A Few Notes about Companion Deaths (Doctor Who)

Spoilers, obviously.

Death has been a possible companion ending dating back to the First Doctor era, where short-term companions Katarina and Sara Kingdom are both killed during the events of “The Daleks’ Master Plan.”  But in general, that’s not how it usually goes.  Companions decide to go home, or they fall in love and decide to get married, or they decide to stay somewhere else to help the people deal with the fallout of their final adventure, or they decide it’s all gotten to be too much for them, or tragic circumstances make the decision for them and force them away from the Doctor.  Very few companions die.

However, that number has definitely increased in recent years – with caveats.  During Moffat’s tenure, the go-to exit has been “death, but…”  I suppose it should’ve been obviously early on, what with the many deaths of Rory Williams, but looking back now on Moffat’s time on the show, Rory was just the beginning.  In fact, nearly all of Moffat’s major companions have exited the show via some qualified form of death. 

First, of course, is Amy and Rory.  They’re the most “definitely dead” of the bunch, although their deaths are the least traumatic – both are sent back in time by Weeping Angels and die of old age before the present.  So, they both lead long, apparently fulfilling lives together, but as it now stands, they’re both dead.  Then there’s Clara, killed by a quantum shade as a result of her hubris.  It’s a harsher, more painful death, with a long build-up as she realizes what’s going to happen and that there’s no way to stop it.  Of course, two episodes later, the Doctor does just that, sort of, getting the Time Lords to pull her out of her timestream at the moment of death.  She and the Doctor go their separate ways not too long after that, and while she’s still technically dead (for her, time is frozen before her final heartbeat,) she’s also capable of traveling anywhere in time and space with a TARDIS she happened to acquire and is also maybe kind of immortal(?) until she goes back to her moment of death.  Finally, we have Bill (this one is at least slightly tentative, since we don’t know what may be happening at Christmas and possibly beyond.)  Despite having the most horrific death yet – getting a hole blown through her torso and then being converted into a Cyberman – hers is also the most blatantly undone.  In the eleventh hour, Heather shows back up with her sentient-engine-oil powers (I have to describe it that way every time, because it gets no less insane) and completely handwaves away Bill’s Cyberness.  As it currently stands, Bill is definitely not dead, but she’s also not precisely human anymore.

(All of these, by the way, are prefaced by strong foreshadowing, either in the same episode, the previous episode, or a good chunk of the season leading up to their death.  By the time Bill’s the one saying, “Just promise you won’t get me killed,” it’s a wonder she’s not killed then and there by the falling anvils.)

It gets even crazier when you think about other major Moffat characters who get at least one “dead but not” experience on the show.  River is killed off in her first appearance, only to get uploaded into the Library (not to mention, most of her episodes take place earlier in her timeline.)  Strax is also killed in his first episode, only to pop up again a season later with virtually no reference as to how he’s alive again.  Jenny is murdered by the Whispermen, but Strax easily revives her, what?  Ten, fifteen minutes later?  Ashildr, of course, dies while fighting the Mire and is brought back by their medical repair technology, getting the full immortal treatment.  And Nardole’s first appearance features him getting his head cut off and attached to a giant robot, and when he shows up again, intact, in the following year’s Christmas special, there’s maybe one handwavy line about the Doctor “putting him back together.”  (There’s also Missy in “The Doctor Falls,” with her predecessor telling her she won’t be able to regenerate, and I think we all know that’s never gonna be true.)  All in all, I think that makes Vastra the only significant Moffat-era creation who’s never died or “died.”

A couple things about this.  First of all, it gets boring.  A character death, for my money, ought to be something significant, and in a show like this, used sparingly.  When nearly every character dies, it starts to feel repetitive.  There’s not a particular amount of surprise because a) again, foreshadowing, and b) that’s what they all do.  And more than that, with all this “dead but not” business, it gets pointless.  It’s the ultimate “have my cake and eat it too” narrative:  weep bitter, bitter tears over the poor, dead companion, but hey!  It’s all right!  Here they are again!  When everyone dies and then comes back, each death means less, because we know it’s not going to stick, and we may or may not even get an explanation as to why that horrible, heartwrenching, definitely-very-permanent death gets swept under the rug and completely forgotten about (not to mention, it takes away some of the specialness of the Doctor being able to come back from death through regeneration.)  With someone like Jack, who dies and is brought back, the reasons for his resurrection are made clear, and it continues to have lasting (very long-lasting) physical and psychological repercussions for him.  Here, everybody dies and comes back Just Because.

Chalk that up as another reason to look forward to series 11.  Hopefully, new showrunner Chris Chibnall (who handled Jack on Torchwood) will understand, first, that there are other ways for companions to leave the show, and second, that deaths cease to mean much if they refuse to stick.