Characters / Doctor Who – Revival Series Companions

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"You know, after a while, everything is just stuff. That's the problem. You make all of space and time your backyard, what do you have? A backyard. But you can see it. And when you see it, I see it."

— Eleventh Doctor

The many, many people who accompany the Doctor in the Doctor Who revival series (2005 onwards). For their ongoing character tropes in Big Finish Doctor Who (in which the original actors continue to play them), see here.

Warning: There are a lot of unmarked spoilers on this page. Proceed with caution.

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Ninth Doctor Era

Rose Tyler

Has her own page.

Mickey Smith

Mickey Smith (Ninth and Tenth Doctors)

Debut: "Rose" (2005)

Joins TARDIS Crew: "School Reunion" (2006)

Departure Story: "The Age of Steel" (2006)

Final Appearance: "The End of Time" (Part 2, 2010)

Played by: Noel Clarke (2005–06, 2008, 2010)
Young Mickey played by: Casey Dyer (2005)

"Me? I'm their 'man in Havana', their technical support... Oh God, I'm the tin dog."

Mickey starts the show as Rose's boyfriend, abandoned by her when she became the Doctor's companion. This doesn't stop him from running around for a few adventures during that series anyway, although he and Rose never quite manage to patch things up. He later joins the TARDIS crew as a companion for a few episodes early in the second series, only to stay behind off-planet (sort of). He returns at the end of the second series, as well as the end of the fourth and briefly in the 2009 specials. In the end, he found true love and married Martha Jones.

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• All Love Is Unrequited: Played straight with Rose, later averted with Martha, whom he married.
• Alternate Self: His counterpart in the zeppelin world is a gay gangster named Ricky. (The gay part is suggested from a deleted scene, but it's debatable if the scene is canon or not.)
• Always Second Best: He can't measure up to the Doctor even after taking his level in badass. Eventually, he stops trying to and decides to become his own person. Leading him to look for his own purpose in life, away from the TARDIS and Rose.
• Amicable Exes: Initially Rose's boyfriend, after an awkward break-up, the two eventually manage to get along.
• Badass Normal: A powerless, nerdy human with hacking skills who also becomes a Cyberman killer and freelance alien hunter.
• Better as Friends: He and Rose become this, as their brief interactions are more positive in series 2 once Mickey accepts she's never going to be with him.
• Black and Nerdy: He's a more than capable hacker.
• Butt-Monkey: The Doctor considers him an idiot, his girlfriend gives him little to no respect, his girlfriend's mother accuses him of murder when her daughter goes missing, Captain Jack starts making fun of him within ten seconds of meeting him, and even K-9 gets to throw in a bit of snark while informing him, "We are in a car." Hell, his own parallel universe equivalent finds him embarrassing, and this is a guy who considers himself a badass because of the number of parking tickets he's accrued. Thankfully he gets some more respect after spending time in the parallel world.
• Childhood Friends: Rose and Mickey were this before they started dating at some point before the start of the series. This is why they’re still emotionally attached to each other after they break up and why Mickey is so close with Jackie.
• Humiliation Conga: His girlfriend runs off with an alien after basically snarking how useless he was. She goes missing for a year and the police haul him in five times, while her mother and the entire estate gives him hell about it. The Doctor keeps calling him Ricky and turning into better looking guys while hauling his girlfriend all over the cosmos. Then Mickey pisses on everyone and decides to show his worth.
• I Choose to Stay: At the end of "The Age of Steel", he stays behind in the alternate universe to help his dead alternate self's invokedboyfriend (long story) fight the Cybermen and take care of his parallel-universe grandmother. Then he comes back for good at the end of "Journey's End" (after returning briefly in "Army of Ghosts" and "Doomsday").
• I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: Once it becomes clear that Rose has chosen the Doctor and doesn't see a future with him, Mickey is still willing to help her get back to the Doctor if that's what she truly wants.
• Know When to Fold 'Em: Carries a torch for Rose for years despite her affections for the Doctor, but as soon as the Metacrisis Doctor is sent to live with Rose and company in Pete's World, returns to the prime universe. Between this and his parallel-universe grandmother having passed away, Pete's World no longer has anything to offer him.
• Love Triangle: Rose leaves him as soon as she meets the Doctor, although she considers herself "sort of" Mickey's girlfriend for a while after that. When she also starts fancying Jack, Mickey pretty much gives up on the relationship. He becomes part of the family again when he and Rose are left without the Doctor for a few years, but eventually steps out of her life forever when Rose gets together with the Doctor's half-Donna clone.
• The Mole: He manages to infiltrate Torchwood One after learning that the Cybermen of Pete's World had managed to cross universes. They never caught on.
• My Greatest Failure:
  • He's felt guilty for not helping his grandmother fix the stair carpet, which caused her to fall and break her neck. He decides to not let that happen again when he sees her parallel counterpart and decided to take care of her until she passed away peacefully.
  • Also when his counterpart Ricky was deleted by the Cybermen, he decided to not let it happen again.
• Mirror Character: To Rory Williams, as both are the boyfriends of the Doctor's main companion who feel unapreciated and threatened by their girlfriend's close relationship with the Doctor. They were also childhood friends with their respective love interests and experience surprising character development into a more stronger and tougher character. The difference is that Mickey's character development is about moving on from Rose so he can become his own person and he later finds Martha, while Rory stays with Amy after his character development and their relationship turns out much better.
• Nice Guy: A pretty laid-back boyfriend, if a bit aimless... at first.
• Pair the Spares: With Martha Jones, offscreen.
• Parental Abandonment: His father Jackson Smith was a locksmith who just took off one day when Mickey was a kid. The series never states where Mickey's mother is, but the novelization of "Rose" mentions she committed suicide. He was largely raised by his grandmother, who while genuinely loving also tended to slap him a lot.
• Poke the Poodle: His parallel equivalent is London's Most Wanted... For parking violations.
• Punny Name: Perhaps not intentional, but to "take the mickey" out of someone is to take any fight/vigor/self importance out of them by mocking them, and Mickey does have to put up with a great deal of mockery and bullying from Rose and the Doctor (mostly Nine, but Ten has his moments), and Jackie at first.
• Rebel Leader: Alternate Mickey. (It's Ricky.)
• Refusal of the Call: Initially, after his help in "World War Three", the Doctor finally offers him a spot in the TARDIS only to be turned down (one of the few companions to do so). He later takes his offer up in "School Reunion".
• Replacement Goldfish: Becomes one for Jake, Ricky's invokedboyfriend. Jake copes pretty well with the idea, but since Mickey's not gay, it's a dysfunctional setup to say the least.
• Taking Up the Mantle: When his alternate self dies, Mickey simply assumes his identity and continues the fight.
• Techno Wizard: He describes himself as "technical support" because he's very good with computers.
• Token Minority Couple: With Martha, of the "Independently-Made" variety.
• Took a Level in Badass: Multiple. To wit, from lovable but aimless boyfriend to a capable hacker and fully-fledged companion. Ends up fighting Cybermen in an alternate reality and respected member of that reality's Torchwood, and finally earns his happy ending with a woman who saved the world with the power of story.
• Useless Boyfriend: He is this to Rose. Being unable to help even when he is not the one in distress. He eventually outgrow it.

Adam Mitchell

Adam Mitchell (Ninth Doctor)

Debut: "Dalek" (2005)

Departure Story: "The Long Game" (2005)

Played by: Bruno Langley (2005)

"When I was eight, I hacked into the US defence network… you should have seen them running about!"

Short-lived companion; a Teen Genius from 2012. Holds the dubious honour of being the only companion to be evicted from the TARDIS for bad behaviour, and at 2 episodes and 2 stories is the shortest tenured companion in the revival era.

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• Arbitrary Scepticism: Has a job that revolves around the collection of alien artefacts, but sees alien abduction stories as nonsense.
• Big Bad: For Prisoners of Time.
• Butt-Monkey: He doesn't get a lot of respect.
• Disproportionate Retribution: While angry at the Doctor, in Prisoners of Time, Adam is manipulated by the Master into attacking eleven Doctors, even those who hadn't met him yet, planning to kill most of the Doctor's companions just to make him suffer.
• Ditzy Genius: A teen genius who thinks that his plan to sell information back to his own time is a good idea.
• Evil Counterpart: To pretty much all of the Doctor's companions. He's an unworthy companion who abuses the trust the Doctor places in him for his own selfish benefit and nearly gets the Doctor and Rose killed, causing the Doctor to unceremoniously eject him from the TARDIS crew.
• Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse: In Prisoners of Time, Adam claims that he only tried to steal alien technology to heal his mother of her illness, but the Doctor doesn't consider this a justifiable excuse even if it's true.
• Insufferable Genius: Very smug about it.
• Jerkass: Intentionally written as a troublemaker to show what kind of person makes for a bad companion.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Prisoners of Time concludes with Adam realising that his attack on the Doctor has gone too far, as he sacrifices himself to destroy the Master's equipment before the Master can use it to destroy the universe by attacking the TARDISes.
• Never My Fault: In the aftermath of his disastrous adventure with the Ninth Doctor, he insists that since the Doctor was in charge he can't be held responsible for the bad decisions he made. Naturally, the Doctor doesn't buy it.
• Shoo Out the New Guy: Invoked. He's an example of what not to do if you're travelling with the Doctor.
• Teen Genius: And quick to mention it.
• Temporary Scrappy: Purposely written in his first and only adventure as companion as an Insufferable Genius who endangers the Doctor and Rose's lives trying to use time travel for personal gain, and then lies to the Doctor's face and blames him when confronted about it, getting himself booted from the TARDIS as a result and demonstrating that not everyone is suited to be a companion.
• Time Travel for Fun and Profit: Attempts to change his own future by sending information back from the year 200,000. It doesn't end well.

Jack Harkness

Has his own page.

Tenth Doctor Era

Martha Jones

Martha Jones (Tenth Doctor)

"I spent a lot of time with you thinking I was second best, but you know what? I am good."

Debut: "Smith and Jones" (2007)

Departure Story: "Last of the Time Lords" (2007)

Final Appearance: "The End of Time" (Part 2, 2010)

Played by: Freema Agyeman (2007–08, 2010)

"I travelled across the world. From the ruins of New York, to the fusion mills of China, right across the radiation pits of Europe..."

The Woman Who Walked the Earth

A medical student whose hospital ended up on the Moon in the early 21st century. She and the Doctor saved each other's lives a few times that day, and she ended up as the third female (second regular female) companion of the Tenth Doctor. Tries hard not to fall in love with him, but fails rather spectacularly at that. After she left the TARDIS, Jack Harkness pulled some strings to get her a job with UNIT in what seems to be Harry Sullivan's old job. She remains friends with Jack, and has popped up in a a couple of Torchwood episodes helping out Torchwood Cardiff. She left UNIT to become a freelance monster fighter but, at least in Torchwood comics, still works with them.

