Doctor Who will once again be faced with finding a replacement companion now that Clara (Jenna Coleman) is wrapping up her stint in the TARDIS. The Hypable staff has a few ideas on what we would like to see.
Rather than putting together a list of British actors who we want to travel along with Peter Capaldi’s Doctor, we thought we’d go at this a bit differently. There are a couple of qualities that we think work quite well when it comes to potential companions. Here are just a few of the things that we would like to see.
1. A teenage companion
We have had a teenage companion before. In the reboot era, Rose Tyler was 19-years-old when she first started travelling with the Doctor. Arguably, Rose is one of the most popular companions of the reboot era. She routinely wins favorite companion polls.
Classic Doctor Who also had teenage companions. Ace, the companion of seventh Doctor, was 16-years-old when they began their relationship. There would be roughly the same age difference between Peter Capaldi and a teen companion as there was with Sylvester McCoy and Sophie Aldred, who played the seventh Doctor and Ace respectively.
On top of that there was also Adric, a companion of the fourth and fifth Doctors. Adric was something of a teen genius, although his exact age was never given, the actor who played him, Matthew Waterhouse, was clearly a teenager at the time.
Hypable staff writer Katie Awad likes the teen companion idea. “I’m all for a teenage companion, especially since Capaldi is older, and I think the ‘cranky, cooky, old grandpa’ thing would be cute and funny,” she said.
2. We’ve met before
You spin me right round, TARDIS, right round, like a… sorry, we couldn’t resist. Apologies to Dead or Alive. Anyway, utilizing someone we’ve seen before can work quite well, even if that person was not the most popular of characters the first time around. A great example of this is Donna Noble.
Donna’s first appearance in Doctor Who was as a one-off character in the Doctor Who Christmas Special. Over a year later she came back and entered the TARDIS full-time after Martha’s departure. Now, it’s fair to say that she wasn’t the most favorite of characters when it was announced that she would be returning, but by the time she departed she was topping fan favorite lists everywhere. She’s the only companion, in reboot Doctor Who, who comes anywhere close to Rose Tyler’s polling numbers.
Related: River Song returns for the 2015 Doctor Who Christmas Special
Hypable staff writer Selina Willken chimed in, “I know Doctor Who usually uses the companion as a ‘normal,’ contemporary human counterpart to the Doctor. But I think it’s time to think outside of the box: how about a companion from the past… I also think it’d be fun with a male companion for a change, maybe easing us into the introduction of our first female Doctor? Someone young and fun, with an innocence and eagerness to experience the wonders of the universe. Yes, I’m basically describing the male version of Rose, you caught me. Honestly I just really want James Corden to return as Craig, with Stormageddon in tow. Damn it, America, for stealing him away!”
3. Married couple
If Doctor Who has proved one thing, it’s that married couples or couples in a committed relationship don’t have to be boring. Two great examples are Ian and Barbara from classic Doctor Who, and Amy and Rory from reboot Doctor Who.
Each pair held their own with the Doctor and each other, and each was revolutionary for their time. Married/middle-aged women didn’t go on deliberate space adventures in the early 1960’s, and married, young couples were not routinely seen as exciting TV material in the 2010’s.
Here’s a thought to shake things up a bit: How about a married same sex couple joining the Doctor? Doctor Who in the reboot era has been great about routinely including characters of various sexual orientations as a part of the show, rather than a one-off, “Oh, this is the same sex couple episode.”
4. Ethnic diversity
More than ever the U.K. is a melting pot. Thanks to years of British Colonialism there are a lot of people who now live in the U.K. who aren’t exactly Anglo-Saxon poster children. Martha Jones was the first companion of color, and it’s about time we had another.
We’ve had some diversity in spin-off series like Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures, we could use a little more of that with the major, recurring characters in Doctor Who. How about a character with Indian or Pakistani heritage? We’ve never had an Asian companion before. Maybe we could have someone whose family lived in Hong Kong. For that matter, Doctor Who featured an interracial relationship last year between Clara and Danny, why not a companion who comes from an interracial family?
5. Not a Brit
Now, before anyone starts screaming “blasphemy” and “Doctor Who must stay British!” there is a precedent for this. Let’s talk classic Doctor Who and one of staff writer Laura Byrne-Cristiano’s favorites, Tegan Jovanka, who hailed from Australia. There’s also Perpugilliam Brown, or Peri for short, who was an American. Both of these companions travelled around with the fifth and sixth Doctors, and were extremely popular at the time.
The fun part about this is that we are not necessarily putting anyone in the U.K. out of work. Peri was played by a British actress, whose accent was so good that many people didn’t realize she was British at first. Glasgow’s native son John Barrowman has certainly pulled off an American accent for years after emigrating to America. Many don’t realize that Captain Jack Harkness is a Scot.
For that matter, half the cast of AMC’s The Walking Dead is British, and they pull off American accents, and not to put too fine of a point on it, but Brighton Sharbino (yes, we know she’s an American) is a fan. This one just might work, especially with the ever growing population of American fans.