The lonely old Doctor has had his lion’s share of attractive female companions in his long run– with the upcoming 4th season of the rebooted franchise will see 3 in 4 years. So how will Donna stack up against the flighty Rose and the serious-minded Martha? And how long will Russel Davies be able to resist before Donna “ain’t bovvered”?

In series 1, pop star Billie Piper and Chris Eccelston helped to bring Doctor Who back to life and up to date to the 21st century. She was cute, flirty, quick-witted, fun and adventurous. Every week, viewers could expect Rose to have changed her hairdo or to be sporting the latest fashions. She works in a shop, hangs out with her mates and her boyfriend, Mickey, she lives in a council flat with her mum and feels like she doesn’t have a whole lot to lose in traveling with the Doctor forever if she can. Over her two years with the Doctor, she developed as a character from just a normal girl to a brave heroine in her own right. However by the time she was shut off in a parallel universe, it was clear that while she may have become braver over time, she was still just a kid with an unrequited crush on a man she would never be able to have, but she was willing to throw away everything– even a reunion with her dead father to travel with the Doctor for the rest of her life. It’s been rumored that Rose Tyler will be returning for one more trip in the TARDIS in a big-screen adaptation of Doctor Who.

After Rose was trapped with her family and Mickey on a parallel Earth, the Doctor came across a smart, ambitious young medical student named Martha. Unlike Rose, who admitted that she didn’t have much going for her in life, Martha has a large family, a successful career on the horizon and big dreams. Martha enjoys traveling with the Doctor and saving the world single-handedly and will be returning briefly in series 4, but in the end she is mature enough to realize that she can appreciate the adventure afforded to her but has a loyalty to her family and her own life. So unlike Rose, who had to be forcibly ripped from the TARDIS, teary-eyed and shaking, Martha is well aware when it’s time for the adventure of time travel to end and the adventure of real life to continue. Despite her willingness to leave the life of high adventure with the Doctor however, she is still involved with the Doctor’s cause and has appeared on Torchwood several times with Captain Jack Harkness.

And then there’s Donna… she was introduced to Who viewers in the 2006 Christmas special when she mysteriously appeared on the TARDIS deck in her wedding gown. Donna is older than the previous two female companions in the new Doctor Who, but seems to be more shallow and naive than either one of them and certainly much louder and more abrasive. She was talked into almost marrying a vicious alien and is completely oblivious to the multiple alien invasions of London over the past several years despite working as a secretary for a Torchwood front company. When the Doctor talks of Cybermen, ghosts, Daleks, giant motherships hovering over the city, Donna just says she must have been hung over or on holiday or something, to which the Doctor takes her to task, accusing her of missing the “bigger picture”. What kind of companion Donna will make is yet to be seen. Shortly after her debut, Russel Davies praised her performance, but said he thought viewers might find the character too annoying to be a full-time companion and then later changed his mind, saying that the character of Donna would make a brilliant companion. So who knows?

Who’s your fave Doctor Who companion and how do you think Donna will fare on the good ship TARDIS?