Companions

For every Doctor, there has been a companion. In fact, there have been several, sometimes two or three at once... but who were they and which Doctor were they with? How did they join him and how did they leave?

Don't worry, I'll fill you in as best I can and we'll all be friends by the end of it! Each companion will have their own page linked from the list below and in the menu as well as from their Doctor's page.

The Companions

Susan Foreman
Barbara Wright
Ian Chesterton
Vicki
Steven Taylor
Dodo Chaplet
Polly
Ben Jackson
Jamie McCrimmon
Victoria Waterfield
Zoe Heriot
Liz Shaw
Jo Grant
Sarah Jane Smith
Harry Sullivan
Leela
K-9
Romana
Adric
Nyssa
Tegan Jovanka
Vislor Turlough
Peri Brown
Melanie Bush
Ace
Rose Tyler
Martha Jones
Donna Noble
Amy Pond
Rory Williams
Clara Oswald

Other Friends...

What makes a companion?

That's an interesting and much debated question. On the surface, it is simply a friend of the Doctor who helps him on his adventures and travels with him in his TARDIS. However, once you look a little deeper you find that not all his friends travel with him and they aren't always helpful, in fact, on many occasions they get in the way and add to his problems by being captured or mislead. In story telling terms, the Doctor's companion is there as someone the viewers can relate to and who can ask questions on their behalf. As Katy Manning, who played Jo Grant, often says these days, the companion's job is to scream at the monsters and say "But Doctor..." and "What is it?" in a plethora of new and interesting ways!

Companion or Assistant?

One of the debated semantics is whether the Doctor's friends are called "Companions" or "Assistants" and often lazy journalists will get it wrong and viewers, if not fans, will follow their bad example. For me, it is clear. They are companions because they are friends he gathers along the way rather than people assigned to help him. They can not be assigned to help him because he does not have any specific task set before him (apart from the rare occasions when the Time Lords specifically asked for his help) There are exceptions to this rule though... in 1970 the Doctor found himself in exile on Earth which resulted in him unofficially working for UNIT (unofficially because as far as official Earth records go, he didn't exist!) At that point Liz Shaw was assigned as his assistant and would never travel in the TARDIS. The following year, Jo Grant was introduced as a replacement assistant and eventually, as the Doctor regained control of his TARDIS she would travel with him. So Liz was an assistant and Jo was an assistant who became a companion!

Who is on the list?

My criteria is simple. To make it onto my list of Companions a character must fulfil 3 conditions:

• Appear in three consecutive adventures
• Travel in the TARDIS
• Remain with the Doctor until it is time to say goodbye

But if Liz fulfilled the same role as Jo and every other 'normal' companion, shouldn't she be on the list too, even if she didn't travel in the TARDIS? Yes indeed, she should, and she is. Liz Shaw is the one exception to the rule since, like Jo, she would have travelled with the Doctor if he wasn't stranded on Earth. There are other characters who will not be on the list but get a special mention under "Other Friends". The Brigadier, for instance, appeared as part of the regular UNIT team but also worked with the Doctor in later series (and indeed earlier ones). More recently, River Song and Captain Jack Harkness are regulars and indeed have travelled in the TARDIS but I do not count them as companions because they don't stay with him. Saying goodbye to a companion does not stop them from returning but those returns must be special rather than frequent. Having a life without the Doctor pretty much excludes them from the title of Companion.

Who is not on the list?

Well, everyone else, obviously! Check the "Other Friends" page for the non-companions who deserve an honorary mention but the following characters are often/sometimes listed as companions but I have no intention of including them beyond these brief details:

• Katarina - Featured in The Myth Makers and could have replaced Vicki had she not sacrificed herself four episodes into the following adventure. Clearly a noteworthy character but little more than any one-story encounter
• Sara Kingdom - Featured in The Daleks' Master Plan from episode 4 to 12 only. She may have travelled in the TARDIS but wasn't even considered for onward companionship
• Kamelion - Introduced in The King's Demons under the Master's control, Kamelion was intended to be a new companion but technical difficulties (he was a robot, after all) saw him written out six adventures later having never been seen over the 12 months in between. As with Katarina, Kamelion's departure was by means of self sacrifice
• Grace Holloway - Featured as the one-time companion with the one-time Doctor of the 1996 TV Movie. The key logic here lies in the phrase "one-time"
• Adam Mitchell - Picked up during Dalek and dropped off during The Long Game, two consecutive stories with the 10th Doctor. Adam's role in Dalek was no more than any other one-story encounter and his trip in the TARDIS was something of a rescue. He may have helped in The Long Game but it was only ever going to be a one-off trip
• Mickey Smith - Rose's boyfriend travelled on and off with her and the 10th Doctor
• Wilfred Mott - The Grandfather of Donna Noble who really only came close to the companion role in the 10th Doctor's final adventure The End Of Time which was also the last time we saw him.
• Special episodes - Anyone who worked closely with the 10th Doctor during the 2009 specials or any of the Christmas episodes - They were all one-story encounters and the only one who came close to companion potential was Lady Christina de Souza but she was essentially there for her own adventures and flew off to pursue more. Donna Noble may have started as a Christmas encounter but came back for a full series a year later.
• Craig Owens - Has appeared in two non-consecutive adventures while the main companion (Amy Pond) was otherwise detained
• Anyone from the Peter Cushing films, novelisations, comics, audio adventures, etc. They simply aren't canon

Companions that could have been

Every now and then characters are created with the intention of them becoming new companions but for various reasons they do not. This is not an area I have much knowledge of so the list will grow as I make my way through the serials and make new discoveries. Curiously, I am aware of the first and last could-have-beens so I will start with them:

• Jenny - Featured in The Dalek Invasion Of Earth as a young rebel and mostly accompanied Barbara throughout the story. The character was originally written as a younger Indian girl called Saida who would stow away in the TARDIS at the end of the story, but the part was built up for the narrative and was replaced by Jenny, a young Caucasian woman. The new character wasn't appropriate for replacing Susan and so Vicki was created and given her own two part story The Rescue in which to be introduced and join the TARDIS
• Ray - Featured in Delta And The Bannermen as a 1950s teenager with an interest in motorbikes. Current companion Mel was on her way out but actress Bonnie Langford wasn't exactly committed to a finishing date when the series went into production so two serials were commissioned with potential replacements so a last minute decision could be made. In the end, Ray was deemed to be too soft and similar to Mel and Delta And The Bannermen became the series's penultimate adventure, followed by Dragonfire which introduced Ace and concluded with a cumbersome scene where Ace and Mel swap places