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Travelling in Time and Space is all fun and games until it has to end.
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00:00Over the years, the Doctor has had a lot of companions, but not all of them have had the happiest of endings.
00:06While some have been able to walk away on their own terms and live happily ever after,
00:10others have suffered the consequences of being associated with the Time Lord, and some have even died.
00:16What is it about a companion exit that makes it so sad?
00:19We spend our time with these people, and they see the universe through our eyes.
00:23So when the time comes for them to go, we feel like we're losing a friend and perhaps even a part of ourselves,
00:28because we can imagine ourselves in that situation and how we'd feel if it were us.
00:32With companions Ace and Tegan recently revealed to be returning for the Centenary Special,
00:37and Yaz and Dan now both set to leave the show,
00:40it seems like a great time to look back on some of the saddest and most emotional companion exits in Doctor Who history.
00:46So with that in mind then, I'm Ellie with Who Culture, here with the 10 Saddest Doctor Who Companion Departures.
00:52Number 10, Clara Oswald.
00:54Clara Oswald is the companion with the most departures.
00:58Her original ending came at the end of Season 8,
01:01when she finally decided to leave the Doctor after the super sad, never-trust-a-hug scene,
01:06where both are hiding their emotions.
01:08Clara returned for the Christmas Special last Christmas, which was set to wrap up her character arc,
01:13with the final reveal that through all the dream sequences,
01:16when the Doctor finally escapes and uncovers the truth, Clara is actually an old woman.
01:20This was changed again when Jenna decided to stay another series,
01:24and another layer of dreams was added so that Clara could actually be fine.
01:27Season 9 saw Clara become more and more like the Doctor,
01:30and played on the dangers of her becoming too much like her hero.
01:34It ultimately led to her death after she selflessly sacrificed herself to save a friend's life.
01:39Clara's death scene in Face the Raven ended up hurting a lot,
01:42because it proved how much the Doctor messed her up.
01:44Still, in two episodes' time, the Doctor would bring her back from the moment of death,
01:48which she would have to return to when she was ready, and allow her to live as an immortal.
01:52She even got her own TARDIS, but the Doctor lost all memory of her.
01:56The real tragedy was how a fitting final sacrifice was cheapened and completely undone
02:01in one of New Who's most controversial moments that still divides fans to this day.
02:06Number 9. Susan
02:07Susan's departure isn't too sad.
02:10She leaves of her own choice after falling in love,
02:12but it's the Doctor's goodbye monologue to her that is most poignant.
02:16Everyone knows that one day I shall come back line,
02:19but what makes it even more sad is that if we just count the main show as the official canon,
02:24he never did.
02:25William Hartnell often struggled on set,
02:27but he and Carol Ann Ford, who played Susan, were very close.
02:31They even remained close friends after she left the show,
02:34so he was obviously sad when she left, and that can be felt in his goodbye speech.
02:38Even more sad is that it shouldn't have come down to this,
02:41but Carol Ann Ford explained she had been promised a cool character with telepathic powers,
02:46and she was meant to be like an Avengers girl with a great wardrobe.
02:50When none of that came to fruition, Ford felt cheated and decided to leave.
02:54I mean, who can blame her?
02:55Still, we'd have loved to have seen more of Susan,
02:57and the fact that the Doctor just abandons her to a normal life is very tragic.
03:01Number 8. Jamie and Zoe
03:03Classic Doctor Who didn't really have too much in the way of big, dramatic, and sad departures,
03:08but the end of Jamie and Zoe's adventures with the Time Lord was relatively harsh.
03:14The two companions had travelled with the Doctor for some time,
03:16and had loved their time with him, but as always, it has to end.
03:20In their case, the final departure came at the end of the War Games serial,
03:24which saw Patrick Troughton's Doctor forced to regenerate at the end.
03:27His companions are taken from him and placed back into their lives after their first meeting with the Doctor.
03:32Their memories are also wiped of all but their first encounter with him.
03:36To make their punishment even more sadistic, the Time Lords show the Doctor a video of each companion going back to their lives.
03:42It seems quite innocent at first, until Jamie is almost shot,
03:46and then we realise he's been dumped back into the middle of a war on the losing side,
03:50which means his future doesn't look too bright.
