50th Anniversary Retrospective: The 10th Doctor
Companions
Rose Tyler
Rose slowly dealt with the shock of seeing the Ninth Doctor regenerate into the Tenth Doctor and by the end of ‘The Christmas Invasion’ she had come to terms with him still being the Doctor. Her feelings for the Doctor grew over the course of their travels and she began to become inseparable to him, only wishing to travel with the Doctor for the rest of her life. In the end her love for the Doctor wasn’t enough and in ‘Doomsday’ she was forced to depart from him after becoming trapped in a parallel universe. She was able to say goodbye to him on Bad Wolf Bay after the Tenth Doctor burnt up a sun to send a hologram of himself through the boundaries of their realities. Unfortunately he wasn’t able to tell Rose his feelings towards her after she declared her love for him, leaving them both devastated at never being able to see each other again (or so they thought…)
Rose eventually managed to find a way back to the Tenth Doctor and travelled across different dimensions to aid him against the oncoming dangers of all of reality fading away into darkness. After finally being reunited in ‘The Stolen Earth’, the Tenth Doctor was struck down by a lone Dalek and nearly regenerated. Rose, along with the Tenth Doctor, was powerless against Davros and the Daleks, forced to watch the evil scientist mock and use the Doctor’s weaknesses against him. After the battle was over in ‘Journey’s End’, the Tenth Doctor was forced to send Rose back to the parallel universe but this time she wasn’t alone and was given the Meta-Crisis Doctor to look after and ultimately love.
Rose made one final appearance in ‘The End of Time’ where the Tenth Doctor revisited her during his farewell tour before they met for the first time in 2005, informing her that she has a great year ahead of her.
Sarah Jane Smith
The Doctor’s old friend Sarah Jane Smith returned in ‘School Reunion’ when she bumped into the Tenth Doctor during an investigation at Deffry Vale High School. During their reunion Sarah Jane learnt about why the Doctor never returned for her after she was dropped off home in ‘The Hand of Fear’ and also aided the Tenth Doctor in foiling the plans of the Krillitane obtaining the powers of the Skasis Paradigm. At the end of the adventure Sarah Jane finally decided to move on with her life and start her own adventures after properly saying goodbye to the Doctor. In The Sarah Jane Adventures it was discovered that Sarah Jane continued her adventures by investigating alien activities from her home on Bannerman Road with her adopted alien son Luke Smith and friends Maria Jackson, Clyde Langer, Rani Chandra, K9 Mark IV and super-computer Mr Smith.
Sarah Jane was reunited with the Tenth Doctor during the Daleks’ invasion of Earth in ‘The Stolen Earth/Journey’s End’. She later encountered the Tenth Doctor in The Sarah Jane Adventures story ‘The Wedding of Sarah Jane Smith’ where the Time Lord disturbed Sarah Jane’s wedding in order to protect her from her nemesis the Trickster.
Sarah Jane bumped into the Tenth Doctor one last time in ‘The End of Time’ during his farewell tour before he regenerated.
K9
K9 Mark III made his third appearance, after his first appearance in K9 and Company and his second in ‘The Five Doctors’, in ‘School Reunion’ where he was reduced to junk after losing his power and needing repair. The trusty metal dog aided the Tenth Doctor in stopping the Krillitane after his master fixed him and ultimately sacrificed himself.
K9 Mark IV was then created to replace Mark III and was again given to Sarah Jane Smith. It was discovered in The Sarah Jane Adventures that K9 was protecting the Earth from falling into a black hole after an experiment went wrong. K9 appeared as a cameo in ‘Journey’s End’ in order to aid the Tenth Doctor in returning the Earth to its original position in space after the Daleks stole it for their dark schemes for universal destruction.
Eventually in The Sarah Jane Adventures K9 returned home to aid Sarah Jane and her friends in investigating alien activities, even encountering the Tenth Doctor again in ‘The Wedding of Sarah Jane Smith’.
