As the season finale draws near, DW fandom seems to go through a rehash of old arguments and old/new fears. I'm not immune or nearly as zen as I pretend to be: I'm fretting about various possible finale scenarios as much as the next fan. However, I find some textual analysis helps with the zen pretense to no end. In recent weeks, someone, I believe neadods in a comment, said that if s4/30 proved one thing, than that Doctor Who as a series works better as a buddy movie than as a romance. Which I agree with, and I'd like to explain why, in the hope that possible comments will not result in "my companion can beat up your companion" and/or "I hate RTD/Moffat/the entire Cardiff production team/*insert someone else*" threads.

Now matter whether we're talking Old Who or New Who, there are some constants about the show. The Doctor will always be an alien time traveller who every few years gets recast because when the original actor wanted out more than 40 years ago, someone had the inspired idea to invent regeneration. He also most likely will remain male; while the show never said Time Lords couldn't switch gender upon regeneration, the possibility of the BBC actually going there outside of charity sketches is remote, interesting and narratively invigorating as a gender switch might be. The other constant is that the companion/ the companions will also come and go. They will be more often female than male, and more often human than of any other species. However, there never will be a companion who stays as long as the Doctor does. Some may stay years, some only a season, depending both on the production team and actor availability, but their eventual departure from the show is inevitable. Which means that the show has to come up with a reason for their departure, again and again. In over four decades, there were roughly four categories:

a) Companions that left by their own decision to return to their old lives / start a new life elsewhere.
b) Companions that were separated from the Doctor by fate, against their and his will
c) Companions that were left by the Doctor.
d) Companions who died

(As opposed to what New Who only watchers might think after School Reunion, c) is actually not a big category. d) isn't, either, but it did happen three times in Old Who.)

If you format the story you're telling as a mutual romance, than category a) and c) are practically impossible. (And a) is by far the largest category in Old Who.) In real life, romances that peter out rather than end with a dramatic bang might be quite often the case, but not on tv, and "sorry, this isn't working anymore, thanks for the good times, bye!" isn't likely to happen. d) Can happen, but given this is an ongoing show, how many times can you do "Doctor holds dead person, most likely female, he loved in his arms" before saying "refridgerator syndrome"? Which leaves b.) And the problem with b) is that it takes the power of decision away from both parties. Now I don't know about you, but I prefer stories where the leads are at least partly responsible for their own fates.

(Sidenote: As with every rule, there are, of course, exceptions. The separation of Two from Jamie and Zoe worked for me both as a tragedy and as a set-up, leading as it does into a new era.)

Then we have the one-sided romance which can end in all four ways, but does no one any favours. I'm trying to think of a case where "unrequited love" has been pulled off as a storytelling device without causing bitter partisanship, character hate and fannish feuds, and the only one I can come up with would be Delenn and Lennier on Babylon 5. (Though I might be wrong about that. But I really don't recall either Lennier or Delenn hate around season 5.) The more usual case is what happened at various times in the Jossverse and last season on DW: On the one hand, you have fans calling the object of devotion a cold bitch/ ungrateful bastard for not returning it, on the other, you have fans calling the lover a stalker/ weak / stupid. Then there's another factor. On ensemble shows like BTVS or AtS, you at least have other characters and relationships taking some of the fannish energy. But on Doctor Who, the relationship between Doctor and companion is absolutely central, and to make it one sided is a recipe for disaster.

(Sidenote: in season 3 era interviews, you could see RTD bringing up Vince and Stuart from Queer as Folk (UK), the show that made his name, as an example of the greatness of unrequited love. Which I think is massive label cheating. Vince/Stuart is unrequited only if you define "requited" as "having sex with each other". Since in all other respects the show makes clear that Vince is the most important man in Stuart's life. So no, I wouldn't list Vince/Stuart as an example of a successful "unrequited love" storyline that didn't divide fans, but rather as an example of a successful love story that played with boundaries.)

Then, if you play the Doctor/Companion relationship explicitly romantically, there is the problem of the inherent power imbalance caused by the set-up. As Rose puts it in End of the World, "don't argue with the designated driver". The Doctor will always be the one who has the car keys, so to speak, and could, if he wanted to, strand his companion anywhere. (With the obvious exception of the Three era, during most of which he was the one stranded and without the possibility to leave.) From the days of Barbara Wright onwards, the show tried to balance this by providing the companions with more common sense, or more empathy, or both, giving the Doctor reasons for needing them as much, if not more, as they need him, but if they are in love with him, the power balance is again tilted in his favour, whether he is conscious of this or not.

Lastly, both requited and unrequited romance have the backstory and future story problem. To wit: as mentioned, this is a show with ever changing leads. It always will be. Both the various incarnations of the Doctor and the various companions have their partisans who prefer them to others, that is inevitable. Just as inevitable as any given production team having a bias towards their own toys, i.e. the Doctor and companions they themselves created. However, adding textual - as opposed to subtextual - romance inevitably results in reactions like this: "So the text tells me he loves X. Why didn't he love W? I ADORED W. I thought so did he, but W didn't get any *insert most recent demonstration of love to X*, so clearly, he didn't love W, and that's just unfair and a slight against my favourite companion. And how about Y? Y is way cooler than X. How come he doesn't see that?" Which is silly - treating a declaration of romantic love as the ultimate merit badge - but we've seen this is how fandom works.

(Sidenote: no, you can't just replace "X" with "Rose". I distinctly recall many a Doctor/Rose'shipper distressed in exactly the same way when you replace "X" with "Reinette" or "River Song".)

So, in conclusion, that that mean I'm of the "the Doctor/show/fandom should be asexualist" persuasion? Not at all. As any slasher will tell you, buddy shows and buddy movies inspire an infinite number of 'shippy fanfiction. But the narrative of a buddy show doesn't have to revolve around the "will they/ won't they?" question. Whether they're shagging like bunnies between episodes because they're doing the friends with benefits thing or whether they really don't fancy each other that way, their every interaction in the episodes we do see isn't burdened with the audience having to wonder "will he/she tell him/her 'I love you'? If not, why not? Will they kiss? When will he/she return the love? Why not?" What's more, it seems to be easier for a tv audience to accept that someone can be friends with more than one person than that they can be in romantic love with more than one, that today's friendship doesn't devaluate yesterday's, and leaves room for a new friendship tomorrow.

Which is why I think my life as a DW fan would be made considerably easier if future Doctor/Companion relationships were to continue to take place in a buddy show, and not a romance. And besides. We all know he loves the TARDIS best anyway. That, too, is one of the few immovable constants.