CLASSIC DOCTOR WHO COMPANIONS RANKED
A companion, (nyuck, nyuck), list to my previously posted
50 Favorite Classic Doctor Who Stories and
10 Worst Classic Doctor Who Stories, I shall now take it upon myself to rank the same era's companions. This should be self-explanatory enough, simply compiling a list of everyone who tagged-along with the Doctor from 1963 until 1989 when the program was initially cancelled before roaring back in 2005. As should be obvious from the word "classic" and true to my aforementioned lists which also pertained to the "classic" run, I will not be touching base on anything from the contemporary relaunch of the program. The good news is that lots of other people have ranked those companions, as a quick google search can prove. I am sure that some of them suck and some of them are great. As has always been tradition.
Now even though this is straightforward stuff, there are three discrepancies that I need to address first. This is to say that I have not included Katrina who appeared with the First Doctor, nor am I counting Kamelion who showed up with the Fifth Doctor, nor, (and maybe most controversially), I am not including K9. My reasons? I thought you'd never ask.
 |
| Clearly I just hate dogs. |
Well, Katrina accompanied the Doctor on a grand total of one story before jettisoning off to seldom be heard from again. Also, that story, (season three's The Dalek's Master Plan which stands as the series' longest at twelve episodes), is almost entirely missing, so one can hardly judge Adrienne Hill's Katrina fairly. As far as Kameleon goes, why anyone on Earth or any other planet considers it a companion in the first place is beyond me. It was merely a robotic prop that barely said anything and sat around in the TARDIS for a few "blink and you'll miss it" moments. Now K9 on the other hand got plenty of screen time, but also served that same "robotic prop" purpose more than being an actual character. Seriously, can you name any personality traits that K9 had besides doing what his Master and Mistress programmed him to? K9 was basically there just to get the Doctor out of a jam whenever the terrain for the outdoor shots was smooth enough to accommodate him for the ensuing story. Some K9 moments are fun, but still, I find it unjust to rank him along with others that were portrayed physically by humans and at least had the chance to let their charisma or lack thereof shine through.
On that note, on to the best and worst of the people who handed the Doctor test tubes and told him how brilliant he was...
The universally loathed Adric was an archetypal boy genius with an ugly outfit and a grating personality. In other words, perfect fodder for the worst
Doctor Who companion. Introduced in Tom Baker's final season as the first male companion since Harry Sullivan in Baker's first season, the Doctor technically did not even want him, as Adric was a stowaway on the TARDIS after the events of
Full Circle. The Doctor remained stuck with him for the next ten stories, one of three companions that bridged the gap between Baker's run and that of Peter Davison's. Though Adric was given a memorable departure in
Earthshock as the only
Who regular to get killed off, this was more of a "sorry about that, look we got rid of him" act of mercy from the producers than a well-deserved tearjerker. Adric was just kind of a wiener; argumentative, occasionally aggressive, and dumb enough to get himself killed by trying to crack a math equation that his superior intellect felt challenged by. At least actor Matthew Waterhouse seems like a wonderful bloke and has a
sense of humor about his character's hated legacy.
The first of three companions and the only one to allegedly bare any relation to the Doctor, (being regularly referred to as his "granddaughter"), Susan Foreman was unfortunately a wasted character. She spent the show's first ten stories screaming and crying a lot, falling into the hysterical damsel in distress stereotype instead of living up to any potential of her possibly being a fellow Time Lord, though Hartnell's era still kept the Doctor's origins and home planet a mystery anyway. Carole Ann Ford actually quit the program shortly into the second season because of the poor way in which her character was handled, and part of this was due to the showrunners still figuring out their footing while balancing the four leads in her, William Hartnell, Jacqueline Hill, and William Russell. It was inevitable in some respects then that Susan was going to get sidelined with nothing significant to do, but at least she popped back up in the 20th anniversary special The Five Doctors with more dignity than her original run ever afforded her, as well as getting plenty of screen time in the Ncuti Gatwa era.
