Talk:Brooke (The Lady in the Lake)

Main Actor

I’ve listed Nina Toussaint-White as the main actress to play Brooke because she’s the latest incarnation but I don’t know what the policy is on who is considered the main voice actor. Joanna Horton plays Brooke for the majority of My Dinner with Andrew, all of A Requiem for the Doctor and a small cameo in The Lady in the Lake. Whereas Nina only appears near the end of My Dinner with Andrew and then in all of the Furies. Basically I just want to know whether the actress who appeared most in the role or the actress who currently inhabits the role is considered to be the main one. SarahJaneFan ☎

Going by the Master's main page, it appears the first actor to portray them gets to be listed as the main actor. Snivystorm ☎ 20:40, January 25, 2018 (UTC)

Companion

Since when do we care about out-of-universe sources? She meets the criteria required to be considered a companion of the Fifth Doctor - so why is the word of Big Finish's social media team more valid than the fact she travelled with the Fifth Doctor for a period of time both before and after we first see her in The Lady in the Lake (audio story)? Danochy ☎ 11:55, June 26, 2019 (UTC)

Companion status is a tricky thing to determine because there are no criteria as defined in-universe. Shambala108 ☎ 14:19, June 26, 2019 (UTC)

I would place her as a companion. In the story where she is introduced she's a companion from the start, even if she does turn out to be a plant. The whole point of her character is introducing a companion River hasn't heard of before, which ergo makes her a companion. --Revan\Talk 17:36, June 26, 2019 (UTC)

She wouldn't be the first companion to secretly have it out for the Doctor. I agree, she’s very much introduced as such, and before her plot is revealed she and River talk about the experience of being a companion to the Doctor. There’s enough been a whole subplot where each is trying to undermine the other, ostensibly out of jealousy, and Brooke is said to have been travelling with the Doctor for a while, filling a role which she claims she's afraid she'll get replaced in by River. As far as the Fifth Doctor is concerned throughout her introduction, Brooke is his companion.
× SOTO (☎/✍/↯) 19:42, June 26, 2019 (UTC)

Yes, that's true, and I think that is a very good argument in favour of her companion status, however I feel she should be considered a companion even if this weren't the case. That said, I am not familiar with the convention for such determinations.

Anyway, are there any objections to this? I know it was OncomingStorm12th who originally reverted their companion status, but we haven't had any input from them on this issue yet. Danochy ☎ 01:39, June 28, 2019 (UTC)

So, for benefit of future readers of this discussion, I'll link to the Facebook post which originated my removal of her status as a companion. Even though there isn't really a policy towards this and, in many cases there is a clear consensus on who's a companion and who's not, it seems that this isn't one. I completly agree that the narrative supports her being a companion and all, but when the producers of the stories themselves come foward and say: "River is not a companion so Brooke would not be applicable either", I think we could reconsider. After all, we consider Heather Threadstone a companion based solely on a behind the scenes comment from Colin Baker.

And I agree there are several instances of "companion turned enemy", from BF stories in itself: Mathew Sharpe and Daniel Hopkins for example. All in all, I wouldn't be opposed to returning both Brooke and River to the companion categories, but if even Big Finish don't consider them to be companions, why would we? OncomingStorm12th ☎ 14:17, July 28, 2019 (UTC)

We’ve gotta bear in mind the context in which it was claimed that Brooke probably wouldn’t count. This was in a post about the Short Trips competition, which we already know is bound by certain legal restrictions such as the fact that the War Doctor and New Series companions couldn’t be used and on,g Big Finish Original Companions were permitted (so no Roz Forrester, Frobisher, Grant Markham, etc).

Now Brooke differs greatly from characters such as Hex and Constance who are permitted to be used in this competition. They’re characters specifically created to have an ongoing presence throughout Big Finish releases and are approved by the BBC as official companions of the Doctor. Their function. And reason for existing is effectively to be the co-star and companion of whichever release they’re in.

Brooke on the other hand wasn’t created to be an ongoing companion or even for her companion status to be important. She’s a supporting character in series starring River Song where the Fifth Doctor is a guest star. So I can entirely see why someone from Big Finish would suggest that they probably wouldn’t count for the competition as their companion status comes from evidence presented within the story itself that puts them into that specific category rather than any official pronouncement.

"River has joined the Doctor and his friend Brooke on their travels, and they stop off in 18th century Vienna."

She’s already been travelling with the Doctor for some time prior to River appearing and they continue to travel together for some time prior to A Requiem for the Doctor. On top of that the synopsis for that story says everything short of that she’s a companion.

To me, it seems mad that we’d try to claim that she isn’t a companion when all in-Universe evidence says that she is. And on top of that, her exclusion as a companion in a competition is far more likely to be down to legal issues rather than BF’s intention for her not to be a companion. Obviously a lot of what i’ve said falls under the banner of speculation, but I also believe that we can’t take absolutely everything at face value and not consider that perhaps there’s a reason why they’re being excluded in this particular context. There’s so many characters who’s companion status is dubious (see the Tenth Doctor tab) it just seems bizarre to decide to exclude characters who’s status is clear cut despite one person saying they may not count when talking about if they can be included in a competition that is already restricted significantly by rights issues.

To me if we remove Brooke and River, we remove Sara Kingdom. The BBC dont count Sara, and Jean Marsh herself has said that she wasn’t a companion, does that mean we remove her too? I don’t think so, it’s not as black and white as that, at least to me anyway.

Sorry this is so long, I’m just trying to say everything I might feel I need to say on the matter. SarahJaneFan ☎ 15:15, July 28, 2019 (UTC)

Elaborating on my comments from a few days ago. In order to understand the wiki's position on companions, it would be useful to read forum decisions from the past, namely Forum:UNIT aren't really companions, Forum:Who counts as a companion?, Forum:Disputed Companions and Thread:131414. Also, the wiki's position is pretty explicitly stated at Companion#What does the word "companion" actually mean?. Basically, we don't have an in-universe definition for companion/assistant; most case-by-case determinations are based on real world info. Shambala108 ☎ 20:35, July 28, 2019 (UTC)

I think the point is that the real world info that exists shouldn't be taken as a serious declaration that Brooke and River aren't Fifth Doctor companions. Wouldn't we therefore revert to the default and say that they are companions? I think the more relevant discussion here should be "what do we do if there isn't a real world source?" Danochy ☎ 00:22, August 24, 2019 (UTC)

It's been a year now (give or take 14 hours) so does anyone have anything to say on the matter? I still believe that the word of a social media admin should not decide whether the wiki considers someone a companion. Outside of that, we consider other characters companions which have much less of a claim than Brooke does. Danochy ☎ 22:31, August 22, 2020 (UTC)

Given that the wiki considers Tegan a companion of the First Doctor, I'd say Brooke more than qualifies as a companion of the Fifth. -- Saxon (✉️) 22:33, August 22, 2020 (UTC)