WARNING: The following article contains spoilers for the season premiere of Doctor Who: Flux, “Chapter One: The Halloween Apocalypse,” which aired Sunday on BBC.
Doctor Who: Flux is off to a great start with an epic storyline that spans six episodes and three specials. In the first episode alone, viewers got a glimpse of what’s in store, from Weeping Angels to Sontarans, to new friends and foes. As a real treat to fans, however, Doctor Who: Flux is also capitalizing on a fan-favorite pairing: Thasmin, which is the ship name for Yasmin “Yaz” Khan (Mandip Gill) and the 13th Doctor (Jodie Whittaker).
It’s been hinted at since Doctor Who Season 11 that Yaz has romantic feelings for the 13th Doctor. From the second episode alone, she was the first to ask the Doctor if she planned on traveling alone, hinting that she wanted to tag along with her. The episode even ended with Yaz inviting the Doctor to drink tea with her at her flat, along with companions Ryan Sinclair (Tosin Cole) and Graham O’Brien (Bradley Walsh). Since then, there have been hints of Yaz’s romantic interest in the Doctor peppered throughout the remainder of the season. Her family even speculated at one point that they were romantically involved with Yaz denying this, claiming they were only friends.
Yaz and Thirteen’s romantic tension continued throughout Season 12, though with stronger progression than in Season 11. When the Doctor found out there was more to her past than she actually knew, this troubled her to the point where she couldn’t bring herself to tell her companions the full truth of what she had learned. This in turn bothered Yaz as she knew from the get-go the Doctor wasn’t being fully honest with her and didn’t like being kept at arms’ length. This was the first major clue that Yaz was in fact interested in something more than friendship with the Doctor.
By Episode 8 of Season 12, Yaz came pretty close to admitting her true feelings for the Doctor when she caught Claire Clairmont trying to pick a lock to a room containing Lord Byron’s letters about her. When Claire admitted she wanted to know Lord Byron’s true feelings for her, Yaz admitted she “knew someone like that,” implying the Doctor. By the season finale, when the stakes got too high, and the battle against the Master and Cybermen risked the Doctor losing her own life, Yaz couldn’t contain her feelings much longer. She was genuinely upset by the Doctor’s actions of sending her, Ryan and Graham back to Earth while she faced the Master and Cybermen alone, with no consideration for her feelings.
In the subsequent New Year’s Special, “Revolution of the Daleks,” Yaz’s true feelings for the Doctor became obvious even to Ryan and Graham. Not only had she been obsessing over finding the Doctor for the whole 10 months since she returned to Earth, but she even slept inside the TARDIS she was brought back in. Ryan and Graham had already accepted the possibility that the Doctor hadn’t survived the battle against the Master and Cybermen, but Yaz refused to acknowledge that possibility. When the Doctor finally made it back to Earth to reunite with her companions, Yaz was the companion who angrily confronted her about her long absence. She was also the companion who decided to continue traveling with the Doctor since Ryan and Graham had already moved on from her.
Doctor Who: Flux is continuing the momentum from both Season 12 and “Revolution of the Daleks” with Yaz even revisiting her earlier concern about the secret the Doctor has been keeping from her. Now that Yaz has had the Doctor all to herself for a while — at least prior to Dan Lewis (John Bishop) joining them on the TARDIS — she’s noticeably treating the Doctor more like a romantic partner, and that’s not all; she’s also more strongly taking on some of the Doctor’s personality traits, which is making her increasingly similar to Rose Tyler from Doctor Who Season 2.
If anything, the fact that Yaz is finding herself in a very similar place to Rose leading up to when the latter exited the TARDIS for good, it could be hinting at where her relationship with the Doctor could potentially end. This is especially true considering Doctor Who: Flux is the 13th Doctor’s last hurrah before she regenerates at the end of her journey. The question then will be if Yaz will stay or go once the inevitable happens. This can go three ways: either Yaz could go the way of Martha Jones and decide to end her travels with the Doctor, or she could end up permanently separated from the Doctor by catastrophic circumstances than by her own free will like in the case of Rose. If she’s lucky, however, she could even potentially wind up with a version of the 13th Doctor similar to how Rose got to keep a version of the 10th Doctor at the end of Doctor Who Season 4.
To see further developments of Yaz and Thirteen’s relationship, new episodes of Doctor Who: Flux air Sundays on BBC.
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