The Doctor Who Centenary Special could feature more returning companions. Excitement is building for the Doctor Who Centenary Special, which will air on October 23. Jodie Whittaker's final adventure as the Thirteenth Doctor, the special promises to be a love letter to the show's 59-year history.
Officially titled The Power of the Doctor, the Doctor Who Centenary Special is confirmed to feature two returning companions from the classic series. Janet Fielding will reprise the role of Tegan Jovanka, an air hostess who stumbled into the TARDIS and became a key companion of Fifth Doctor Peter Davison. She'll be joined by Sophie Aldred's Ace, a character who joined the TARDIS when she was just a teenager and became a pawn in the Machiavellian games of Seventh Doctor Sylvester McCoy. These are two of the most popular and beloved Doctor Who companions, and fans are thrilled to learn what they've been doing over the last few decades.
But Tegan and Ace may not be Doctor Who's only returning companions. The BBC has released an official interview with Janet Fielding (via TVZone), in which she reveals how the two companions wind up working together, revealing they are part of a network of former companions. "The former companions who are on Earth have managed to get in contact with each other," Fielding explains, "and she and Ace know that something is happening and that the activity is likely to be alien. And they are investigating…" Although the focus will undoubtedly lie on Tegan and Ace, this comment surely indicates there is the potential for other cameos.
Which Doctor Who Companions Could Return In The Doctor Who Centenary Special?
There have been rumors for months that other classic Doctor Who companions could return for the Centenary Special. Some have suspected William Russell could reprise the role of Ian Chesterton, one of the two schoolteachers who stumbled into the TARDIS in the first Doctor Who story, and it would be thrilling to find out what happened to this iconic companion. Nicola Bryant, who played the ill-fated Perpugilliam "Peri" Brown alongside both Davison's Fifth Doctor and Colin Baker's Sixth Doctor, has frequently been mentioned; that would be a surprise, however, given Peri wound up offworld, and Doctor Who has recently fixed her unsatisfying fate in other mediums. The most likely is Katy Manning, who played classic Third Doctor companion Jo Grant and already reprized her role in The Sarah Jane Adventures.
Hopefully there will also be nods to companions from the modern era, helping give a sense this really is a continuous series that has run for 59 years (granted with an unfortunate hiatus from 1989 to 2005). Freema Agyeman's Martha Jones, a companion of David Tennant's Tenth Doctor, would be living on Earth in this time-period, so she'd be ripe to return as part of this loose network of companions. Martha went on to become a freelance alien fighter, continuing her crusade against alien invaders, and she'd certainly get on well with Ace - who always loved her action and explosives. There would also be interesting parallels between Martha's own unrequited love for her Doctor and Doctor Who's latest companion romance, between Whittaker's Thirteenth Doctor and Mandip Gill's Yaz. The script is unlikely to lean too heavily into these parallels, but they would add more depth to the Doctor Who Centenary Special.
Source: TVZone