3. Danger Alert!
If there had ever been any doubt that being with the Doctor provides an inevitable link to danger for the companion(s), then Asylum reenforces that unwritten law. Amy and Rory find themselves teleported into a Dalek prison where the stakes have never been higher and there's even the added threat of Dalek-converting nanogenes to contend with. Yes, through love they manage to get everyone out of the tricky situation, but all the same was it not the reasoning of the Doc last year to send the Ponds home (The God Complex) in order to ensure that he doesn't stand over " graves, broken bodies"? As dark a concept as that was for Toby Whithouse to introduce, it rings true in classic stories like Earthshock and indeed with the fates of modern companions like Donna and Adelaide, so for the Series Seven arc to pick up the pieces of danger once again as the Ponds rejoin their old friend from time to time is totally apt. Oswin Oswald (don't worry, I'm getting to her!) beared witness to the kind of danger, fear and hatred the Doctor provokes in his travels as she guided him hastily around the Asylum, and thus it's again not much of a stretch to think that Jenna-Louise Coleman's companion character, whoever or whatever she turns out to be, will pick the Doctor up on that in the midst of the tragic Ponds departure.