Doctor Who Series 12: Ten Huge Questions After Praxeus
2. What's Up With Yaz?
Something continues to be off with Yaz. It has been excellent this year to see the companions used far more effectively. Yaz, in particular, was dealt a harsh hand in her first series, overshadowed by the Graham and Ryan storyline she often felt like a spare part or unnecessary extra, so seeing her rise to greater prominence is especially welcome. She has snapped at the Doctor, doubting her intentions and her methods, and it is looking like Graham and/or Ryan are being set up to be mediators between them at some future point. She has also been a bit off with Ryan, especially in Orphan 55.
Given that Yaz has been travelling in the TARDIS to all kinds of alien worlds, her eagerness to travel to one without the Doctor is most peculiar. There has not been a noticeable character arc as such, leaving us with little to go on. Perhaps something happened to her in that period in which she was in the Kasaavin’s strange world. Is she already working with a hidden agenda? Or is she being set up as the most independent of the three companions, and therefore the one most likely to betray or desert the Doctor? When the Doctor watched Yaz and Gabriela walk back through the streets of Hong Kong, there was an extended shot of her standing in the TARDIS doorway looking on. It seems the Doctor is concerned about Yaz. For good reason.
If, let’s say, the Master wanted to use a companion for his own gains, Yaz could very well be the one. She wants to prove herself in Praxeus, an understandable desire, but one the audience has been totally unprepared for. Such an exploitable flaw will surely come into play, and how and when that is achieved will have a massive bearing on the reception of the entire series.