I haven't even gotten to Amy (the actual companion) who is generally despised by the same people for roughly equivalent reasons.

River was in the Season 4 episode "Silence in the Library" if you've seen that. But yes, Season 5 is made of awesome and you should definitely watch it. And then you can read my Amy/River femslash.

Here's a picture of River, the Eleventh Doctor and Amy.

(Normally I'd be a little worried about going off topic like this, but given the topic I assume ranrata won't mind some promoting of tv with awesome female characters)