The Doctor’s Companions Since 2005: A Journey Through the Hearts of Modern Doctor Who
Introduction: More Than Sidekicks
When Doctor Who returned to television in March 2005, it was tempting to think that the programme’s greatest challenge would be the Doctor.
Could a character created in 1963 still work for a modern television audience? Could a science-fiction series famous for its eccentric alien protagonist compete in an age of prestige drama, CGI blockbusters and increasingly sophisticated television?
The answer, as it turned out, was partly found in the person standing beside him.
Rose Tyler was the audience’s way into the TARDIS.
From that moment onwards, the modern Doctor Who companion became far more than a traditional science-fiction sidekick. The companions of the revived series have been shop assistants, medical students, office workers, teachers, students, soldiers, police officers, social workers and people simply trying to make sense of ordinary lives. They have been human, alien, time-displaced and, in one memorable case, apparently scattered throughout the Doctor’s timeline.
Most importantly, they have allowed the programme to explore what happens when an ordinary person encounters something extraordinary.
Russell T Davies, Steven Moffat and Chris Chibnall each approached the companion differently, while Davies’s second tenure has introduced another variation on the formula. Davies himself has described the Doctor and companion as being “the heart” of Doctor Who, emphasising the extraordinary range of stories that can be built around their relationship.
Over more than two decades, audiences have consequently encountered a remarkable succession of characters: Rose Tyler, Martha Jones, Donna Noble, Amy Pond, Rory Williams, Clara Oswald, Bill Potts, Nardole, Graham O’Brien, Ryan Sinclair, Yaz Khan, Dan Lewis, Ruby Sunday and Belinda Chandra.
Their reception has varied enormously.
Some became instant fan favourites. Some were initially criticised and later reassessed. Some divided audiences throughout their entire tenure. Others were warmly received as characters but criticised because viewers felt the programme did not give them enough to do.
Together, however, they form one of the most fascinating character histories in modern British television.
Rose Tyler
The character
Played by Billie Piper
First appearance: Rose (2005)
Primary Doctors: Ninth and Tenth
Rose Tyler was the character who introduced an entire generation to the revived Doctor Who.
When viewers first meet her, Rose is an ordinary young woman living in London. She works in a department store, lives with her mother Jackie and has a relationship with Mickey Smith. There is nothing obviously remarkable about her life.
Then she meets the Doctor.
The first episode deliberately makes Rose the centre of the story. The Doctor is mysterious, eccentric and largely unexplained. Rose is the person asking the questions the audience is asking.
The BBC’s official description of the character emphasises this transformation: Rose begins as a shop assistant whose life is saved by a chance encounter with the Doctor and soon finds herself travelling from Victorian Cardiff to the far future.
That is one of the great strengths of the character.
Rose is not introduced as a super-genius or a secret chosen one. She is ordinary.
Her courage is therefore meaningful.
She is frightened. She gets things wrong. She becomes angry. She falls in love. She argues with the Doctor. She worries about her family. She sometimes makes decisions emotionally rather than logically.
And that made her accessible.
Rose and the Ninth Doctor
The relationship between Rose and Christopher Eccleston’s Ninth Doctor is the emotional foundation of the 2005 revival.
The Doctor has returned from the Time War carrying enormous psychological scars. Rose does not know this initially. She simply sees an extraordinary man who offers her an opportunity to escape an ordinary existence.
But she gradually becomes the person who helps him reconnect with ordinary life.
The relationship works because Rose is not simply following the Doctor.
She challenges him.
In Dalek, she is horrified by the Doctor’s hatred of the Daleks. When his desire for revenge threatens to overwhelm his compassion, Rose becomes his moral counterweight.
The Guardian later described the companion-focused storytelling of the revival as one of the bold changes of the 2005 format, arguing that Rose’s journey could sometimes make the Doctor appear almost like a supporting character in his own programme.
That was an important change.
Classic Doctor Who had certainly given its companions substantial character development, but the 2005 series made the companion’s emotional journey one of the programme’s central organising principles.
Rose and the Tenth Doctor
David Tennant’s arrival changed the dynamic.
The Tenth Doctor was younger-looking, more energetic and often more openly emotional. His relationship with Rose consequently became increasingly intimate.
It eventually developed into something that was unmistakably love, although the programme generally avoided turning the Doctor into a conventional romantic hero.
Rose’s departure in Doomsday became one of the defining moments of the revived series.
Separated from the Doctor on a parallel Earth, Rose is left unable to return to him. The scene became famous for its emotional intensity.
The official Doctor Who site has subsequently described Rose’s departure as an experience that gave a generation of viewers “their first heartbreak”. Billie Piper won thirteen awards during her time on the programme, and Rose is credited with helping broaden the show’s audience.
How Rose was received
Rose’s reception was extraordinary.
There was initial scepticism because Billie Piper was known primarily as a pop singer rather than an established dramatic actor. Piper herself later recalled uncertainty about how fans would respond to her casting, saying that many initially appeared unhappy about the change but soon accepted her.
The criticism did not last.
Rose became one of the defining companions of the modern era.
Her popularity was helped by the fact that her story was not simply about travelling through time. It was about growing up, discovering possibilities, developing confidence and eventually understanding that extraordinary experiences have consequences.
She remains the benchmark against which many subsequent companions have been judged.
That is both an achievement and a burden.
