Doctor Who: 10 Behind The Scenes Decisions We Can't Forgive

Rose Tyler. Martha Jones. Donna Noble. Amy Pond. Clara Oswald. Bill Potts. Yaz Khan. Noticed the pattern? Every single one of them is a feisty young woman from contemporary Earth. Not really a diverse bunch if you group them all together like that.

Not that there's anything wrong with this - the majority of these companions are beloved within the fanbase, and rightly so - but it is a tiny bit disappointing that the Classic era's wider range of companion types (non-humans like Romana, androids like Kamelion, the occasional robot dog) has pretty much been abandoned.

At one point however, NuWho almost diverged from its trope of giving the Doctor a modern-day Earth-girl companion. According to Neil Gaiman (who wrote The Doctor's Wife and Nightmare In Silver), Clara was originally meant to stay as the Victorian version of the character who we met in the 2012 Christmas special, The Snowmen.

Based purely on the taste of her we got in that episode, Clara's Victorian persona would've been far more interesting to watch than the modern-day version was. And coming after the string of contemporary young women we'd already had at that point, a more old-fashioned Victorian governess would've been a refreshing change of pace.

Plus, considering that the change to modern Clara was made when the scripts for Series 7B were already underway, sticking with Victorian Clara might have made the production of these episode a lot smoother, possibly improving a run on the show that many fans feel is uneven.