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• All Love Is Unrequited: Develops a crush on the Doctor. He acknowledges her feelings, she outright tells a group of strangers that she loves him and acknowledges this in conversation with Jack out of the Doctor's earshot. But nothing ever happens with the Doctor due to the episodes establishing that he is still pining the loss of Rose during their original time together; "Last of the Time Lords" directly indicates that this is a factor in Martha's decision to leave the Doctor. By the time she's no longer a companion, she's over him and they go back to being just friends, happier this way, when they reunite later and in "Journey's End" she's actually overjoyed to discover the Doctor finally found Rose again. Later, we learn that she marries Mickey Smith.
• Always Second Best: The Doctor grieving Rose and talking about her makes Martha feel this way.
• Ambiguously Brown: Freema Agyeman is ethnically half Ghanaian half Iranian. This is unlikey the case with Martha Jones as her name doesnt indicate African or Asian heritage. Her identical cousin Adeola Oshodi (also played by Freema Agyeman) whose name is Nigerian would suggest the Jones' family maybe partially British Nigerians. ^note  Majority of the Jones family are portrayed by Anglo-Ghanaians except for Martha who is actress is Ghanaian/Iranian mixed and Tish whose actress is South African/English mixed)
• AM/FM Characterization: She's introduced listening to Arrested Development's "Sunshine" on her phone as she talks to her family.
• Anguished Declaration of Love: She accidentally gives quite a few with the Doctor, most noticeably in "The Family of Blood".
• Badass Bookworm: During her first trip through time, she saves the world by quoting from Harry Potter.
• Badass Normal: Unlike the other New Series companions, who saved the day by becoming a Physical God or half-Time Lord, Martha saved the world with herself alone. As of the end of Series 10, she is the only New Series main companion not to become something more than human.
• Better as Friends: Leaves the TARDIS when she realizes the Doctor's never going to like her "that way". In Series 4, they're much happier together being just friends.
• Big Damn Kiss: With the Doctor in her first episode ("genetic transfer!"). Also eventually kisses Jack Harkness in Torchwood, simply because "everyone else has had a go". Jack just sort of stares at her and grins.
• Black and Nerdy: Medical student, natch. She also saves the world by quoting Harry Potter.
• The Bus Came Back: She returned for the Series 4 finale (along with making prior guest appearances in both Doctor Who and Torchwood) after officially "leaving" her role of companion.
• Calling the Old Man Out: Befitting her status as a Nice Girl, she gives the Doctor a gentle (but no less pointed) one as she tells him about her friend Vicki, who suffered from a case of All Love Is Unrequited. The Doctor is visibly abashed.
• Catchphrase: She gets a fair bit of mileage out of her open-mouthed, half-whispered "It can't be!"
• Character Development: In Series 3, she went from constantly trying to get the Doctor's attention romantically, to moving on with her life and parting with him as friends. By Series 4, she has gotten over him.
• Clingy Jealous Girl: A mild case, but more so when Rose is brought up, adding to her frustration about being in the "friend zone" with the Doctor. She gets over it and is actually really happy when the Doctor and Rose are reunited.
• Combat Medic: She joins UNIT in Series 4 and her progression to full "doctor" status is accelerated by them because of her field experience.
• The Confidant: As strained as her friendship with the Tenth Doctor gets at times, she's always willing to listen to him carefully when he's reminiscing about his past and the things he's lost and offer him emotional support.
• Contrasting Replacement Character: Whereas Rose was a blonde working-class shopgirl in a life slump, Martha was a black middle-class medical student with an ambitious personality.
• Covert Pervert: When visiting Torchwood Three, Martha wastes no time in asking first Gwen, then Ianto about what Jack is like in the sack. When Ianto describes the good captain as "innovative, bordering on avant-garde" Martha is visibly delighted.
• Determinator: At the end of Series 3 where she spends one year travelling the entire world telling people about the Doctor.
• Dude Magnet: She basically gets a guy almost every adventure through Series 3. First Shakespeare, then Riley, then Tom. There's also others who showed attraction to her, though she ironically didn't get the one guy she wanted to notice.
• Dysfunctional Family: While she loves them, her relationship with her parents and some of her relatives is a bit strained and there's tension in their household.
• Establishing Character Moment: Martha's first scene is heading into work while on the phone, playing diplomat between various members of her Dysfunctional Family.
• Foil: Rose was an A-Levels drop-out from a working class background who was forcefully separated from the Doctor, while Martha is a medical student from a comfortably middle class family who is able to walk away from the Doctor on her own terms (it should be noted that she will be the last companion for two regenerations who is able to do so). It is likely Rose and Martha are roughly the same age, but Rose was about a decade younger when she started travelling in the TARDIS. Both had feelings for the Doctor, although Martha's were unrequited and she eventually moved on, whereas Rose's were not and she ended up with the Metacrisis Doctor.
• Evil Doppelgänger: Martha is captured and cloned by the Sontarans in the Series 4 two-parter "The Sontaran Stratagem"/"The Poison Sky" to act as a double-agent inside UNIT. Loyal to the Sontaran cause, the clone is animated by the real Martha's memories, and steals her clothes in order to operate behind enemy lines. Although she's remarkably thorough in her impersonation (even remembering to wear the original's earrings and engagement ring!), the Doctor sees through it from the start, with minor physical imperfections and Clone Martha's callous disregard for her family being dead giveaways.
• Get A Hold Of Yourself Man: To John Smith in "Human Nature"/"The Family of Blood".
• Good Is Not Soft: Willing to blow up the entire Earth to save it from the Daleks. She also gives the Doctor a short What the Hell, Hero? speech in "The Sontaran Stratagem" when he lumps her in with the mindless, gun-carrying grunts he (sometimes) thinks the rest of UNIT are.
• Hospital Hottie: Studying to become a doctor and hot enough to become Shakespeare's "Dark Lady".
• Ignored Enamoured Underling: Just after their first meeting, the Doctor makes her promise not to start fancying him. She agrees, but falls in love with him anyway.
• It's All My Fault: It's understated, but the final few episodes of Series 3 imply Martha feels guilty about the damage the Master caused to the world and her family, since it was the Doctor, Martha and Jack's trip to the future that set the Master free and Martha who advised Yana to open his fob watch. "The Sontaran Stratagem" confirms that Martha feels at least partially responsible for what happened to the Jones clan, for not being more honest with them about what she was doing with the Doctor.
• Just Friends: With the Doctor, to her great frustration, as he's still hung up on Rose.
• Leitmotif: "Martha's Theme" and its reprise, "Martha Triumphant". The series composer also wove the opening notes of "Martha's Theme" into the Tenth Doctor's leitmotif, "The Doctor Forever", to symbolize their growing friendship that season.
• Limited Wardrobe: She wears the same red leather jacket, casual pink tank top and flared jeans for her first few adventures with the Doctor. After a spell in evening wear during "The Lazarus Experiment", she starts changing things up a bit.
• Middle Child Syndrome: She appears to be the middle child of her family, and her very first scene shows her bombarded with phone calls from her family, who seem to rely on her to solve their problems.
• Nice Girl: Martha is one of the Doctor's friendlier companions and generally outgoing and non-judgmental, and as such tends to make friends easily (Shakespeare, Tallulah, Riley, Jenny, Chantho, Jack, Tom, the odd Hath). She's even happy that the Doctor finally found Rose Tyler in "Journey's End".
• No Equal-Opportunity Time Travel: Expresses worries about going back to the early 17th century, given fear of prejudice over her ethnic origins. The Doctor reminds her that not all black people living in Britain at the time were slaves and assures her that he'll look after her. When they visit 1913 in a later episode, several people are incredulous of her having a medical degree (not just because she's black, but also a woman). She quickly proves them wrong invokedwhen she shows of her extensive medical knowledge.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome:
  • Putting up with constant racist abuse and drudgery for two months while looking after John Smith in 1913 should definitely count.
  • She was clearly very busy in the year that never was, slowly building La Résistance against the Master.
  • "The End of Time" has Martha and Mickey as freelance alien fighters, implying that their encounter with a Sontaran is just one of many.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business:
  • Although not The Stoic, Martha does keep a grip on her emotions. When she gets angry ("The Sound of Drums") or really scared ("The Sontaran Stratagem"), you know things are very bad.
  • One of the reasons the Doctor quickly suspects Martha's clone in "The Poison Sky" (besides the "clone smell") is that she's far too cavalier about her loved ones being in danger when the safety of Martha's family has always been a top priority of hers ("The Lazarus Experiment", "The Sound of Drums", "Last of the Time Lords"). For all that the unrequited love hindered their friendship, the Tenth Doctor and Martha do know each other well.
• Pair the Spares: With Mickey Smith. What happened to her engagement to Thomas Milligan from Series 4 was never explained onscreen (according to invokedWord of God, Tom was the rebound). It's also a case of a Token Minority Couple.
• Put on a Bus: Unlike other Davies-era companions such as Rose and Donna, Martha has no obstacles keeping her from reuniting with the Doctor. She even has him on speed dial, which she made use of in Series 4.
  • Martha has not made an appearance since the Tenth Doctor bid her goodbye in part 2 of "The End of Time", but actress Freema Agyeman has said as of 2017 that she would be open to coming back to reprise the role.
• Replacement Goldfish: It doesn't take long for her to feel as though she's simply this for Rose. She doesn't put up with it, sits the Doctor down and makes him tell her what's going on.
• The Smart Guy: Studying to be a doctor, quick thinking but also great at planning? Martha is one of the smartest characters in the show.
• Technical Pacifist: Doesn't carry a gun, but has a position of command in a military organisation.
• Token Minority: Nicely averted. The only time her ethnic background is brought up in a major way is when she's worried about time travelling to more prejudiced historical eras.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl:
  • She's the tomboy compared to her far more feminine sister, Tish. Martha was a medic who eventually became a hardened soldier and had a casual attire consisting of jeans and leather jackets. Tish worked in public relations and was usually hired in jobs just to stand around and look pretty, and was constantly seen in dresses and generally very girly clothes.
  • Zig-zagged a little, due to the latter having a more fiery and outspoken attitude, but Martha could also be considered the tomboy to Donna Noble's girly girl. When the two first met in "The Sontaran Stratagem"/"The Poison Sky", a big deal is made about how unlike Martha, Donna is not a soldier, and is not comfortable with a warfare environment. This is also shown as Donna is uneasy about approaching a Sontaran from behind with a hammer. Donna also spends a lot of her time with the Doctor being taken to outer space spas and serves as a reminder for him to be humane and compassionate, while Martha takes on the Master and the entire Toclafane Army in series 3 and actually becomes mentally tough and determined enough to confront the Daleks and seemingly willingly destroy the Earth to stop their plan in series 4. Martha also usually sports an action ponytail in contrast to Donna's long, straight hair.
• Took a Level in Badass: Not long after meeting the Doctor and enjoying their travels through time, Martha comes to have faith in his intellect and abilities, but she also comes to realize he can't be everywhere at once and will sometimes be incapacitated, and when that happens it's up to his friends to pick up the slack and do what they can to help. Whether it's electrocuting the pig slaves, getting Professor Lazarus' would-be victims to safety and leading him into a trap, saving the S.S. Pentallian from destruction, or fending off the Family of Blood, Martha starts to step up as the Doctor's companion, revealing an incredible amount of emotional strength in the process. It's this emotional strength that allows her to play a long con on the Master in the Year That Never Was and beat him at his own game. She joins UNIT not long after.
• Uncanny Family Resemblance: Freema Agyeman was Adeola Oshodi in "Army of Ghosts", a Torchwood employee who is possessed by the Cybermen and then killed. To explain why Adeola looked similar to Martha, they had Martha refer to Adeola as her cousin in "Smith and Jones".
• Walking the Earth: During the Year That Never Was; the entire Earth in one year and on foot (plus a teleporter).
• What the Hell, Hero?: The Doctor's reaction when he hears about Martha's plan to blow up Earth to stop a Dalek plot is outrage.
  • She gives a small one to the Doctor in "Gridlock" when he refuses to tell her what's going on, and a bigger one two episodes later when he starts trying to boss her around.
• Yaoi Fangirl: As revealed in Torchwood, where she takes interest in Jack and Ianto's "dabbling".

Donna Noble

Donna Noble (Tenth Doctor)

"Didn't I ever tell you? Best temp in Chiswick — 100 words per minute!"

Debut: "The Runaway Bride" (2006)

Joins TARDIS Crew: "Partners in Crime" (2008)

Departure Story: "Journey's End" (2008)

Final Appearance: "The End of Time" (2009-10)

Played by: Catherine Tate (2006, 2008–10, 2023)^note Donna first appeared in a special in 2006, then became a companion for one full season in 2008. She made a final appearance in both parts of a two-part story, part 1 airing on Christmas Day 2009, while part 2 aired on New Year's Day 2010.

"Donna, by the way, Donna Noble; since you didn't ask. I'll have a salute."

The Most Important Woman in the Whole of Creation

A temp worker from Chiswick, London in the 21st century. who met the Doctor when the Racnoss Empress fed her an ancient energy normally only found inside TARDISes, and the TARDIS pulled her into itself as a result. While she refused to become a companion at the time, she grew to regret that decision for over a year, eventually finding herself in the TARDIS properly. Unfortunately, she will never be able to remember her experiences as a result of one of the most heartbreaking denouments in the history of the franchise.

Played by established comedienne Catherine Tate. Originally a one-off character for the 2006 Christmas Special "The Runaway Bride", Donna returned as a regular companion for the fourth series as well as a role in the Tenth Doctor's last two specials.

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• Abhorrent Admirer: Downplayed in that she isn't unattractive but Lance really didn't want to marry her. At all. She badgered him until he finally gave in, but Donna did genuinely love him.
• Abusive Parents: Donna's mom, Sylvia, is verbally abusive to both Donna and Wilf (Donna's grandfather) in a depressingly realistic way. The Doctor is actually shocked when he realizes the extent of it, and tells Sylvia to stop it.
• All Webbed Up: Happens to her in "The Runaway Bride" Christmas special as a manner of restraint.
• Amusing Injuries: The Doctor fails to catch Donna when she swings over a massive borehole to the centre of the Earth, causing her to slam into a nearby wall. It's Played for Laughs, though.
• Artificial Hybrid: The biological meta-crisis made her half-Time Lord.
• Ascended Extra: Donna was originally intended purely as a one-shot character to bridge the gap between Rose and Martha during the 2006 Christmas special. However, she was brought back as a full-time companion in Series 4 and has become one of the most popular revival series companions.
• Badass Bureaucrat: She was an office worker prior to being a companion, and her office skills prove extremely useful in "The Sontaran Strategem", "The Doctor's Daughter" and "Journey's End". Her ability to understand office files, work a calendar system and type 100 words a minute ends up saving the universe several times over.
• Badass Normal: Of the smart variety, whilst The Doctor infiltrated (and later broke into) a corporate office building with psychic paper and the sonic screwdriver, she did the same with little more than really good BS skills and an absurd amount of patience.
• Better as Friends: With the Doctor, to his great relief. In fact, he wouldn't have let her into the TARDIS otherwise, because he was very tired of everyone falling in love with him. (They share one snog, but it's completely for comic relief and not remotely romantic. And she does find him attractive, but not in that way.)
• Big Damn Kiss: With the Doctor, of the "Let Us Never Speak of This Again" variety.
• Book Ends: Her first and last appearances are at her wedding. The second time, the ceremony goes off without a hitch.
• Catchphrase: "Oi!"
• Character Development: Oh, very much. It's a testament to Tate's acting talent when Donna's mom and grandfather beg the Doctor to let her keep her memories, as travelling with him made her a better person — and we see her revert to her shrill, gossipy, idiotic old self when those memories are erased.
• Chekhov's Skill: Donna often cites her time as a temp as granting her a surprising amount of administration skills. This comes to a head when, as the DoctorDonna, she puts her super-typing skills to work.
  DoctorDonna: Did I ever tell you? Best temp in Chiswick. 100 words per minute!
• The Chosen One: Her moniker as "the most important woman in the whole of creation" may sound a tad hyperbolic, but her importance really can't be underestimated. Dalek Caan manipulated the timelines to ensure that she would fulfil her destiny of defeating the Daleks, but in doing so, he also condemned her to a metaphorical death.
• Clingy Jealous Girl: Averted; the Doctor expects the same snarking he got from Rose/Sarah, but when Donna meets Martha they just shake hands and get along fine. Donna's concerns are more that she might lose her position as the Doctor's companion.
• Comically Missing the Point: This exchange when the Doctor talks about wanting "a mate".
  The Doctor: [after explaining the fates of his previous companions] I just want a mate.
  Donna: You just want to mate?
  The Doctor: I just want a mate.
  Donna: [gasps] You're not mating with me, sunshine!
• Contrasting Replacement Character: Whereas Rose and Martha both fell in love with the Doctor, Donna repeatedly states that she finds him unattractive, but adores him in a Platonic Life-Partners kind of way. Also, Martha was always self-assured and confident, while Donna had major self-esteem issues at first.
• Crazy-Prepared: After her debut episode, drove around with every type of clothing she might ever need to travel with the Doctor, just in case he showed up again one day and made her a companion.
  • In a comic set after her departure, it's revealed she made a recording in the TARDIS as she believed there was a good chance she'd could be killed in her adventures with the Doctor, to tell him she didn't regret any of it.
• Cursed with Awesome: DoctorDonna: a human woman with a Time Lord brain and mankind's unique spark that makes her use her newfound intellect at maximum proficiency, even surpassing the Doctor himself. But the strain this puts on her human frame is so hard that it starts to kill her and forces the Doctor to make her forget everything about her travels with him in order to suppress her super intellect and save her life. Worse yet, if Donna ever remembers anything about her time with the Doctor, her Time Lord brain will resurface and she will burn.
• Daddy's Girl: Implied to have been really close with her father before he passed away, going to see football matches with him every Saturday. She's equally close with her granddad Wilf, spending time with him while he's stargazing. Justified since it gives her an excuse to get away from her shrew of a mum.
• Deadpan Snarker: She's great at lobbing sarcastic remarks at the Doctor.
  The Doctor: [stepping out of the TARDIS] Ah! Smell that air! Grass and lemonade! And a little bit of mint. Just a hint of mint. Must be the 1920s.
  Donna: You can tell what year it is just by smelling?
  The Doctor: Oh, yeah.
  Donna: Or, maybe, that big vintage car coming up the drive gave it away.
• Death of Personality: Dalek Caan constantly foretells her death during the Dalek Invasion of Earth, but this was only Metaphorically True. She was arguably condemned to something much worse: a heartbreaking case of Laser-Guided Amnesia that erased all of her wonderful experiences with the Doctor from her mind. However, "The End of Time" reveals that Donna's true personality is still Fighting from the Inside and there's a lingering spark hope that she may be fully restored someday.
• Ditzy Genius: She sometimes struggles to follow the Doctor's instructions and he complains that "[she] can't change a bulb". But she's a convincing actress who easily infiltrates a corporate facility as an inspector and can easily point out odd details and patterns others would miss, like how no one has ever called in sick at a company she and the Doctor were investigating.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: Despite the whole "getting your mind wiped and unable to remember all the stuff you did or you will die" thing, Donna does eventually get to marry a nice bloke who genuinely loves her, her mother starts being nice to her, and one of the Tenth Doctor's last acts is to make sure the Temple-Nobles are financially secure.
• Empowered Badass Normal: She's made part-Time Lord in her final episode as the Doctor's companion, giving her his vast knowledge of technology and the workings of space-time. She uses this to rescue both Doctors and make fools of the Daleks before saving the day. Sadly, it wasn't to last.
• Expy: According to Russell T Davies, Donna was written as a modern interpretation of Barbara Wright, a companion that could engage the Doctor on an equal footing.
• Failing a Taxi: In "The Runaway Bride" Christmas Special where we first meet her, she tries to hail a taxi and gets one driven by an alien Mook, forcing the Doctor to save her with some fancy TARDIS manoeuvres.
• Fiery Redhead: Scorching temper and attitude, be it against the Doctor, Daleks, or her own mother.
• Fighting from the Inside: Even after the mindwipe, Donna's true persona is still buried in her subconscious and occasionally manifests at key moments, namely when she bought Wilfred an autobiography about Joshua Naismith without realising why.
• "Flowers for Algernon" Syndrome: Played With. Donna is frequently horrified by the amount of responsibility the Doctor has, but copes by going back to being snarky for the start of each new adventure. This means that her Character Development is gradual and zig-zaggy. It makes it all the more horrifying when we see her go back to her old old self.
• Genre Refugee: She's the kind of shouty comic grotesque who'd be played in a sketch show by Catherine Tate, although with plenty of Hidden Depths.
• Good with Numbers: It's more than just math, though — she's spent most of her life temping, and she's gotten ridiculously good at it, having gained a knack for spotting patterns in numbers not even the Doctor would notice.
  • For one, her skill with numbers proves vital in ending the Human-Hath War. How? She figures out the numbers stamped on the different sections of the complex are are actually dates, ones in the New Byzantine Calendar according to the Doctor. They aren't counting down to anything; instead, they're counting up from the Source, aka the original landing site for the colony, because they're dates from when the sections were completed — namely, one week earlier.
• Half-Human Hybrid: In "Journey's End", she saves herself from Dalek-inflicted doom by splicing her DNA with the Doctor's. She then indulges in technobabble, yelling like the Doctor, and hijacking the Dalek's motor commands to make them spin in circles. Fun is had by all, but it does not last. Although apparently she remains part Time Lord even after her memory is wiped, because the Master's use of the Immortality Gate to turn all humans into Masters in The End of Time does not affect her.
• The Heart: She reminds the Doctor to be humane and sympathetic. She is perhaps the first companion to openly acknowledge that her role in their relationship is to tell him when enough is enough, before he does anything he might regret. This trope is at its most prominent in "The Fires of Pompeii", in which she begs him to "save someone".
• Hidden Depths: As said above, she began as a fairly one-dimensional Plucky Comic Relief caricature of Tate's usual roles, but quickly established herself as a much deeper character when she returned as a regular companion. As it turns out, she acts loud and assertive to cover her deep-seated insecurities and low self-esteem, the result of years of emotional abuse at the hands of her overbearing mother.
• Inferiority Superiority Complex: She's loud and abrasive because deep down she believes she isn't important.
• I Just Want to Be Special: Her entire character arc is wanting to be more than "useless". And she'll never know what a difference she made.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Her first appearance begins with Donna screaming her head off at the Doctor, not remotely impressed by the skinny bugger in front of her, thinking he's kidnapped her somehow, and her mood does not improve when she sees Rose's jacket and assumes the worst. When the Doctor clams up and refuses to speak to her, Donna starts to show her nicer side when she quietly tries to ask what happened to Rose.
• Jumped at the Call: In her second appearance, she is searching for the Doctor and has already packed her bags.
• Knight of Cerebus: Inverted by the DoctorDonna. When the stakes are arguably at their highest in "Journey's End" with all of reality on the brink of annihilation, she appears from the shadows and... immediately makes a complete laughing stock out of Davros and the Daleks with her temping skills. Instead, it's the other half of the Meta-Crisis, the cloned Tenth Doctor, who escalates the situation by casually committing genocide against the already-defeated Daleks.
• Large Ham: Extremely large and loud presence at all times, to the point that she doesn't even need to speak to be hammy. Then she becomes DoctorDonna, gaining the Doctor's intelligence and spontaneity. As a result, she may be the only character in history of the show to become so over-the-top hammy that someone has to give her a psychic lobotomy so she can continue to live.
  DoctorDonna: THANK YOU, DAVROS-AH!
• Leitmotif: "A Noble Girl About Town". Where Rose gets the Lonely Piano Piece and Martha gets the Ethereal Choir, Donna's theme swaggers.
• Laser-Guided Amnesia: The Doctor had to give her this after she became the DoctorDonna so she wouldn't die.
• Like an Old Married Couple: Her relationship with the Doctor. In fact, most people initially believe they're married or brother and sister.
• Like Brother and Sister: She and the Tenth Doctor have this dynamic, both trading sarcastic barbs constantly but obviously caring deeply for each other. The Doctor outright calls her his best friend. After initially mistaking them for a couple, Caecilius concludes that they must be siblings.
• Lower-Class Lout: Played With. She is comes from a more middle-class suburban background than Rose, but she has a much bawdier attitude with a strong London accent to match, as well as many tomboyish traits. After stepping out of the TARDIS doors, her usual first instinct when encountering a complete stranger is to get snarky with them. The Tenth Doctor's clone picks up her "rough" vernacular and other aspects of her personality as part of the two-way biological meta-crisis that created him.
• Meaningful Name:
  • Her married name, Donna Temple-Noble. Fans have noted that "tempus" means "time" in Latin, and that "noble" is a word for "lord". Add that "Donna" comes from a word meaning "lady"...
  • "Noble" can also be used to describe someone with a strong moral fiber and great integrity. Despite her sarcastic wit and shallow exterior, Donna is a kind and upstanding woman who can't bear the thought of just leaving people to die if she and the Doctor can help them.
• Meta Guy: She comments on how fantastic things like a "translation circuit" are, calls the Doctor out on his Technical Pacifist traits and knew the best place to find him was where there was anything weird going on.
• Missing the Good Stuff: In "The Runaway Bride", her first appearance, she has (somehow) managed to avoid all of London's previous encounters with extraterrestrials. She slept through the Auton massacre. She was hungover for the Sycorax invasion. And she was scuba-diving in Spain during the Battle of Canary Wharf. It may have been an early sign that the universe was finding increasingly implausible excuses to keep her out of danger before her destined meeting with the Doctor. Tragically, her Laser-Guided Amnesia at the end of Series 4 means that she believes she missed every subsequent alien invasion, including the ones she personally thwarted.
• Mistaken for Romance: She and the Doctor are not a couple, but are initially mistaken for one by almost everyone they meet.
• Morality Chain: Explicitly considers herself one for the Tenth Doctor. She thinks he "needs someone to stop him".
• Motor Mouth: When her mouth starts running it just won't stop. As DoctorDonna, her speech is filled with Techno Babble that leaves even the Doctors' heads spinning.
  DoctorDonna: What? MacrotransmissionofaKfilterwavelengthblockingDalekweaponryinaselfreplicatingenergyblindfoldmatrix?!
• My Skull Runneth Over: Poor DoctorDonna. The Doctor has to basically inflict Mind Rape on her to prevent this trope.
• Not Quite Forever: Like Rose before her, Donna was fully committed to life with the Doctor in the TARDIS and wanted it to last forever. Admitting that only makes what happens to her next all the more tragic.
• One of the Boys: Attributes her ability to whistle incredibly loudly to going to see West Ham play every Saturday, presumably with her father.
• Old Maid: Spinsterhood is looming ahead as she's over 30 and not married. This is mostly an issue in her first episode, where she's desperate to get married.
• Pity the Kidnapper: When she was in peril, she often made the bad guys regret putting her there, even without the Doctor's interventions.
• Platonic Life-Partners: She and the Doctor. It's even invoked when she first begins travelling with him, with the Doctor telling her he "just wants a mate". Despite this, she reveals that she intended to stay with him “forever”.
• Plucky Girl: Explicitly called a "plucky young girl who helps me out" by the Doctor, and she lives up to such a description with her fiery determination (but she doesn't like the description).
• Pretty in Mink: Wore a black fur-trimmed coat during "Planet of the Ood".
• Puny Earthlings: She staunchly defies this trope by talking to the Doctor like an equal even when he tries to flex his Super-Intelligence to boss her around.
  Doctor: TARDIS, Time Lord, yes!
  Donna: Donna, human, no!
• Red Pill, Blue Pill: "Turn Left" is basically someone force feeding her the blue pill after the fact and making her live a normal life. The future version of the alternate Donna then has to make sure the past version of the alternate Donna spits out the blue pill so that Donna Prime can resume her red pill adventure.
• Refusal of the Call: When the Doctor first asks her if she'll travel with him, she says no — being, understandably, weirded out by his tranquil fury. She later regrets this and begins searching for him.
• Save This Person, Save the World: Mainly just one episode, "Turn Left". Rose goes out of her way to get her out of town, and then to use her to change her past.
  • Her importance to the universe as a whole is lampshaded by the Doctor in the same episode: "Most times, the universe just compensates around [changes in the timeline], but with you? Great big parallel world."
• She Is Not My Girlfriend: Quite honestly so this time.
  "We're not even the same species. There's probably laws against it."
• Shipper on Deck: In contrast to Martha, who felt stifled by the Doctor's lingering love for Rose and resented living in her shadow, Donna is remarkably invested in Rose before meeting her and always remains hopeful that the two Star-Crossed Lovers will reunite. And when they eventually do at the climax of Series 4, Donna is nothing but enthusiastic (well, until a Dalek comes out of nowhere and exterminates the Doctor). Unlike Martha, Donna has no romantic feelings for the Doctor, so the recurring issue of jealousy between companions never applies to her.
• Shoe Slap: Declined. In "The Poison Sky", she was supposed to use a shoe to knock out a Sontaran. Thing is, she'd only wear trainers, and those don't have quite the kick needed. Fortunately, Percussive Maintenance leaves mallets around when you need them.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Because Donna begged Ten to "save someone" in Pompeii, he saved Lobus Caecilius and his family. This led to the Doctor choosing the face of Caecilius when he became Twelve so that he could always remember to "save someone", which led to him saving Ashildr by making her immortal. Making Ashildr immortal led her to much misery, and Ashildr herself led to Clara's death. Thus, Donna, who doesn't even remember anything of her time with the Doctor is responsible, however unwillingly or indirectly, for Ashildr's centuries-lasting misery and Clara's death.
• Victory-Guided Amnesia: After preventing a Dalek-induced genocide, she's Mind Raped to prevent her skull runnething over.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Was prone to giving Ten this when he acted rudely or otherwise went too far, such as when he initially refused to save a soon-to-be-dead family in "The Fires of Pompeii". Donna set him straight in short order, and continued to do so over the course of her run.
• Winds of Destiny, Change!: Lampshaded by Rose in "Turn Left". Even without the bug on her back, she still warps reality/destiny.
• Wistful Amnesia: In "The End of Time", her grandfather Wilf describes her as occasionally being sad, but not remembering why. In addition, despite the fact that she reverted to her shallow original personality when her memories were initially erased, Donna as seen in the two-parter acts somewhat more like the person she became after travelling with the Doctor.

