The “Fam” Deserved Better

In honour of the confirmation of Jodie Whittaker's 13th Doctor Who final season in 2022, I wanted to look back on my experience returning to the Whovian universe these past three years. Whittaker will star in a new six-part series later this year, and three specials next year, before she exits.

While the first woman to play the Time Lord will bow out in Autumn 2022, along with showrunner Chris Chibnall - the same cannot technically be said for the companions. While Doctors often regenerate for new incarnations for the next actor or actress, companions often stick around and we see new relationships form.

Two companions left last year, with Ryan and his grandfather Graham (played by Tosin Cole and Bradley Walsh) deciding to leave the TARDIS for good with Mandip Gill's Yaz staying with the Doctor.

I wanted to be invested in the companions, I really did - I’ve previously said the companions keep the series grounded in humanity - and this trio had arcs that could have looked fantastic on screen. With Ryan’s disability, Graham’s grief and Yaz having mental health struggles - these are stories that could’ve really fleshed out these characters.

One thing that also linked these characters was death, each having lost someone they loved or been in a dark place themselves. A theme that should’ve felt more poignant with an immortal time traveller. But it didn’t.

Actually, the writing for these characters felt rather safe. Each felt rather average, no one had a distinctive voice. As in, I sometimes felt you could’ve given any of these actors a line of dialogue and it wouldn’t feel out of character because they didn’t have a firm place in the group.

When Ryan is first introduced, he struggles to ride a bike. The episode explains that this is because of his disability, dyspraxia, which affects movement and co-ordination. As someone who has a disability myself, I think it's great to see that representation on screen. However, I think the writing for this character failed to find the balance between not defining Ryan by his disability and actually portraying his disability. There were times where his disability was not even mentioned or he did not struggle mobility wise during more physical scenes.

As for Yaz, this was a true shame. A key part of the episode Can You Hear Me?, saw Mandip Gill’s Yaz face up to the mental health issues that had almost seriously derailed her life some years before she met the Doctor, with a series of flashbacks explaining what had happened to the future time-traveller. Yet, the writers chose to keep this ambiguous. What happened to Yaz as a teenager that caused these sequence of events? Why was her sister so nervous to leave Yaz alone on the anniversary? Essentially, what happened to Yaz?

This episode left viewers with more questions than answers, especially because this episode had the potential to be beautiful - a chance to explore mental health through the eyes of a companion. I think this episode didn't give the subject matter the detail it deserved, like how racism and discrimination was explored in Malorie Blackman's co-written Rosa and Vinay Patel's Demons of the Punjab (which was a personal favourite of mine). Yaz had three episodes that explored her relationships with her identity, family and mental health - but it feels like her storyline is headed towards the ill-fated (and often doomed) companion/doctor love story.

Finally, Graham. Poor, poor Graham. Graham had the most links to the theme of death, having lost his beloved wife Grace (played by Sharon D. Clarke) and fears of his cancer returning. Graham had one conversation with the Doctor about this, but she found it difficult to console him and this scene received negative backlash from viewers. In two seasons, we didn’t really get to see Graham struggle with his mortality or acknowledge the fact he is the oldest human on the TARDIS and his fears of losing someone else he loves.

The Can You Hear Me? episode used dreams and nightmares to explore the inner lives of the companions. Zellin’s nightmare powers, Ryan, Yaz, and Graham were forced to confront their worst fears, many of which relate to the way traveling with the Doctor has changed their live. Yet, this did not cause friction in the group until much, much later.

There was one scene that summed up my feelings towards the companions, in the Mary Shelly inspired episode The Haunting of Villa Diodati. The Doctor quite literally vents her frustration at her companions when they are faced with a difficult decision. In one of her best scenes as the Doctor, Whittaker reminds the group it will always be her making the tough decision. Which is very true.

Although I will most definitely be watching the final season of Whittaker's era - which was filmed during the pandemic, so that's an achievement in itself - I do feel the companions as a group and individually should have been written much better. They neither felt like unique characters of a fam, which was their affectionate nickname for each other.

The casting was good and the ideas were good, the writers room just needed to be brave enough to delve into those dark and difficult themes.