Colin Baker's brief run as the Doctor was wrought with problems, and one of them was the way in which his second and final companion Mel Bush was introduced with no explanation in the flawed Trial of a Time Lord season. She just shows up at said trial in order to defend the Doctor's noble nature, continuing on with Sylvester McCoy for a bit without anyone bothering to explain what this bubbly and fitness-obsessed lady was doing there. A messy transition between Baker and McCoy's runs is to blame since there were allegedly plans to give Mel a proper origin as well as proper character traits besides being able to either scream loud enough to break glass or make the Doctor watch his diet. Mel seemed like a faithful and benevolent companion, but the audience was never given a chance to accept her on proper terms. Instead, she just floundered around and filled arbitrary roles for the small handful of stories that she was in. Thankfully though, actor/dancer/singer Bonnie Langford had and continued to have a fine career around her mismanaged Doctor Who stint, so no harm done.
Easily the most poorly handled companion departure was that of Jackie Lane's Dodo Chaplet halfway through the third season closer The War Machines, getting hypnotized by the bad guys and wandering off to recover, never to be seen from or barely mentioned again. Otherwise, Dodo was just a Mock II Susan, Lane allegedly even being considered for that role during the show's initial casting phase before Carole Ann Ford got it. An orphan gal from contemporary London, she was similar in appearance and reminded the Doctor enough of his "granddaughter" for her to join the team. While pleasant enough in temperament and personality, Dodo's biggest character arc was, (pun intended), in The Ark, where she doomed a future race of humans on board by giving them the common cold. Not counting her brief introduction at the end of The Massacre of St Bartholomew's Eve and her aforementioned and unceremonious departure in The War Machines, one of her four full stories is the worst one ever, (The Gunfighters), and another is in animated form, (The Savages), so her legacy is mute enough to make it understandable that Lane ended up retiring from acting and distancing herself from the series not long afterwards.
On paper, it was an interesting idea to have a companion start off their saga by trying to kill the Doctor. In execution though, said Black Guardian trilogy arc was loaded with goofy plot holes, and Vislor Turlough proved to be just about the worst organism in the cosmos to task with killing anyone, as he consistently botched his innumerable opportunities to do the Doctor in as he was instructed. Turlough was hardly a villain though, just a quasi-mysterious and exiled alien posing as a student at a school where the Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart was teaching. Yet even after he was freed from the Black Guardian's influence, he still continued to exhibit less than noble attributes, at least when the scripts needed him to. Whenever anyone was knocked out, in dire trouble, or presumed dead, Turlough was just as likely to instantaneously proclaim that saving them was a lost cause as he was to go into a rage trying to help them. It is no wonder that Tegan in particular never trusted or liked this guy, but it IS a wonder why Peter Davison's Doctor kept him hanging around to begin with. That said, Turlough's final story Planet of Fire redeemed him somewhat and brought him back to his home planet, as well as introducing Doctor Who fans to Nicola Bryant in a bikini.
20 & 19. Ben Jackson and Polly It is difficult to break up Ben Jackson and Polly, both of whom shared almost identical arcs in their exact same stories together with both the First and Second Doctors. Two of those stories are missing, three are only available as animated reconstructions, and their other three are incomplete in their original form. Comparatively, this gives us a minimal amount of footage to judge them on, but from what modern audiences can gather, they fulfilled their companion assignments in formulaic enough terms, which is neither a bad or great thing. Both Ben and Polly were witness to the first regeneration sequence, a moment that continually confused several further companions where all of a sudden the weird alien guy that they had been traveling with collapsed on the floor and turned into a completely different weird alien guy. Polly and Ben both met Dodo in
The War Games, Jamie in
The Highlanders, Ben killed a Cyberman in
The Tenth Planet, and Polly was never given an official last name and mostly just looked pretty. They departed together as amicably as they joined such TARDIS shenanigans in the first place, sticking around on Earth after the events of
The Faceless Ones, presumably to engage in less dangerous British activities like sipping tea and eating crumpets.