Wilfred Mott

Wilfred Mott (Tenth Doctor)

Debut: "Voyage of the Damned" (2007)

Joins TARDIS Crew: "The End of Time" (2009-10)

Played by: Bernard Cribbins (2007–10, 2023)^note A cameo in the 2007 Christmas Special, a Recurring Character in the 2008 season, finally Promoted to Opening Titles as a companion in a 2-part story which aired on Christmas Day 2009 and New Year's Day 2010.

"Every night, Doctor, when it gets dark, and the stars come out, I'll look up on her behalf. I'll look up at the sky, and think of you."

A newspaper salesman from 21st century Chiswick, London. Originally a one-off character in "Voyage of the Damned", Wilfred was eventually revealed to also be Donna Noble's grandfather (a last-minute rewrite due to the actor hired to play Donna's father dying). This resulted in quite a few recurring roles throughout the fourth series, leading to fan-favourite status for the character and finally full-fledged companion status in "The End of Time", the Tenth Doctor's final story.

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• Ascended Extra: Originally intended to be named "Stan" for "Voyage of the Damned" and never show up again. This changed when Howard Attfield, the actor playing Donna's father, passed away and Wilf was written in as Donna's grandfather.
• Badass Normal: His first thought during a Dalek invasion is to shoot one Dalek in the eyestalk. With a paintball gun. It didn't work, but that's still quite a few levels of badassness above the norm. Bonus points for it being his first encounter with the aforementioned pepperpots.
• Breakout Character: He was originally a random newsvendor who explained why the streets of London are deserted on Christmas. His role in Series 4 was originally meant to for Donna's father, until Howard Attfield passed away and he was retconned as her grandfather. He subsequently became one of the most beloved characters of the Russell T Davies era.
• Catchphrase: "It's them aliens again!"
• Chekhov's Gun: Owns one, and convinces the Doctor to accept it as a gift.
• Cool Old Guy: Willing to do anything to save the world.
• Like a Son to Me: Despite being the Doctor's junior by more than 800 years.
  The Doctor: I'd be proud.
  Wilf: What?
  The Doctor: If you were my dad.
• Manly Tears: His friendship with Ten is very emotional.
• Missed Him by That Much: For all his talk about the aliens, when the Adipose ship is hovering over London, horns blaring all the way, Wilfred is too busy stargazing elsewhere through his telescope to notice, listening to music on a pair of headphones.
• More Expendable Than You: He tried to talk the Tenth Doctor out of his Heroic Sacrifice because he knows that the Doctor is a hero on a grand scale and he himself is just an old human man. The Doctor's response is basically, "No, you're not."
• Nice Guy: He's way more welcoming to the Tenth Doctor than his daughter. A Cool Old Guy in every sense of the word.
• Older Sidekick: Subverted in the story. Obviously more than qualifies in the real world; he's more than twice David Tennant's age. In fact, Bernard Cribbins is the oldest actor to have played a companion on the show, and had already appeared as a companion in the Daleks' Invasion Earth: 2150 A.D. film in 1966, five years before David Tennant was born. In-universe, the Doctor is still much older. The Tenth Doctor lampshades this saying he would be proud if Wilfred was his old man.
• Old Soldier: Wilfred Mott is a Palestine Mandate/Mideast Wars veteran and joins the Doctor in saving the world from super-tech aliens. The Woman in White actually calls him this at one point.
• Parental Substitute: Is this to Donna. After her father died, and given her mother's aloofness, she always turns to "Gramps". In "The End of Time" he also takes on some of these traits with the Doctor.
• Promoted to Opening Titles: For "The End of Time".
• Properly Paranoid: Firmly believes in alien visitors to Earth. Since he lives in the Whoniverse, boy is he right.
• Prophecy Twist: "He will knock four times." The Doctor was absolutely sure that it referred to the Master (and, admit it, so were you). Instead, after the Master is defeated, Wilf politely knocks four times on the door of his glass cage, hoping the Doctor will let him out.^note It should also be mentioned he does the four-knock four times. Wilf previously trapped himself in the cage to save a random guy's life. The only way the Doctor can get him out is by killing himself.
• A Real Man Is a Killer: Defied — he refuses to be ashamed of never actually killing during his military service.
• Retired Badass: He served in Palestine when he was younger, though by his own admission never took a life while there.

River Song

Has her own page.

Eleventh Doctor Era

Amy Pond

Amelia Jessica "Amy" Pond (Eleventh Doctor)

"I'm easily worth two men."

Debut: "The Eleventh Hour" (2010)

Departure Story: "The Angels Take Manhattan" (2012)

Final Appearance: "The Time of the Doctor" (2013)^note As a possible hallucination seen by the Eleventh Doctor just before he regenerates.

Played by: Karen Gillan (2010–2012, 2013)^note A companion from 2010–2012, she was Back for the Finale in one episode of 2013 for Matt Smith's final regular episode., Caitlin Blackwood (Young Amy, 2010–2012)^note  An unknown stand-in played her in 2013 when she came Back for the Finale — Caitlin had become a teenager by that time and was too old to pass as a little kid anymore.

Amy: Twelve years! And four psychiatrists!
Eleventh Doctor: Four?
Amy: I kept biting them.
Eleventh Doctor: Why?
Amy: They said you weren't real.

The Girl Who Waited

Amy, a kissogram (and, later, a model and a writer), is a Scot raised in a small village in rural England. She first met the Doctor as a little girl in 1996, an encounter that everyone but Amy dismissed as imaginary. But Amy never forgot her "raggedy Doctor", and he served as a sort of imaginary friend for her… until he finally returned, twelve years later. Her relationship with the Doctor is arguably inspired by Wendy Darling's relationship with Peter Pan... except that in this case, Wendy is Peter's mother-in-law.

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• Action Girl: She exerts this when "pushed into a corner". "The Girl Who Waited" sees her exhibit this to her fullest potential by surviving 36 years in a Kindness Facility against an army of hostile robots.
• All Therapists Are Muggles: Amy is sent to therapy in two separate realities when others find out what she’s experienced and can’t believe it’s real: in "The Eleventh Hour" because of her tales of the Raggedy Doctor ^note  She bit all four of them , and in “The Big Bang” where all the stars have gone out and young Amy is the only person in the world who remembers them.
• Always Save The Boy: The Doctor even lampshades it.
  The Doctor: Rory! Rory! Always with the Rory!
• Amnesiac Lover:
  • From the end of "Cold Blood" to the end of "The Pandorica Opens", she doesn't remember Rory because he never existed.
  • Played with in "The Wedding of River Song". Amy remembers that she has a husband named Rory whom she loved dearly, but can't remember what he looks like, and therefore doesn't recognize "Captain Williams". It's the Doctor who tries to restart both their memories.
• Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: While she often takes Rory for granted, if anything happens to him, she'll be crushed, even suicidal. After she reads about Auton-Rory's disappearance in the Blitz during "The Big Bang", she's utterly devastated. "The Girl Who Waited" is testament to how deeply she's in love with him.
  Old Amy: You're asking me to defy destiny, causality, the nexus of time itself for a boy.
  Young Amy: You're Amy, he's Rory... and oh yes I am.
• Back for the Finale: She returns briefly as a hallucination in the Eleventh Doctor's dying moments.
• Berserk Button: Growing up, the Doctor was her button.
  The Doctor: Four [psychiatrists]?
  Amy: I kept biting them.
  The Doctor: Why?
  Amy: They kept saying you weren't real.
• Beware the Nice Ones: When pushed enough or her family's in danger, she can be terrifying. Her (much-deserved) murder of Madame Kovarian, for example.
• Big Damn Kiss: Has a few incredibly Big Damn Kisses with Rory, first in "Amy's Choice" when she made her choice, then in "The Big Bang" on her wedding day, and "The Girl Who Waited", which is effectively "Rory's Choice". She also snogs the Doctor at the end of "Flesh and Stone", while he scrambles to shove her off of him.
• Body Motifs: There's a lot of focus on her legs and she's known as the companion who waited for the Doctor all her life. When she finally marries Rory, she still has trouble moving on from the Doctor.