Every new companion who followed had to answer the inevitable question:
Can they be as good as Rose?
Captain Jack Harkness
The character
Played by John Barrowman
First appearance: The Empty Child (2005)
Captain Jack Harkness is an unusual case because he began as a guest character before becoming a major recurring figure across Doctor Who and its spin-off Torchwood.
A time-travelling former conman, Jack is charismatic, flirtatious, fearless and extremely confident.
He also becomes immortal.
His relationship with the Doctor is complicated. Jack admires him, frustrates him and occasionally frightens him.
As a companion, Jack represents another possibility for the role: someone who already understands the universe.
Rose is the audience’s guide into the Doctor’s world.
Jack is someone who can sometimes keep up with the Doctor.
His popularity was considerable, eventually leading to Torchwood, where he became the central character.
Although he was not a conventional full-time companion, Jack helped establish that the revived Doctor Who universe could support characters who moved between programmes and eventually developed lives independent of the Doctor.
Martha Jones
The character
Played by Freema Agyeman
First appearance: Smith and Jones (2007)
Martha Jones had perhaps the most difficult entrance of any companion in the revived series.
She followed Rose.
That meant she was being introduced immediately after one of the most popular companion departures in Doctor Who history.
Martha was a medical student working at Royal Hope Hospital when the Judoon transport the entire building to the Moon.
She meets the Doctor during the crisis and proves herself capable, intelligent and brave.
The official character biography describes her as a medical student whose quick thinking helps save the hospital and its occupants, eventually leading her to qualify as a doctor and join UNIT.
Martha’s professional identity is important.
She is not simply “the clever one”.
She is training to become a doctor, meaning that she already possesses expertise before meeting the Doctor.
That gives her a different relationship with him from Rose.
Martha and the Doctor
Martha initially falls in love with the Doctor.
The problem is that the Doctor is still grieving Rose.
That creates a deliberately uncomfortable dynamic.
Martha is travelling with someone who clearly cares about her but is emotionally unavailable. She is frequently compared, implicitly or explicitly, with the woman who came before her.
For some viewers, this became frustrating.
Martha could be courageous, intelligent and compassionate, yet the story often seemed determined to remind audiences that she was not Rose.
That was one of the reasons the character was initially received less enthusiastically than her predecessor.
Yet Martha’s story eventually became one of the strongest examples of a companion growing independently of the Doctor.
The Year That Never Was
Martha’s greatest achievement comes during the Master’s takeover of Earth.
The Doctor has been defeated.
Martha is separated from him and travels around the world telling people about the Doctor.
She cannot defeat the Master through superior firepower.
She uses storytelling.
The Doctor’s story becomes a source of hope.
It is an unusually appropriate companion story because Martha’s greatest strength is ultimately not that she becomes more like the Doctor.
It is that she becomes more like herself.
She leaves the Doctor’s direct orbit and eventually becomes a doctor, later working with UNIT.
Reception and reassessment
Martha has undergone one of the most interesting critical reassessments among the revived companions.
Contemporary criticism often focused on the romantic triangle involving Rose, Martha and the Doctor.
Later commentary has increasingly emphasised Martha’s intelligence, independence and professional competence.
Radio Times has argued that Martha was “ahead of her time”, noting that she was introduced as an equal to the Doctor, with intelligence, compassion and a desire to help people.
That reassessment makes sense.
Martha’s weakness was never really the character.
It was the comparison.
She was asked to follow one of the most popular companions in the programme’s history while simultaneously carrying a storyline about unrequited love.
Viewed separately from Rose, Martha is one of the revival’s most impressive companions.
Donna Noble
The character
Played by Catherine Tate
First appearance: The Runaway Bride (2006)
Donna Noble began as something very different from the companion she would become.
She was loud.
She was impatient.
She was easily irritated.
And she was not particularly impressed by the Doctor.
In The Runaway Bride, Donna meets the Doctor during the most disastrous wedding journey imaginable.
She initially refuses his invitation to travel with him.
That refusal is important.
Donna does not immediately dream of becoming a space traveller.
She has a life.
She has ambitions, insecurities and frustrations.
She also has an enormous amount of self-doubt.
The ordinary woman
Donna’s greatest strength is that she represents a different kind of ordinary person.
Rose wants adventure.
Martha is academically gifted.
Amy is drawn into the Doctor’s world through a relationship that began in childhood.
Clara is mysterious and unusually capable.
Donna often feels like somebody who has simply been overlooked.
She has spent much of her life believing she is insignificant.
That makes her transformation particularly powerful.
When Donna becomes a full-time companion in Series Four, her relationship with the Tenth Doctor is noticeably different.
There is affection, but not the romantic tension that characterised Rose or Martha.
Donna and the Doctor become best friends.
The official character guide describes her as a temporary worker who initially refuses to join the Doctor, only to regret that decision and later return to become his companion. Her travels help her discover greater self-worth.
Donna and the Doctor
Donna can challenge the Doctor in a way few companions do.
She is not dazzled by him.
She can call him ridiculous.
She can tell him when he is being selfish.
She is also capable of understanding people who are suffering.
In stories such as The Fires of Pompeii, Planet of the Ood and Turn Left, Donna’s compassion becomes central.
Her defining quality is empathy.
She is often the person who reminds the Doctor that the universe is populated by individuals rather than merely problems to solve.