03:53It's a horrible end to one of the Doctor's favourite and most trusted friends.
03:57Number 7. Ace
03:59Ace's departure from the show was sad, not because of how it happened, but because of how it didn't happen.
04:04Ace was a great companion played by Sophie Aldred throughout the McCoy era.
04:09In fact, it can be argued that Ace became the blueprint for the modern companion.
04:13Instead of just being a pretty girl who screamed her way through the adventures,
04:16Ace would get involved, fight back, and even had a large story arc,
04:20which put her front and centre and made her an important person in the Doctor's life.
04:24She was also the first obviously LGBTQ plus companion, which for the time was amazing representation.
04:30Considering laws like Section 28, which made it illegal to teach LGBTQ plus issues in school,
04:36had recently been passed.
04:38Ace had a bright future ahead of her, which only hurt even more when Doctor Who was cancelled by the BBC in 1989.
04:45The last we saw of Ace, she wandered off with the Doctor in an open-ended finale.
04:49And we never saw another televised adventure with Ace.
04:53That is, until this year's centenary special.
04:56Number 6. Teagan Javanka
04:58Teagan was one of Doctor Who's most popular companions of all time.
05:02The self-proclaimed mouth-on-legs of the team was always there to offer an opinion
05:06and call the Doctor out when she thought he was wrong.
05:09She was strong, reliable, and brave.
05:11So when her time came to leave, it was a gut punch for fans who had loved her for so long.
05:16Her exit was one that felt very real and was written beautifully.
05:19After a brutal battle with the Daleks in which she witnessed a lot of death,
05:23Teagan decides that she's had enough.
05:24The scene where she decides to leave is an example of some of the best writing in Classic Who,
05:29and also some of the best acting.
05:31It's a quiet, intimate scene with an atmospheric score,
05:35where Teagan tells the Doctor that she's tired and it's stopped being fun.
05:38It's clear the traumatic consequences travelling with the Doctor has affected her.
05:42It only hurts more when she runs back to see the TARDIS dematerialise and mutter,
05:46Braveheart, Teagan.
05:48It's a perfect example of how a companion exit doesn't have to involve death or something horrible
05:53happening to be painful viewing.
05:55It can be as simple as having enough and still hurt more than killing the character off.
05:59Number 5.
06:00Adrick
06:00Adrick was probably one of Doctor Who's more annoying companions.
06:04He wasn't very popular, and his attitude was patronising, condescending, and he was basically
06:09a brat.
06:09However, the thing that really hits hard about his time on the show is that it ends with
06:13a massive tragedy, one like Doctor Who had never seen before.
06:17As he tried to stop a ship crashing into the Earth, of course it all goes wrong when the
06:22dying cyber leader shoots the console and Adrick is unable to fix the ship.
06:26His simple, now I'll never know if I was right line is so sad because had he been given the
06:31opportunity to be uninterrupted, he might have been able to succeed.
06:35The episode ends with Adrick accepting his fate as the Earth comes in closer on screen.
06:40It cuts to the TARDIS where the gang see the ship explode, Nyssa and Tegan scream out and
06:45embrace each other, and the Doctor can't process what just happened.
06:48What made it even more shocking was that the final credits rolled in silence over a picture
06:52of Adrick's signature star shattered into pieces.
06:56Number 4.
06:57Amy and Rory
06:58Amy and Rory became huge parts of the 11th Doctor's life.
07:02Initially friends and companions, they found themselves to be his in-laws after some shocking
07:06twists and revelations.
07:07They were a close-knit group and had a wonderful dynamic together, so their eventual departure
07:12was guaranteed to hurt.
07:14When the Weeping Angels sent Rory back in time, the Doctor and Amy went back to find him, which
07:19leads to a massive emotional climax where the couple jump off a building so that their deaths
07:23will create a paradox to destroy the angels.
07:26When that works, they find themselves back in a graveyard and Rory spots his name on a grave.
07:31As he calls Amy to look, he is caught by an angel and sent back again.
07:34In the following moments, Amy decides to get sent back too, so she can be with Rory.
07:39The Doctor is crying, Amy is crying, River encourages her, and as Amy says raggedy man goodbye,
07:45she turns around and the angel touches her.