• Brave Scot: She's brave. She's Scottish. What more is there to say?
• Broken Bird:
  • The Doctor abandons her repeatedly in "The Eleventh Hour", leaving her with lifelong psychological problems as a result.
  • She repeatedly suffers this in "A Good Man Goes to War": First she gives birth in captivity, held prisoner God-knows-where in time and space. Then her baby girl is taken away from her by the villains. Then after the sheer joy of getting Melody back and reuniting with her husband and the Doctor, the villains reveal that they've already taken off with the baby and replaced her with a flesh duplicate, which promptly dissolves in Amy's arms.
  • In "The Girl Who Waited", she's left to fend for herself against killer robots for 36 years, hardening her into a bitter old woman whose faith in the Doctor has dissolved into hatred.
  • Finally, in "The God Complex", the Doctor deliberately breaks that faith in order to save both her life and her future.
• The Call Put Me on Hold: As above, she answered yes to the call long before she was able to actually have the adventure associated.
• Changed My Jumper: She's a worse offender than the Doctor himself. Wearing a miniskirt in public would probably have at least caused some comment in some of the places she went.
• Character Development: Though she starts as an innocent and adventurous young girl, after being abandoned by the Doctor for 14 years she grows up to be jaded, snarky and emotionally damaged, as well as finding herself sexually conflicted between the Doctor and Rory. Throughout Series 5 and 6 she comes to realise just how much she loves Rory, and her mask of overconfidence is toned down as she becomes more mature. She also comes to see the Doctor as less of a childhood hero and more of a friend and equal.
• Character Tic: In Series 5, she would bulge her eyes and pucker her mouth a lot.
• Clingy Jealous Girl: She gets pretty annoyed when she thinks Rory is more focused on another woman. It's justified for a few reasons; he's her husband, he's had a Single-Target Sexuality on her for most of their lives, he has a tendency to die and she's feeling guilty over calling him her "sort of boyfriend" in their first episode.
• Deadpan Snarker: Has her moments. In the ending of, "Flesh and Stone", she snarks that it's a been a while since the Doctor has gotten laid. Subverted earlier in the episode when the Angel Bob makes her cry stone out of her eye and count down.
• Distracted by My Own Sexy: in the 2011 Comic Relief short when she crossed her own timestream and wouldn't stop flirting with herself.
• Double Consciousness: After the events of "The Big Bang", she remembers two different versions of her life, as stated in the "Good Night" mini-episode. In "The Wedding of River Song", this is now a triple consciousness, with Amy remembering her life in the time-everywhere universe.
• Double Standard: Abuse, Female on Male: She emotionally and physically beats Rory over the head a whole lot in Series 5, something hinted to be a result of her epic scale abandonment issues. She gets called out on it hard on occasion, and slowly learns that there are other ways to love someone. It's still her default defence mechanism when she feels that their relationship isn't heading the right way, but it's thankfully downplayed/non-existent by the later part of Series 7A.
• Driven to Suicide: After Rory is sent to the past and "killed" by a Weeping Angel, she chooses to get sent back in time by that same Angel to die with him (of old age, though). The Doctor sounds like he's trying to talk her off of a high ledge.
• Drives Like Crazy: According to Rory.
  Rory: Uh, Doctor, don't. Seriously, I let her drive my car once.
  Amy: Yeah, to the end of the road.
  Rory: Yeah. Where, according to Amy, there was an unexpected house.
  Amy: Aw, he's jealous because I passed my test first time.
  Rory: You cheated: you wore a skirt.
  Amy: I didn't wear a skirt. ... No, no; I did wear a skirt, but it was any old skirt.
  Rory: Have you seen Amy drive, Doctor?
  The Doctor: No?
  Rory: Neither did her driving instructor...
• Expy:
  • Shares quite more than a few traits with Sally Sparrow from "Blink", a story Steven Moffat wrote before taking over as the head writer, right down to having a guy that's interested in her that's considered way out of his league. Unlike Larry Nightingale, Rory definitely does hook up with the girl he likes.^note  This is probably not a coincidence as Steven Moffat wanted Carey Mulligan to reprise the role as a full-time companion only for her to turn the opportunity down.
  • Her origin story also appears to be adapted from another Moffat script, "The Girl In The Fireplace". Like Reinette in that episode, she first meets the Doctor as a child, believes him to be an imaginary friend, and then is surprised to meet him again in adulthood.
  • She also shares more than a few character traits with Rose Tyler. However, unlike Rose, she actually comes to love her Muggle boyfriend (it helps that he became a invokedMemetic Badass not far short of the Doctor himself), grows out of her crush on the Doctor, and generally does a lot of growing up.
• Fag Hag: Believed herself to be this to Rory for years.
• Fair Cop: Subverted in her first appearance, when she uses a Kissogram outfit to pretend to be a cop.
• Fanservice Model: Amy was this for a time before starting her adventures with the Doctor. Different from most of the characters on this trope, she didn't wear lingerie or swimsuits, but Fanservice Costumes since she worked as a kissogram. By the time she saw the Doctor again after meeting him as a child, Amy was wearing a police officer costume.
• Fiery Redhead: This ginger companion is quick to lose her temper. As early as her first episode, there's her smacking the Doctor with a cricket bat and sticking his tie in a car door because he left her alone for 12 years and then won't explain what's going on.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus: In "The Bells of Saint John", the characters — including the Doctor, eventually — read an old-looking book titled Summer Falls. It's written by "Amelia Williams".
• Freudian Excuse: Her selfishness and bossy personality is in part because the Doctor accidentally abandoned her when she was little after literally promising her the stars, and having to deal with four different psychologists over her childhood basically made her "damaged goods" by "The Eleventh Hour".
• Friends with Benefits: Wants to be this with the Doctor, and she gets one kiss in before he pushes her away. She tries again during her wedding — twice.
• Future Badass: Thirty-six years spent alone defending herself from robots with a sword in a quarantined medical facility.
• Happily Ever After: While Amy and Rory are dead in the present, they have 50+ years in the past, and Amy's final note assures the Doctor that they had a full and happy life together until their deaths of old age. Karen Gillan herself also thinks they had Babies Ever After as well — at the very least, they definitely adopted a child.
• Heh Heh, You Said "X": Gives one in "The Time of Angels" when River asks the Doctor to "sonic her" device in order to amplify its signal, as part of her general winding the Doctor up over his relationship with River.
  Amy: Ooh Doctor, you sonicked her!
• Heroes Want Redheads:
  • Inverted with the Doctor, who really doesn't want to fancy her no matter how hard she flirts.
  • It's played straight with Rory.
  • In the 2011 Comic Relief short, Amy Pond flirts with herself.
• Hidden Depths: She really loves van Gogh's work.
• In-Series Nickname: The Girl Who Waited. Twice.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Despite her selfish and shady attitude on occasion, Amy's overall a good person who's willing to sacrifice her own life for those she cares about.
• Jumped at the Call:
  • Asked to come along, as a girl; unfortunately, the caller got waylaid and she had to wait for fourteen years before she got to see the inside of the TARDIS.
    Amy: When I was a little girl, I dreamed of time and space. Last night, all my dreams came true.
  • Invoked by the Doctor with his repeated declaration.
    The Doctor: Amelia Pond! Get your coat!
• Killed Off for Real: In "The Angels Take Manhattan", her permanent death is confirmed by her tombstone.
• Lady of War: In "The Girl Who Waited", the future Amy has taken a level in badass and become one of these. This attitude is also very much in evidence in "The Wedding of River Song".
• Laser-Guided Amnesia: Done to her memories of Rory courtesy of the time-crack, and, it later turns out, to her memories of her parents as well.
• Last-Name Basis: The Doctor has a habit of calling her "Pond".
• Leg Focus:
  • The "Space" short is based on her long legs, her short skirt, and how her husband is distracted by them.
  • Clara's thoughts on the subject:
    Clara: Dear GOD, that woman is made of legs! That's the most legs on any living human!
  • Amusingly, the newly regenerated Twelfth Doctor mutters about her legs in comparison to those of the much shorter Clara... because they're both tied up and Clara's trying to reach the dropped sonic screwdriver with her feet.
• Leitmotif: There's "Locked On", which plays while she gives her narration at the start of the American broadcasts of Series 6. As well as a musical piece called Amy's Theme.
• Like Brother and Sister: Despite a chronic case of Will They or Won't They?, she and the Doctor ultimately end up like this when she realizes that Rory is her true love.
• Limited Wardrobe: For the first six episodes of Series 6, appeared to have nothing in her wardrobe except two or three similar-looking plaid shirts. It turned out to be a subliminal hint to the audience that she's actually a mind-linked Doppelgänger in these episodes.
• Love Triangle: Thinks she's in one with Rory and the Doctor. Rory and the Doctor both disagree. She readily accepts the fact that the Doctor wouldn't necessarily love her, being a 907-year-old alien and all, but she still hopes for a quick shag. While it largely dies to nothing by the end of Series 5, the Ship Tease around it eventually becomes a major plot point, due to invokedTrolling Creator, when she becomes pregnant in Series 6 and people start to assume that it might be the Doctor's baby. Of course, it's not — despite there being, at first, overwhelming circumstantial evidence for it.
• The Maiden Name Debate: After she marries Rory, she becomes Amy Williams. The Doctor knows, but calls her "Pond" regardless (he even calls Rory "Rory Pond" consistently), unless things get properly serious.
  • She evens names her child "Melody Pond", not "Melody Williams". This becomes important later in the series.
• Male Gaze: Her first appearance as an adult is a slow pan up her legs.
• Mama Bear: Very nearly kills a spaceship full of people, including herself and Rory, to save their child. No guarantee that anyone died, but none that everyone lived, either. Madame Kovarian learns this, too.
  Amy: You took my baby from me and hurt her. And now she's all grown up and she's fine. But I'll never see my baby again.
  Madame Kovarian: But you'll still save me, though. Because he would. And you'd never do anything to disappoint your precious Doctor.
  Rory: Ma'am, we have to go. Now.
  Amy: The Doctor is very precious to me, you're right. But do you know what else he is, Madame Kovarian? Not here. [reattaches Kovarian's eye-drive, condemning her to a torturous death by electrocution] River Song didn't get it all from you... sweetie.
• Marry Them All: In her first season, she genuinely intends to have both Rory and the Doctor as her "boys", with Rory's unhappiness with such an arrangement going largely over her head (and the Doctor not having any intention to come between them — quite the opposite). She pointedly ignores their protests even during her and Rory's wedding, and tells the Doctor he can kiss the bride. (He doesn't.)
  Amy (to the Doctor) Oh, you may absolutely kiss the bride
  Amy: [also to the Doctor] Oi! Where are you sneaking off to? We haven't even had a snog in the shrubbery yet!
  Rory: Amy!
  Amy: Shut up, it's my wedding!
  Rory: Our wedding!
• Master of the Mixed Message: Towards Rory in Series 5 and early in Series 6, where he goes from her boyfriend to her "sort of boyfriend" to her fiancé, to one of her two "boys" and then forgetting him entirely due to a time crack. Since then, she's clearly established him as her number one priority.
• Meet Cute: She and the Doctor have one when he shows up in a crashed TARDIS asking for an apple.
• Ms. Fanservice:
  • She's a Kissogram, and so has several... interesting outfits. Seen onscreen is a Fair Cop police uniform; refered to are Naughty Nurse Outfits, Naughty Nun, and French Maid outfits. She has a general liking for short skirts or hotpants that show off Karen Gillan's long legs; there's only two episodes of the fifth series in which we don't see her in something like that.
  • This causes a minor disaster in the 2011 Comic Relief skit, when her wearing a short skirt distracts Rory enough to cause him to drop a thermocoupling, causing a spatial paradox.
  • It's also implied she Invoked this to pass her driving test.
  • As of the end of Series 6 and the beginning of Series 7, she had a quite successful modelling career. By "Dinosaurs on a Spaceship", she seems to have quit.
• Multiple-Choice Past: After the mess with the cracks in time has been resolved, Amy is left with two largely incompatible childhoods — one where she had a mum and dad, one where she was raised by her aunt. She remembers both of them, which is a bit of a headache.
• Mystical Pregnancy: Straightforward example — Amy is subjected to a horrifying pregnancy and delivery. It leads to a half-Time Lord child — though not by the means that anyone expected.
• Oblivious to Love: For a kissogram, she was a little bit slow in realising that Rory liked her.
• Older Than They Look: Not initially, but over her two-and-a-half seasons Amy ages by roughly a decade, though no effort is made to physically reflect this. The Doctor's line about her wrinkles in "The Angels Take Manhattan" is a little hard to swallow when Karen Gillan's face barely has any lines on it even when frowning.
• Painted-On Pants: If she's not wearing a miniskirt, she's probably wearing these.
• Pajama-Clad Hero: In "The Beast Below", she saves all of Starship UK and the Star Whale carrying her while in her nightie.
• Parental Abandonment: When we first meet her, she's living with her aunt (who's never there). The question of what happened to the rest of her family is part of the season arc.
• The Peeping Tom: Had no problem watching the Eleventh Doctor's bare backside when he just started changing clothes right in front of her and Rory not long after his regeneration.
  Rory: Are you not gonna turn your back?
  Amy: [smirks] Nope.
• Phrase Catcher: "Come along, Pond."
• The Power of Love: With Rory, going both ways. In her case, it helps restore her memories of him in the time-everywhere reality, just in time for her to interrupt his attempted Heroic Sacrifice by mowing down half a dozen Silence with an assault rifle.
• Reality Warper: Her Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory is the only reason the Doctor's second Big Bang goes off without a hitch, and is also the only way the Doctor comes back into existence.
• Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory:
  • Develops this as an actual explicit power, though not so much ripple-proof as ripple-resistant. She can lose memories of her own history if she doesn't really concentrate when the moment is rewritten, but she can get those back. This culminates with her remembering the Doctor back into existence after a nasty Ret-Gone.
  • This skill comes back again in "The Wedding of River Song". She and Rory can both remember bits and pieces of the correct timeline, but Amy is the only one able to remember the correct order of things — with a lot of effort and many scribbled illustrations.
• Red Is Heroic: Mostly because of her fiery red hair, she also wears a lot of red clothing troughout the series, like her big red sweater and her red scarf.
• Scarf Of Ass Kicking: Frequently wears one throughout Series 5. Less so afterward — which, ironically, is about the time she Took a Level in Badass.
• Screw Yourself: When the TARDIS gets tangled in a time loop, Amy finds her slightly-time-displaced-self rather fetching.
  The Doctor: Ohhh... this is how it all ends. Pond flirting with herself — true love at last. Oh, sorry, Rory.
  Rory: Absolutely no problem at all.
• Security Cling: The Eleventh Doctor and Amy have a variation. Because Amy's story is one traumatic Break the Cutie moment after another, the Doctor develops a habit of clinging tightly to her and rubbing her back while delivering each new piece of bad news. Asking permission from her husband Rory every time, of course, that being Eleven's method of making clear that he's not trying to rekindle Amy's affection for him.
• Ship Tease: With the Doctor. While it seems to die around the end of Series 5 (the Doctor, for his part, never reciprocated), this becomes a major plot point when she becomes pregnant and her baby turns out to have Time Lord DNA. Rumours promptly start flying about the universe as to exactly what happened, with Dorium noting that anyone now hunting Amy or her family will be in serious trouble, explicitly remarking to the Headless Monks, "I've even heard who's child you've taken. Are. You. Mad?!", before talking up the Doctor's reputation as The Dreaded, implying that the Doctor is the father. Due to invokedTrolling Creator, it takes a while before we find out that it was all a big Red Herring, and the Doctor has never touched Amy.
• Show Some Leg: According to Rory, this is how she got her driver's permit.
• Small Name, Big Ego: Very mild case of this sometimes, as she tends to overestimate her own competence.
  • Case in point, during a conversation with River about the Doctor, River says she knows what Amy is thinking. Amy's immediate response is to confidently state that River doesn't. As it turns out, River does in fact know what Amy's thinking — though in fairness to Amy, she didn't.
• Statuesque Stunner: At 5 foot 11 inches she’s the same height as Rory and only an inch shorter than the Doctor, probably why she’s never shown wearing heels on the show otherwise she’d tower over both.
• Surprise Pregnancy: She had no idea she was pregnant, even after having done the deed on or after her wedding night.
• Tangled Family Tree: From late Series 6 onward, Amy and Rory are together and have a daughter, Melody, who was named after their childhood best friend, Melody a.k.a. Mels. Amy, however, fancied the Doctor and snogged him early on (he did not reciprocate and was extremely surprised, to say the least). She later marries Rory and has a daughter whom she names Melody, after her and Rory's best friend. Melody turns out to be River Song, who eventually marries the Doctor after a childhood spent as said best friend Melody, meaning that she was accidentally named after herself. On top of that, Melody's second mother is the TARDIS, who considers herself married to the Doctor and has a romantic (as well as biologically symbiotic) relationship with him. Things get more complicated when Amy accidentally marries Henry VIII in a throwaway gag — because the Doctor, rather briefly, married Queen Elizabeth I in his previous incarnation, who happens to be Henry VIII's daughter, making her simultaneously his mother-in-law and his step-mother-in-law. In the middle of all that, the Doctor snogs Rory for no obvious reason — though the main incident of this was a invokedThrow It In, and could just be the Doctor being excitable and, well, the Doctor. The TARDIS, meanwhile, also fancies "the Pretty One" (Rory).
• Took a Level in Badass: Thirty-six years of defending yourself from killer robots will do this.
• Trapped in the Past: Amy and Rory's final fate is to be locked into early 1930s New York by Weeping Angels.
• Trauma Conga Line: She gets severely traumatised roughly every two episodes, from kidnapping to abandonment to adult fear and death.
• Tsundere: A textbook examples. She's the "Harsh" type at the beginning of Series 5, thanks to her many, many issues ("Twelve years! Twelve years, and four psychiatrists!"), and "sweet" by the end.
• Unrequited Love: very briefly for the Doctor, and arguably it's more lust than love. However, she pretty quickly realises that Rory's the one for her.
• Violent Glaswegian: Not actually Glaswegian, but she's still Scottish and still very bad tempered when the mood takes her. She invokes it in "Asylum of the Daleks".
• Violently Protective Girlfriend: It's really not a good idea to mess with Rory. While he's a invokedMemetic Badass in his own right, Amy is considerably more ruthless than he is.
• Wham Line: To the Doctor, when he's grilling this "policewoman" on why she lied about how long the Pond family has been gone.
  The Doctor: This is important! Why did you say six months?
  Amy: [screaming, in her real accent] Well, why did you say five minutes?!
• Why Do You Keep Changing Jobs?: Kissogram, supermodel, travel writer, book publisher... Amy fits in quite a few careers around all the time travelling. Justified because there are years' worth of gaps between her adventures with the Doctor.
• Wistful Amnesia: Finds herself crying over Rory without realizing it or knowing why several times late in Series 5 after he'd temporarily been swallowed by a crack in reality.
• Yaoi Fangirl: As shown in the comics, when Rory kisses the Doctor by accident and Amy asks them to do it again, but slower.
• You Called Me "X"; It Must Be Serious: As she points out, the Doctor only calls her "Amelia" when he's worried about her, and "Amy Williams" when things get very, very serious.
• You Have Waited Long Enough: Amy runs off with the Doctor on the night before her wedding.