“The most important woman in the universe”
Donna’s story culminates in Journey’s End.
She becomes the DoctorDonna: a temporary fusion of human and Time Lord consciousness.
She saves the universe.
But the price is catastrophic.
To prevent her mind from being destroyed, the Doctor is forced to remove her memories of their travels.
It is one of the cruelest companion departures in the programme.
Donna has finally discovered that she matters.
Then she forgets.
Reception
Donna is now widely regarded as one of the greatest companions of the revived era.
Her popularity partly reflects Catherine Tate’s performance.
Tate arrived with a reputation for sketch comedy, and there was understandable concern that her broad comic style might not fit Doctor Who.
The series proved otherwise.
Donna could be extremely funny, but she could also be vulnerable, compassionate and devastatingly serious.
Her friendship with the Doctor became one of the most beloved relationships in the programme.
Donna’s return in the 60th-anniversary specials reinforced that affection.
Her story also represents a recurring Doctor Who theme: the idea that an apparently ordinary person can be enormously important.
Amy Pond
The character
Played by Karen Gillan
First appearance: The Eleventh Hour (2010)
Amy Pond’s introduction announced a new Doctor Who.
Steven Moffat became showrunner.
Matt Smith became the Eleventh Doctor.
And Amy became the first major companion of the new era.
She is introduced as a child who meets the Doctor in her bedroom.
Years later, she encounters him again as an adult.
That childhood connection is one of the most distinctive elements of her character.
Amy has grown up expecting the Doctor to return.
When he finally does, she is already engaged to Rory Williams.
The “Girl Who Waited”
Amy is confident, outspoken and adventurous.
She works as a kissogram and initially presents herself as someone who is comfortable with taking risks.
The Guardian described her as a particularly distinctive companion, noting that she had a more unusual and complicated history than many predecessors.
But Amy’s apparent confidence masks uncertainty.
Her parents have disappeared from her life because of the cracks in time.
She has spent years being treated as strange because of her memories of the Doctor.
She is therefore already psychologically connected to the impossible.
Amy and Rory
One of the greatest innovations of the Moffat era was making the companion’s romantic partner an important part of the TARDIS team.
Rory is not simply Amy’s boyfriend back home.
He becomes a companion himself.
Their relationship becomes central to the programme.
The Doctor is not Amy’s romantic partner.
He is her best friend and an important figure from her childhood.
Rory is her husband.
That distinction allowed the programme to explore a different kind of relationship between the Doctor and his companion.
The Girl Who Waited
Amy’s most powerful story is arguably The Girl Who Waited.
Separated from Rory and trapped in an altered timeline, Amy experiences decades while the Doctor and Rory experience far less time.
The story turns the phrase “the girl who waited” into something tragic.
Amy has always waited for the Doctor.
Eventually she has to decide whether she wants to keep waiting.
Her character therefore becomes increasingly concerned with time, memory, adulthood and the consequences of travelling with the Doctor.
Reception
Amy was immediately distinctive, although she was not universally loved.
Some viewers found her mannerisms irritating, and criticism of her appearance and sexualisation occasionally overshadowed discussion of her character.
The Guardian noted that Amy initially divided viewers, with some finding her portrayal annoying, while arguing that her character became more rounded as the story progressed.
That development is important.
Amy begins as almost a fairy-tale character: the girl waiting for the mysterious traveller who promised to return.
She eventually becomes a wife, mother and person capable of choosing her own future.
Karen Gillan’s performance also matured alongside the character.
By the time Amy leaves the series, she is not the girl waiting anymore.
She is the woman making the choice.
Rory Williams
The character
Played by Arthur Darvill
First appearance: The Eleventh Hour
Rory begins as Amy’s fiancé.
At first, he seems almost like an obstacle to the Doctor’s relationship with Amy.
He is ordinary.
He is a nurse.
He is anxious about the Doctor.
And he sometimes feels like he is competing with an impossible man.
But Rory gradually becomes one of the most important male companions in modern Doctor Who.
The Rory who waited
Rory’s defining characteristic is loyalty.
His relationship with Amy becomes the emotional core of his story.
He dies.
He returns as an Auton.
He is forced to confront the possibility that he has killed Amy.
He waits for her.
And in one of the programme’s most extraordinary stories, he spends approximately 2,000 years guarding the Pandorica.
The official character biography describes his transformation from Amy’s teenage boyfriend into a nurse and eventually one of the Doctor’s most loyal friends, including his extraordinary 2,000-year vigil.
The “Last Centurion”
Rory’s devotion is deliberately contrasted with the Doctor’s tendency to run away.
The Doctor travels through time because he cannot bear to stay still.
Rory stays.
He waits.
That makes him a fascinating counterpoint to the Doctor.
His courage is not always spectacular.
Sometimes it is simply persistence.
Reception
Rory was initially regarded as the less important half of the Amy-Rory relationship.
That changed dramatically.
Arthur Darvill became increasingly popular as Rory’s character developed.
By the end of his time on the show, Rory had become one of the revival’s most beloved companions.
His popularity also demonstrated that Doctor Who could successfully sustain a companion who was not primarily defined by his relationship with the Doctor.
Rory’s story was fundamentally about Amy.
And that was precisely what made him interesting.
Clara Oswald
The character
Played by Jenna Coleman
First appearance: Asylum of the Daleks (2012)
Clara is arguably the most structurally complicated companion of the revived series.
