Thanks to some on-set espionage, we’ve managed to sneak our first look at the Doctor’s new companion.
Doctor Who showrunner Steven Moffatt has been telling us for months he wants the new companion to be a surprise. As such, she’ll be coming from a surprising and new place, at least compared with the Doctor’s latest companions, who have all been pretty girls from modern day UK.
Warning: Spoilers do follow.
I’ve been speculating for a while now that this means the character, played by Jenna Louise Coleman, would be a non-human friend, perhaps even one of the cat-people we’ve seen crop up periodically during the space travel adventures. Other guesses have ranged from an Egyptian princess to a revived corpse. However, it seems everyone was wrong because the new companion appears to be a pretty, modern girl, likely from the UK.
That’s right. After all the effort to keep the mysterious new companion a secret, there was no need, as she’s just like all the companions who came before – visually at least. Yes, I suppose she could still be some kind of alien who looks just like a human, or perhaps be surprising in some other way, like her familial relationships or something, but just seeing that she doesn’t look like anything other than a typical modern girl is enough to greatly disappoint me.
The photographer who snapped the accompanying images claims they are in-character shots, and insisted he heard the crew referring to Coleman’s character as ‘Clara’.
Of course, there is always the chance that the name was misheard or that Coleman is somehow mistaken about the whole thing.
Well, one can only hope.
The new season of Doctor Who begins this fall. Due to BBC budgetary constraints, the season will be split across the new year. Coleman is slated to appear for the first time in the holiday episode.
