Skip to Content

Doctor Who Ally Profile: The Jones Family

Doctor Who Ally Profile: The Jones Family

Martha Jones' family on Doctor Who

The Jones Family

Portrayed by: Gugu Mbatha-Raw (Tish), Adjoa Andoh (Francine), Trevor Laird (Clive), Reggie Yates (Leo)

Doctor: Tenth Doctor

Story: 2 stories, “The Lazarus Experiment” (May, 2007) and “The Sound of Drums”/“Last of the Time Lords” (June, 2007), though they also appear in other stories as Martha’s family, rather than as part of the larger adventure of the week

Background: Francine and Clive Jones are the bitterly divorced parents of Martha, Tish, and Leo. Almost nothing is known of their married life or really anything before Martha met the Doctor, other than that Clive has a much younger girlfriend named Annalise. Tish is the head of PR for an experimental scientist who creates a de-aging machine that winds up turning him into a horrific monster, which she helps Martha and the Doctor defeat. Leo has a far more adventure-adjacent life, managing to avoid both the more traumatic events of “The Lazarus Experiment” and the activities aboard the Valient in “The Sound of Drums”/“Last of the Time Lords”. Tish, Francine, and Clive, however, are taken as hostages by the Master and forced to serve him aboard the Valient, where they manage to eventually assist Captain Jack, the Doctor, and Martha in defeating him. They function very much as a unit, hence their singular profile.

Personality: Tish is practical, organized, and very good at her work. Francine is a very strong-willed woman, rather dominating (or domineering) in her personality, but very devoted to and protective of her family. Clive is rather petty with Francine, as she is with him, but when under pressure, he comes through for his family, doing his best to warn Martha about Mister Saxon and hold his family together through the Year that Never Was.

Special Skills: Though they have different areas of expertise in their professional lives, these skills don’t come into play in their interactions with the Doctor. Instead, they draw on their resilience, courage, determination, and ability to keep a clear head despite their trauma, traits they all share.

Highlights: Their escape attempt, along with Jack, may not have worked, but it was still impressive. Tish also acquits herself incredibly well during “The Lazarus Experiment”

Lowlights: Francine may mean well, but she gets old incredibly quickly when she’s being irrationally shrewish about a man that, as far as she knows, her daughter has known for a day. She makes up for that later, however, with her steely resolve and inner strength

Memorable quotes:

Tish: [re:the Doctor] “He’s a science geek. I should have known.”  “The Lazarus Experiment”

Francine: “It’s that Doctor, isn’t it? That’s what’s happened to you. That’s why you’ve changed.”  “The Lazarus Experiment”

Clive: [re: what to do with the captured Master] “We kill him.”
Tish: “We execute him.”
The Doctor: “No, that’s not the solution.”
Francine: [aiming the gun at the Master] “Oh, I think so. Because all those things, they still happened because of him. I saw them.”  “The Last of the Time Lords”

Other notes: The Jones family extrapolates on the modern series’ examination of the families of Companions by giving the current Companion not supportive parents, like Rose’s mother and kinda-father, but difficult, unsupportive parents and siblings as well. They act very much as contrasts to Jackie and Pete, though they also wind up helping their daughter in her work with the Doctor. Donna’s relationship with Wilf greatly contrasts both Rose’s with Jackie and Martha’s with her family, painting yet another portrait of what it’s like to have a loved one traveling aboard the TARDIS (one of complete support and enthusiasm). Though the Eleventh Doctor’s Companions are shown to have families, either biological or constructed, they are only explored or given any depth if they travel with the Doctor.

[wpchatai]