Mickey Smith
Mickey continued to rise to the occasion in ‘The Christmas Invasion’ when he aided Rose Tyler in protecting the newly regenerated Tenth Doctor before helping them both stop the Sycorax from enslaving humanity. At the beginning of ‘New Earth’ he said goodbye to Rose as she returned to her travels with the Time Lord. Mickey returned in ‘School Reunion’ where he called the Tenth Doctor and Rose in to help investigate the weird goings on in Deffry Vale High School. After helping to defeat the Krillitane Mickey decided to finally join the Doctor on his travels. A couple of adventures later in ‘Rise of the Cybermen/The Age of Steel’ Mickey decided to leave the TARDIS and find his own adventure within a parallel universe by hunting down the remaining Cybus-men that laid dormant across the planet. Mickey then returned later in ‘Army of Ghosts/Doomsday’ where he made a trip back into our universe to help stop the invasion of the Cybus-men and later aided the Tenth Doctor in stopping the Daleks onslaught as well. In the end he returned to the parallel universe with an unwilling Rose.
Mickey came back in ‘Journey’s End’ in order to track down Rose after she started hoping through the different realities. He then landed in the middle of the Daleks invasion of Earth and joined Sarah Jane Smith on her quest to find the Tenth Doctor onboard the Cruciform. Mickey aided in stopping the Daleks plans and later decided to return home after having nothing else left in the parallel world after his alternative grandmother died. Mickey made one last appearance in ‘The End of Time’ where it was revealed he had become a freelance alien investigator and was now married to Martha Jones. They both saw one last glimpse of the Tenth Doctor after he saved them from a Sontaran before he continued on his farewell tour before later regenerating.
Donna Noble
Donna was at first extremely sceptical about space travel and aliens and was essentially a loud and goby Chiswick girl. After her wedding day was completely crashed in ‘The Runaway Bride’ her life was changed forever by the Tenth Doctor, although at first she dismissed the idea of travelling with him in the TARDIS.
Donna later regretted not joining the Time Lord and decided to search for him and eventually bumped into him again in ‘Partners in Crime’ and later re-established the offer of travelling with him. In her first two adventures ‘The Fires of Pompeii’ and ‘Planet of the Ood’ Donna was emotionally challenged by the darkness that comes with the Doctor’s travels and had to endure fixed points in time that resulted in the death of millions and the cruelty of slavery. This didn’t stop Donna on her travels and she continued to be the fun, entertaining mate for the Tenth Doctor and slowly became more confident in herself and became a new person. Unfortunately all that came to an end due to the events of ‘The Stolen Earth/Journey’s End’ where she became half Time Lord after Dalek Caan used her to engineer the Daleks destruction. Although she had saved the day, her reward was to have all of her memories with the Tenth Doctor wiped before her mind burnt up. Donna was condemned to return to her old life where nothing happened and she was essentially a massive joke.
Donna made her last appearance in ‘The End of Time’ where she sat in the background of the battlefield while her grandfather Wilfred Mott helped the Tenth Doctor battled the combined might of the Master and the Time Lords. In the end the Tenth Doctor secretly awarded her by giving Wilfred a winning lottery ticket as a wedding present with the money that payed for it coming from her deceased father.
Martha Jones
Martha was a bright young trainee doctor whose life was turned upside down by her encounter with the Tenth Doctor in ‘Smith and Jones’. After being teleported to the Moon and battling Judoon, a Plasmavore and some Slabs, Martha was offered a single trip inside the TARDIS as a thank you present. Her trip was slightly extended to a trip into the future and then another trip into the past before being nearly taken back home in ‘The Lazarus Experiment’. At the end of the adventure the Tenth Doctor finally made her a full-time companion instead of a frequent flyer. In ‘42’ she was finally given the honour of possessing a key to the TARDIS. Throughout ‘Human Nature/The Family of Blood’ Martha had to stand guard over the Tenth Doctor while his Time Lord consciousness was contained inside the fob-watch and had to make sure his human-self possessing his body remained safe while the Family of Blood hunted them. Martha then made the ultimate journey in ‘Last of the Time Lords’ when she travelled the world for an entire year in order to aid the Tenth Doctor in building a psychic link against the Master. At the end of the journey Martha decided to leave the TARDIS in order to pursue her own destiny but left her phone with the Tenth Doctor in case she ever needed him again.
