10 Ways Doctor Who Is Now Completely Unrecognisable

10. Companions Have Lives Beyond The TARDIS

Beginning with Rose and her mum, NuWho has sought to create a new kind of dynamic for the Doctor/companion relationship. The new companions tend to be people with lives beyond their travels with the Doctor. It is true that Rose sought to escape that life, but in the end she returned it in a way when she and her mum found themselves in an alternate dimension, reunited with an alternate version of Rose's dad (and Rose's very own ersatz-Doctor, but since there's something deeply creepy about the wish fulfillment aspect of that storyline, let's just gloss over that one!). Since Rose, Martha allowed her family to become involved with the Doctor, while the Ponds returned to their married lives between adventures. Even Clara had something of a normal life, and the Doctor became, at times, a disruption to her burgeoning romance with Danny Pink. In the old days, companions tended to be stuck with the Doctor, rarely developing lives beyond the confines of his time travelling police box. Tegan's Aunt Vanessa, for example, is never really mentioned after her brief appearance in Logopolis. Ace meets a few old friends in Survival (but by then the series was beginning to evolve, right before its untimely yanking from the airwaves). Fans occasionally hear of a family member from Sarah Jane Smith, but these instances are more lip service than anything. No, in NuWho the companions lives beyond their travels with the Doctor are just as important as they're lives with him.