Rory Williams

Rory Arthur Williams (Eleventh Doctor)

"Great! We're dead, again."

Debut: "The Eleventh Hour" (2010)

Joins TARDIS Crew: "The Vampires of Venice" (2010)

Departure Story: "The Angels Take Manhattan" (2012)

Played by: Arthur Darvill (2010–2012)
Young Rory played by: Ezekiel Wigglesworth (2011)

"Rory Pond is everything I could never be — brave enough to show when he's scared, man enough to take his wife's name, and so steadfastly in love that he'll wait 2,000 years and not complain once. Everyone needs a Rory in their life."

— Steven Moffat

The Last Centurion

Rory is a nurse, Amy's childhood friend, and now her husband. Growing up together with Amy, she used to make him dress up as her "raggedy Doctor", and he's appropriately freaked out to learn that the man actually exists. He starts off incredibly reluctant to travel with the Doctor, out of love for Amy and fear for his own life, but quickly rises to the challenge and becomes a tremendously courageous force to be reckoned with.

---

TV Tropes

• Always Save the Girl: If you suggest that his girlfriend is less important than the universe, then he will punch your lights out.
• Amnesiac Lover: In "The Wedding of River Song", in which he's lost all his memories of the correct timeline and only knows Amy as his boss (albeit whom he is quietly devoted to). The Doctor tries to get them back together again... and fails, at first.
• The Atoner: As an Auton, following the (apparent) death of Amy by his own hands.
• Badass Adorable: "A Good Man Goes to War" has him terrifying Cybermen and then later crying with joy at his baby daughter.
• Berserk Button : Threaten Amy and you might as well dig your own grave as you’ll be needing one once he’s through with you.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Normally a gentle soul (he's a nurse, after all), but he's capable of amazing destruction if his family is threatened.
  Rory: I have a message from the Doctor... and a question from me. WHERE. IS. MY. WIFE? Oh don't give me those blank looks, the twelfth Cyber-legion monitors this entire quadrant! You hear everything. So you tell me what I need to know, you tell me now and I'll be on my way...
  Cyber-Leader: What is the Doctor's message?
  [the entire Cyberman fleet outside the window explodes]
  Rory: Would you like me to repeat the question?
• Big Damn Kiss: Apart from a few very Big Damn Kisses with Amy, the Doctor (well, Matt Smith, improvisinginvoked) rather unexpectedly snogs him once. Rory makes a "yuck" face.
• Broomstick Quarterstaff: He uses a mop as an improvised weapon in many episodes, including "The Vampires of Venice", "Night Terrors" and "The God Complex".
• Bullying a Dragon: Rory is normally a gentle soul, but it is not a good idea to test his patience whenever Amy is in trouble.
• Butt-Monkey: Started out as Amy's put-on "sort of boyfriend" so wasn't taken seriously by anyone and regularly made a fool of himself. Many, many levels in badass later...
• The Champion: Spent 2000 years as the Guardian of the Pandorica, simply to make sure Amy would remain protected.
• Character Development: He went from an insecure Mickey-type character whose main purpose was to look hurt, to a Badass Adorable man who is willing to spend two thousand years protecting his wife.
• The Chew Toy: Where Amy gets horribly tortured emotionally, it is Rory's lot to suffer physically, in new and interesting ways. At one point, fans on Twitter jokingly threatened to come after Moffat with a pitchfork if he tortured Rory again. Moffat responded they'd have to haul the pitchfork out of Rory first.
• Chick Magnet: Gathers quite a few looks from various female characters (and, after a while, from Eleven as well). Even the TARDIS fancies him, calling him "the pretty one" — one episode later, it's revealed that they have a child together, in a sense.

• Covert Pervert: In "Space" and "Time", he accidentally causes a major malfunction in the TARDIS because (a) his wife is wearing a skirt and (b) the TARDIS has a glass floor.
• Deadpan Snarker: An often dry and understated example, he responds to the insanity that is his life with frequent snark.
• Determinator:
  • Auton Rory spent 1894 years protecting the Pandorica simply because Amy was inside and she was, just about, a bit safer with him there.
  • In "The Wedding of River Song", in another version of reality, to give Amy time to flee, he ignores the fact he's being electrocuted.
    Amy: You have to take your eye-drive off!
    Rory: I can't do that ma'am, I can't forget what's coming.
    Amy: But it could activate at any moment!
    Rory: [with trembling, clenched fists] It has activated, ma'am.
• Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?:
  • Rory tops himself, and quite possibly takes the all-time Companion Crowning Moment, in Doctor Who Magazine comic "The Chains of Olympus", where he lets out a Pre Ass Kicking One Liner in the form of "Hi, honey! Is this bloke bothering you?", announces himself as Roranicus the First of the Upper Leadworth Empire, and whips out a Your Mom joke... all before taking on Ares, the Greek god of war in SINGLE COMBAT, and wiping the floor with him. Eat your heart out, Kratos.
  • He also once slugged the Doctor, who has been known to do a fair impersonation of Cthulhu himself/send Cthulhu crying for his mummy. That said, in that case, the Doctor was intentionally provoking him, to see how much of him was Auton and how much was Rory.
  • He also punched out Hitler. And put him in a cupboard.
• Disney Death: He has a knack for wiggling his way out of being Killed Off for Real.
• Distressed Dude: Frequently. Amy never takes it well.
• Double Consciousness: Rory remembers both his original life and his life as the Last Centurion in the universe of the Total Event Collapse. However, he's worked out how to block away the latter set of memories most of the time — unless he decides he needs to access them.
• The Dreaded: After the reboot of the universe, he's been woven into all human legends as "The Last Centurion".
• Establishing Character Moment:
  • He's first introduced as being the only one in the hospital not to dismiss the rumour about coma patients wandering about, which attracts the Doctor's attention when he notices he's busy taking photos of them, rather than the sun going dark. He's only then introduced properly as Amy's fairly timid boyfriend.
  • As a companion this moment comes in "The Vampires of Venice", when he quite angrily tells the Doctor that "you have no idea how dangerous you make people to themselves", establishing himself as the first companion since Donna who doesn't outright idolise the Doctor, and someone who is perfectly willing to call him out.
    • In the same story he witnesses an apparent vampire attack... and focuses on trying to save the victim rather than chasing the vampire.
• Expy: Shares traits with Larry Nightingale from "Blink", a story Steven Moffat wrote before taking over as the head writer, right down to being interested in a girl that's considered way out of his league. Unlike Larry, he definitely does hook up with the girl he likes.
• Fanservice Pack: Mild version. In Series 6, the costume department gave the character more flattering clothes (like tighter jeans) and hair gel. It's also applied to the Roman uniform when it reappears.
• The Fettered: Remembering his time as the Last Centurion hurts, so he blocks it out for his own sanity. When needs must, he has 2,000 years of experience as well as years of training as a Roman soldier that he can draw on.
• Foil: The Nurse to the Doctor's Doctor. Also to Mickey Smith, as both are the boyfriends of the Doctor's main companion who feel unapreciated and threatened by their girlfriend's close relationship with the Doctor. They were also childhood friends with their respective love interests and experience surprising character development into a more stronger and tough character. The difference is that Rory's character development is shown by him proving his love for Amy by waiting almost 2000 years for her which strengthens their relationship, while Mickey's invovles him moving on from Rose.
• From Bad to Worse: Story of his companionship and non-existence right up through the penultimate episode of Series 5, which culminates in an Auton with his memories killing Amy against Rory's will.
• Genre Savvy: Rory knows a bit about science and science fiction, and the Doctor gets peeved when Rory doesn't need anything explained to him, especially how he perfectly understands the TARDIS interior being bigger on the inside.
• The Good Captain: In "The Wedding of River Song", he is "Captain Williams" in Amy's anti-Silence organization.

• The Heart: This is a common trope for companions of the Doctor, but Rory's compassion and kindness are showcased more than just about any other companion in the Revived Series. These traits are often Lampshaded by the Doctor, and it makes him an Unwitting Pawn in "The Rebel Flesh"/"The Almost People".
• Henpecked Husband: He's okay with it most of the time, and offers only mild resistance to being called her boy or taking her last name.
  Amy: Would I make it up at a time like this?!
  Rory: Well, you do have a history of [receives Death Glare] ... being very lovely.
• Heroic Bystander: Though not a fan of adventuring, Rory sets the tone early when, upon coming across a vampire attack, his first impulse is not to flee or chase the monster, but to stop the victim from bleeding to death. Throughout his time with the Doctor, he tends to act to save life first and foremost. This leads to him not only tending the wounded, but frequently doing awesome things like punching Hitler out to stop him shooting an apparent innocent bystander, and then locking him in a closet!
• Heroic Sacrifice: In "The Angels Take Manhattan", he and Amy commit suicide by jumping off of the top of a building in New York to create a paradox that will prevent the Weeping Angels from taking over New York.
• Heroic Willpower:
  • In his Auton form as the Centurion, he uses willpower to keep himself from going insane. He draws on this again in "The Wedding of River Song", but it nearly fails. Despite this he manages to keep his gun aimed through nigh unbearable pain. Rory gives Samuel L. Jackson a run for his money in BAMF territory.
  • This has the unexpected bonus of making Rory completely resistant to Mind Rape, if "The Doctor's Wife" and "The God Complex" are any indication.
• Hero of Another Story: Early in "The Big Bang", he spent 1894 years worth of history guarding the Pandorica. Probability of zany adventures: extremely high.
  The Doctor: So. Two thousand years. How did you do?
  Rory: Kept out of trouble.
  The Doctor: How?
  Rory: Unsuccessfully.
  • Big Finish Doctor Who has announced a new series, The Lone Centurion. So far his adventures have taken him to ancient Rome and to Camelot.
• Hospital Hottie: In case you could ever forget, he's a nurse, and a pretty one at that.
• I Just Want to Be Normal: Rory's ideal world as recreated by the Dream Lord is rather quiet — he is a doctor instead of a nurse, Amy is pregnant, and most of the residents of their hometown are over 90.
• In-Series Nickname: The Last/Lone Centurion.
• Internal Homage: He succeeds Big Finish companion Hector Schofield as a cute nervous nurse (and sci-fi dork) who goes from The Chew Toy to intergalactic hero. Creator Steven Moffat is a huge Big Finish fan and loves to reference the series.
• Just Friends: He had feelings for Amy to the point of Single-Target Sexuality, whilst she was Oblivious to Love to the point she thought he was gay.
• Killed Off for Real: After eight attempts, Moffat finally kills him permanently in "The Angels Take Manhattan". He has a gravestone and everything. While Amy and Rory are dead in the present, they still have 50+ years in the past, and Amy's final note assures the Doctor that they are living Happily Ever After there.
• Knight in Sour Armour: Series 6, thanks to spending 1,894 years straight guarding the Pandorica from anything and everything that could possibly threaten it. In "The God Complex", he says he neither fears nor believes in anything anymore. His eye roll at Eleven's inability to wait for even five minutes gets quite magnificent at times.
• Let's Get Dangerous!: Whenever Amy is threatened, Rory is no longer content to hold back and stay by the sidelines. He's been pushed to the point where he is going to wage war!
• Living Legend: As the Lone Centurion, he is interwoven into a significant number of Earth's legends, right up until his presumed death in World War II. Amy's comments in A Good Man Goes To War suggests that these legends still exist after the universe was rebooted.
• Love Martyr: After he dream-dies in "Amy's Choice", Amy admits to the Doctor that she never told him she loved him, and this was the (constant) day before their wedding.
• The Maiden Name Debate: After he marries Amy, she legally takes on his last name... at which point the Doctor merrily starts to call him "Rory Pond". Rory protests, a bit, at first. It becomes fairly hilarious once the Doctor insists on also calling Rory's father "Pond".
• Manly Tears: He sheds a few when reunited with Amy and their daughter before the rug gets pulled out from under them:
  Rory: Oh God, I was gonna be cool. I wanted to be cool, look at me...
  Amy: Crying Roman with a baby. Definitely cool.
• The Medic: Rory is a nurse, and acts like it. (See Heroic Bystander above.) As of "A Good Man Goes to War" he's evolved into a Combat Medic.
• Mirror Character: To the Doctor, and it's best shown in "A Good Man Goes to War", where his actions demonstrate that episode's title could be interpreted as referring to either the Doctor or himself.
• Missing Mom: Rory's mother never appeared once, though she has been mentioned once in the show and more in the expanded universe. Given his father managed to spend several days in the TARDIS without anyone noticing, that suggests she's not in the picture anymore for whatever reason.
• Mistaken for Gay: Amy never saw him show any attraction to any girl, and assumed this because she was too thick to realise that there was at least one he liked...
• Nerves of Steel: At the start of series 5, he's a nervous nurse who's in no way ready to deal with space/time travel. By mid-series 6, he believes he's lost the ability to feel fear from the amount of crap he's seen and experienced, making him immune to this week's form of Mind Rape. ^note Although it's his lack of faith that is the important bit here When he thinks he and Amy are dead, his only reaction is "We're dead. Again." His alternate universe self, in the Time Crash, is like this too. The only thing that frightens him is the thought of losing Amy.
• Nice Guy: Really, really nice guy; he's a popular nurse at his hospital.
• Non-Action Guy: At least before he Took a Level in Badass, he'd rather be living a quiet suburban lifestyle than going on adventures in the TARDIS. But he'll do anything for Amy.
• Noodle Incident: He spent 1894 years staying out of trouble... unsuccessfully. Big Finish has announed they will be revealing what he got up to during this time.
• Not Afraid to Die:
  • He knows full well that he might not survive the 1894 years guarding the Pandorica. He still does so anyway.
  • In "The Angels Take Manhattan", after seeing the death of his future self who spent over 50 years without Amy simply as food for the Angels, Rory decides to jump off of the roof. When Amy protests, he says it's Better to Die than Be Killed and his intention is not suicide, but to create a paradox large enough that it will take the Angels with him and prevent any of this from happening!
• Older Sidekick: At least in "The Big Bang", following 2,000 years of guarding the Pandorica as an Auton.^note This depends on how old you consider the Doctor to be at the time, however, since he's known to be inconsistent about his age. Outside of that episode he's more debatable, being physically in his twenties while retaining the Auton memories.
• One-Man Army:
  • In "Day of the Moon", Rory has over twice the number of tallied markings on him, implying that during the three months he spent in 1969, he's dealt with the Silence on nearly a daily basis (while also constantly outwitting the FBI).
  • Best demonstrated in "A Good Man Goes to War", where Rory, in full Centurion gear and armed only with a sword (and a screwdriver), managed to waltz through a Cyberman-controlled vessel and scare the living crap out of them. In the same episode, he takes down a half a dozen Headless Monks armed only with a Gladius and Pistol.
• Only Sane Employee: Unlike his boss, he's the only one in the hospital to take the rumours of wandering coma patients seriously.
• Only Sane Man: Acts as the voice of reason on the TARDIS. Unlike the Doctor and Amy, he recognises the danger they often find themselves in, and isn't afraid to call out the Doctor on his tendency to act cavalier with people's lives. Steven Moffat says that Rory actively makes himself this because otherwise he'd get sucked into life with the Doctor like Amy.
• Phrase Catcher: Manages to get a good "Oh, Rory..." out of the Doctor every once and awhile.
• The Power of Love: When Amy was trapped in the Pandorica, Rory protected her for two thousand years. It was his love that kept him sane.
• Progressively Prettier: Alongside his character development as a Non-Action Guy who then Took a Level in Badass, the makeup department do a good job of making him look hunkier in series 6 compared to series 5.
• Previously Overlooked Paramour: Amy initially overlooks Rory (partially because she believes him to be homosexual) in favour of her infatuation with the Eleventh Doctor, but eventually comes to terms with her own feelings for Rory, who has always been there for her, and whose personality she considers to be the most beautiful she has ever encountered.
• Promotion to Opening Titles: As of the 2010 Christmas special, and thereafter.

