MICKEY AND MARTHA SAVE THE UNIVERSE.. now that has a nice sound to it. Kinda like a Valerian feel, with that mum and dad save the universe trope and title thrown in for added recognition. I think as spinoffs go, having a show centered around them in a sort of base of operations, with some other cast members would be cool Throw in Vortex manipulators and make Mickey and Martha the progenitors and founders of the time agency would be also a great thing IMHO, akin to the prequel founders of the Corp in aliens.. I'd love to see how the time agency gets formed, and if Mickey and Martha and their adventures are in it, then I would be very satisfied with a series like that. Plus that means, they created the agency Jack Harkness used to work for.. and of course Spike from Buffy.. LOL
The Torchwood Institute was founded by the Queen of England to safeguard earth (specifically, the UK) against aliens several centuries ago.
Strictly speaking Torchwood was founded by the Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. The last monarch that could solely be called the Queen of England was Elizabeth I. And it wasn't centuries ago it was ~130 years ago from when we first see Torchwood.
You're right, MacLeod, yet I sort of disagree with you on some technical points. Queen Anne was the last queen of England; prior to 1707 and the Act of Union, the crowns of England, Scotland, and Ireland, though held by the same person, were separate. (Hence, James VI/I, James VII/II, and William III/II in the century preceding her; the double regnal numbers indicate their differing kingdoms and predecessors.) Before the Act of Union 1707, Anne was the Queen of England, Scotland, France, and Ireland. After, she was Queen of Great Britain, France, and Ireland. (England's monarchs claimed the title "King/Queen of France" from Edward III to George III.) Yes, Elizabeth was the last queen of England who was not also the queen of Scotland, but Anne was the last person to hold the separate title of Queen of England. The Act of Union 1800 dropped the title "King/Queen of France" and combined the separate crowns of Great Britain and Ireland into the single crown of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.
It tends to annoy the Scots, N. Irish and Welsh when people refer to England i.e. the Queen of England when they mean the Queen of the UK.
For a moment I thought this had turned into the Straight Dope Message Board - where any discussion of any topic eventually gets sidetracked into a squabble over the technicalities of British royal nomenclature.
A companion can work as a main character if it's from the companion's point of view. That's essentially what the original Sherlock Holmes books did. The real problem is that, as the Doctor is increasingly depicted as an unstoppable supernatural force, the companions have to become increasingly larger-than-life to avoid creating an increasing power disparity. A vulnerable Doctor can have vulnerable companions. An unstoppable Doctor has to have a team of superheroes as companions.
Why does it have to run that way. Hartnell was hardly a super hero, but his companions were like heroes themselves. most of the focus of the Hartnell years centered on the companions mostly. I would say that flipped come the third Doctor, and somewhat in the 2nd Doctor's run. Jaime was indeed just as capable and on par with the 2nd Doctor. Peri did match the 6th Doctor in annoying bickering. so I guess for the most part, I think you have a good case there.
Thinking about it, it would've been interesting to see Torchwood and UNIT interact/knock heads. Both occupy the same function, but prior to Canary Warf, Torchwood was indeed more antagonistic to alien life.
Well, UNIT is primarily focused on protecting the Earth as a whole, whereas Torchwood was set up more for the benefit of the United Kingdom specifically, and focused more on acquiring alien tech. EDIT: That said, it would indeed be interesting to see them butt heads.
Throw in the audios, and I’d like to have seen a UNIT (or Counter-Measures)/Torchwood/Forge conflict. The Forge is pretty close to what Torchwood is, and I wonder how they’d reconcile.
Random Moffat comment: while the story is still something of a mess with too many things thrown in, Moffat's novelization of The Day of the Doctor is quite good.
The early Hartnell years were more like "The Ian & Barbara Show" with the Doctor as this enigmatic instigator. Troughton started the tradition of the Doctor being more of the lead but it seemed like Jamie & Zoe usually felt themselves to be equal partners with the Doctor. While the Doctor may have had more technical expertise and could often connect the dots to explain what's going on, they all knew that they were all just winging it. Peri was an amateur and was completely out of her depth in the bickering department. You'd need an A-level queen bitch like Tegan to keep up with the 6th Doctor!