Familiar Characters

Captain Jack

Captain Jack was Moffat's first creation, and he's a joint character of Moffat and RTD. It's not entirely clear exactly which parts each contributed, but RTD has given us hints in The Writer's Tale and elsewhere.

RTD wanted a companion who was something other than a present-day human, and who was openly non-heterosexual. It could be argued that he borrowed these ideas from the novels—but if so, it's mostly Chris Cwej's story from RTD's own novel, Damaged Goods. It's also RTD who came up with Jack's death and resurrection into a "fixed point" who can't permanently die, and his transformation into the Face of Boe.

Moffat came up with the idea of making Jack a future human Time Agent. Time Agents from the 51st century were briefly mentioned in The Talons of Weng-Chiang, but were never brought up again on TV. Then, in the EDAs, we finally learn more. In the post-Gallifrey universe, humans have been free to develop time travel on their own, and forced to police their own history. Being far less refined than the Time Lords, they do so in a far more primitive way, such as setting off nukes in the past to "sterilize" problems. The first Agent the Doctor meets is Kala, in 1933, in novel Eater of Wasps. The Doctor even considers inviting her along as a companion, but decides that he can't accept her violent methods. Then, in Trading Futures, the Doctor's opponent Sabbath has a companion Jaxa, who's a renegade Time Agent. Jack definitely has elements of Kala and Jaxa, although the connection isn't that strong.

While Jack's irresistible personal charm probably owes more to RTD and to actor John Barrowman than to Moffat, it was Moffat who proposed the idea of making him a lovable rogue and conman. Here, the obvious inspiration is Sabalom Glitz from the classic series, along with similar characters like Star Trek's Harry Mudd and antecedents like Professor Marvel/the Wizard from The Wizard of Oz. However, the idea of using time travel to sell amazing but ultimately useless ahead-of-their-time gadgets to primitive civilizations was a recurring idea in the novels of Larry Miles (and in his proposed but rejected novels).

River Song

The parallels between River Song, Moffat's first recurring character, and Benny Summerfield, the first new recurring character from the New Adventures novels, are obvious. But their differences are also interesting.

Both are very good at integrating themselves into foreign cultures. Both have shown themselves to be skilled combatants when necessary, although neither character is warrior-like. Both have a fondness for alcohol.

Both are human archaeologists from the future, who managed to use a combination of dodgy credentials and real skill to establish themselves. And both series make frequent use of that fact. However, Benny's archaeology background is primarily used as a way to get them into or out of trouble, and occasionally to allow them to go off on separate adventures—and ultimately, it's the lure of working as an archaeologist for the Braxiatel Collection that separates them for good. River's archaeology background, on the other hand, is primarily used as a way to get the characters together—and ultimately, we learn that this is exactly why she became an archaeologist.

Both are independent, strong-willed women, older and wiser—and generally "cooler"—than their fellow companions Ace and Amy. But with River, this is subverted by having her turn out to be Amy's daughter.

Benny and River are the only two characters that we know have had a sexual relationship with the Doctor. However, in Benny's case, their relationship was platonic for their original time together, with the Doctor hoping to give her away at her wedding; she slept with him spontaneously, meeting him after a long absence, in a more attractive new body and more warm and "human" personality. River, on the other hand, had a tragic romance with the Doctor, and in every interaction between them, at least one of them knew of their past/future relationship.

Benny was the first character to use River's favorite phrase "The Doctor lies", and she was frequently torn by the fact that she trusted the Doctor completely with her life, but didn't know whether to trust anything he says. River has no problem reconciling the same two apparently-conflicting facts. The Doctor has to lie, and therefore he frequently does; that doesn't mean he isn't always ultimately on both the right side and the winning side. Benny, wracked by her conflict, is unable to console Ace; River, with her acceptance, has no such problem with Amy and Rory.

Benny and River both kept journals of their time with the Doctor, both of which took on major symbolic roles in the stories. But they're very different roles. Benny's journal reminds us that we're following a story, while River's reminds us that we're following a story about time travel. Meanwhile, Benny frequently amending her diary with sticky yellow notes tells us that history (and continuity) is not as simple as it looks; in River's story, that's so obvious that it needs no comment—but her ability  to synchronize her timeline with the Doctor's by comparing notes reminds us that, even in a timey-wimey universe, some things never change, and some stories still make sense.

River also takes some inspiration from Melanie Bush. In the TV series, Mel's timeline makes no sense; she meets the Doctor during his Trial, before their first meeting, then ends up leaving with him. Later novels and audios tried to reconcile this problem. Moffat had commented in the past about how it would be more fun to explore that out-of-order relationship than to try to fix it, and that's obviously part of the inspiration for River Song. And then there's the name Melody Pond. However, her personality clearly has little to do with Mel's. This will be explored more in a post about Silence in the Library.

River's story also shares some features with Scarlette from The Adventuress of Henrietta Street, but again these are more in the way of plotline than character. There are some interesting parallels between the Scarlette-Juliette relationship and the River-Amy relationship, and the way Amy was used by the Doctor's enemies, but River is not much like Scarlette, so this will be explored more in a post about The Wedding of River Song.

The Eleventh Doctor

The Eleventh Doctor is very different from RTD's two Doctors. In fact, he has far more in common with the Seventh Doctor of the novels than with any of the TV Doctors (except maybe the Seventh Doctor in his last season).

Most importantly, he's a master of manipulative schemes, and he's willing to emotionally hurt his loved ones to pull them off. He does this, not with the callous disregard of the First Doctor or the haphazard lack of foresight of the Fourth and Eighth, but simply because he knows it's necessary. As with the Seventh Doctor, this sometimes fills him with a sense of self-loathing. He believes—and not entirely without cause—that he's ruined the lives of everyone he's touched. He's absolutely certain, to the point of arrogance, that on the grand scale, he's the hero; he's just conflicted about whether that makes up for the damage he does at the personal level.

