Monday, July 25

Geek

Deaders

One of the most striking things about new Doctor Who is how often the companions die.  In the old series, the only long-standing companion to die was Adric, though the First Doctor story The Daleks' Master Plan killed off short-timers Katarina and Sara Kingdom.

But they only died once each.

Amy Pond died in The Pandorica Opens; young Amelia died in The Big Bang; fake Amy was disintegrated in The Almost People; older Amy died and had her timeline erased in The Girl Who Waited, and finally, real Amy died not once but twice in The Angels Take Manhattan.

River Song died in Forest of the Dead, as a child in Day of the Moon, and as Melody in Let's Kill Hitler.

Rory died in Amy's Choice, died again and was erased from existence in Cold Blood, drowned in The Curse of the Black Spot, and died no less than three times in The Angels Take Manhattan.

And Clara died in Asylum of the Daleks, again in The Snowmen, again in Journey to the Center of the TARDIS, again in Last Christmas, again in Face the Raven, and from the glimpses we were given, at least sixteen other times in TV-series canon alone, before eventually swanning off with Ashildr, who is also dead.

Of course, this is because where the original series used time travel mostly as a plot hook upon which to hang the story of the week, New Who often involves time travel as a plot device, with every kind of time loop, divergent timeline, parallel universe, and temporal paradox cropping up at some point.

But maybe the next companion could just, you know, leave?

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 03:25 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
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1 So since normally we each only get one death, I presume that every time one of those people died, the Doctor used time travel to prevent the death?

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at Tuesday, July 26 2016 03:19 AM (+rSRq)

2 Fake River was also disintegrated as an infant, Jack died twice for real, and of course Donna was effectively killed when her mind was wiped. Martha and Mickey were pretty much the only modern companions who got to just walk away, unless you count Wilfred.

Steven, it's more complicated than that; not all of the paradoxes and undos are by the Doctor's direct action, and there's regeneration involved. As for Clara, well, there were a lot of her.

-j

Posted by: J Greely at Tuesday, July 26 2016 10:30 AM (ZlYZd)

3 Though the only reason Mickey didn't die at least once is that his parallel universe duplicate had a different name.

But it's mostly not the Doctor directly returning his companions to life; his track record on that is pretty bad.

To take it in order of how they were saved:

Amy

River Song

Rory

Clara

Posted by: Pixy Misa at Tuesday, July 26 2016 08:22 PM (PiXy!)

4 Jack

Ashildr

Posted by: Pixy Misa at Tuesday, July 26 2016 08:22 PM (PiXy!)

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Apple pies are delicious. But never mind apple pies. What colour is a green orange?




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