A Few Doctor-Companion Thoughts

Obviously, the only way this show has been able to exist since 1963 is that the Doctor and his companions change periodically.  The Doctor regenerates, so he’s covered, but the companions have to leave.  New Who’s S.O.P. for companion exits is usually a tragic forced separation, and there have been a few deaths over the years; however, that still leaves plenty who’ve chosen to go of their own volition.  While some can’t hack it anymore and others decide to stay and help a rescued world rebuild, another big reason to jump ship is that they’ve fallen in love.

As far back as One’s era, companions have stayed behind somewhere because they’ve found that special someone.  Depending on how it’s handled, this can feel organic or tacked on, and at least once the companion’s preferred beau is presented as a sort of human substitute for the Doctor.  Though both are always sad to part, the companion says goodbye hand-in-hand with a new love, while the Doctor departs with a hole where they used to be.  Sure, sometimes there’s still another companion or two in the TARDIS, he’ll meet someone new before long, and once a companion has moved on, he rarely stops to look back.  That doesn’t change the pain of each parting.

In the final Amy/Rory episodes of series 7, when the Doctor feels them drifting away, I was struck by how this recurring situation parallels a common asexual worry:  being discarded by a friend in favor of a romantic partner (anyone single might recognize this, but it feels particularly true to me as an ace.)  Honestly, the way that era plays up that false “Doctor vs. Rory” bid for Amy’s affections follows the same theme.  I think it’s clear that the Doctor has never felt that way about Amy, and I don’t think she feels that way about the Doctor, but the show’s insistence on the comparison is about more than Rory’s insecurities.  Almost from the start, it’s telling us Amy can’t have Rory for a lover and the Doctor for a best friend.  Ultimately, one has to win out, and though she’s sad to be pulling away from the Doctor, she sees life at home with Rory as real, grown-up life.  We see this tug-of-war in series 8 as well.  Clara can’t sustain being a TARDIS traveler and Danny’s girlfriend at the same time – despite her efforts, something’s got to give, and if her actions in “Dark Water” are any indication, that something is the Doctor.

In this way, settling down with a romantic partner is viewed as a positive step, maturity-wise, that traveling with the Doctor isn’t.  Life with him is life on pause, and while it’s sad to say goodbye, there’s a sense that supplanting him is natural, inevitable; they’ve grown out of him.  This gets to me because, though he’s lived so much longer, he never grows out of them.  They’re the ones who choose to leave because the relationship they have with him isn’t.  He means a lot to them, of course, but he can’t win out over “the real thing.”  And the thing is, I think they are enough for him.  There have been other forays – Rose and River, and you could argue Eleven-Clara a bit – but at no point does his affection wane because he’s found something “truer” than what he has with them.  If the Doctor and Rory are both in danger, Amy will save Rory first every time.  I don’t think the Doctor would choose so consistently between Amy/Rory and River.

I’m not saying, by the way, that the Doctor is ace.  I tend to see him that way, with some incarnations tending more towards heteroromantic than others (especially Ten,) but it doesn’t really matter.  The point is, for all the talk in recent years about the Doctor as the man who’s always running, who never looks back, whose companions gets hurt from their time with him, he’s not the one who leaves.  Whenever it comes to it, he’s the one who gets left behind.