Relationship Spotlight: The Doctor & Yaz Khan (Doctor Who)

*Yaz/Thirteen-related spoilers.*

While I generally prefer my Doctor-companion relationships platonic (Ten and Donna forever!), I’m not altogether opposed to the show occasionally taking a more romantic route. At least, I’m okay with how the show has done it so far—I don’t think I could handle the Doctor ever really doing more than kissing. At any rate, though their relationship is certainly more understated than Rose and Ten’s, I think Yaz/Thirteen are a nice addition to this very small club.

In series 11, Yaz doesn’t get too much of a chance to distinguish herself in the Ryan-Yaz-Graham companion cluster. We see her make good contributions, but the Doctor herself relates to the companions more as a group than as individuals. We get lovely moments here and there, though. Within seconds of meeting each other, the Doctor proclaims that they’re friends, and she later has a delightfully perplexed reaction when Yaz’s mom asks if they’re seeing each other: “I don’t think so. Are we?” By the end of the season, any time the group splits up, Yaz wants to stay by the Doctor’s side.

That’s their pattern going forward. The shift happens softly, without fanfare, but you realize that Yaz is in this for more than the adventure of life on the TARDIS and helping people throughout time and space. Those things mean the world to her, yes. But then there’s the Doctor herself, and it takes a while for Yaz to even realize just how important the Doctor is to her.

As a result (along with the mere fact that same-sex pairings are rarely given the same space and attention that opposite-sex pairings are,) the deeper connection between the Doctor and Yaz begins to come through in subtle moments, largely unspoken. The way the Doctor swoops in to rescue Yaz when she’s taken by the Skithra. The way Yaz walks without hesitation through a portal to the unknown, knowing only that the Doctor is on the other side.

A further shift comes after series 12, when the companions have been returned to Earth and the Doctor is separated from them. It’s ten months before she’s able to get back, and in that time, Yaz never gives up trying to figure out how to pilot the spare TARDIS and find her. Yet, when the Doctor returns, she’s not elated. She’s angry, upset that the Doctor is happily waltzing back in after making them worry about her for so long.

But that’s the thing about love. Your emotions, your reactions, don’t always make sense, especially not to yourself. In short, Yaz has big feelings that she can’t quite sort through, and it’s so overwhelming to see the Doctor again that she lashes out, afraid of ever losing her again.

It seems evident what the show is suggesting, here and throughout series 13, but the unspoken isn’t made explicit until Thirteen’s final batch of specials. That’s when Dan, recognizing Yaz’s feelings for the Doctor, first talks to her about it and then gives the Doctor a nudge to help her see it too.

We don’t get as far as a kiss between these two. There’s no “Yasmin Khan—” moment a la “Doomsday.” The Doctor shuts it down before anything happens, making it clear that she has feelings for Yaz too but that they can’t go there. And yeah, it feels like a copout. Especially after a show like Our Flag Means Death, which doesn’t pull its romantic punches, it feels regressive. But I do know that, in the end, when the Doctor realizes she’s going to regenerate and only has enough time for one last trip, there’s nowhere in the universe she’d rather be than getting ice cream with Yaz.

Top Five Big Damn Hero Moments: Yasmin Khan (Doctor Who)

*Spoilers, including for "The Power of the Doctor."*

Of the Thirteenth Doctor’s companions, Yaz is ultimately the one who gets the most focus and opportunities to shine, although it takes her a while to get there—I always liked her, but she definitely levels up between seasons 12 and 13, which is reflected in most of her Big Damn Hero moments being from this past season. Here are my favorite moments from this dedicated, very loyal companion.

 

Connecting with Willa (Series 11, Episode 8 – “The Witchfinders”)

Willa’s grandmother, the village healer, has just been “tried” and executed as a witch, and Willa is reluctant to help Team TARDIS. Yaz recognizes herself in the ostracized girl, telling Willa about the year that another girl at Yaz’s school turned the whole class against her. “Every day I’d wake up feeling this… dread. Fear,” she remarks. But even though Yaz admits she couldn’t find a magic solution to make the other kids stop harassing her, she weathered through her “year from hell” and vowed to make the world better, explaining, “I told myself, when I got bigger I’d stand up to the Izzy Flints of this world.” In the moment, Willa is too frightened and grief-stricken to take Yaz’s words to heart, but by the end of the episode, they help give her the strength she needs to stand up to the witch-hunting landowner. Yasmin Khan with the assist!

 

Looking for Peggy (Series 13, Episode 4 – “Village of the Angels”)

When a little girl has gone missing, Yaz and Dan join the search for her. First, Yaz puts her police training/knowledge to good use, trying to organize the search in the best way possible and asking for personal information that might help Peggy feel safe if they find her. And after she and Dan get displaced in time by an Angel roaming through the village, Yaz takes in her new surroundings but stays focused on the task at hand. “First things first,” she reminds Dan. “We’re still looking for a missing girl.”

