Doctor Who: 10 Huge Problems Nobody Wants To Admit About The Doctor

8. Treating Companions Like Playthings...

Why does the Doctor like to have travelling companions? We assume it’s because they’re lonely. And lots of the time, it is. But sometimes there are ulterior motives at play.

We saw this most explicitly in the classic series with Ace – who was deliberately chosen by the Seventh Doctor as she was one of the Wolves of Fenric, with the Doctor simply using her to stop Fenric himself.

Meanwhile the Eleventh Doctor deliberately sought out Clara because he’d watched two echoes of her die elsewhere, and had worked out that Amy was a Flesh avatar (and secretly monitored her pregnancy) long before she did.

There are also times when the Doctor’s just indulgent – like when Nine takes Rose to watch the destruction of her home planet so she knows how he feels about Gallifrey, or when the Fifteen automatically assumes that Belinda will want to go on one of his "adventures".

You're definitely not guaranteed a fun time when you step inside that TARDIS, despite the Doctor's usually spot-on sales pitches. As Graham once joked, he only hangs around to get insulted. And the most surprising thing of all is that they usually just put up with it!

We’re not saying that being a Doctor Who companion is like having Stockholm syndrome… but that's basically exactly what it's like.