18. Victoria Waterfield Created as a backup for Pauline Collins' character in
The Faceless Ones whom the show's production was hoping would stick around as a companion, Deborah Watling's Victoria Waterfield was instead bestowed such an honor in the following story
The Evil of the Daleks. A native of Victorian England, (hence the name "Victoria"), she stuck around for seven stories and besides the aforementioned Daleks, she also came into contact with all of the early Doctor's greatest foes, including the Cybermen, the Ice Warriors, Abominable Snowmen, and the Yeti. She even had to deal with the Doctor's evil Mexican dictator look-alike in
The Enemy of the World. Plenty for a fifteen year-old scientist's daughter from 1866 to deal with, especially after her father was killed in front of her by a Dalek blast. Being someone from Earth's past, this allowed for some fish-out-of-water moments to occur throughout her stint. Left orphaned and tagging along with the Doctor and Jamie, (the latter of whom inadvertently got the feelings for her), Victoria was charming and pleasant, but she hardly upheld any kind of formidable feminist trajectory, understandably just being scared and in danger most of the time.
17. Vicki The first new companion to join the fold after Carole Ann Ford stepped down as Susan, Vicki got a nine story run and was an overall improvement on her misused predecessor. That said, she still was delegated to doing typical girl things like being in peril and needing a smart guy like the Doctor or a strong guy like Steven Taylor to help her out of a jam. Yet she also had a more independent demeanor and spent her time doing things besides just screaming and complaining. Both William Hartnell and Patrick Troughton's Doctors sure liked to take on orphans as companions, and Vicki's origins adhered to the trope. She was brought on board the TARDIS in the two-parter
The Rescue, (which was specifically designed to introduce her), a survivor of a crashed spaceship in the 25th century who like Victoria Waterfield, has her father murdered by the bad guys. Perhaps the most memorable thing about her was that she eventually decides to settle down in ancient Troy during
The Myth Makers, falling in love with and marrying the legendary Trojan warrior Troilus and becoming the also legendary faithless lover Cressida. A follow-up story exploring her mythic adventures would have been lovely, but alas, the series moved on without her.
16. Steven Taylor Like every companion from the William Hartnell and Patrick Troughton eras, the appearances of Peter Purves' Steven Taylor are limited since nearly half of his ten stories are missing and only available, (if at all), in stills and audio reconstructions. Four of them are complete though, his debut
The Chase, the excellent
The Time Meddler, the terrible
The Gunslingers, and the perfectly cromulent
The Ark. In any event, Steven served as a more convincing form of muscle than average Joe school teacher Ian Chesterton, having fought in the Krayt War on the planet Mechanus for two years before stowing away on the TARDIS. Once he was on board with the Doctor and Vicki after Ian and Barbara had finally taken their leave back on Earth, he was able to do more of the physical stuff that Hartnell's elderly Time Lord was incapable of. He also argued with the Doctor eventually, something that made it plausible for him to depart when he did, as opposed to the writers just coming up with something because an actor's contract was not renewed. Steven was fine if unmemorable, and he at least had a strong-willed personality and a strict moral code that clashed at times with the Doctor's more inherently alien view of right and wrong.
15. Tegan Jovanka One of the longest standing
Doctor Who companions, Australian air hostess Tegan Jovanka stuck around for a whopping nineteen serials, and she was the only one to dip out at the end of one story and return in the next. Unfortunately, she was also largely a pain in the ass. Stubborn and initially complaining a lot about not being able to get back to her appropriate point in time to serve people drinks on airplanes, Tegan eventually seemed to just accept her fate and went along with the dangerous shenanigans that the Doctor and the rest of the companions got into via a TARDIS that seemed to off-shoot its Heathrow Airport coordinates eleven times out of ten. As mentioned though, even when she did get back home and was able to move on with her life, she still managed to stumble right back into the TARDIS for more adventures, adventures that would eventually push her to the point of a tearful and hasty farewell at the end of
Resurrection of the Daleks. This was actually a rare moment for the program where the trauma of deadly time travel encounters actually took its toll on someone, and Tegan's departure redeemed some of her more shrill personality traits. After all, one can only come so close to dying on the regular before saying "enough is enough already".