 

Searching for the Flux Event (Series 13, Episode 5 – “Survivors of the Flux”)

After getting marooned in 1901 with Dan and Professor Jericho, Yaz throws herself into following the Doctor’s last instruction: to search for the time and location of the final Flux event, recorded in the prophecies of ancient civilizations. Yaz is on fire throughout this episode, a picture of focus and competence compared to the comic mishaps of Dan and Jericho, but in particular, I’ll single out their raid of an Indigenous pyramid in Mexico. She’s the only of the three who can manage their rope pulley system for entering the pyramid, and she’s the one to find the artifact that bears the prophecies they need. And just for the cherry on top, despite the necessity of getting the artifact, she has serious misgivings about taking it at all. “Strictly speaking, it’s theft,” she tells Jericho. “If we take it, we have to bring it back once it’s decoded.” Ms. Khan is not about that colonizer lifestyle!

 

Flying the TARDIS (Series 13, Episode 9 – “The Power of the Doctor”)

Yaz takes charge throughout this special, getting things done under really extreme circumstances, and it starts here. The Daleks have taken the Doctor and transmatted away, and Yaz races back to the TARDIS, muttering, “I can do this,” to herself as she pulls out her old crib notes and sticks them all over the console to help her navigate. She also appeals directly to the TARDIS, relying on their shared devotion to the Doctor to get the time-space machine to help her out.

 

Tricking the Master (Series 13, Episode 9 – “The Power of the Doctor”)

The Master gets up to a lot of awful things here, chief of which is subjecting the Doctor to a forced regeneration and making her regenerate into him. With Yaz as his hostage/companion, she uses the Doctor’s hologram interface to throw him off, making it assume the form of the Fugitive Doctor/the Nth Doctor just to confuse him even more. His Cyber Masters surround the Nth Doctor and, at the Master’s command, try to shoot her, but their blasts pass harmlessly through the hologram and kill each other instead. With his goons temporarily out of commission, Yaz is able to force the Master back into the regeneration machine and reverse the process, with a little assistance from Vinder. Yaz will do anything for the Doctor, make no mistake.

Favorite Characters: Yasmin Khan (Doctor Who)

*A few Yaz-related spoilers.*

While most Doctors have multiple companions over their time on the show, there’s often one who’s the first to come to mind with a particular Doctor. When I picture Two, he’s with Jamie, Seven with Ace, Eleven with Amy, and so on. And for Thirteen, that companion is definitely Yaz.

When we meet Yaz, she’s a young police officer. Still eager and green, she’s sent out on trifling calls she can’t really sink her teeth into, and while she still puts her all into them, she wants more and is anxious to prove herself. In light of that, it makes sense that she really takes to traveling in the TARDIS.

Some of Yaz’s training comes in handy as a companion. She has a calm but business-like attitude in upsetting situations—she can help keep someone from panicking, and she’s usually ready to roll up her sleeves and do whatever needs to be done. She knows how to put some authority in her voice when she needs to, and she has good people instincts, knowing the right questions to ask to get the information she’s looking for.

While informed by her police training, a lot of Yaz’s early qualities are pretty in line with the usual companion stuff: smart, brave, curious, compassionate, etc. She’s definitely all those things, and they serve her well. But as she continues to travel on the TARDIS, she also levels up in some pretty major ways—and in fact, it’s kickstarted by a period when she’s not traveling with the Doctor. After they’re separated at the end of series 12, Yaz becomes obsessed with figuring out how to operate the spare TARDIS the Doctor used to get her, Graham, and Ryan home safely. Her growing feelings for the Doctor are such that she pours all her energy into trying to get back to her. And when the Doctor finally returns and they resume traveling, sans Ryan and Graham, Yaz learns all manner of techie skills. She’s very capable of holding her own, and the next time she and the Doctor are separated, Yaz, despite her worries, buckles down and gets to work.

I appreciate that, even as Yaz falls for the Doctor, that’s never really portrayed as “diminishing” her. Instead, she continues to be up front when the Doctor does things that aren’t cool, like blowing Yaz off when she’s trying to get her to open up, and she asks for space for herself. In the end, Yaz is a character who withstands the heartbreak of watching her family’s past knowing she can’t change it, steps through a portal to go after the Doctor without a second thought, conducts her own Doctory investigation in the past, and pilots the TARDIS more than once. She’s pretty impressive, and now that she’s earthbound again, I hope she keeps finding ways to make the most of all her potential.