07:47The Doctor breaks down and River is there to comfort him, as Amy's name appears on the
07:51gravestone with Rory's.
07:53It's so painful on so many levels, but it's a strange one.
07:56It's sad for us to say goodbye, but at least they got to have their lives together.
08:00Number 3.
08:01Bill Potts
08:02Poor Bill
08:03She was one of the fan-favorite companions of New Who, and it's criminal that we never
08:08got more time with her.
08:09Bill deserved to be with Peter Capaldi's Doctor for at least another season.
08:13Bill and Twelve were up there with Ten and Donna in terms of popularity.
08:17When Bill is injured, and by injured that means a huge hole shot through her, she's
08:21taken away to be fixed, but only ends up being converted into a Cyberman.
08:25It's a heartbreaking story which sees Bill genuinely think she might get better and spend a long
08:29time in the presence of John Simms' master, who is manipulating her.
08:33What makes it even worse is that the Doctor misses her conversion by moments.
08:38Still in typical Moffat fashion, Bill was brought back by Heather, her space-puddle girlfriend
08:43and turned into a magic space-travelling spirit and allowed to live on.
08:48According to the Twice Upon a Time novel, Bill and Heather ended up taking on a human
08:53life together, and upon her deathbed as an old woman, Bill sent Heather back off into
08:57the universe.
08:58Her story is one of tragedy and pain, which took us on a rollercoaster of emotion, and
09:03then got kind of confusing with the return and explaining away her magic survival.
09:07Number 2.
09:08Rose Tyler
09:09New Who had proven that it could be cruel in its first two seasons.
09:13Episodes like Father's Day and Parting of the Ways had shown fans that RTD was not playing
09:18around and was willing to rip our hearts out and stamp all over them.
09:22Fans endured an emotional rollercoaster at the hands of the brilliantly devious showrunner,
09:27who took us down a path where Rose Tyler and the Doctor fell in love.
09:30It could have been a perfect happy ending, but it never is with the Doctor.
09:35In Doomsday, Rose was pulled into an alternate dimension while helping the Doctor save the world
09:39at the Battle of Canary Wharf.
09:41As good as dead, she managed to make a life in this alternate world work, but not before
09:45the Doctor burned up a son to say goodbye.
09:47It was heart-wrenchingly romantic, but he never got to say the words,
09:51I love you.
09:52Instead, he just managed Rose Tyler.
09:55Even when Rose returned later, it only got sadder when Ten gave her a version of himself
09:59that could age and have a life with her, knowing it's all he wanted but could never have.
10:04When Rose asked what he was going to say at the beach that day, he confirms he simply said
10:08Rose Tyler, but adds, does it need saying?
10:11It truly proved that RTD could make this second goodbye even more painful than the first.
10:17Number 1.
10:18Donna Noble
10:19Tennant and Tate were the dream team and the absolute pinnacle of New Who popularity.
10:25There's no doubt that Season 4 was the best and a solid reason why fans are so excited for
10:29RTD to return.
10:30Donna was the greatest companion because she played the best friend to the Time Lord and
10:35there was absolutely no romance between them, a relief after way too much in the previous
10:39seasons.
10:40She and the Doctor kept each other in check and just had great chemistry.
10:44It should have lasted forever.
10:46Her exit was the most traumatic of all, though.
10:48In Journey's End, she became the Doctor Donna and had to have her memory wiped to save her
10:53life.
10:53Even when Ten caught up with her family later, he wasn't allowed to hang around because
10:57meeting her for too long could trigger the memories of their adventures and kill her.
11:01Seeing Donna's character development undone and her revert to an airhead gossip was painful.
11:06It was at her wedding, though, when Ten secretly attended and gifted her a lottery ticket that
11:11emotions were high all round.
11:13Obviously, we knew the ticket would be a winner and he was setting Donna up for a great start
11:17in her new life, but she would never be able to know it was him and that was just too much.
11:22And that concludes our list.
11:24If you think we missed any, then do let us know in the comments below and while you're
11:27there, don't forget to like and subscribe and tap that notification bell.
11:30Also, head over to Twitter and follow us there, at WhoCulture.
11:34And I can be found across various social medias just by searching Ellie Littlechild.
11:38I've been Ellie with WhoCulture and in the words of Riversong herself, goodbye, sweeties.
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