• Really 700 Years Old: Mentally, he's almost two thousand years old, which makes him technically older than the Doctor. (Or, at least, older than the various ages Doctor was claiming to be when he knew Rory. Since the Doctor doesn't remember his exact age anymore, he could still have been older.)
• Reluctant Warrior: He honestly doesn't want to fight anyone, but if you threaten Amy, all bets are off.
• Ret-Gone: Temporarily; he's not only fatally shot, but absorbed by one of the cracks afterwards. The Doctor remembers him, but Amy doesn't.
• Sarcastic Devotee: To the Doctor, and to Amy, if he can get away without being hit with her shoes afterwards.
• Secret Test of Character: The Doctor casually threatens Rory's family to see if the Auton-Rory he's talking to has genuine human emotions. He does.
• Secular Hero: After his stint as the Last Centurion, he fears nothing and believes in nothing; not religion, not superstition, and not even friends of his like the Doctor.
• Shrouded in Myth: In his Auton form as the Centurion, getting written into legends all over the world as a result. No one knows for sure if he's real or not, but there are many accounts of him.
• Single-Target Sexuality:
  • Only ever shows attraction to Amy; his entire life, just Amy. Which, when they were younger, led to him being Mistaken for Gay by Amy. The moment the camera focuses on his face when Amy says them being together is impossible is sad, then a few seconds later when Amy reveals she thinks he is gay is very funny.
  • In a very sweet issue from IDW's comic series, Amy and the Doctor get body-swapped. Rory decides that he doesn't even care. He kisses the Doctor, realizing a bit too late that the body switch has already been corrected. (Amy asks them to do it again but more slowly.)
• The Slow Path: As the Centurion, he spent 1,894 years waiting while the Doctor skipped ahead with the Vortex Manipulator. Note that he explicitly chose The Slow Path, despite the Doctor trying to talk him out of it.
• Smarter Than You Look:
  • In his first episode, while the rest of the planet pays attention to the sun going wobbly, Rory (who up til now has just been an easily cowed nurse) pays attention to the coma patient that's out walking his dog. Later on, he figures out why the TARDIS is bigger on the inside remarkably quickly and without any help from the Doctor at all. The only companion to have done this so far.
  • Done rather subtly throughout series 5 and 6, and tied to his taking a level in badass. He was already smart enough to spot Prisoner Zero, but when the Doctor comes back for him a few episodes later, he's studied up on enough physics and time travel to know more than most comparable companions. Add in his years as the Centurion and he's become one of the Doctor's most competent companions in a while. For all of his occasional mocking, the Doctor seems to trust him more than any other companion, probably due to their similar experiences. He could be the strongest and smartest companion the Doctor will ever have, with the possible exceptions of River and Jack Harkness — which, since one is a part-Time Lord Super-Soldier trained to assassinate the Doctor himself, and the other is a centuries old ex Time Agent with Complete Immortality (depending on whether or not he's actually the Face of Boe, who was millions/billions of years old, and even then, the Face chose to die) and incalculable levels of military experience, isn't too shabby.
• Straight Man: According to Moffat, Rory has to make himself this, otherwise he'll get sucked in to the life like Amy.
• Super-Strength: In his Auton form as the Centurion, he can drag the Pandorica from a burning building.
• Sword and Gun: Due to his memories of being the Last Centurion, he has over 2000 years of experience in this form of combat. He wields them to devastating effect in Series 6, as shown by managing to infiltrate and blow up a Cyberman fleet and successfully hold off the Headless Monks.
• Taking the Bullet: At the end of "Cold Blood"... and then he gets retconned out of existence.
• Tangled Family Tree: Albeit his part of the family tree is probably the least tangled about it. See River Song and Amy Pond for the rest.
• They Killed Kenny Again: Rory Williams: the man who dies, and dies again. In Doctor Who: Best of the Companions, one of the commentators equated him to Kenny from South Park, and believes Moffat gets some sick pleasure out of torturing Rory◊. It gets to the point where he complains at one point that he's dead... again.
• Thousand-Yard Stare: He has one whenever he remembers the 1,894 years as the Last Centurion. The Doctor mentions that he sometimes catches Rory just staring.
• Tomato in the Mirror: In "The Big Bang", he did not come back from the dead. He was a Nestene replicant whose programming killed Amy.
• Took a Level in Badass:
  • At least 20 levels after his resurrection into an Auton and nearly 2,000 years as the Lone Centurion. The man really would do anything for his wife.
  • Again in "A Good Man Goes to War". "WHERE. IS. MY. WIFE?"
• Too Spicy for Yog-Sothoth:
  • In "The Doctor's Wife", Rory is not shown to have been subjected to any Mind Rape by House, suggesting that either House knew it'd not work on him, or that it happened off-screen and Rory was simply better at shrugging it off.
  • In "The God Complex", the titular Hell Hotel shows people their worst fears so the Minotaur can feed on their faith. Rory is not religious nor superstitious, has experienced enough in his travels to be left with very little to fear anymore and unlike Amy, does not have faith that the Doctor will always be around to save them. In the end, all the Hotel can do is show him the exit. Shows just how amazing he is.
• Trapped in the Past: Rory and Amy's final fate is to be trapped in 1930s New York by Weeping Angels. The Doctor can't go back to them due to the damage the Angels did to local spacetime.
• Trauma Conga Line: Like Amy, though where hers is emotional/psychological, his is mostly physical — the only characters to die more than him are the Doctor himself (depending on whether or not one counts regeneration as dying) and Captain Jack Harkness, who's got Resurrective Immortality going for him.
• True Beauty Is on the Inside: Amy cites this as the reason she fell for Rory:
  Amy: You know when sometimes you meet someone so beautiful and then you actually talk to them and five minutes later they're as dull as a brick? Then there's other people, when you meet them you think, "Not bad. They're okay." And then you get to know them and... and their face just sort of becomes them. Like their personality's written all over it. And they just turn into something so beautiful. Rory's the most beautiful man I've ever met.
• Undying Loyalty: 1,894 years guarding what was basically Amy's coffin so she could revive.
• Unfazed Everyman: He's a very ordinary and relatable guy, but he also takes his first view of the inside of the TARDIS far better than most new companions have. He very quickly works out that the TARDIS interior exists in a different dimension, which is what allows it to be Bigger on the Inside, without any help from the Doctor (which actually kind of annoys him!). While he has his moments of panic after that (at least at first, before he became the Last Centurion) he tends to take things far more in stride than most ordinary people would. In fact his overriding emotion at his house being stormed by UNIT is mild irritation.
  Rory: There are soldiers all over my house, and I'm in my pants!
• Victorious Childhood Friend: He was friends with Amy back when she was "Amelia".
• Vitriolic Best Buds:Both the Doctor and Rory seem to enjoy the level of snark they throw at each other.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Often calls the Doctor out on constantly making people try to impress him, often putting them in serious danger.
  Rory: You have no idea how dangerous you make people to themselves!
• When He Smiles: While flirting with him when working the controls, older Amy tells him to give her a minute and his cutest smile in order for her to fix them properly.
  Older Amy: That's the one.
• Yank the Dog's Chain: Just as Amy remembers who he is... the Auton programming overruns him and he's forced to shoot her.

Clara Oswald

Has her own page.

Twelfth Doctor Era

Nardole

Nardole (Twelfth Doctor)

"Are you the Surgeon? There's a medical emergency!"

Debut: "The Husbands of River Song" (2015)

Joins TARDIS Crew: "The Return of Doctor Mysterio" (2016)^note First story in which he appears as a companion; he actually joins the Doctor earlier in his timeline, as depicted in "Extremis"

Departure Story: "The Doctor Falls" (2017)

Final Appearance: "Twice Upon a Time" (2017)

Played by: Matt Lucas (2015-2017)

"I am the only person you have ever met, or ever will meet, who is officially licensed to kick. The Doctor's. Arse. I will happily do the same to you, in the event that you do not align yourself with any instructions I have issued which I personally judge to be in the best interests of your safety and survival."

A timid, unassuming Human Alien of the 54th century who was a servant of River Song during her caper to reclaim a valuable diamond from (the head of) the tyrannical cyborg King Hydroflax, whom she'd recently married to get close to. On Mendorax Dellora in 5343, he was sent to fetch the surgeon River hired to perform the... "operation"... and a misunderstanding meant that he brought back the Twelfth Doctor. Long story short, by the end of this misadventure Hydroflax himself was destroyed and Nardole's head — just the head, mind — was peacefully sharing and controlling his deactivated robot body with that of Ramone, one of River's many husbands and also involved in the scheme; together they served as a waiter at a restaurant near the Singing Towers of Darillium. However, during the long night the Doctor spent with River on Darillium (long as in equivalent to 24 Earth years) he "reassembled" Nardole into a cyborg.

Before River went to her death in the Library, she tasked Nardole with becoming the Doctor's "valet"; he promised to take care of the Doctor, to keep him from losing his sense of self and his noble morals... by any means needed, up to and including kicking his arse. Thus, he followed the Doctor to what was to be the execution of Missy (the Master), and from there they took to guarding the Vault beneath St. Luke's University on Earth. Nardole is determined to make sure the Doctor holds to his vow to watch over Missy for 1,000 years, but this becomes harder when, several decades into the vigil, the Doctor meets and befriends Bill Potts.

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• All There in the Manual: Paul Cornell's "Twice Upon a Time" novelization reveals he gets a Surprisingly Happy Ending post-"The Doctor Falls": He lives to over 700 years old on the colony ship, successfully defending the solar farmers against the Cybermen often enough that at last they only have to deal with with annual Cybermat infestations. He also accumulates six wives over that time. Finally, he's accidentally taken by Testimony, which believes him to be an actual human, before he dies. He guilts it into letting his memories be uploaded into it, which is how an avatar appears to Twelve shortly before he regenerates.
• Ascended Extra: Started out as a supporting character in "The Husbands of River Song", getting upgraded to a companion in Series 10. While "The Return of Doctor Mysterio" was being filmed, Steven Moffat said that initially Matt Lucas had been contracted for certain episodes of Series 10, but ended up appearing in more. By the time the series came to broadcast, he was in every episode up to and including "Twice Upon a Time".
• The Atoner: "The Doctor Falls" implies he used to be a conman.
• Beware the Silly Ones: Spends most of his early appearances as Comic Relief, yet he is capable of piloting the TARDIS and was used as Mission Control when the Doctor and Bill had to navigate a Dalek spaceship in "The Pilot". In "Oxygen", he gives the Doctor a brutal What the Hell, Hero? speech when an escapade nearly gets them killed, potentially leaving the Vault and its occupant unguarded. He is then proven correct when the Doctor reveals the trip blinded him.
• Breaking Old Trends: So far he's the only non-human companion in New Who.
• Bumbling Sidekick: To River Song. The whole plot of "The Husbands of River Song" gets underway when he is sent to fetch the surgeon involved in her scheme, and instead brings back the Twelfth Doctor. Both she and the Doctor treat him haughtily, as well.
• Butt-Monkey:
  • In "The Husbands of River Song": He fetches the wrong person for River and learns of his mistake at the worst possible time. He ends up interrogated and decapitated by Hydroflax's body, his head kept alive to serve as its new head. In this state he is forced to effectively hold himself hostage so the body can interrogate Ramone. Then it takes Ramone's head too, and Nardole's head ends up "stored" within its torso, a hot and smelly place. And he almost goes down with the Harmony and Redemption when it crashes. (Not to mention that the robot short-circuiting can't be a pleasant experience.) All this in one story! When the dust has settled, however, he adjusts to his odd new existence nicely.
  • In Series 10 he's constantly belittled and treated as an annoyance who's less important to the Doctor than his new companion Bill. Like others in this situation, he finds that giving as good as he gets is the best response.
• Character Development: "The Return of Doctor Mysterio" reveals that he's grown some backbone since "The Husbands of River Song" — he can hold his own in snarking with the Twelfth Doctor, and he has enough insight into him to know that he's trying too hard to mask his post-River loneliness, particularly when preparing to set the villains' bomb on a course for New York City ("I know you miss her, but can't you write a poem?"). By "Oxygen", he is capable of standing up to the Doctor about as well as some of his more forthright companions.
• Cloudcuckoolander: Compared to most other companions. Other companions would've probably panicked when the Doctor, say, set a villain's bomb on a course for a city. Nardole's response (after the immediate panic) is to say that he knows that the Doctor has been through a lot, but couldn't he think of another way to express it?
• Cowardly Lion: While his fear is played for comic relief, he's willing to follow the Doctor through the increasingly insane situations the Doctor puts all his companions through. By the season finale Nardole is entirely willing to perform a Heroic Sacrifice in the Doctor's stead, though he's talked out of it.
• Cowardly Sidekick: Once he realises River's scheme is going awry because of his mistake, all he can do is hope for the best; once confronted by Hydroflax's body all he can do is plead for his life, and he's quickly rendered helpless.
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Lampshaded by Bill in "Extremis", after Nardole informs her he is the only being in all the Universe who has standing permission to kick the Doctor's arse should the need arise. Her words are, "Are you secretly a badass?" Nardole's response is that there's nothing secret about that.
• Deadpan Snarker: Can surprisingly hold his own with the Doctor during "The Return of Doctor Mysterio". He really has his moments in "The Doctor Falls", when he nonchalantly reveals that most of the surrounding farmland like windmills and bushes are highly explosive.
  Hazran: You think you're really something, aren't you?
  Nardole: Try not to state the obvious.
• Expansion Pack Past: About Once per Episode after his initial would-be one-off appearance, he throws out some new and bizarre factoid about himself.
• Foil: He and the Twelfth Doctor have a bit of Fat and Skinny going on. Nardole is timid, anxious, unsuspecting, affable, good-mannered, and round-figured, while this particular Doctor is tall, near-bony, snarky, and grouchy with No Social Skills.
• Human Alien: Though it's not mentioned on screen pre-Series 10, according to Matt in Doctor Who Magazine #507, Nardole's not human, and is possessed of strange abilities and knowledge — making him the TV series' first non-human companion (not counting Handles) since the Fifth Doctor's era. He admits that he isn't human in "The Doctor Falls", though he's close enough (after being rebuilt, at least) that a bacterium that is lethal to humans still affects him severely, and he barely survives it.
• Insistent Terminology: He makes a resounding point that he has been given full permission by the late River Song to "Kick. The Doctor's. ARSE."
• Literal-Minded: Does not understand that "restroom" and "little boy's room" are euphemisms for the same thing.
• Losing Your Head: He lost his to Hydroflax's body! He got it back by the time of "The Return Of Doctor Mysterio", though ("The Pilot" reveals his body's mechanical as he accidentally shed's a bolt and has to awkwardly kick it under the Doctor's desk to utterly fail to hide it from Bill).
• Manchild: Has shades of this in his first two appearances, considering his primary outfit is a duffle coat (usually worn by small children) and he uses the term "little boy's room". It's gone entirely by Series 10.
• Mix-and-Match Man: Matt's understanding, in Doctor Who Magazine #518, is that Nardole's an alien, "with some robot replacement parts, and some human lungs".
• Morality Chain:
  • River Song assigned him to be this to the Doctor before her death, knowing that he shouldn't be alone. At Missy's execution, he warned the Doctor not to go through with killing her, and subsequently did his best to hold the bored, lonesome Doctor to his vow to watch over her and the Vault.
  • Interestingly, he considers the Doctor to be this to him, and worries that he'll default back to being a crook if he doesn't have the Doctor to keep him busy. Given that he used to work for River Song, it's hardly improbable that he's got a criminal past.
• Mysterious Past: We know he used to be blue at some point (thanks to a comment in "World Enough and Time") and in "Oxygen" he states that this face wasn't his original as he had to change that while on the run. Why he went on the run and changed his appearance is never made completely clear, but "The Doctor Falls" reveals he used to be involved in black market dealings. In the same episode he mentions that he doesn't actually know his origins, only that he was "found".
• Noodle Incident: His "few accidental stop-offs" during "The Return of Doctor Mysterio", including one in 12th-century Constantinople, where he claims to have accidentally become the Emperor and "ruled firmly but wisely".
• Obfuscating Stupidity: According to Steven Moffat, this is the reason for Nardole's behaviour in "The Husbands of River Song". This is likely a retcon.
• Really 700 Years Old: The Doctor's scanner in the sonic sunglasses (in "The Pyramid at the End of the World") show that he's 237 years old.
• Robotic Reveal: The opening scene of "The Pilot" strongly implies that at least part of Nardole's replacement body is robotic, as it squeaks when he moves and a bolt drops out of his sleeve when he's not carrying anything.
• Servile Snarker: Extremely. He's forced to follow the Doctor out of a sense of gratitude, but is pretty honked off at him for using the notion of rebuilding him as an excuse to have someone to talk to when everyone else is gone. And 24 years (later an additional 50 to 70) as the Doctor's toady have rendered him incapable of taking any of his crap anymore. In fact, there are a few times when he outright states a desire to kick the Doctor's arse!
• Techno Wizard: Series 10 has a few moments highlighting his computer skills, most memorably "The Doctor Falls".
• Took a Level in Badass: Somewhere between the opening of "The Return of Doctor Mysterio" and the end, he becomes a lot more intelligent and savvy, and by the time of Series 10, is more than capable of unleashing a brow-beating on the Doctor (with the occasional threat that he can and will kick his arse should the need arise).
• Unexplained Recovery: How exactly he got a new body isn't really explained, beyond the Doctor mentioning he "rebuilt" him.
• Unfazed Everyman: Nardole handles the rigors of time travel quite well, even becoming Emperor of the Byzantine Empire in the 12th century for a time during an accidental side-trip by himself. The only thing that really makes him panic is when the Doctor decides to do something particularly crazy and stupid.
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: He's (understandably) terrified at the thought of going near the Daleks.
• You Are Better Than You Think You Are: In "The Doctor Falls", the Doctor — after so often belitting and ignoring him — asks him an Armor-Piercing Question as they debate which one of them will stay behind to destroy the Cybermen hordes on Floor 507 and which will lead the solar farmers to safety and help protect them against future attacks — which of them is stronger? The Doctor is implying that it's Nardole who will be able to handle the latter option, and Nardole realises he is right and accepts this.

