#in conclusion the whole 'yaz being a police officer gets dropped/forgetten about' thing

[minimoefoe]

do they forget that yasmin khan is a police officer?

during my 13 era re-watch I took note of all the moments that I think are police training related or just general police officer mentions, it's a mixed bag. this is all of them in one post along with a mini conclusion/tldr at the end check the twitter thread version of this post for screenshots with every point and alt text too

11.01, the woman who fell to earth

when we first see yaz she’s on the job, sorting out a parking dispute between two women

she tells her superior that she wants more of a challenge and he sends her to ryan

we then see her on the train where she meets the doctor. she starts out trying to take charge but realistically she’s out of her depth and the doctor manages to convince her to not call it in

she then goes down to the station to ask if there’s been any mention of the things she’s seen that evening. we see her get frustrated

later in the episode she suggests her and ryan do some investigating

11.03, rosa

yaz immediately steps in when ryan is assaulted

while talking with ryan she mentions her job and the things she’s experienced

along with the rest of the fam, yaz then helps with investigating what’s going on with rosa

1.04, arachnids in the uk

yaz’s dad uses the fact yaz is a police officer to sort out all the stuff he’s been noticing and collecting. she said she has mentioned it to them and they’re looking into it. (it’s not said but I think it’s possible that they don’t really care and aren’t actually doing much/any looking into it, maybe bc yaz is newer on the job and doesn’t get listened to as much/taken as seriously)

later in the episode yaz goes to pick up her mum and goes into police mode to try and calm down the situation when robertson pulls out a gun

11.05, the tsuranga conundrum

thirteen gives yaz the responsibility of keeping an eye on the pting, which involves using a weapon to stun it. it makes sense for yaz to get this responsibility over ryan/graham bc she has some kind of weapons training

11.07, kerblam!

yaz searches for dan, asks about where he is and generally seems to find it important that she does what she can for him/his daughter. (i do believe that most companions would probs feel similarly about this but with yaz i think it is related to her being a police officer bc she would have training in ways to help loved ones of a deceased person and we also see yaz supporting children multiple other times during this season so I think it’s safe to say it’s important to her (and relates to why she got the job as a police officer in the first place). while I think most companions would want to find dan, I’m not sure how many would want to go and see his daughter or be as passionate)

we also see her grab and detain charlie effectively, something I’m sure she would have been taught during training

11.08, the witchfinders

after willa’s granny gets pulled out of the water, yaz is the one to check her pulse to see if she’s still alive

yaz then takes it upon herself to go and find willa. she knows how to approach and talk to her and she uses her own experiences as a way to try and relate/understand how willa is feeling

in this episode we again see yaz wanting to help a child, and it has strong parallels to what we see later in can you hear me, with yaz being the police officer and willa being yaz

11.09, it takes you away

we see yaz helping another child, she knows how to talk to her and keep her calm and tells ryan that it’s because she’s had training

a bit later in the episode she goes into police mode when ribbons pulls out a knife on graham

resolution

yaz takes lin and mitch’s information, escorts of them out of the site and is seen being the one trying to get in contact with lin later in the episode

12.01 spyfall pt1

at the beginning of s12 we see yaz telling her boss why she won’t be around to work. he’s not too happy about it. it’s clear she’s taken a lot of time away from work recently in favour of being with the doctor

this is small but the way she says this has always had kinda authoritative vibes to me? idk how to explain it

later in the episode yaz goes undercover with ryan. she is clearly more confident than he is. she tries to reassures him, covers for him when he’s acting weird and is good at asking barton questions

when she gets trapped in the kasaavin dimension she reassures herself

12.04, nikola tesla’s night of terror

she confronts the guy when he comes into wherever tf they were in this scene idr

12.05 fugitive of the judoon

the doctor uses yaz being a police officer as a way to try and get the judoon to believe what she’s saying

kinda a small thing but yaz is the one who finds something actually useful when search lee and ruth’s flat, potentially meaning she has some kind of training/knows more about searching for evidence

yaz uses the fact that as a police officer she can speak more on the judoon’s level and uses it as a way to stall them

12.06, praxeus

yaz mentions being ‘on sabbatical’. I don’t know if this is supposed to be taken as she actually is on sabbatical (aka paid leave) or if it’s just for ease in the convo (as in jake and co don’t need her life story so just not correcting it is easier) (back in spyfall her excuse for not being at work was another ‘secondment’ (which means she’s been assigned work at a different place) so either that isn’t the excuse she’s using anymore and she is just straight up taking leave or, like I said, she’s just going with the sabbatical convo for ease bc the details don’t really matter, what matters is she’s pointing out that bc she isn’t on official police work, she doesn’t go around saying she’s police, unlike jake who clearly does)

I think what happens here is a mix of yaz being a more seasoned companion, us seeing yaz get more reckless (clara vibes) but also potentially police vibes in in that she’s noticing what’s important and wants to investigate it

12.07, can you hear me?

in this episode we find out what made yaz want to become a police officer in the first place. a police officer helped her when she was in a bad place, she goes on to want to do the same for others

12.09/10, ascension of the cybermen/the timeless children

yaz gives some small pep talks and knows how to reassure people. we’ve seen her do this a bit before with other characters. this far into yaz’s time on the tardis, some of these moments do feel more doctor-y than police training-y but it still feels work mentioning

13.01, the halloween apocalypse

when yaz and the doctor first get to dan’s house, yaz calls to ask if anyone is home and then looks around to get an idea of who lives there

13.02, war of the sontarans

when yaz meets the tunnel guy she asks him what’s going on and she tries to talk to him in a way that keeps him calm because she can tell he seems unstable/confused

when meeting vinder, yaz initially introduces herself normally but when vinder introduces himself using his titles she does the same as a way to show she’s on his level (some ppl take this scene to be contradictory to other moments where I guess it’s implied she quit her job but I don’t think it matters. the reason she says this is bc of how vinder introduced himself, it’s got nothing to do with whether she is actually still police or not. I think it’s more interesting to parallel it with her not claiming it be police when jake mentions that he’s police. in that situation things were less scary and she wasn’t alone but here she is alone and wants to be seem as authoritative as possible to this stranger (vinder))

when swarm and azure show up yaz to keep some control/gain respect but they obviously don’t give a fuck lmao

13.03, once, upon time

a small moment but we see yaz on the job in her memories

13.05, survivors of the flux

yaz fights someone off pretty skillfully, presumably something she would’ve been trained in

the power of the doctor

the doctor tells them to give yaz a gun. she obviously trusts her with it because she knows yaz will have had training (and yaz says as much)

in conclusion

ppl like to say yaz being a police officer is basically not mentioned and i just think that’s.. not true. if you average it out, based on the moments in this thread, it works out that it’s mentioned/something directly related to police training is brought up about once an ep which imo is more than enough I don’t really know what ppl want when they say there’s not enough of it. there’s a clear story of first of all why yaz wanted to be a police officer (bc a police officer helped her), why she didn’t like it (bc she was stuck doing boring stuff when she wanted to be out helping ppl) and how travelling with the doctor gave her what she wanted more than being with the police ever did (we see her doing good and helping ppl pretty much every episode) and also in my opinion through the seasons while we do see her use her training/mention the police, over time she starts to be more doctor-like than police-like in the way she talks and handles situations which is why in s11 there’s more clear examples in almost every ep of yaz talking very police-like/using her training but then later in the show it’s less bc she’s switched to being more doctor-y

#doctor who #yasmin khan #nataliechats #in conclusion the whole 'yaz being a police officer gets dropped/forgetten about' thing #is genuine bullshit #ive been meaning to make this post since i made the thread like two months ago lmao