Doctor Who has seen the Doctor take many people along with him in his journeys through time and space. Most fans have their favorites – Rose Tyler, Amy Pond, Sarah Jane Smith, K-9 etc. However, these Companions only scratch the surface of some of the Doctor’s more unusual fellow travelers.
Many fans, for instance, don’t know about the time the Eighth Doctor dropped by his old house and ended up with a new Companion – one who turned out to be a living painting! Undeniably bizarre (even by Whovian standards), this Companion ended up having all the qualifications for an ideal traveling partner through time and space.
Unlike most of the Doctors in BBC’s long-running Doctor Who television series, the Eighth Doctor received almost no significant time in the spotlight – at least on TV screens. Appearing originally in a TV movie that was supposed to serve as a back-door pilot to a new Doctor Who TV series, the Eighth Doctor was played by Paul McGann. Like all the other Doctors, the Eighth Doctor was the latest in a series of regenerations that allowed the previous version of the Doctor to be reborn in a new body and mind -- allowing different actors to give their unique take on the Doctor.
McGann gave his Doctor a romantic, eccentric personality that was popular with his fans although his TV movie failed to generate an actual series. McGann reprised his role briefly in a webcast mini-episode, “The Night of the Doctor” that showed his Doctor die and regenerate into the War Doctor. In between these two live appearances, however, the Eighth Doctor had a surprisingly rich life. While McGann did not play the Doctor on TV very long, he did voice the Eighth Doctor is several audio dramas. The Eighth Doctor also appeared in many novels, short stories, magazine stories, novellas – and comic books. These stories filled many of the gaps in the Doctor’s life, showing that he had many Companions and adventures before finally regenerating into the War Doctor. One comic book miniseries, however, showed the Eighth Doctor also had an unusual link to his past and future selves.
In the Doctor Who: The Eighth Doctor miniseries published by Titan Comics and written by George Mann with art by Emma Vieceli, the Eighth Doctor pays a visit to the cottage he used to live in when he was the Earth-exiled Third Doctor. Once there, however, he finds that a young woman, Josephine Day, has taken up residence in his old place. Curious, but taking the whole situation in stride, the Doctor gets to know “Josie.”
The Eighth Doctor's Strange Companion
While Josie claims she’s been living at the Doctor’s house because she needed a place to stay, the Doctor notices strange things about her. For one thing, Josie’s an artist who’s been painting images of real alien worlds no one in her time should know about. For another, her body is full of animae particles, artificial elements created by the alien Artificers of Wrall to animate their holy texts. When Josie’s animae particles accidentally bring the monsters in her paintings to life, however, Josie proves instrumental in stopping the threat, convincing the Doctor to take her on as a Companion. Finding a list of dates and coordinates that he believes was written by himself, the Doctor decides to visit each point in space-time, bringing Josie along with him. They end up traveling to an alien planet attacked by sentient crystalline beings, attending a magic show run by a magician who traps people in mirrors, and outsmarting an alien race that resembles the faerie folk of legend.
On their last stop, however, the Doctor and Josie wind up on a Bakri Resurrection Barge in deep space – a sort of futuristic spay where the wealthy go to have their minds transplanted into artificial bodies. When the bodies begin developing minds of their own, the Doctor and Josie argue for their freedom. Just as they seem to succeed, however, a wealthy passenger grabs Josie and reveals they have a history. It seems that the woman – Lady Josephine – once hired an Artificer of Wrall to paint her portrait. However, the artist did too good a job and the portrait came to life, causing Lady Josephine to lock her up. When Lady Josephine died of a wasting disease, however, the portrait was auctioned off with her other possessions and went off to live a life of her own. Josephine ended up being resurrected, however, and now seeks to use Josie’s body as her new path to immortality.
The Mystery of Doctor Who's Josie Day
Apologizing to the Doctor for keeping the truth from him, and stating that she just wanted to be a real person, Josie ends up being saved when Lady Josephine’s artificial body turns against her. Assuring Josie that she is real, the Doctor offers to continue taking her on adventures. Later, readers discovered that the person who bid on Josie, bought her freedom, and delivered her to the cottage was none other than the Twelfth Doctor who had travelled back in time to save the Companion that had been so important to him in another life.
Josie was unique as a Companion not only because of her origins but because of how incredibly compatible she was to the Eighth Doctor. This version of the Doctor was incredibly passionate about solving mysteries, encountering monsters, and simply indulging in new experiences – something Josie also desperately wanted to do. As a living painting, Josie was eager to enrich her life with new experiences and establish herself as her own person. As such, she had no problem diving into new worlds with the Doctor, no matter what the risk.
Moreover, Josie’s artificial origins made her uniquely suited to display empathy and compassion to others regardless of where they came from or how they were born. It didn’t matter if the people she interacted with were aliens, children, or artificial beings – somehow Josie always managed to find common ground with each and reveal that she was nothing like the vain, selfish woman she was supposed to represent. Depending on his regeneration, Doctor Who has had many unique personalities and has meshed well with different people, but few Companions have worked as well with the Eighth Doctor as Josie Day.