Bill Potts

Billie "Bill" Potts (Twelfth Doctor)

"I'm having the time of my life, and I wouldn't miss it for the world. Even if it kills me."

Debut: "The Pilot" (2017)

Departure Story: "The Doctor Falls" (2017)

Final Appearance: "Twice Upon a Time" (2017)

Played by: Pearl Mackie (2017)

"Do you know any sci-fi?"

The Passenger

The principal companion of 2017, though she was first introduced with a two-minute video clip in 2016. A cafeteria worker at St. Luke's University in Bristol, she is fascinated with the lectures on time and space given by one particular, long-tenured "professor" even though she's not actually enrolled in his classes at first. The Doctor, in turn, is fascinated by her curiosity and he becomes her tutor. A crisis involving her potential girlfriend Heather leads to the Doctor having to reveal his true nature to Bill, and though he is trying to hold himself to The Promise regarding his presence at the university, he subsequently takes her on as a companion to show her the wonders she's only heard him lecture about thus far. While her relatively short tenure as a companion sees her undergo horrifying ordeals both on Earth and in the stars, the Doctor's guidance and her inner strength will bring her to a happier ending than even he can imagine is possible.

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• '70s Hair: She has an afro most of the time, though it's absent in "The Lie of the Land".
• All There in the Manual: Bill's final fate is explained in the "Twice Upon a Time" novelization by Paul Cornell: After travelling the universe with Heather, the lovers returned to Earth and grew old together as humans. The relationship was so happy that Bill ultimately chose to die of old age rather than be rejuvenated again, and on her deathbed gave Heather permission to return to her immortal, travelling state. (Bill's Testimony avatar cannot explain all this to the Doctor because the Testimony gives her Laser-Guided Amnesia so she'll interact with the Doctor as she did before they were parted.)
• Amazon Chaser: In Doctor Who: The Lost Dimension, she's instantly struck by Jenny, remarking she's "drop-dead gorgeous, and handy in a fight. I think I'm in love." This is said somewhat admiringly while watching Jenny beat people up. The Doctor finds this specific instance somewhat aggravating because Jenny is his daughter.
• And the Adventure Continues: Her departure has her leaving to explore the universe further with her Living Ship and lover Heather.
• Apocalypse Maiden: Becomes this thanks to her consenting to let the Monks conquer the planet; though they don't realize it, she is the psychic conduit their Mass Hypnosis of humanity works through. Missy advises the Doctor to kill her or render her braindead to stop the Monks, and over his objections Bill is ready to make a Heroic Sacrifice to do so. However, she survives and breaks off their link, whereupon they flee.
• Armor-Piercing Question: In "Twice Upon a Time" Bill (or rather her memory avatar) asks the First Doctor why he stole a TARDIS and ran away. Her exact question impresses him:
  Bill: I don't mean what you ran away from. What were you running to?
  1st Doctor: That's rather a good question.
  Bill: Questions are kinda my thing. How are you with answers?
• Big Damn Kiss: With Heather the Pilot after she's more than Earned Her Happy Ending.
• Black and Nerdy: She's quite geeky, and likes sci-fi. She is also undoubtedly very clever, enough to sit in on and understand the Doctor's lectures despite not being a student and manages to pique his curiosity purely through her intellect. When she formally becomes a student, she very ably steps up to the Doctor's challenge of getting a first and her scores are all excellent.
• Braids of Action: Her hair is in this style in "Empress of Mars". She's a veteran companion by then, after all.
• Break the Cutie: Her experiences in "World Enough and Time"/"The Doctor Falls", as she ultimately becomes the first Mondasian Cyberman. In the end, she gets much better.
• Butch Lesbian: Downplayed, but Bill is gay, and she has a Tomboyish Name and clothing style. Her interview with the Doctor and Establishing Character Moment has her telling a story about flirting with a girl by giving her extra chips and unwittingly making her fat.
• Character Development: By the time of "The Pyramid at the End of the World", she has learned enough from the Doctor to make the kind of choice he would when she's faced with the prospect of his death: She agrees to let the Monks Take Over the World if they'll restore his lost eyesight so he can escape the lab that's about to explode, taking the line of thinking that she'll not only save him but he will be able to liberate her and her people. While she must suffer through six lonely months and a gruelling Secret Test of Character in "The Lie of the Land" before she and the Doctor are reunited and he can put his plan to defeat the Monks into action, she endures and ultimately is willing to make a Heroic Sacrifice to save Earth. Luckily, she survives the process.
• Chubby Chaser: She tried to woo a girl by serving her extra chips in the canteen and, as a result, accidentally caused the girl to gain a large amount of weight. But Bill realized she liked seeing the girl bigger because she was the one who caused it, and remarks that the other girl seems just fine with it. There's a brief scene where she serves an extra serving of chips to a larger girl, implicitly the one mentioned, and shares a wink with her.
• Constantly Curious: She's always asking questions, which amps up the teacher/student vibe that she and the Doctor have going.
• Contrasting Replacement Character: Bill is a cheerful, laidback person who doesn't have many aspirations in life, very different from bossy, control freak, go getter Clara Oswald. Naturally, they also have very different relationships with the Twelfth Doctor; Clara & the Doctor were very much a couple, while Bill took the role of student/daughter/granddaughter, having an easier, lighter dynamic with him.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: She endures incredible suffering in "World Enough and Time"/"The Doctor Falls" that puts the ordeal of the Monks to shame, including getting most of her chest vaporized, spending ten years trapped in a creepy hospital, getting betrayed by a False Friend (who turns out to be none other than the Master) and converted into a Cyberman, and watching the Doctor die, but she holds onto her sanity long enough to get rescued by Heather and ends up leaving to explore the universe with her. Meanwhile, a Testimony avatar of her is happily reunited with him shortly before his regeneration, which also lifts the burden of his guilt over not being able to undo her Cyber-conversion.
• The Everyman: As much as any companion can be. Out of the Series 10 Team TARDIS dynamic of Bill, Nardole, the Doctor and Missy she's the only one new to an adventuring life. In fact, Bill may be the most normal companion since Ten's years.
• Fridge Logic: In-Universe, when she wonders why Daleks say "Exterminate" instead of shorter words, like "Kill". Her unusual, questioning perspective on the Doctor's world is key to her character, according to invokedWord of God.
• Gay Best Friend: She has this dynamic with the Doctor, having of course no interest in him romantically. When they talk to each other for the last time in "The Doctor Falls", she heavily implies to him that she loves him in a platonic way.
• Gender-Blender Name: "Billie", her full first name, is the feminine form of "Bill"; she typically uses the masculine form.
• Genre Savvy: She was into sci-fi and space before meeting the Doctor, and recognizes the attempt by the Doctor to erase her memories before he does it based on having previously seen it in movies.
• Imaginary Friend: Her Missing Mom becomes this once she has pictures of her. In "The Lie of the Land", she talks to her as a friend because she has no one else to turn to at the time; she knows the truth about the Monks but no one else around her does and she will be arrested for speaking up. Ultimately, her created memories of her mother and their conversations — a pure fiction — are what defeat the Monks in a Battle in the Centre of the Mind, as they cannot rewrite fiction, only the truth.
• Incompatible Orientation: She's the first openly gay Companion and, as such, is the first for whom any fan shipping is not cool (previous actors have said they and the Doctor were totally doing it all over the TARDIS). Bill lampshades this to get her and the Doctor out of an awkward moment, "I know whe have this student-teacher thing going, but...", and then they laugh and save the world.
• Missing Mom: Her biological mother died when she was young. She didn't even have any pictures of her until the Doctor went back in time to take some.
• Naďve Newcomer: She's had an ordinary life in ordinary modern day England with nothing particularly extraordinary happening to her until she was attacked by a puddle, so she doesn't know a thing about Daleks and things from outer space beyond what she's seen in movies. This is why she asks a lot of questions.
• Named After Someone Famous: She and Heather are named after William Hartnell and his wife.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: Goes by "Bill" rather than "Billie".
• Parental Abandonment: She was fostered after her mother died. Her father is never mentioned, and her foster mother appears somewhat indifferent to her.
• Parental Substitute: The Doctor takes on the role as a surrogate father or grandfather, assisting in such mundane tasks as helping her move house.
• Pop-Cultured Badass: Even in dire situations, she just can't stop referencing movies she loves.
• Preserve Your Gays: While she was turned into a Mondasian Cyberman in "World Enough and Time", she is assimilated by the Heather creature and they travel the universe together by the end of "The Doctor Falls". They even have an onscreen Big Damn Kiss after both have "died". However, she doesn't regain her human form. She's basically like Heather by that point, although she could turn back into a human if she wanted.
• Running Gag: Subverted. When meeting the Doctor for the first time, she asks "Doctor what?", rather than "Doctor who?" It also takes her a while to realize that the TARDIS is "bigger on the inside".
• Sorry, I'm Gay: A good few episodes end up with her telling potential love interests this, including the Doctor. It's inverted when members of a Roman legion actually find it rather cute that she's so… restricted.
• Stepford Snarker: "Friend from the Future" suggests that she copes with life-threatening situations by cracking jokes and asking deliberately silly questions.
• Straight Man and Wise Guy: Has this dynamic with Twelve, who has to work not to crack a smile while explaining how much trouble they're in in "Friend From the Future".
• Surprisingly Happy Ending: Cyber-conversion should be Bill's death sentence since the Doctor has no means of restoring her under the circumstances, and indeed everything in "The Doctor Falls" points to a final Heroic Sacrifice, but Heather the Pilot steps in to save the day And the Adventure Continues to an extremely full life for Bill.
• Swiss-Army Tears: She has these because of her connection to Heather/The Pilot. In "The Doctor Falls", they call Heather back to her and reignite the Doctor's regeneration ability. (All There in the Manual material confirms Heather was watching out for her all along.)
• Tomboyish Name: "Billie" and "Bill". She goes by the masculine latter.
• Twofer Token Minority: Black lesbian.
• Unwilling Roboticisation: Part of her Break the Cutie experience. First, she ended up with her heart being replaced by a metal one after it was vaporised by a gun blast. Then she trusted the wrong person and ended up the first full-blown Mondasian Cyberman.
• Working-Class Hero: She works in a university canteen and it's noted that Bill can't afford to attend any classes herself — until the Doctor becomes her private tutor, that is.
• You Remind Me of X: It's implied her Constantly Curious nature reminds the Doctor of his granddaughter, Susan Foreman.

Thirteenth Doctor Era

Yasmin Khan

PC Yasmin "Yaz" Khan (Thirteenth Doctor)

Debut: "The Woman Who Fell to Earth" (2018)

Departure Story: "The Power of the Doctor" (2022)

Played by: Mandip Gill

A young police officer in Sheffield who, after asking for more important responsibilities than parking disputes, is sent to respond to a call put in by her old school friend Ryan about a mysterious object appearing in the woods. This leads to her getting involved in the Doctor's life. Yaz is the longest running companion in the entire series in terms of "years", from October 2018 to October 2022 for a total of 4 years and 16 days.^note Rather than number of episodes, which would be Jamie, or stories, which would be Clara, or seasons, which would be Sarah Jane or Tegan.

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• All Girls Want Bad Boys: The lesbian version. The Doctor is compared to Byron for being a bit of a fuckboy, and it's part of the frustrating appeal for Yaz.
• Ambiguously Bi: Her mother asks if she and the Doctor are dating when she meets her, and later asks the same about Ryan when she meets him. Later on, in "The Haunting of Villa Diodati", she makes some comments that can be interpreted as indicating she has a crush on the Doctor. "Eve of the Daleks" confirms that she has feelings for The Doctor.
• Broken Pedestal: The shine is completely off Thirteen by "The Halloween Apocalypse", Yaz being sick of the Doctor's lying and evasiveness.
• Childhood Friends: She was friends with Ryan in primary school, but they didn't keep in touch.
• Character Development: She's gone from a rookie eager to prove herself to a proto-Doctor, just like Clara Oswald before her.
• Deadpan Snarker: Gains this in Series 13. She snarks back and forth with the Doctor and Dan.
• The Dutiful Daughter: Between her and her sister, Yaz appeared to be the better-received child and is shown to be more responsible than her sister. "Can You Hear Me" reveals that she developed into this character after being consoled by a police officer when she tried to run away from home.
• Eager Rookie: She's on her second year as a probationary officer, and is eager for duties beyond parking disputes, which leads to her getting sent to respond to Ryan's call about an alien object in the woods.
• Fair Cop: She's a rather attractive rookie police officer.
• Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: Is the responsible to her sister's foolish. Yaz became focused on her work as a police officer, while her sister became an irresponsible phone addict who got fired for insulting an unreasonable customer. Downplayed a bit as it turns out Yaz had her own wild streak and was convinced to try for a more responsible life by an inspiring copper, who bet her fifty quid for fifty pence that she'd be happier trying to make the world a better place. (the copper won the bet)
• Green-Eyed Monster: Implied, due to the Doctor's evasiveness about her past and the realisation that she's had previous companions and adventures as a man, Yaz's relationship with the Doctor appears to have elements of retroactive jealousy. A condition or disorder where a person becomes fixated on their partner's past and previous relationships. Then again, this may just stem from Yaz feeling underappreciated and overlooked by the Doctor.
• Hero-Worshipper: According to Mandip Gill, Yaz is initially so awestruck by the Doctor that, as Gill put it, if the Doctor said "jump", Yaz would ask "How high?" However, in "Revolution of the Daleks", her view on the Doctor is jaded somewhat. That's what happens when your hero disappears for ten months.
• Implied Love Interest: Shares this with both Ryan and the Doctor.
• Informed Attribute: In Series 11, there were no scenes showing how Yaz became the Doctor's most trustworthy companion and it was assumed that she got the role due to her career as a police officer. However, in Series 12, Yaz does start to get her share of heroism and proves herself as the Doctor's second-in-command.
• The Lancer: She is frequently seen at the Doctor's side and acting in a partner-like fashion. In contrast to the do-gooder traveller living in a police box, she actually is a police officer and significantly more rational. In her last episode, she becomes a proto Doctor, like Clara before her, flying the TARDIS by herself, picking up companions and coming up with her own plan to save the Doctor from the Master.
• Lipstick Lesbian: In "Eve of the Daleks", she outright confirms that she is attracted to and in love with the Doctor. After showing no unambiguous signs of feelings for anyone other than the Doctor previously, this means that her only confirmed feelings have been for another woman. When combined with her feminine appearance and presentation, she is this trope.
• Married to the Job: She's devoted in her role as a police officer.
• Mistaken for Romance: Ryan and Yaz are just friends and nothing more, despite Yaz's sister and mum thinking otherwise.
• My Sister Is Off-Limits: She refuses to give her sister's phone number to Ryan in "Spyfall", stating that she doesn't want him as a brother-in-law.
• Oblivious to Love: Whenever she expresses any hint of romantic love for the Doctor, it is because she's of the belief that the latter is this trope. Some of the Thirteenth Doctor's dialogue, especially throughout Series 12, appears to indicate otherwise.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: Yaz to her friends and family, and since the Doctor decided they were friends the moment they met, it's how she ends up being called by everyone around her.
• Out of Focus: In Series 11, she gets less character background and character focus than her fellow companions. As of "Revolution of the Daleks", it's clear that this was because she was going to be serving a much longer time as a companion than Graham or Ryan.
• Plucky Girl: She is often this, being a fangirl of the Doctors and volunteering to help people out. "Praxeus" even shows her going off on her own adventure and behaving like the Doctor, companion analogue and all!
• Reformed Criminal: The novelisation of "The Witchfinders" reveals that before joining the police force, she'd been in court for numerous traffic offenses and urinating in public. She claims they were "open and shut cases".
• The Reliable One: Yaz spends less time struggling with her insecurities than Ryan or Graham and never really needs prodding to do the right thing. As a result, she's Out of Focus a lot, but the Doctor seems to trust her the most out of the group.
• The Runaway: It's revealed in "Can You Hear Me?" that Yaz nearly ran away from home a few years before she met the Doctor. An intervention from a friendly police officer led her to change her mind and eventually prompted her to become a police officer herself.