However, there's also an interesting comparison between the Eleventh Doctor and the Second, which is especially interesting given the parallels between the two incarnations' companions. He attempts to act like a kindly uncle to Amy and Rory, much as the Second did with Jamie and Zoe, but Amy mistakes it for a sexual relationship, and then laughs at his idea of himself as "Space Gandalf". He sometimes tries to act like a harmless buffoon, but nobody takes it seriously. When he attempts to disguise ruthlessness as playful innocence, people see through it and are alternately inspired or horrified.

Amy Pond and Rory

Besides Mel, there's another classic companion whose history made no sense, and it's never been addressed at all. Zoe Heriot somehow remembers the year 2000, despite being somewhere between 16 and 19 in a story that can't possibly be before 2020. She also recognizes technology that's from the mid 21st century, and yet knows how to program in Algol, a language that's been dead since the 1970s. There are also hints about her both having and not having parents.

Beyond that, Zoe was a brilliant young woman of the early 21st century. When people in earlier eras expected her to be inferior because of her sex, she often didn't even notice, and found it laughable when she did—although she knew the effect she had on men, and was willing to take advantage of it. She loved to be bossy, and the Doctor and Jamie usually let her get away with it. She considered her home boring and suffocating, and longed to get away and see the universe. She sometimes felt like she understood the Doctor better than he understood himself, and was sometimes proven right. She was also more fashion-conscious than most companions. Most of all, she gleefully rushed into adventure, rarely taking heed of the danger, and usually managed to take care of herself—but occasionally got way over her head, and ended up crying out into the dark for the Doctor and Jamie to save her.

Jamie McCrimmon often appeared to be slow-witted, and the fact that he would sometimes pretend to understand things that he clearly didn't only made things worse. But if you gave him a chance, he'd often figure things out that should have been far outside his technological scope, and he was also often the first one to pick up on things that the Doctor and Zoe had missed noticing. He was also fiercely protective of his fellow companion. He was very cautious, especially if his fellow companion was at risk, but also for his own sake—but when the chips were down, he was unwaveringly brave.

Other than the fact that Jamie was the Scottish one, and Jamie was madly in love with Victoria rather than Zoe, and their names are backward, Zoe and Jamie almost the same characters as Amy and Rory.

But there's a huge twist. Nothing ever came of Jamie's love for Victoria, and it was basically not even addressed on-screen at all—but Rory and Amy's relationship was central to the story, which was largely about the Doctor traveling with people trying to build a family.

Meanwhile, Rory has a lot in common with a different character, Fitz Kreiner from the novels (with Amy at times taking the part of Anji or Trix). While he does share some character traits with Fitz, it's really more the storyline that ties them together. Fitz dies and is reborn in another form, lives for centuries, and is then remembered back to the original Fitz—but still remembers his thousand years as a Remote.

Professor Bracewell

Edwin Bracewell is a bomb who doesn't know it, because he's been programmed with false memories. His story owes a lot to Fatboy, a similar bomb in human shape who accompanies the Time Agents in Eater of Wasps. However, his character is very different, owing more to innocent but naive scientists like Edward Waterfield, Edward Travers, and Edward Watkins, who unwittingly aided the Daleks, Great Intelligence, and Cybermen, and were almost named Edwin. He'll be discussed more in a post on Victory of the Daleks.

Clara Oswald

The Doctor met Sam Jones briefly, then met a different version of her two years later. This new Sam was the perfect companion for the Doctor, almost as if she'd been specifically crafted to fill that role. In She Said, He Said, the Doctor describes Clara in the same way: "She's perfect. Perfect in every way for me… Always brave, always funny, always exactly what I need. Perfect. Too perfect." The Doctor eventually meets the original Sam, and has a discussion with her about how she's impossible. Ultimately, she sacrifices herself by walking into a rip in time. Probably unrelated to all of the above, Sam and Clara are the only two regular companions who definitely know the Doctor's real name. However, despite the connections in their stories, their characters are very different, so this will be discussed in a post on The Name of the Doctor.

Clara also may have some connections to Victoria Waterfield. Victoria and Jamie were the companions in the two classic Great Intelligence stories, and Victoria returned in the non-BBC Downtime to battle the Great Intelligence alongside Kate Lethbridge-Stewart (who was introduced to the TV series in The Power of Three, and will apparently be in the 50th anniversary special).  However, it's too early to tell.

Clara has a number of connections to the show itself. She was born when the original series went off the air, and her mother died the day Rose took place. Her Victorian self was born exactly 100 years before the original series began. All versions of her died at 26, the same age as the original series when it was canceled. The fact that the three named characters on the Dalek Asylum are named Oswald, Harvey, and Lee might also be relevant, given the assassination of JFK by Lee Harvey Oswald the same day the series began.

Her skipping the ages 16 and 23 in her otherwise-yearly signing of 101 Places to See might also be meaningful in connection with the show's history. Season 23 is when the show was nearly canceled and went on hiatus, but 16 doesn't have any similar status. Season 16 had the 100th story, 500th episode, and 15th anniversary, but 23 didn't have any such significance. They were the only two classic seasons to form a single arc story (The Key to Time and The Trial of a Time Lord), and the first two seasons released on DVD, and they had the last completed stories by Douglas Adams and Robert Holmes. Narratively, they could turn out to be relevant as the introductions of Romana and the Black and White Guardians, and the Valeyard. But all of that is highly speculative.