She is not initially introduced as a normal companion.
Instead, the audience encounters different versions of her.
Oswin Oswald appears to be a genius trapped aboard a Dalek ship.
Clara appears in another story as a governess named Clara Oswin Oswald.
Then the Doctor encounters Clara in contemporary London.
She dies.
And then he encounters another version of her.
This mystery becomes known as the Impossible Girl.
The Impossible Girl
Clara’s defining story is therefore not initially “Who is Clara?”
It is:
Why does Clara keep appearing throughout the Doctor’s timeline?
The answer eventually involves Clara scattering herself through time to save the Doctor.
It is an enormous science-fiction concept.
But it creates a challenge.
Clara can sometimes feel less like a conventional person and more like a mystery.
That was one of the major criticisms of her early characterisation.
Clara and the Twelfth Doctor
Everything changes when Peter Capaldi becomes the Doctor.
Clara remains.
Their relationship becomes one of the most complicated in the programme.
The Twelfth Doctor is older, harsher and less immediately approachable than Matt Smith’s Eleventh.
Clara has to decide whether she still recognises the person she knew.
The BBC has specifically described Clara’s reaction to the Doctor’s regeneration as a test of her ability to look beyond appearances and recognise the same person underneath.
The relationship gradually becomes almost dangerously dependent.
Clara becomes more like the Doctor.
The Doctor becomes more protective of Clara.
And their mutual willingness to break rules eventually leads to tragedy.
The Doctor’s influence
Clara is unusual because the Doctor does not merely change her.
She begins to change him.
By Face the Raven, Clara’s willingness to take risks has become extreme.
Her death leads directly into Hell Bent, where the Doctor refuses to accept it.
He uses Time Lord technology to extract Clara from the moment of her death.
The result is one of the programme’s clearest explorations of addiction to time travel.
The Doctor cannot let Clara go.
Clara cannot accept the idea that she should stop travelling.
Their relationship has become too similar to the Doctor’s own relationship with the universe.
Reception
Clara divided viewers more than almost any other revived companion.
Some found the Impossible Girl mystery frustrating or felt that it made Clara too important.
Others praised Jenna Coleman’s performance and the increasingly complex relationship between Clara and Peter Capaldi’s Doctor.
Interestingly, critical opinion improved substantially as Clara developed.
The Guardian’s contemporary review of The Day of the Doctor observed that Clara, who had previously been an “underwritten enigma”, suddenly felt like a companion worth travelling with once the mystery was no longer dominating her character.
That observation captures Clara’s journey.
The more the programme stopped asking “Who is Clara?” and started asking “Who is Clara becoming?”, the stronger the character became.
Bill Potts
The character
Played by Pearl Mackie
First appearance: The Pilot (2017)
Bill Potts arrived during Peter Capaldi’s final full series as the Doctor.
She was designed partly as a reset.
Steven Moffat explicitly described The Pilot as a “reboot” and a particularly accessible jumping-on point for viewers.
Bill works in the canteen at St Luke’s University.
She is curious, funny, direct and irreverent.
She asks questions other characters might avoid asking.
Moffat described Bill as someone willing to ask questions about the Doctor that the programme’s characters had historically taken for granted.
Bill and the Doctor
The relationship between Bill and the Doctor is initially closer to student and teacher.
The Doctor is working as a lecturer at the university.
Bill becomes fascinated by him.
She does not immediately understand what he is.
But she recognises that he knows far more than an ordinary professor should.
Unlike some previous companions, Bill is not defined by romantic attraction to the Doctor.
She is curious about him.
That gives their relationship a refreshing directness.
Representation
Bill was also significant as a gay companion.
The programme had featured LGBTQ+ characters before, including Captain Jack Harkness, but Bill’s sexuality was simply part of her character rather than being treated as a shocking revelation.
Her relationship with Heather is central to her opening story.
Bill’s sexuality is consequently normalised within the science-fiction world.
The Cybermen
Bill’s story becomes increasingly tragic.
Her transformation into a Cyberman in World Enough and Time and The Doctor Falls gives the character one of the bleakest arcs of the revival.
Yet her eventual survival also allows the story to end on a note of hope.
Reception
Bill was generally well received, with particular praise for Pearl Mackie’s energetic performance.
However, her single-series tenure meant that she never had the same opportunity to become culturally dominant as Rose, Amy or Clara.
She remains a favourite among many viewers precisely because of her straightforward personality.
She was funny without being a caricature.
She was intelligent without being defined by genius.
And she was allowed to challenge the Doctor without needing a romantic storyline.
Nardole
The character
Played by Matt Lucas
First appearance: The Husbands of River Song
Nardole is an unusual companion.
He begins as a comic character.
His head is separated from his body.
His head is placed on a robot body.
The Doctor reassembles him.
And somehow he becomes a semi-permanent member of the TARDIS team.
The official BBC character biography describes Nardole as a fun-loving companion who helps the Doctor after River Song’s death and eventually travels with the Doctor and Bill.
More than comic relief
The danger with Nardole was obvious.
Matt Lucas is a famous comedian.
The character could easily have become a recurring joke.
Instead, the programme gradually revealed a serious side.
Nardole is loyal.
He understands responsibility.
He becomes protective of Bill.
