Once, a long time ago, I wanted to be The Doctor’s companion. I wanted to have all the wonderful adventures and help countless people and help defeat the mortal enemies of The Doctor and the mortal Big-E Evil enemies of the universe. I wanted to Time Travel. I wanted to explore the TARDIS. I wanted to be with The Doctor. Modern Who has cured me of that.
The trail of pain and the suffering and the tragic endings of almost all of The Doctor’s companions since 2005 is flooring. Rose is first forever separated from the Doctor at first in a parallel universe, but then gets to live out the rest of her life (pre-50th Anniversary episode) with a human, aging clone of the 10th Doctor. Neither prospect is entirely optimum. Donna Noble, Doctor Donna, successfully saves The Doctor and the universe from Davros by touching The Doctor’s partially regenerated hand yet is unable to handle all of The Doctor’s knowledge and is forced to live the rest of her life without the memories of The Doctor or what she has been able to accomplish with him. Martha Jones is perhaps the most unaffected by her travels and time with The Doctor. Martha’s tradegy was that she was clearly romantically interested in The Doctor but he was not interested in her. Amy and Rory Pond’s farwell was heartbreaking. It was difficult to watch the final few episodes with them. The Ponds almost seemed in pain from their divided life and growing older while the Doctor didn’t. Clara almost ended up scattered across time and space attempting to save The Doctor. We’ll see where her story really ends. Also River Song’s ending in The Library never sat well with me. If her true ending is this episode I can live with it and think it was well done but I had always hoped for more from River.
Admittedly Sarah Jane Smith does not fit this mold very well. But since she is both a limited new Who companion as well as a companion from Tom Baker’s days in the 70’s I can’t really include her in the New Who Companion mold of tragic endings. Although she is separated from K-9 forever (an artifact of the development of an additional series staring K-9) Sarah receives a proper story ending in series 5 of The Sarah Jane Adventures. I’ve heard her referred to as the public’s favorite Doctor Who companion of all time. I personally agree with this but I also grew up watching her with Tom Baker. If you are someone that’s come to Doctor Who recently I can understand if you don’t agree with this assessment.
In any case if you are a companion of The Doctor your story has great odds against ending well. That is not a chance I’d be willing to take. I like happy endings and they do not happen often in The Doctor Who universe. At all.
~Shooter Out