Hunka hunka burning Doc

"Why is it," I ask myself with shocking regularity, "that nearly every woman who comes in contact with The Doctor wants to cut herself off a piece of that?"

My earliest memories of The Doctor are of him being a nearly asexual being. Yes, The Doctor has, at some point in the past been married and had children (and Grandchildren), but for whatever reason he seemed to have moved on from all that. On the occasions when romantic entanglements happened around him, he treated them as annoyances or curiosities. When he recognised them at all

He was too intelligent for sex.

Nowadays he still seems a little awkward on most occasions when he gets female attention, but he is also quite frequently seen putting it about. There have been implications of sex between The Doctor and Madame de Pompadour, Queen Elizabeth I, and River Song at least. I'm likely forgetting some other subtle references too.

Funny? Sure. Necessary? Probably not

And that's just the people he actually reciprocates with. There's a whole host of ladies who lined up unsuccessfully to have a crack at him too.

The funny thing is, the ladies didn't start throwing themselves at The Doctor until he regenerated from Christopher Eccleston into the slightly more pleasing form of David Tennant. Even Rose doesn't really show any full-blown romantic feelings until after this point. Things have only gotten worse with Matt Smith, and it's kind of dumbing the show down.

He's becoming too sexy for intelligence.

I do wonder if the appointment of increasingly youthful actors in the role of The Doctor is the cause or an effect of this. By which I mean, did they want to add sexual tension and got a Doctor they thought could realistically pull it off, or did the better looking Doctor give them the confidence (or audience demand) to include the sexual tension?

I've previously linked to an article which quoted Steven Moffat on why the Companions are all attractive young girls:

I think the function of a companion is pretty simple. I don’t think that’s very difficult. It’s just a question of who credibly is going to agree to go in the TARDIS? Who’s going to do it? Is it going to be a mother of 15 children? No. Is it going to be someone in their 60s? No. Is there going to be a particular age range? I mean … who’s going to have a crush on the Doctor? You know, come on! It’s more than a format. It’s evolved from good, dramatic reasons.

And this makes sense to a degree, but this is one of those statements that confuses correlation with causation. Yes, hot young girls who have a crush on The Doctor have a reason for running off with him, but that doesn't mean only hot young girls who have a crush on The Doctor have a reason for running off with him. The statement also neatly ignores Donna Noble.

Can we fix it?

Of course we can; very easily. Stop writing women that want The Doctor, at least not all the time. And if you do, make sure it's for a reason. Was there a reason for Nefertiti to be all over The Doctor? Not that I could see.

And give us Companions that have more motivation for traveling with The Doctor than "He's a bit of alright." There is a bunch of other logical reasons a person may want to go off adventuring, and they're almost all more interesting.

Things only got back on track with Amy Pond after The Pandorica Opens / The Big Bang where Amy and Rory's relationship solidified, and the relationship between Companion and Doctor worked much better with the sexual tension removed.

Sadly, we couldn't go the length of a whole Christmas Special without Clara jumping on The Doctor for a big ol' smoocharoo. I literally faceplamed at that point. The episode was in no way richer for it's inclusion, and it felt very, very forced.

The only female Companion to not have the hots for him was Donna Noble. Having seen the Catherine Tate Show before she appeared in The Runaway Bride, my opinion was already soiled of how she'd be as a Companion (I wasn't a fan). I didn't really like The Runaway Bride much and I was dreading her inclusion as a full-time Companion, but it turns out she was a perfect foil for The Doctor, and she is actually my favourite of the new Companions. And with no sexual tension too.

I would kill for that again.