He also has experience managing the Doctor’s worst tendencies.
His role is partly that of a babysitter.
The Doctor may be a Time Lord, but someone still has to tell him when he is behaving irresponsibly.
Reception
Nardole’s reception was mixed.
Some viewers enjoyed the humour.
Others felt that his comedy style occasionally disrupted the tone of the programme.
But his character became more effective as the series progressed.
By the end of the Twelfth Doctor’s era, Nardole had developed into a surprisingly dependable member of the team.
Graham O’Brien
The character
Played by Bradley Walsh
First appearance: The Woman Who Fell to Earth (2018)
Graham represented one of the boldest changes to the companion formula.
He was older.
He was a step-grandfather.
He was a bus driver.
And he had recently lost his wife, Grace.
Bradley Walsh was already a major television personality, best known for entertainment and comedy programmes, making his casting an unusual choice for Doctor Who.
Grief
Graham’s story is fundamentally about grief.
Grace dies during the first adventure with the Thirteenth Doctor.
Graham initially continues travelling partly because he believes Grace wanted him to experience life.
The BBC’s own discussion of what makes a companion identifies Graham’s grief as one of the reasons he embraces adventure.
That gives his character emotional weight.
Graham is not travelling because he is bored.
He is travelling because he is trying to figure out what life means after losing someone he loves.
Graham and Ryan
Graham’s relationship with Ryan Sinclair becomes another important part of the story.
They are step-grandfather and grandson, but their relationship is complicated.
Ryan initially resents Graham.
Over time, travelling together helps them rebuild their relationship.
The Doctor is therefore not merely taking four strangers on adventures.
The TARDIS becomes a place where damaged relationships can heal.
Reception
Graham was one of the most consistently popular members of the Thirteenth Doctor’s team.
Bradley Walsh’s performance was frequently praised for giving emotional credibility to the character.
Graham’s age was also significant.
The revived series had generally focused on younger companions.
His presence demonstrated that the companion could be an older adult with a family history and complicated emotional baggage.
Ryan Sinclair
The character
Played by Tosin Cole
First appearance: The Woman Who Fell to Earth
Ryan is Graham’s grandson.
He is younger, less experienced and initially struggling with dyspraxia.
His relationship with his mother and his complicated feelings about Graham are important elements of his character.
Ryan represents a different kind of young companion.
He is not simply an enthusiastic teenager.
He is dealing with family problems, grief and uncertainty about his future.
Ryan and the Doctor
Ryan initially finds the Doctor fascinating but also intimidating.
Over time, he becomes more confident.
His relationship with the Doctor is generally less emotionally intense than Rose’s or Clara’s, but that was partly intentional.
The Thirteenth Doctor’s first season was structured around a group rather than a single dominant companion.
Ryan, Graham and Yaz formed “Team TARDIS”.
Reception
Ryan received a mixed but generally sympathetic response.
Tosin Cole’s performance was often praised, but viewers sometimes felt that the large ensemble meant that individual companions received insufficient development.
This became one of the principal criticisms of the Thirteenth Doctor era.
Ryan had interesting characteristics.
The question was whether the programme had enough time to explore them.
Yaz Khan
The character
Played by Mandip Gill
First appearance: The Woman Who Fell to Earth
Yasmin Khan is a police officer from Sheffield.
She is intelligent, determined and ambitious.
Unlike Ryan and Graham, she initially appears to have a relatively stable life.
But the Doctor offers her something she has been searching for: a larger world.
The official BBC description of the companion role emphasises that Yaz was looking for something beyond her ordinary life when she joined the Thirteenth Doctor.
Yaz and the Doctor
Yaz’s relationship with the Doctor developed slowly.
Initially, she seemed like the least defined member of Team TARDIS.
That was a recurring criticism of the early Thirteenth Doctor stories.
Graham had grief.
Ryan had his family story.
Yaz sometimes seemed to be simply “the police officer”.
But later stories increasingly explored her emotional attachment to the Doctor.
During the Flux storyline, Yaz becomes one of the Doctor’s closest allies.
Thasmin
The relationship between Yaz and the Doctor eventually became one of the most heavily discussed aspects of the Chibnall era.
Fans began referring to the potential romance as “Thasmin”.
The production team was aware of the response.
Producer Matt Strevens later discussed the enormous online reaction to Yaz and the Doctor, noting how quickly the term had become widespread.
The programme ultimately chose not to turn the relationship into a conventional romance.
Instead, Yaz’s feelings remained complicated and largely unfulfilled.
Reception
Yaz’s reception is one of the clearest examples of a character whose popularity was affected by how much material the writers gave her.
Mandip Gill was widely praised.
But critics repeatedly argued that Yaz was underused.
A Guardian review of the 2019 New Year special went so far as to describe her as one of the most underused companions in Doctor Who history, arguing that the programme had not given her enough to do despite Gill’s abilities.
Later stories improved her position.
By the end of the Thirteenth Doctor’s tenure, Yaz had become one of the Doctor’s closest friends.
Dan Lewis
The character
Played by John Bishop
First appearance: Apocalypse: Flux
Dan is introduced during the Flux storyline.
He is from Liverpool and initially lives a relatively ordinary life.
He becomes involved with the Doctor during a period when the universe is collapsing.
Dan is fundamentally a comic character, but he is also surprisingly grounded.
