Originally Posted by mintchocchip:
“I think it's a shame that in nu-who a companion only seems to be lasting two series at the most, but I also think they managed to write Amy and Rory into a corner really, there didn't seem to be anywhere for them to go.”
They have underused most of the companions since new Who started I think. Rose was doing fine until they gave her an end date of season two close . We just got a few standalone stories therafter in series two that showed what that team could do. The season two Rose and Doctor characters were adapted to set up the leaving story, Rose became less popualar, and soon the story arch was building for her end too.They then tried fro a contrast with Martha, but not being allowed to follow Rose, allowed not being much at all and she didn't last long . They then went for an older companion to avoid the doctor-companion romance angle and change the dynamic but Donna doesn't stay either and she spends much of her later episodes building to her departure.Rose even has to come back to finish off her story and add firepower. They then tried having Amy as sexy but spoken for and unavailable - to try and square the good looking doctor and companion circle again. But she's suffered the same fate-her character was submerged in a massive, complicated, second series stor,y and she almost incidentally departed somewhere along the way, even before she actually leaves the show.
There seems to me to be a fixation on changing companions after a year or at most two, avoiding previous companion types and spending much of their time building to their departure.There's something in there about their being used as props for an overarching story -which just contrasts with picking big charactesr who could have developed more over more shorter adventures. You just end up thinking Amy, Rose and Donna had more to offer, and their unshown stories might have been better than many in their departure series. Its arguably wrongheaded when probably the most successful companions over the years all stayed a long time, all went through a lot more stories and situations and their departures didn't dominate their storyline.
