The Girl Who Grew Up In The TARDIS (Wattys2014)

"It seems that I am some galactic yo-yo!"

 I didn’t really see a great deal of the Doctor during his exile, he didn’t go in his TARDIS very often except for when he wanted to be alone and sulked like a little boy in there, using very colourful language when he was trying to fix his old girl but the thing is the Doctor had barely learnt to pilot his TARDIS, so he was hardly going to become a time machine engineer overnight, especially when the Time Lords were withholding a vital component. But the Doctor never stopped trying even though he was destined to be frustrated, he dematerialized alright but always ended up back in the same time and place at UNIT HQ.

 But do you know what? I think it did the Doctor a lot of good to be in one place, to live a more human life, I think it taught him a bit of humility and a greater understanding of what it means to be human. Except I think this made the Doctor more attached to his companions during his time on Earth. And there was never anyone quite like Jo Grant for the Doctor before and not for a long time after. Jo was a breath of fresh air in the Doctor’s life, now she could come across as being scatty and very accident prone, maybe she needed a lot of rescuing but underestimate that girl at your cost because Jo was incredibly gutsy, brave and brimming with compassion. And when the Time Lords’ eventually lifted their exile, so the Doctor could do their dirty work and go on missions for them, Jo was more than happy to accompany him and well up for adventure. They seemed inseparable though I guess Jo like Susan before her, must have outgrown her Doctor, she met one of her own and ended up having her own adventures in the Amazon. The Doctor was pretty cut up about that for a long time but it wasn’t too long before Sarah Jane Smith, investigative journalist came into his life. The Doctor is never alone for too long. I remember thinking at the time, how much I admired Sarah Jane, she had an exciting career which kind of made me wonder what I wanted to do when I was grown up, work seemed a strange concept and even though the Doctor was on UNIT’s payroll he didn’t really do the conventional “9-5”and because he spent most of his time telling the Brigadier off, he really wasn’t the best employee! But Sarah Jane didn’t put up with any nonsense, she stood up to the Doctor alright and became his moral compass. I guess Sarah Jane was “the companion” and the one I wanted to be when I grew up, she wasn't afraid to show her emotions and she would get really scared sometimes even though she tried to hide it, she screamed an awful lot and was awfully susceptible to being took over by alien entities but she was up there with the bravest and there was nothing she wouldn’t do for the Doctor, they were the best of mates. And Sarah as the Doctor liked to call her was there when he was dying, the Doctor had been heroic until the last, saving the entire Universe but no one would ever know. Of course as I watched the scenes unfold in the TARDIS I was sad like Sarah Jane to be saying goodbye to this Doctor but I knew what was to come, the Doctor was about to be reborn again.