Martha appeared in Torchwood where it was discovered that she had been given a job at U.N.I.T. as a fully trained doctor (hinted that the Doctor gave his old colleagues a reference for her). After aiding Captain Jack Harkness in a few investigations, she returned to U.N.I.T.. In ‘The Sontaran Stratagem/The Poison Sky’ Martha called the Tenth Doctor back to Earth in order to help her and U.N.I.T. in investigating the strange ATOMS devices. At the end of the story the TARDIS went out of control, landing onto Messaline in ‘The Doctor’s Daughter’ with Martha still onboard. She later decided to return to her life on Earth. Martha returned in ‘The Stolen Earth/Journey’s End’ where she joined other companions in aiding the Tenth Doctor against the Daleks plans to destroy reality. Martha made her last appearance in ‘The End of Time’ where she had become a freelance alien investigator and was now married to Mickey Smith. They both saw one last glimpse of the Tenth Doctor after he saved them from a Sontaran before he continued on his farewell tour before later regenerating.
Captain Jack Harkness
Jack escaped the Game Station after the events of ‘Bad Wolf/The Parting of the Ways’ using his Vortex Manipulator and landed in the 19th Century. Due to Rose Tyler resurrecting him with her powers as Bad Wolf Jack was made a fix point in time and therefore was unable to
die. He joined the Torchwood Institute, eventually forming his own team as established in Torchwood, and waited for the Doctor’s return in Cardiff where his base was placed. In ‘Utopia’ Jack was finally reunited with the Doctor but due to his immortality the TARDIS tried shacking him off and landed at the end of the universe. Throughout the events of ‘Utopia/The Sound of Drums/Last of the Time Lords’ Jack aided the Tenth Doctor in battling against the Master’s evil reign before finally deciding to return to his team at Torchwood.
Jack returned in ‘The Stolen Earth/Journey’s End’ when he aided the Tenth Doctor against the Daleks plots to destroy all of reality. Afterwards he again returned to his team at Torchwood but after a massive ordeal against the sadistic 456, Jack was left without a base and his team was split apart. Due to his guilt, he decided to leave Earth to spend time in solitude. Jack made his last appearance in ‘The End of Time’ when the Tenth Doctor payed him a visit during his farewell tour and during his quick meeting with the Time Lord he was given forgiveness for his choices and was finally allowed to find peace once again in his heart.
Astrid Peth
Astrid was a waitress onboard the Titanic, a spaceship replica of the famous voyage ship, who dreamed of seeing the stars. Upon encountering the Tenth Doctor in ‘Voyage of the Damned’ her life was filled with a new light of excitement and adventure. Unfortunately her dreams of travelling the stars with the Tenth Doctor was cut shut after she sacrificed herself to help the Time Lord defeat the insane Max Capricorn. The Tenth Doctor later tried to revive her through the teleportation device that was on her wrist, which preserved her after her fall, but could only bring her back as star dust due to the damaged equipment. The Tenth Doctor then allowed her remains to travel the stars as she previously wanted.
