Doctor Who: 20 Things You Didn't Know About The Ninth Doctor

3. He Unknowingly Saved Donna Noble

Doctor Who Donna Noble Partners In Crime
BBC Studios

Donna Noble didn't become a regular companion until 2008, although she did have an earlier adventure with the Tenth Doctor in the 2006 Christmas special.

But unbeknownst to her – and unbeknownst to the Doctor – their connection goes back even further than that.

During the episode Rose, an army of Autons wreaks havoc throughout downtown London, terrifying Jackie Tyler and murdering good ol' Clive.

As revealed in Russell T Davies' novelisation of the episode, Donna can hear the commotion caused by this Auton attack from the safety of her Chiswick home, with the book mentioning that she's "annoyed" by the noise.

However, she then nods off, and sleeps through the whole thing. Classic Donna.

If the Ninth Doctor hadn't stopped the Auton threat, they probably would've reached Donna quite quickly, given her proximity to the incident. In other words, the Ninth Doctor saved his future companion in his very first episode.

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Contributor

Danny has been with WhatCulture for over ten years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. In 2022, he took charge of WhoCulture and has grown it into the biggest Doctor Who channel on YouTube, and one of the biggest Doctor Who communities on the web full-stop. He has been writing and video editing since his early teens, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers, off the back of a burning obsession with the Matt Smith era of the show. Like many his age, he first got into Doctor Who with the 2005 revival, but has since gone back and fallen in love with the classic years too. If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order, or to give you a random factoid about the making of Gridlock, Danny is the person to ask!