His background helps make him feel different from the other members of the TARDIS team.
Dan and Yaz
One of the strengths of Dan’s character is that he develops a close friendship with Yaz.
When the Doctor is separated from them, Dan and Yaz are forced to survive together.
They spend years in the early twentieth century trying to understand what has happened.
This gives Dan a stronger role than he might initially appear to have.
He becomes someone Yaz can depend upon.
Reception
Dan was generally well received.
John Bishop’s comic timing fitted the programme, while the character was also allowed moments of genuine courage.
His decision to leave the TARDIS is refreshingly ordinary.
He simply decides that he has had enough danger.
After everything he has experienced, he wants to return to a normal life.
That is perhaps one of the most realistic companion decisions in the modern series.
Ruby Sunday
The character
Played by Millie Gibson
First appearance: The Church on Ruby Road (2023)
Ruby Sunday represented the beginning of Russell T Davies’s second era as showrunner.
The character is introduced as a young woman raised by her grandmother after being abandoned as a baby.
Her central mystery is therefore not initially the Doctor.
It is her own identity.
Who left Ruby outside the church on Christmas Eve?
Why?
And who is her biological mother?
The mystery becomes one of the major narrative threads of Davies’s first full season after his return.
Ruby and the Fifteenth Doctor
Ruby’s relationship with Ncuti Gatwa’s Doctor is energetic and affectionate.
She is curious.
She is enthusiastic.
She is also emotionally vulnerable because of her uncertain family history.
Davies deliberately made this different from some previous companions.
In discussing the subsequent Belinda Chandra character, Davies contrasted Belinda with Ruby by describing Ruby as younger and as someone searching for family and a more exciting life.
That is an important description.
Ruby is attracted to the TARDIS partly because she wants to escape the limitations of her ordinary life.
The Doctor offers exactly that.
The mystery of Ruby
Ruby’s storyline eventually becomes a story about identity, family and the danger of turning mystery into obsession.
Her search for her birth mother becomes increasingly important.
Yet the eventual answer deliberately challenges the assumption that every mystery must have an extraordinary explanation.
That is a very Russell T Davies idea.
Sometimes the ordinary answer can be more meaningful than the cosmic one.
Reception
Ruby was generally well received.
Millie Gibson’s performance was praised for giving Ruby warmth and emotional vulnerability.
However, the character’s reception was inevitably influenced by the structure of the new era.
Because the first season was only eight episodes, there was limited time to develop Ruby’s ordinary life.
Some viewers found the mystery compelling.
Others felt that the emphasis on the mystery sometimes distracted from Ruby as an individual.
Nevertheless, Ruby became an important part of the Fifteenth Doctor’s emotional development.
Belinda Chandra
The character
Played by Varada Sethu
First appearance: The Robot Revolution (2025)
Belinda represents another variation on the companion formula.
Unlike Ruby, she does not immediately want to abandon Earth.
She has parents whom she loves.
Her father is a taxman.
Her mother is a violinist.
She has a life she wants to return to.
Russell T Davies explicitly described Belinda as someone for whom travelling with the Doctor is a “life interruption”, rather than the fulfilment of a lifelong desire for adventure.
That makes her an intriguing companion.
A reluctant traveller
Belinda is tougher with the Doctor than Ruby was.
She recognises the danger of travelling with him.
She understands that stepping out of the TARDIS means potentially encountering weapons, monsters, disasters and death.
Davies deliberately highlighted this difference.
The Doctor’s previous companions have often been remarkably willing to leap into danger.
Belinda asks a more sensible question:
Why would I do this?
That makes her refreshing.
Varada Sethu’s performance
Varada Sethu was already familiar to Doctor Who viewers before becoming a companion, having appeared in the earlier episode Boom.
Davies has explained that her performance impressed the production team so much that bringing her back as Belinda became an easy decision. He praised her ability to portray terror, bravery and emotional complexity.
That gives Belinda an interesting place in the show’s history.
She is not introduced as a completely unknown face.
Instead, she represents the modern series’ long tradition of reusing actors in different roles.
Reception
Belinda’s reception has been broadly positive, particularly among viewers interested in a companion who is more sceptical of the Doctor.
Her dynamic with Gatwa’s Doctor is less about romantic tension and more about two strong personalities trying to understand one another.
She is also part of Davies’s continuing attempt to make the companion a fully developed person with a life outside the TARDIS.
The Companions Who Were Not Quite Companions
Mickey Smith
Played by Noel Clarke
Mickey begins as Rose’s boyfriend.
At first, he seems almost deliberately ordinary.
The Doctor initially treats him dismissively.
But Mickey develops.
He becomes braver, more competent and more independent.
His journey eventually takes him to the parallel Earth, where he becomes a resistance fighter.
He later marries Martha.
Mickey’s story is important because it shows that a person does not have to travel in the TARDIS permanently to become part of the Doctor’s world.
He also represents one of the revival’s recurring ideas:
What happens to the people left behind?
Wilfred Mott
The character
Played by Bernard Cribbins
Wilfred is Donna’s grandfather.
He is not a traditional full-time companion, but he becomes one of the most important supporting characters in the Tenth Doctor’s final story.
Wilfred represents kindness.
He is fascinated by the stars.
He believes in the Doctor.
Most importantly, he provides a moral contrast to the darker elements of the universe.
