Doctor Who: Every NuWho Companion Ranked

Rose had a very important job in being the first companion of this new era, and she was thankfully excellent. Rose had everything you need in a companion. She was kind, intuitive, and brave. As the first companion for a lot of fans today, Rose had a lot to accomplish, both being a the audience's perspective of the world and everything she was seeing, while also being an interesting character in her own right, unlike some other surrogate characters. And, you could argue that she was a perfect companion- for the first series.

Possibly one of the only problems with Rose was the love plot that the show seemed to want to push between her and the 10th Doctor. And a lot of the times it fell flat, while Rose and 10 had great chemistry as Doctor and companion, the Doctor shouldn't have a love interest with a companion. It works with River because she knows all of the Doctors and she can be them throughout their life, but with Rose it was only with 10 and also, like the Doctor says, she can spend the rest of her life with them, but they can't spend the rest of their life with her. This romance plot also hinders future stories such as most of the relationship between the Doctor and Martha, and also ruins Rose's ending.

The separation of the Doctor and Rose was heart-breaking, but the fact that Rose settles for a pseudo-clone of the Doctor makes it worse, she doesn't move on and instead spends her life with someone who ultimately isn't the person she loves but is just close enough.