River Song
The mysterious Professor of archaeology was first seen in ‘Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead’. It was implied that she knew who the Doctor was and was well acquainted with him within his own future (her past). River’s blue diary was there to sink up their timelines due to the fact they didn’t always meet in the right order but to her distress she had come to the point she dreaded the most; the point where the Doctor doesn’t know who she is. The Tenth Doctor was totally confused and frustrated by her presence and demanded to know who she was and what she meant to him in the future. Unfortunately his future self had already made strict rules to prevent spoilers from being leaked. The thing that shocked the Tenth Doctor the most was the fact River knew his name. As it turned out their adventure together was the Doctor’s first encounter with River Song while it was River’s last. River sacrificed herself in order to save the day but the Doctor’s future self (who knew about River’s approaching death from his own experience of it) had already come up with a plan to save her (quite literally). The Sonic Screwdriver given to her by his future self had her data stored into it and with it the Tenth Doctor used it to store her within the database of the Library, allowing her to live on beyond death.
Jackson Lake
Jackson was an ordinary man with a wife and kid living within Victorian Times when suddenly upon moving to London his life was turned upside down after he was attacked by the Cybus-men. After witnessing his wives death and his son’s kidnapping, Jackson’s traumatised mind resorted into hiding and used the information on the Cybus-men’s Info- stamps to become the Doctor. Upon meeting the Tenth Doctor in ‘The Next Doctor’ he eventually learnt the truth of his past once again and returned to being Jackson Lake and aided the Tenth Doctor in defeating the Cybus-men. After rescuing his son, he finally got to see the TARDIS and then persuaded the Time Lord to dine with him on Christmas Day.
Lady Christina de Souza
Christina lived a life of thrills and danger and nearly got caught by the police after stealing the Cup of Athelstan in ‘Planet of the Dead’. She snuck onboard a London bus which the Tenth Doctor happened to have gotten on and ended up being teleported onto San Helios after falling through a worm-hole in time and space. Christina’s lust for adventure tripled upon exploring the planet with the Tenth Doctor and aided him at every turn to return everyone onboard the bus back to Earth. Upon returning home and preventing the Stingrays from devouring Earth, Christina tried following the Tenth Doctor into the TARDIS but the Time Lord refused to let her join him due to his sadness over losing all his companions in the past. As a sign of gratitude the Tenth Doctor helped Christina escape custody and she escaped in the bus.
Adelaide Brooke
Adelaide was the captain of the first expedition to Mars due to her lifelong dream of travelling the stars after surviving the Daleks invasion of Earth in ‘The Stolen Earth/Journey’s End’. Upon the arrival of the Tenth Doctor in ‘The Waters of Mars’ a chain of fixed events took place which would result in the death of Adelaide’s crew and ultimately herself after she activated the self-destruct system of Bowie Base One in order to prevent the Flood reaching Earth. The Tenth Doctor finally snapped and decided to take time into his own hands after becoming fed up of time controlling him and causing all his loved ones to perish. The Time Lord Victorious was born and this new Doctor saved Adelaide and the remaining crew members from death but Adelaide was too strong minded and so decided to take destiny into her own hands and committed suicide in order to preserve her families’ honour and the future of her granddaughter.
Wilfred Mott
Wilfred first appeared as a cameo in ‘Voyage of the Damned’ where the Tenth Doctor bumped into him during his brief visit to Earth. Wilfred reappeared in ‘Partners in Crime’ where it was discovered that he was in fact Donna Noble’s grandfather. The Tenth Doctor met him again in ‘The Sontaran Stratagem/The Poison Sky’. Wilfred was present during the events of ‘The Stolen Earth/Journey’s End’ and was completely devastated to see his granddaughter lose all knowledge of her achievements with the Doctor. Wilfred returned in ‘The End of Time’ and acted as the Tenth Doctor’s companion during his final adventure, aiding him in his battle against the Master and the Time Lords. It was revealed afterwards that he was the cause of the Tenth Doctor’s death after the Time Lord was forced to save him from an unstable radiation booth at the cost of his own life. Wilfred was seen one last time during the Tenth Doctor’s farewell tour with Wilfred being upset knowing he would soon regenerate.
Continues on page 3 with the Villains and Monsters of Tennant’s era…
