spin-off series, she beat up a market gardener.
   
   
4. The only time Liz Shaw was ever captured by baddies, it was because they were specifically trying to abduct her - she was the only one smart enough to do the things they needed doing. Sarah Jane was abducted every story as a recreational sport.

As you can see, Liz Shaw much better and a far more feminist character than basically any other companion before and after. Including Ace and Rose Tyler. She also a good sense of humour, spending most of the time taking the piss out of the Doctor and the Brigadier. Plus she went to Cambridge. So there.

Yet completely forgotten in favour of Sarah Jane! Oh the injustice of it all.'

Buckley's also briefly quite nice about Turlough, but I don't suppose anyone's interested in that bit.

Edit: Rob Buckley has replied to some of the responses made here in the comments thread at his own site.