Ryan Sinclair

Ryan Sinclair (Thirteenth Doctor)

Debut: "The Woman Who Fell to Earth" (2018)

Departure Story: "Revolution of the Daleks" (2021)

Played by: Tosin Cole

A warehouse worker in Sheffield who lives with his grandmother Grace and step-grandfather Graham. When he calls the police after seeing a glowing golden symbol in the air which, after touching, causes a mysterious object to appear, he re-connects with his old school friend Yaz, who's gone into the police, and then gets involved in the Doctor's life.

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• AM/FM Characterization: He's a fan of Grime music, particuarly Stormzy. He considered Raze to be the "sickest grime station" in Sheffield.
• The Artefact: His family issues and relationship with Graham were resolved at the end of Series 11. In Series 12, he's just along for the ride, his dyspraxia barely being mentioned. The closest he has to an arc in the season is learning how to shoot hoops.
• Book Dumb: The others are often left surprised by the amount of common knowledge Ryan isn't privy to.
• But Now I Must Go: At the end of "Revolution of the Daleks", he decides that he's found his place on Earth and that it's time for him to move on from adventures with the Doctor.
• The Casanova: Hits on a woman in virtually every episode, and many women and gay men like him as well.
• Childhood Friends: He was friends with Yaz in primary school, but they didn't keep in touch.
• Cynicism Catalyst: Being away from his friends makes Ryan realize that he is not the same as when he first met the Doctor. He even asks Yaz how she feels about leaving the TARDIS.
• Disappeared Dad: His reaction when his dad fails to show at Grace's memorial service makes it clear that the man is a deadbeat. He subsequently comes to the conclusion that his dad's not up to coping with the things life can throw at you.
• Dull Surprise: One of the more stoic companions, he had a very monotonous, almost robotic manner of speaking (possibly a result of dyspraxia).
• The Engineer: Studying for his NVQ (National Vocational Qualification) to be a mechanic. He's still learning, but seems to want to puzzle out engineering problems and has some skill at figuring out machinery.
• Handicapped Badass: He has to manage his dyspraxia-induced "coordination problem" during his heroic adventures with the Doctor.
• Informed Attribute: Subverted. He has dyspraxia, a condition that affects his physical coordination. It isn't given much focus and is only relevant in his first two episodes, although subtle mentions do come up from time to time, such as while he's playing basketball in "Spyfall", or hesitating to jump between train cars in “Nikola Tesla’s Night of Terror”.
• Jerkass Ball: He's a pretty nice guy, but he grabs it around Graham, refusing to acknowledge the man as his grandfather and rebuffing his attempts at friendship. And he's been doing this for three years. Possibly justified in that Graham often acts entitled to being treated as Ryan's grandfather, and so Ryan isn't given much space to acknowledge him on his own terms. All this said, he eases off over the course of the series, most notably in "Arachnids in the UK", where he expresses anger at his Jerkass father implicitly not considering Graham family. He finally does call Graham "Granddad" in "It Takes You Away", after Graham proves he cares about Ryan for the young man's own sake by rejecting the pseudo-Grace so he can save Ryan.
• The Klutz: Justified and deconstructed. He has dyspraxia, and his inability to ride a bike as a result deeply frustrates him.
• Learning to Ride a Bike: Ryan has dyspraxia, a condition which impairs his coordination, and thus has never learned to ride a bike. He won't give up, and as they bond, this cements the father-son dynamic with Graham.
• Missing Mom: Died six years before "The Woman Who Fell to Earth", when Ryan was thirteen.
• Mistaken for Romance: Yaz's family sees his friendship with Yaz as something more, despite neither of the two thinking that way.
• Oblivious to Love: Ryan does get a small number of admirers. He has a few moments with Yaz, Yaz's sister takes a liking to him, and King James asks him to stay. Ryan usually responds with confusion, and he doesn't recognise when he's flirting with someone. Captain Jack also flirted with him. Ryan's response: "I like him."
• Plucky Comic Relief: By Series 12, he gets plenty of comedic moments, and is the most comedy oriented of the three.
• The Stoic: He speaks in a very reserved, unemotional manner.
• There Are No Therapists: Ryan has some deep-rooted daddy issues caused by his father walking out on him and he often brings up these problems. In "Rosa", he and Yaz quickly talk about the prejudice they face in the modern age after jumping through a window with Yaz to escape a racist cop. In "The Tsuranga Conundrum", he stops mid-chase because the pregnant man reminded him of his disappeared dad. In "It Takes You Away", he brings the possibility that Hanne's father simply abandoned her than being a kidnapped, an insensitive claim that is proven to be pretty accurate because the father actually chose to stay in an alternate universe to stay with something that claims to be his dead wife.
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?:
  • He's not crazy about spiders.
  • Or ladders, especially under pressure.
• You're Not My Father: Doesn't have the best relationship with Grace's second husband Graham, refusing Grace's and Graham's efforts to get him to call him "Grandad". That said, when Graham proudly calls Ryan his grandson in the Jim Crow Deep South in "Rosa", Ryan doesn't object. He also lets Graham know he was offended by his own father implying that Graham wasn't proper family.

Graham O'Brien

Graham O'Brien (Thirteenth Doctor)

Debut: "The Woman Who Fell to Earth" (2018)

Departure Story: "Revolution of the Daleks" (2021)

Final Appearance: "The Power of the Doctor" (2022)

Played by: Bradley Walsh

A retired bus driver from Sheffield, married to Grace and therefore Ryan's grandpa by marriage, who finds himself involved in the Doctor's life.

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• Ambiguously Bi: He's not exactly complaining about being kissed by Jack Harkness.
• Bad Boss: Discussed in "Nikola Tesla's Night of Terror", where he compares Thomas Edison to his old boss. It is implied that said boss was a factor towards him retiring from his job.
• Been There, Shaped History:
  • He ends up being the white passenger who Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat for, which he's understandably not too happy about.
  • In The Simple Things short story by Joy Wilkinson he goes back to meet the founders of his favourite football team, West Ham United. He gives them his West Ham pin, they like the name and decide to use it.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Graham is about as sweet as a sweet old man could be. And yet, he is hell bent on killing Tim Shaw as revenge for Grace — so much so that the Doctor seriously wonders if he's going to be a threat to them all. In the end, he decides to "be the better man" and spares Shaw's life... only to subject him to a Fate Worse than Death.
• The Bus Came Back: Returns for "The Power of the Doctor", without Ryan, who is apparently in Patagonia.
• But Now I Must Go: At the end of "Revolution of the Daleks", when Ryan decides to part ways with the Doctor, Graham leaves as well in order to remain in his life.
• Cowardly Lion: He's not at all happy with the danger he finds himself in, yet he rises to the challenge anyway.
• Cruel Mercy: The way he and Ryan deal with "Tim Shaw". The Doctor did talk them out of killing the guy, but locking him in a stasis pod, conscious, and sealed away where no one is going to find him for a very long time? Seven and Ten would have approved.
• Deadpan Snarker: He's not impressed by Epzo's misanthropic viewpoint in "The Ghost Monument".
  Graham: Were you born that miserable, or did you have to work at it?
• Driver of a Black Cab: Retired bus driver. Still knows colleagues at the station, and when needed goes to them for the local gossip.
  Graham: If you want to know what's happening, ask a bus driver.
• Happily Married: To Grace, as she gave him something to live for when he was undergoing cancer treatment. Her death devastates him.
• The Heart: Despite his Sour Supporter moments, Graham is the one with the biggest heart. He always tries to talk to and empathize with people having a hard time. See the way he comforts Yaz in "Demons of the Punjab" and Jake in "Praxeus". Not forgetting the fact he and Ryan help deliver a baby in "The Tsuranga Conundrum".
• How Do I Shot Web?: Although he has psychic paper in his arsenal, he doesn't really know how it works, as Ace points out.
• The Lost Lenore: Grace's absence is a constant influence upon Graham, who asks himself "What would Grace do/think?" repeatedly throughout Series 11. He chose to join Team TARDIS as much to find respite from his grief as to explore new worlds and eras.
• Mistaken Identity: Has been mistaken for the Doctor twice now. The second time, Captain Jack Harkness snogs him thinking the Doctor had regenerated.
• Nice Guy: Occasional grumpiness aside, he's actually a sweet guy.
• Not So Above It All: Despite his general Only Sane Man attitude, he occasionally cottons on to how cool it is to travel with the Doctor. For instance, after arriving (by mistake) in 1955 Montgomery, Alabama, he asks if they can see Elvis perform live.
• Older Sidekick: He's not older than the Doctor, obviously, but he's probably the second-oldest human companion ever after Wilf. And, importantly, he looks older than the Doctor he's travelling with.
• Only Sane Man: Much like Rory was to Amy and Eleven, he's the only one of Thirteen's companions to acknowledge how dangerous things are, and is quick to bring the others down to earth:
  The Doctor: [opening a mysterious suitcase] Is anyone excited? I'm really excited.
  Graham: You won't be if it's a bomb.
  The Doctor: [annoyed] Don't kill the vibe, Graham!
• Papa Wolf: In "Rosa", he's quick to shield Ryan from a local bigot who shoved him to the ground.
• Parents as People: He's understandably frustrated by Ryan's refusal to acknowledge him as his grandfather, but he loves the boy just the same.
• Savvy Guy, Energetic Girl: He has this dynamic with his wife, Grace. He's generally sour and pointing out how dangerous and/or crazy something is and she is generally more excited and eager for adventure. One example is this exchange from "The Woman Who Fell to Earth":
  Grace: Is it wrong to be enjoying this?
  Graham: Yes!
  Grace: [giggles]
• Ship Tease: With Ace, who he bumps into while investigating some suspicious volcanic activity. He acts flustered when she calls it a "first" date, and when she tells him her name he says to himself she is Ace. This isn't followed up on at the former companion support group.
• Snark-to-Snark Combat: As the snarkiest of Team TARDIS, he often gets into snarking matches, with either the Doctor or the guest stars of the week.
• Sour Supporter: Downplayed since he's pretty easygoing overall, but if anyone is going to start grumbling about the little inconveniences that the Doctor's lifestyle tends to result in (such as being too busy running around having grand adventures to remember little things like "having lunch"), it's him.
• Survivor's Guilt: As a cancer survivor, he feels guilty when Grace dies, saying it should have been him instead.
• Team Dad: Or Team Grandad. Cut him in half and you'd find "hard-working busdriver who loves nothing more than telling his fam how proud he is of them" written across his kidneys. Which would be inconvenient for him, so don't do it. Ryan and Yaz both tear up when he goes full grandad. Also, he's really bad with technology.
• Unfazed Everyman: An easy-going, down-to-earth working-class bloke who takes most of the bizarre things he encounters in his stride.
• Verbal Tic: He makes a habit of calling the Doctor "Doc".
• Vitriolic Best Buds: He clearly admires the Doctor, but they get into snarking matches with each other often. The Doctor herself seems to enjoy the banter.
• What Would X Do?: He asks himself "what would Grace do" when he feels lost. In "The Ghost Monument", the answer is "What's wrong with you? You're on an alien planet. How cool is that?"

Dan Lewis

Dan Lewis (Thirteenth Doctor)

Debut: "Flux Chapter One: The Halloween Apocalypse" (2021)

Departure Story: "The Power of the Doctor" (2022)

Played by: John Bishop (2021)

"What's the point in living if it's not to make other people happy?"

A new companion introduced in 2021's six-part storyline Flux, filling the void left by Graham and Ryan's departure. A slightly eccentric but otherwise ordinary middle-aged bloke from Liverpool whose principal interests include the Reds, helping poor families at his local food bank, and pretending to be a tour guide at the Museum of Liverpool, Dan is spirited away by a foul-tempered dog-man named Karvanista, who turns out to be his assigned protector for the coming apocalypse.

Depending on how you count the tenures of Adam Mitchell and Jack Harkness from Series 1^Namely...  Adam's 2 stories and episodes don't qualify him as a companion since he was designed to show what a "bad" companion is, and Jack's future appearances boost his episode and story counts, Dan is the shortest tenured companion in the revival era by both episode and story count^note 9 and 4 respectively if you treat Flux as a single story, 9 each if you count each episode of Flux as one story, which would still make his tenure one of the shortest on the show.

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• Bait-and-Switch Character Intro: He's introduced to the audience giving a passionate speech to guests at the Museum of Liverpool about what an amazing city it is, suggesting he's a tour guide. After he's finished, Diane, an actual museum employee, walks up to him to escort him off the premises, and tells him that her boss is going to ban him if he tries a stunt like that again.
• But Now I Must Go: After being brought within a hair of dying during the CyberMasters' attack on a train, he chose to leave the TARDIS crew amicably. Thanks to his experiences with the Doctor, he can now fight for the life he wants.
• Canine Companion: Dan is Karvanista's designated human to protect from the Flux. While Karvanista is honour-bound to defend him, he doesn't have to like him.
• Conversational Troping: Immediately indentifies a time loop as "Groundhog Day".
• Deadpan Snarker: Easily the wittiest companion of the Thirteenth Doctor. His response to the TARDIS being Bigger on the Inside:
  Dan: I had a mate who had one of these. I think his was a bit bigger, actually.
• Did Not Get the Girl: Di decides she doesn't want a relationship with him, resenting him for her ordeal with the Passenger. He's obviously heartbroken and chooses to commit to travelling in the TARDIS full time afterwards.
• Disabled Love Interest: He's trying to get a date with a woman named Di, an actual employee of the Museum of Liverpool. Di has a malformed arm, but nobody makes a big deal of it.
• Empty Fridge, Empty Life: He's shown to have an empty fridge after turning down an offer from the food bank he works in, after saying other people needed it more.
• Friend to All Children: Gives a bag of sweets to and banters with a girl who visits the food bank with her mother. And later on, making sure he has enough sweets for the children that are trick-or-treating.
• The Friends Who Never Hang: Despite being the Doctor's latest companion, the frantic pace of Flux combined with their constant separations due to temporal distortions means that she and Dan do not share much screentime or have a fully developed relationship yet. Dan ultimately spends much more time with Yaz after being stranded alongside her in the Edwardian era by some Weeping Angels, so he seems more like a companion to Yaz rather than the Doctor.
• Frying Pan of Doom: His weapon of choice for bashing Sontarans on the probic vent is a large wok, given to him by his parents.
• Nice Guy: Though he can be surly and snarky at times, Dan is nevertheless a lovely man who gets the most pleasure out of helping others and making them happy.
• Patriotic Fervour: He loves his home city of Liverpool. Not just for the football, but the history and culture. His passion is such that he pretends to be a museum tour guide even though he doesn't work there. Moreover, his knowledge of Liverpool's history allows him to deduce Joseph Williamson's identity before anyone else.
• Runaway Fiancé: From the perspective of the one who got dumped. He was engaged at one point, but his fiancée changed her mind two days before the wedding because she was unable to bear the thought of spending the rest of her life with him and thought she could do better. (We don't know when the conversation in "Once, Upon Time" took place in Dan's timeline, only that the engagement was maybe 15 years or so before that.)
• Shipper on Deck: He attempts to get the Doctor and Yaz to admit their feelings for each other.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: As another late-middle-aged Unfazed Everyman companion played by an actor best known for light entertainment programming, he would seem to be a replacement for Graham. While his storyline proves to be significantly different from Graham's, it's debatable how different he really is.
• Unfazed Everyman: Dan takes most of the bizarre events that happen over the course of the Flux event in stride. He's mostly unfazed by Karvanista kidnapping him, mainly being furious over the violation of his human rights rather than the fact that an alien abducted him. Even the TARDIS doesn't impress him that much. When he finds out that Karvanista shrunk his house, he's worried about how the hell he's supposed to live inside it now!
• Vitriolic Best Buds: His initial Teeth-Clenched Teamwork with Karvanista becomes this over the course of Flux. He has this relationship with Yaz too.

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