There have been many companions over the many years in Doctor Who. Unsurprisingly, we’ve had a large variety of origin stories for them. Some have been light and simple – for example, Jo Grant met the Doctor because her uncle gave her a job at UNIT. Some have been more chaotic, like Rose’s, who job literally blew up right after meeting the Doctor.
But there have been a few companions whose beginnings were a little darker or tragic. This was especially true of the Fifth Doctor’s companions. A key reason why Adric traveled with the Doctor was because his brother died, leaving him with no family and no reason to stay with the rest of his people. Turlough joined the Doctor because he was forced into a bargain with the Black Guardian to kill the Time Lord, and even Tegan’s aunt was murdered by the Master in her first story.
But as dark or as tragic as these beginnings are, none of them quite match up to Nyssa’s. It’s admittedly easy to overlook Nyssa’s dark and tragic beginnings. After all, in all her stories, she comes across as the calmest and most intelligent companion, sometimes playing peacemaker between the rest of the TARDIS team. But make no mistake – Nyssa’s origin story as a companion has to be the darkest in the show’s long history.
The most tragic beginning
Nyssa's first appearance, “The Keeper of Traken”, isn’t the story of how she becomes a companion. But it does lay the groundwork. When the story begins, Nyssa is enjoying a happy life with her family, specifically her father Tremas, and her stepmother Kassia. Kassia herself is a pretty tragic character – initially a good person, she’s manipulated by the evil Melkur to make terrible decisions, just to ensure that her family stays together. Of course, those decisions not only destroy her relationships with both Tremas and Nyssa but also lead to her death.
But while Nyssa loses her stepmother, she does help the Doctor and her father to defeat Melkur – or, as it turns out, the Master, who in this story is in a horrifically decayed state. The ending of “Traken” is an almost hopeful one – until, as shown in the above clip, the Master returns to take over Tremas’s body, effectively murdering him.
At this point, Nyssa has lost both her stepmother and her father to the Doctor’s oldest enemy. Worse, her father’s killer is wearing the face of his victim. That in itself would make Nyssa’s story one of the most tragic for a Doctor Who companion.
But then we get to “Logopolis”, the Fourth Doctor’s final adventure. Because of the Master’s interference, a significant portion of the universe is completely wiped out by entropy – including Traken. That’s right, along with personally murdering her family, the Master was also responsible for the destruction of her entire planet – and the irony is that he wasn’t even trying with that last part!
Lack of exploration
Honestly, a key reason why it’s easy to miss just how dark and traumatic Nyssa’s beginnings are is that they were hardly explored in the TV series at all. After “Logopolis”, the TV series rapidly moves away from her trauma, never exploring it for a moment.
It’s easy to see why Nyssa’s story wasn’t explored in more depth afterward. For much of her time on the TARDIS, Nyssa was just one of three companions. It was often difficult for the writers to find the time to flesh each of the companions out. In fact, there were times when Nyssa would suddenly be written out of the story, such as in “Kinda”, just to keep the number of companions manageable.
Honestly, there’s no question in my mind that if Nyssa had been a New Series companion, her trauma would’ve been much better explored. For example, Graham and Ryan’s journey with the Thirteenth Doctor began in tragedy with the death of Grace. A key part of their story in Series 11 is how they learn to process their grief and start to learn how to be a family.
We never have a moment or character arc like that for Nyssa. And that’s unsurprising, as the Classic Series would often avoid exploring the companions too deeply. As much as I love the Classic Series, companions were often there to ask what was going on or simply to end up in danger. How they were feeling or what trauma they went through simply wasn’t a part of the show.
Then again, it’s probably a good thing that we haven’t had a companion like Nyssa in the New Series. After all, Nyssa’s history isn’t just tragic – it’s considerably more traumatic than anything we’ve seen of the 21st-century companions. Maybe it would be too much tragedy for the New Series to explore, although it’d be interesting to see it try something a little darker for a companion origin story. But I doubt we’ll ever have anything that matches Nyssa’s tragic beginnings.