Fantastic Beasts: 10 Ties To Doctor Who You Might Have Missed

Jacob Kowalski's role in Fantastic Beasts is almost identical to that of the traditional Doctor Who companion. Before becoming a confidant, a fall guy, and an aide to Newt, Jacob like many of the Doctor’s assistants begins that remarkable partnership thanks to an accidental encounter and soon gains privileged access to Newt’s ‘TARDIS’.

Those parallels are the strongest when it comes to the Tenth Doctor’s series four companion, Donna Noble. When we first meet them, both characters are frustrated with their humdrum lives and aspire for better things - Jacob is working in a cannery and Donna is a temp from Chiswick. Both lose their (in)significant other and share their new hero’s disconnect with the world.

Jacob wants to be a wizard like Newt, and Donna goes a step further by actually becoming the Doctor.

Their stories have similar endings, with both forced to forget their adventures and the hero who changed their lives for the better. To compensate for their loss (or perhaps more accurately, for their hero’s sadness and guilt) they receive an anonymous gift. The Doctor returns to buy Donna Noble a winning lottery ticket number as a wedding present, and Newt gifts Jacob with the solid silver Occamy shells to use as collateral for his bakery.

In a shared final twist, we learn that their memories are not completely gone. Donna briefly recalls her adventures during another one of the Master’s schemes, and the Doctor suggests that she still has a trace of Time-lord energy inside her, whilst Jacob’s cakes are shaped to resemble some of the fantastic beasts he came to love.