His final conversation with the Doctor in The End of Time is among the most emotional scenes of the Tennant era.
Wilfred’s importance was reinforced when Bernard Cribbins returned in The Star Beast during the 60th-anniversary celebrations, through previously recorded material.
His presence helped connect Donna’s original story to her later return.
The Companion as the Audience’s Surrogate
One of the most important achievements of the revived Doctor Who has been the transformation of the companion into the audience’s surrogate.
Rose asks the questions.
Martha understands medicine.
Donna understands people.
Amy understands the emotional pull of the Doctor.
Rory understands loyalty.
Clara understands obsession.
Bill understands curiosity.
Graham understands grief.
Ryan understands insecurity.
Yaz understands longing.
Dan understands when enough is enough.
Ruby understands the need to belong.
Belinda understands that travelling with the Doctor is dangerous.
The programme does not need every companion to perform every role.
Instead, each brings a different perspective.
That variety is essential to the show’s longevity.
From Rose to Ruby: How the Companion Has Changed
1. The companion became central
The biggest change in 2005 was structural.
The companion was no longer merely there to react to the Doctor.
Rose’s story is arguably the emotional centre of Series One.
Donna becomes the Doctor’s best friend.
Amy and Rory’s marriage becomes a central storyline.
Clara’s relationship with the Doctor becomes the driving force of the Twelfth Doctor’s final season.
The companions have increasingly become co-leads.
2. Romance became less essential
The early revival leaned heavily on romance.
Rose falls in love with the Doctor.
Martha falls in love with him.
Donna deliberately avoids that dynamic.
Amy’s romantic story belongs primarily to Rory.
Clara’s relationship with the Doctor becomes emotionally intimate but deliberately ambiguous.
Bill has a girlfriend rather than a romantic storyline involving the Doctor.
Yaz develops romantic feelings for the Doctor, but the relationship remains unresolved.
Ruby’s relationship with the Doctor is fundamentally familial and adventurous.
Belinda’s relationship is initially antagonistic and pragmatic.
The programme gradually discovered that a companion did not need to fall in love with the Doctor to be emotionally important.
3. Companions increasingly have lives outside the TARDIS
Rose has Jackie and Mickey.
Martha has her family.
Donna has her mother and grandfather.
Amy has Rory.
Clara has Danny Pink.
Bill has her university life.
Graham and Ryan have their family relationship.
Yaz has her family.
Ruby has Carla and Cherry.
Belinda has her parents.
This matters because it makes the companions feel like people rather than fictional devices.
They have somewhere to return to.
And sometimes they choose to return.
4. The companion can now leave because they want to
Classic Doctor Who often treated departures as the result of circumstance.
Modern Doctor Who has increasingly allowed companions to make decisions about whether they want to continue travelling.
Martha leaves because she recognises that she needs independence.
Donna’s departure is forced upon her.
Amy and Rory are removed from the Doctor’s immediate timeline but ultimately choose a life together.
Bill’s story is transformed by events beyond her control.
Graham and Ryan eventually choose to leave.
Dan decides that the TARDIS is no longer for him.
That last example is particularly significant.
The Doctor’s adventures are extraordinary.
But extraordinary does not automatically mean desirable.
5. The companion has become capable of changing the Doctor
Rose teaches the Ninth Doctor to reconnect with humanity.
Donna forces the Tenth Doctor to recognise the importance of ordinary people.
Amy and Rory give the Eleventh Doctor a family-like relationship.
Clara challenges the Twelfth Doctor’s ideas about identity and mortality.
Bill brings out Capaldi’s gentler side.
Graham, Ryan and Yaz help the Thirteenth Doctor become part of a team.
Ruby provides the Fifteenth Doctor with emotional grounding.
Belinda challenges his impulsiveness.
The Doctor is not unchanged by these relationships.
That is perhaps the most important point.
The Companions and the Question of Representation
The revived Doctor Who has also used companions to broaden its representation.
Rose is working-class.
Martha is a Black medical student.
Bill is a young lesbian woman.
Graham is an older man.
Ryan has dyspraxia.
Yaz is a British Pakistani police officer.
Ruby comes from a complicated family background.
Belinda is part of a more contemporary, diverse Britain.
The programme’s approach has not always been perfect.
Some characters have been criticised for limited development.
Some stories have attempted to handle large social subjects in relatively short episodes.
But the overall direction has been unmistakable.
The TARDIS increasingly looks like Britain itself.
That is particularly appropriate for a programme whose central character can travel anywhere in space and time.
Which Companions Were the Most Popular?
There is no objective ranking.
Popularity depends on generation, age, personal taste and even which Doctor a viewer prefers.
But certain patterns are clear.
Rose Tyler
Rose remains arguably the most iconic companion of the revived era.
Her emotional connection with the Doctor and the importance of her role in rebuilding the programme give her a unique position.
Her departure remains one of the most famous Doctor Who moments.
Donna Noble
Donna’s popularity has grown enormously.
Her friendship with the Doctor, her humour and her tragic ending have made her one of the most beloved companions.
Her return for the 60th anniversary demonstrated just how strongly audiences still responded to the character.
Amy and Rory
The married couple became especially popular because their story was unusual.
Their relationship gave the Eleventh Doctor era an emotional structure that differed substantially from the Rose years.
Clara Oswald
Clara is probably one of the most divisive companions.
