10 Times Doctor Who Made Obvious Mistakes

For something as historic as Doctor Who's first female Doctor, it felt counter-intuitive to lumber her with three companions.

No disrespect to Bradley Walsh, Tosin Cole, or Mandip Gill, who were all excellent, but one of them would've sufficed. It was clear from the developing relationship between the Thirteenth Doctor and Yaz, the touching way that she stands up to Ryan's Dad, or in the comedy partnership between her and Graham that the perfect pairing was in there somewhere.

The three-companion line-up worked for the First Doctor, Ian, Barbara, and Susan because the Doctor was an older man, so Ian could do the fighting, Barbara was the brains, and Susan was the audience surrogate. Plus, classic Who serials were way longer than modern Who episodes, allowing more time for each companion to get their due.

That said, the Peter Davison era had already proved that a young Doctor with a large group of companions didn't work, which is why they're still scraping Adric off the surface of prehistoric Earth.

Having so many companions in Jodie Whittaker's first series, interacting in a cramped and unwieldy TARDIS set, meant that she struggled to shine. Again, no fault of Whittaker, but when writers are trying to give four characters substantial material in an hour of television, it's inevitable that some will get short-changed.

Short-changing the title character, however, is a major mistake.