There’ll be no romance between Jodie Whittaker and her companions in the new Doctor Who series
Hanky-panky in the Tardis has been done away with for the time being
When Doctor Who returned to TV in 2005 there was one significant change in the behaviour of time-travelling alien the Doctor.
Out was the often sexless Time Lord as seen in most of the classic series and in was the new romantic hero, perhaps best embodied by the relationship between David Tennant’s Tenth Doctor and Billie Piper’s Rose Tyler or Matt Smith's Eleventh and Alex Kingston’s River Song, who actually ended up married to the Doctor.
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However, it seems the Tardis of new Doctor Jodie Whittaker will be resolutely free of any hanky-panky, with Whittaker herself emphatically stating that there will be no companion/Doctor romance during her first series.
“No,” Whittaker told the Times Magazine when asked about any romantic frissons within her new Tardis team. “We are a friendship group in this season.
“But we all love each other,” she added.
Of course, this doesn’t preclude the presence of romance per se during the series – we know Bradley Walsh’s character Graham has a wife, and it could be that fellow new companions Yaz (Mandip Gill) and Ryan (Tosin Cole) will meet some special someone(s) during their travels through time and space – but from the sounds of it, we’ll have no Doomsday-style tearful farewells during this series.
And apparently that’s just one of the ways that the Thirteenth Doctor is forging her own path this year.
“Each Doctor needs to have their own journey,” new showrunner Chris Chibnall said during the same interview.
“I think Peter [Capaldi’s] Doctor came into the world asking, ‘Am I a good man?’ and questioning his self-identity.
“Jodie’s Doctor is definitely more outward-looking.”
In other words, the Doctor’s probably too busy for a love life any more regardless. Maybe she should try online dating.
Doctor Who returns to BBC1 on Sunday 7th October
Authors
Huw Fullerton is a Commissioning Editor for Radio Times magazine, covering Entertainment, Comedy and Specialist Drama.