But divisiveness is not the same thing as failure.
Her character generated enormous discussion precisely because her relationship with the Doctor became so psychologically complicated.
Bill Potts
Bill has developed something of a cult following.
Her relatively short tenure means she never dominated the programme in the way Rose or Clara did, but many viewers appreciate her straightforwardness.
Yaz Khan
Yaz’s reception illustrates the importance of writing.
There was substantial affection for Mandip Gill and for Yaz’s relationship with the Doctor, but repeated criticism that the character had not been given enough material.
That makes Yaz one of the most interesting examples of unrealised companion potential.
Why the Companions Matter So Much
The Doctor is extraordinary.
That is the problem.
The Doctor has two hearts.
The Doctor can travel through time.
The Doctor has lived for centuries.
The Doctor knows civilisations that humanity has never heard of.
Without companions, the character can become almost impossible to relate to.
The companion solves that problem.
Rose does not know what a Time Lord is.
Neither does Martha.
Donna knows even less.
Amy has known the Doctor since childhood but still cannot understand him.
Bill asks questions.
Graham is grieving.
Ryan is learning.
Yaz is searching.
Ruby wants a family.
Belinda wants to get home.
These are recognisable human desires.
The Doctor can save the universe.
The companion asks whether everyone is going to be all right.
And that is often the more important question.
The Greatest Legacy of the Modern Companions
The greatest achievement of the revived Doctor Who companion is that there is no longer one standard model.
Rose established the template.
Martha demonstrated that the next companion could be completely different.
Donna proved that the Doctor could have a best friend rather than a love interest.
Amy and Rory showed that a married couple could occupy the emotional centre of the series.
Clara turned the companion into a reflection of the Doctor.
Bill demonstrated that a companion could ask questions and represent modern Britain without requiring a romantic storyline.
Graham, Ryan and Yaz demonstrated the possibilities and problems of an ensemble TARDIS.
Dan showed that a companion could simply decide that the adventure had become too much.
Ruby returned the programme to the idea of the companion as an audience gateway.
Belinda has challenged the assumption that every person would automatically want to travel with the Doctor.
Each one has therefore expanded the definition of what a Doctor Who companion can be.
Conclusion: The Heart of the TARDIS
Since Doctor Who returned in 2005, the Doctor has changed faces many times.
Christopher Eccleston became David Tennant.
Tennant became Matt Smith.
Smith became Peter Capaldi.
Capaldi became Jodie Whittaker.
Whittaker became David Tennant again for a brief moment.
Then came Ncuti Gatwa.
But the companions changed just as dramatically.
Rose Tyler showed audiences how to enter the TARDIS.
Martha Jones showed that intelligence and compassion could stand alongside the Doctor.
Donna Noble demonstrated that the Doctor’s greatest friend could be an ordinary woman who had never believed she mattered.
Amy Pond turned the companion into a fairy-tale heroine.
Rory Williams demonstrated the extraordinary power of loyalty.
Clara Oswald showed how dangerous it could be for a human to become too much like the Doctor.
Bill Potts brought curiosity, humour and a different kind of representation to the TARDIS.
Nardole proved that comedy and loyalty could coexist.
Graham O’Brien brought grief and experience.
Ryan Sinclair brought youth, uncertainty and a modern understanding of disability.
Yaz Khan showed how much emotional depth could exist in a companion even when the programme struggled to give her enough screen time.
Dan Lewis reminded us that sometimes the most sensible thing a person can do is go home.
Ruby Sunday returned to the fundamental idea that the Doctor’s companion is someone searching for meaning and belonging.
And Belinda Chandra challenged the entire premise by looking at the Doctor and effectively asking:
Why should I want this?
That may be the most interesting question of all.
Because the companions are not merely there to admire the Doctor.
They question him.
They argue with him.
They rescue him.
They forgive him.
Sometimes they leave him.
Sometimes they save him.
And occasionally, as with Rose, Donna, Clara and others, they become so important to the Doctor that losing them fundamentally changes who he is.
That is why the companions have been so essential to the success of modern Doctor Who.
The Doctor may be the name on the title card.
The TARDIS may be the programme’s most recognisable object.
The Daleks and Cybermen may provide its most famous monsters.
But the emotional centre of Doctor Who has usually been the person standing beside the Doctor when the doors open.
The companion looks out at the impossible universe and gives the audience a reason to care.
They are ordinary people confronted with extraordinary circumstances.
They remind the Doctor — and us — that saving the universe is ultimately about saving the people who live in it.
And after more than twenty years of the revived series, that remains the secret of the TARDIS.
**The Doctor travels through time and space.
The companion makes the journey human.**
Sources and further reading
The article draws on the BBC/official Doctor Who character material and contemporary critical commentary, including:
- Doctor Who — Rose Tyler character profile
- Doctor Who — Martha Jones character profile
- Doctor Who — Rory Williams character profile
- Doctor Who — Nardole character profile
- Doctor Who — What does it take to be a companion?
- Doctor Who — Russell T Davies Q&A
- Doctor Who — Russell T Davies on Belinda Chandra
- Doctor Who — Steven Moffat on Bill Potts
- The Guardian — Doctor Who companions since 2005
- The Guardian — Why we will miss Amy Pond
- Radio Times — Martha Jones was ahead of her time
- The Guardian — Doctor Who’s companions and the revival’s companion focus
