That Mel isn’t everybody’s companion of choice makes me sad. It’s an injustice. Come on, guys, we can do better than that. The truth is that nobody does it like Mel, and in my humble opinion, she’s been severely underrated – though her time in the TARDIS was pretty short (from 1986’s The Trial of a Time Lord to 1987’s Dragonfire), it was iconic. She brought even more fun and flamboyance to an era of Doctor Who that was already full of glittery, irreverent silliness – and she was dead set on having a great time, no matter what. She tackled cannibals, warring gangs and killer robot lobsters on her quest to go for a relaxing swim in Paradise Towers (1987), and her holiday in Disneyland descended into rock ’n’ roll alien madness in a Welsh holiday park in Delta and the Bannermen (1987).
Even though Mel calls herself “as boring as they come”, the glimpses we learn about her suggest that she’s someone with a lot going on – afitness fanatic with a photographic memory who pulls up at her computer programming job in the gaudiest outfits you can imagine with a killer pair of cowboy boots. She’s super smart, super strong, and can let out an infamous supersonic scream. She’s a power-dressing powerhouse. Really, what’s not to love?