Yaz has been acting out of character in Doctor Who, but could this personality change be a result of her being replaced by an alien? The character of Yasmin Khan (“Yaz”), portrayed by Mandip Gill, has been with Jodie Whitaker’s Doctor since her first adventure in the season 11 premiere, “The Woman Who Fell to Earth” – but while Yaz’s arc has been very slow to develop, the focus of Doctor Who season 13 may well shift much more to her, including the possibility of major reveals. Although bits and pieces of her past and pre-Doctor present have been shown in earlier seasons, critics have previously complained that Yaz never got as much screen time as her fellow companions Graham (Bradley Walsh) and his stepson Ryan (Tosin Cole), and was often given fewer lines and much less to do.
All that may be about to change. As of the 2021 New Year’s Day story “Revolution of the Daleks,” however, she is currently the only remaining person traveling with the Doctor. While there is a new male companion on the horizon (Dan, played by actor and comedian John Bishop), some current filming reports suggest that there may be at least one forthcoming story where the TARDIS crew will be all-female – for the first time in the show’s history. The forthcoming season 13 is a golden opportunity for a long-awaited deep dive into her character and where this shift in her life and personality is headed.
Since her traumatic first encounter with the Kasaavin in the season 12 opener “Spyfall (Part 1),” Yaz has behaved quite differently. While there are several plausible, real-world explanations for her recent obsessive behavior – including PTSD or a related mental illness – it is also possible that the Kasaavin are using her (or a duplicate of the real Yaz) to study the Doctor and her TARDIS technology.
Yaz Acted Out Of Character In Doctor Who Season 12
While there were hints of instability in Yaz’s personality going all the way back to her first appearance in the show, Yaz’s biggest changes occurred during the opener for season 12. While the Doctor and Graham are in Australia with secret agent “O,” they are attacked by luminescent aliens (later identified as Kasaavin), with the first one to enter the house being trapped in an electrified glass trap. Yaz, with Ryan in San Francisco, is attacked by another Kasaavin and seemingly teleported to a strange and isolated alien environment. Yaz, disoriented and cut off from her cohorts, reacts very badly to the possibility of being trapped in this strange dimension forever.
The trapped Kasaavin in Australia is finally able to free itself from its cage by somehow swapping places with Yaz, freeing her from the Kasaavin dimension but leaving her badly shaken. As part of that same story, the crew discovers that humans on earth can have part of their DNA replaced with Kasaavin DNA in order to utilize humans as data storage vessels. This raises the possibility that during Yaz’s time in the Kasaavin dimension, her DNA could have been partially overwritten as well — or even that the captured Kasaavin had the ability to fuse with Yaz rather than swap itself with her. This might explain Yaz’s new and strong interest in learning as much as possible about the Doctor and the TARDIS.
Yaz Cut Herself Off From Her Family & Job
One of the continuing strands that made up an important part of Doctor Who season 11 is how encountering the Doctor disrupts the lives of those who get involved with her. During that season, viewers were introduced to Yaz’s immigrant family — which included Yaz’s mom Najia becoming very involved in one story (“Arachnids in the UK”), Yaz’s conflict with her sister (who seems to have a thing for Ryan, with mutual interest from him), and her grandparents’ history (“Demons of the Punjab”). Another plotline established in between adventures was Yaz’s difficulty in covering up her absences to her superiors at work. Yaz is – or was — a Police Constable, though she was chafing at the low-level assignments she was given. As with Ryan, her frequent disappearances were flimsily explained away to both family and coworkers. Notably, Yaz was not seen to have any kind of social life beyond her work and family relationships – unlike both Ryan and Graham.
In Doctor Who season 12, however, both Yaz’s family and her job were rarely referenced again, apart from a brief scene in the 2020 NYD special “Resolution of the Daleks” that showed her using her police training to get other characters out of harm’s way. In 2021's Doctor Who Holiday Special, “Revolution of the Daleks,” it's revealed that Yaz was living in the abandoned spare TARDIS, not in contact with her family (even though she is in modern-day Sheffield), and obsessed with locating the Doctor. There’s also no longer any mention of her (apparently former) profession, though she is bringing her police training to bear on her quest to reunite with the Doctor. Yaz has little interest in anything other than the Doctor anymore, though there are traces shown of the “old” Yaz on occasion – could this be the “real” Yaz fighting back against her control or possible doppelganger?
Theory: Yaz Has Been Changed By The Kasaavin
Once the Doctor finally reappears (after 10 months of real-time separation from her “fam”), having escaped from the Judoon Prison, Yaz at first reacts very angrily – expressing hurt at being left behind (an echo of the desperation she experienced when trapped in the Kasaavin dimension). However, she quickly becomes eager to take on whatever tasks the Doctor needs done, and does not even remotely contemplate returning to her previous life, even as Graham and Ryan depart. This revelation is very disturbing, given what has been previously established about Yaz: despite her conflict with her younger sister, she is an important member of the family who is seen as being close to her parents and grandmother. There seems to be a trail of obsessive compulsion in Yaz’s character as it has been further developed, focused on the Doctor.
Are these symptoms just an addiction to the adrenaline of adventuring that may end tragically? Or could it be that Yaz is not quite the same person as when she first joined the TARDIS family — taken over by, or maybe sharing some of her human DNA with, the Kasaavin as they plan their revenge against their new and clever foe: the Doctor? While in the classic Doctor Who series the more likely explanation would be the latter, the new series has been hesitant but not unwilling to demonstrate the negative impacts that traveling with the Doctor can have on human emotions, perception, and personality. Will Yaz’s new behavior be the result of PTSD, or is she a pawn in a long game the Kasaavin are playing to find a way to exact their revenge?
What Yaz Being An Alien Would Mean for Doctor Who
With unconfirmed rumors of the upcoming Doctor Who season 13 perhaps being Jodie Whittaker’s last, and with only eight more stories planned to be aired in 2021, there is not much time left to explore what’s going on with Yaz that has caused her to behave so oddly. After playing more of a minor role in her first season and with her personality on the rocks in season 12, fans may finally get a full blossoming of the character, given that there will be fewer companions to share screen time with. The ending of Doctor Who season 12 (“The Timeless Children”) was focused on the Doctor and her past, re-writing much of what fans thought they knew about the character. This set up a major plot direction for season 13 where the Doctor would presumably search for more knowledge about her true origins, or investigates if the Master’s version of her history is accurate.
However, veteran fans of the show know that the Doctor rarely looks back. Indeed, she appeared to dismiss Ryan’s suggestion to search for her origins by deciding that who she is, is “the one who stops the Daleks.” So another major plot involving one of the Doctor’s companions would avoid the need to delve further into the newly re-established mystery of the Doctor. Yaz’s now less-predictable behavior may lay the groundwork for both underlying sub-plots and more character-focused stories.
Whether the writers go for a psychological explanation or a more traditional alien-interference cause for the change in Yaz’s character – or take another direction altogether – it seems likely that Yaz will finally emerge from the shadow of her former team members and play a bigger role in Doctor Who season 13. How it all might end is anyone’s guess, but fans who took a shine to Yaz as the underdog of season 11, and cheered her coming out of her shell a bit more in season 12, are sure to be anticipating her fate.