Why The 'Fam' Didn't Work in DOCTOR WHO - Series 11-13 Discussion

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#doctorwho

[frazzlesreviews]

The only way I can describe Chris Chibnall’s approach to writing resolutions and episode/companion endings is like when you’re little and playing Doctor Who with action figures. You’re having so much fun with the mad narrative and the location hopping that when the grown ups come in and say it’s time to put the toys away you feel really resentful and do it really quickly ‘Fine, Tegan and Ace get dropped off by Yaz’ or ‘Captain Jack meets Gwen and calls her to say bye’ or even just ‘Yaz goes home because of something to do with the Doctor regenerating’

[darlig.ulv.bakhjerne]

Idk I'd say that initial assessment of New Who companions is pretty accurate. You basically talk yourself into it, it's not just Clara, it's Rose, Donna, Amy and River Song as well, that's basically all the main New Who companions except for Martha and Bill, both of whom were one-season wonders. Most New Who companions have some prophecy / destiny thing involved, either they're 'destined to save the universe' or predetermined to become significant in the Doctor's life, which is basically just secondhand destiny, and the Chibnall era does thankfully break away from that. Though it's a shame he didn't think up of anything particularly interesting to characterise his companions with instead

[dracorim]

I find it impossible to see the companions as being 13's friends because she never opens up to them for instance Yaz doesn't know; why Flux happened, that the Timeless Child is a thing, what the Division is, etcetera. The Doctor is so secretive in this incarnation and it doesn't feel like anything is done with it,
I also still find it so weird that Yaz just wanders off with literally no explanation; I thought there would be an explanation but nope the Doctor is regenerating so Yaz has to leave,

[InJeffable]

NOTE: My post contains SPOILERS for series 11 through 13 and The Power of the Doctor.

Graham had some small depth to him in series 11 (as he was dealing with his grief), but he was turned into a joke in series 12.

Dan had some potential, but he wasn't on the show long enough for us to really get to know him.

Ryan is his dyspraxia and his family issues. There's nothing else to the character. Imagine Rory being nothing but his insecurities (early on) and his relationship with Amy. He would've been a boring character, just like Ryan is. You can certainly start a character that way, but you have to develop that character. There has to be significant growth, especially over multiple series. The only growth with Ryan was 1) he's getting better at managing his dyspraxia, and 2) his family issues have gotten better. That's great, but that's the kind of stuff that could have been covered in an episode or two.

Yaz was a nothing of a character in series 11 and 12. She got a little bit of development in series 13, but it was too little too late. Chibnall tried to pass her off as this great companion with that admittedly impressive scene of her carrying the fallen Doctor back to the TARDIS in The Power of the Doctor, but it rang hollow. Despite what Dan suggested in series 13, we had never really seen that kind of closeness between Yaz and the Doctor. Compare this to series 5. Amy had been part of the show for only two episodes when we saw the closeness between her and Matt Smith's Doctor start to develop, and it continued to develop after that. With Yaz and the Doctor, the best we had was the two of them eating ice cream together that one time.

[lolmcorybaxter]

I think the criticism of Moffat/Clara is a bit harsh because the "Impossible Girl" plot was only really a thing in series 7. I agree that Clara was a very weak character who was more of a plot function than anything at that point, but I think she really came into her own and was a really good character in series 8 and 9. The relationship between 11 and Clara felt like it was completely from the Doctor's perspective while the relationship between 12 and Clara was a two-way street where Clara had agency based on who she was as a character rather than just being deemed important by a sci-fi mystery.

[jasonlescalleet]

One thing I noticed about the original Fam was that they all had something in common with the Doctor, but it was different things for each of them. Ryan thought…differently from most people. Not just the Dyspraxia, but how he was basically a big kid a lot of the time (e.g. shadow puppets in Arachnids) but could also be insightful about things you wouldn’t expect. Yaz was the the one who wanted to set things right (we see her being the work-things-out-peacefully sort of cop rather than the guns-blazing-cowboy sort). And Graham knows a thing or two because he’s seen a thing or two (he realized something was off in Witchfinders because he’d been to English-Salem and taken the witch tour, and it was nothing like what they were seeing). I don’t know if any of this was intentional, but it wasn’t a bad thing and I wish more had been done with it.

[androidmar]

Poor old Bill- should have had more time as a companion

[Raven-Woods]

I think the idea of exploring the ramifications of a Doctor being so emotionally distant from their companions is a really interesting one to explore, but S11-PotD didn’t really do that. The story came off that way because so much of the episodes were focused on the plots, and almost never with the characters and their relationships with each other. And it was completely unintentional, otherwise we would have seen the Doctor have consequences for that emotional distance. She never did, though.

Yaz would have been the perfect companion to explore that with, as she was really the one most effected by that distance. Exploring how Yaz’s feelings for the Doctor complicated that dynamic could have been a really interesting thing to be integrated into it (had Thasmin not been a hastily added B-plot for 2 episodes).

Instead there’s no real consequences for the Doctor having never opened up to any of the companions, other than with Ryan once - in a scene that could be considered an emotionally manipulative way to keep him traveling with her. And because of that, the audience is not really given a reason why we should feel sad when the companions left.

