I've really never been one for a hero's journey plot. They're so common that they can no longer support a good story on their own. To keep them interesting in their pure form, a writer must work extremely hard to produce interesting characters and an interesting setting, which is something I think most writers fail at. They tend to either make a story that's still dull or make one suitable to the writer's fantasies but too far removed from reality to draw me into it. That said, it is common to find stories which come somewhat close to the traditional hero's journey while still straying from it enough to inject it with some interesting aspects. It's also possible to claim that enough elements of a hero's journey are present in stories which are clearly not what Campbell had in mind to classify them as nearly a hero's journey. The hero I believe has had the most influence on me fits into this category.
That hero is a character played by the incomparable Catherine Tate (which is part of the reason I was attracted to her character) on the brazenly over-rated television show Doctor Who. As the arc of a hero's journey can only be observed (or, honestly, contrived from) her first appearance on the show, I will focus on the first episode with the character of Donna, which happens to be a Christmas special. That episode goes like this: Donna walks down the isle at her wedding and is mysteriously sucked into the Doctor's time machine somewhere in space (her "call to adventure"), and she demands to be brought back to the church (her first of several "refusals of the quest"). They land somewhere not near the church, and Donna does some more yelling at the Doctor before she borrows ten quid off a lady for cab fare. Meanwhile the Doctor notices that there are many Santa Clauses around which are actually killer robots, and one of them is driving Donna's cab. So, he gets into his space ship and flies along-side the cab so she can leap into it (her first reluctant "acceptance of the call", sort of). After a short excursion, they go to Donna's wedding reception, where more robot Santas try to kill her family (a "test"). The Doctor tries to get to the bottom of what's going on, so he, Donna, and her betrothed go to their work, where they discover a secret basement (and Donna has another "acceptance" moment) and a big red spider lady who wants to use Donna to feed her children and eat the earth. Then, her future husband reveals that he's working for the spider lady, and the Doctor uses the robots' remote control to drain the River Themes into the spiders' pit and drown them while Donna tells him when to cut it out ("supreme ordeal"). With everything mended, Donna stays behind with more knowledge, experience, and maturity ("return home").
What I find appealing about this particular iteration of the hero's journey is Catherine Tate's character. Even though Donna is arguably not the main hero in this story, she did manage to go from ordinary and "not clever" to helping to save the world, which makes her somewhat heroic, all the while retaining the thing that makes all of Catherine Tate's characters great: her endless spunk. In my view, if you can rescue the universe from destruction, that's great for you, but a true hero can do it and express her displeasure in a sassy way simultaneously.
An ordinary hero often seems irreconcilable with an ordinary person's life: they begin as an utter looser and finish almost godlike, and, all the while, their persona doesn't make them the sort of person you'd like to have a coffee with. Donna, on the other hand, would be the ideal person to invite over for a cup before and after her ordeal. She's relatable in that she excels in humour and frustration (often at the same time), and she's awesome in that she has the experience of time travel and is an outright hero.
This is the sort of character that is supposed to be the subject of a hero's journey. She's someone who most anyone would instantly admire as a person, yet she still needed to mature at the beginning of her story. As she did that, all her best characteristics flourished, and her life became more meaningful than it was before. This shows the reader what a story should: the average person can become great due to circumstance or whatever, and they can keep those traits that made them great before.
