3. The Doctors Companion
Ive already dealt with how the plans for this remake screwed up the Doctor so lets skip forward to the second most important character: the companion. At least one of the Doctors companions should be an audience surrogate who needs things explained to them so that we in the audience can learn whats going on. Theyre usually reasonably young so that the writers can include them in a lot of perilous or exciting action scenes, and more often than not theyre female to provide a contrast to the Doctor and so that theres a character for the female audience to connect with. So, naturally, Amblin made the Doctors companion the spirit of his grandfather that became trapped in the crystals that power the Tardis. In the first episode of the series, Cardinal Borusa (one of the Doctors former teachers who was eventually the villain in The Five Doctors), who in the remakes continuity would be both the Doctors grandfather and Lord President of Gallifrey, would have died shortly after telling the Doctor about his father. His spirit would then become trapped in the Tardis allowing him to manifest himself to the Doctor and act as his companion and advisor. Because to hell with an active companion that actually serves the narrative. What you really need as one of the main characters in Doctor Who is the ghost of an elderly man who cant physically do anything and knows more than the Doctor, ruining the point of his role being an audience surrogate.