Graham’s goodbye is about the best, which fits as he’s Chibnall’s self insert character. Ryan’s is alright, and at least built up over RotD. Dan just…leaves, but at least he says goodbye. The ice cream scene before Yaz left that felt more like it was the actors saying goodbye to the roles instead of the characters saying goodbye to each other. And then Yaz just silently leaves for no reason other than Mandip’s contract was over. Self insert Graham gets a big speech at the end, sort of mirroring the one he had in TWWFTE, but given that it was Yaz who was leaving, it should have been her having a speech, which would have paralleled the loss aspect of the original scene better. But no, she just gets like 1 line.

The way Chibnall prioritized basic plot structure stuff over characters is absolutely bizarre.

[timecontroller]

The worst thing about the 13th doctor and companion dynamic was that she hardly told them anything like there meant to be friends and she doesn’t tell yaz anything in serious 13 even tho I am pretty sure she said last season no more secrets and constantly disrespects them by lying to them or causing them to become homeless and not even giving them a replacement house (justice for Dan)

[stephenreed]

To be fair, the Doctor only gave Donna the lottery ticket the SECOND time he left her. The first time he just dumped her memory-wiped arse back home and left.

[yepimbatman]

There’s something very funny to me about referring to Dan as “the plasterer from Liverpool” when his profession never comes up once in the series lol

[maxkennedy]

“She thinks we’re her Family, and she’s made us travel the world…in A Fucking Police Box!”

[pious]

I still think Graham should have been the sole companion to 13. Their dynamic was the most interesting of season 11. It would have been better to explore he and the Doctor, as the sole pairing.

[ftumschk]

Excellent insights, although I'd disagree that they (the Fam/Dan) were "very well acted" because, for me, they were the least well acted Companions since the lowest points of Classic Era casting. Yes, we had some moving moments from Graham in (for example) "Woman Who Fell", "Rosa" and "It Takes You Away", and from Yaz in "Demons" and "Can You Hear Me", but can you imagine how much more of an emotional gut-punch we'd have got if the likes of Wilf, Rory, Donna or Bill had delivered those lines? There'd be no comparison.

I'm not saying I didn't appreciate the efforts of Walsh, Gill and co, but I found their acting to be merely adequate at best. Aside from the writing, I felt that this was the most significant factor as to why the Fam didn't really work.

[elliotcrossan]

Very good video. And the fact that the "fam" barely ever resolve the plot reminds me of the fact that the Ninth Doctor only really saves the day once in the entire series he is in, and even then, only with Jabe's help.

Here is who saves the day in each Series 1 episode:

Ep 1: Rose
Ep 2: the Doctor & Jabe
Ep 3: Charles Dickens
Eps 4-5: Mickey
Ep 6: Rose & the Dalek
Ep 7: Cathica
Ep 8: Pete
Eps 9-10: Nancy
Ep 11: the TARDIS
Eps 12-13: Rose, Mickey, Jackie & the TARDIS

[HudsonMedia]

For me it has to be that simply it was rushed. If they introduced the companions slowly over the course of one season or even the full 3. They could have worked better.

The same way they built up to 9, Rose, Jack and Mickey being a unit by the end of Series 1. It’s a real shame cause the idea of a proper TARDIS team is a fun one.

[Natelu-Sama]

i feel like if youre gonna call amy "only important because of her scifi destiny" then you have to count dan as well- both only important because an alien was in their life by chance and the doctor helped them

[androidmar]

Turn Left was a fantastic companion story, as was World Enough and Time

[HeyJay]

The Live Chat was weird in this one. 😅😅 I had to watch the video twice because I kept getting distracted by the chat.

One guy just kept talking about how hot some of the companions are and also Emma Watson at one point. 🤨

And the Moderator for this segment didn't notice it at all, and was removing comments that were giving criticism towards the Chibnall era. 😅😅

[christopherbennett]

Yeah, that’s really one of the biggest issues. Whilst they had some character bits, it gets blindsided by the fact that they don’t contribute much to the main story. Think what you will but at least Adric did something.
Yaz might be the biggest sufferer because a lot of her stuff was so last minute and so nonexistent.
For me, the true tipping point was the Mary Shelley episode which had the Doctor ranting about being on top of the pecking order and nothing changes after that. That the companions just have to follow her orders. Which, based on certain critical lenses, really makes her out to be more like one of those really sheltered performative allies who is a good friend as long as she can take all the credit and remains unopposed.
That might be the reason why “the fam” moniker doesn’t fit right; it’s more like a family where the children are seen less like people and more like accessories to the parent.

Compare that to a show that came out a year after 13th started called Pose; a drama with an ensemble cast about living in New York’s Ballroom Community during the 1980’s. Each of the members of the family, the House of Evangelista has their own problems, relationships and storylines but they come together as a family to help each other out and close ranks when the outside world closes in. And they are active agents in both their own stories and those of others.

And which one got my relatively conservative dad tuning in every night to see whether or not the characters made it out okay?; the one about the family that vogued together and not the one where the neglect was constantly present.