More memorable just for being in some of the all-time best Doctor Who stories, Ian Marter's Harry Sullivan proved to be an unnecessary addition to the Tom Baker era, each debuting in the same story Robot. Sullivan was originally brought in as a precaution in case Baker was unable to perform any of the "man of action" routines that his predecessor Jon Pertwee did. While Baker was a much different Doctor that Pertwee, he was also no decrepit slouch and was fine doing the physical stuff, rendering Sullivan as just a disbelieving UNIT employee who was occasionally clumsy and said delightful British things like "jolly good" and "right-o". Still, Ian Marter handled the part admirably and even went on to write several Who novelizations, as well as an abandoned movie script that would have seen the Forth Doctor battling an incarnation of Satan titled Doctor Who Meets Scratchman, something that probably would have been either great or terrible. Sullivan did stuff against the Daleks during their initial formation, also did stuff against the Cybermen, the Kraals, the Sontarans, the Zygons, and had his first venture via the TARDIS in the exemplary The Ark in Space. This is as good of a run as any companion could hope for, even if you could have removed Harry from all of those stories and things would have turned out the same.
Peri Brown was John Nathan-Turner's idea to have an eye candy companion, and in this respect, actor Nicola Bryant's supermodel looks, banging cleavage, and revealing outfits certainly fit the agenda. As an actual character, she was treated primary as someone to get captured and tied up every week, furthering the regrettable misogynistic trajectory. She was conceived as an American, and originally only American actors were considered for the part. Bryant got it by faking her accent convincingly enough, though it does slip regularly during her eleven stories with both Peter Davison and Colin Baker. Infamously, hers was the companion that Baker strangled after his faulty regeneration in the abysmal The Twin Dilemma, and this was right after her hefty boobs were prominently displayed above Davison's head during his dramatic "death" scene in the outstanding The Caves of Androzani. Not to keep harping on Bryant's physical appearance, but that was the main selling point, and poor Peri also had to endure the unlikable personality of Baker's Doctor during his entire first season run. Bryant did her best with the partly thankless assignment and managed to make her companion someone that we cared about, but her departure was just as controversial as her tenure. Given a bald cap and a mentor species mind transplant, this was retconned two stories later when Peri inexplicably marries Brian Blessed's King Yrcanos off camera and lives happily ever after, even though the two characters were never romantic on screen. That said, who wouldn't wanna be married to Brian Blessed amiright?
12. Liz Shaw Debuting in the same story that introduced Jon Pertwee and simultaneously brought the program out of black and white and into color, Liz Shaw was a UNIT scientific adverser that inadvertently became the Third Doctor's first companion. Equipped with a hefty IQ to garnish her the UNIT position in the first place, Miss Shaw initially scoffed at the notion of extraterrestrial threats and the like, but a run-in with the Autons quickly changed her mind. Liz was a sufficient edition, a woman who was not merely delegated to wearing a skirt and getting captured, but could actually grasp some of the scientific mumbo jumbo that the Doctor dished out, all while having a consistently steady-willed personality in the face of extraordinary circumstances. Sadly, her character was not given much time to develop, actor Caroline John leaving the program after a lone season and only four stories. Her departure happened off-screen and her arc was barely touched upon afterwards, but she did get to be an alternate universe bad guy version of herself in the Third Doctor's damn near finest serial
Inferno, doing the cold, militant fascist thing as good as her fellow costars, with a brunette helmet wig on for good measure.
11. Nyssa
An aristocratic native of Traken who debuted in the fittingly titled eighteenth season gem
The Keeper of Traken,
Nyssa became a companion after her father's body was taken over by the
Master, who also happened to murder her stepmother and destroy her home
planet. As
Johnathan Banks would say, what an asshole. Actually, her joining the TARDIS crew followed
an unorthodox trajectory where the mysterious Watcher in Tom Baker's
final serial
Logopolis saved her from destruction after her mind
was freed from the Master's influence. She kind of just arrives, with
the same dark purple outfit on that she would be stuck with almost
exclusively throughout her thirteen story run on the program, a
production insistence to save on costuming costs. In some respects,
Nyssa was a casualty of too many companions in the TARDIS, getting
shoehorned into the plot just as much as she was given anything
significant to do, let alone anything that developed her character. She
proved to have a latent psychic ability, but not much was done with this
revelation, and she eventually decides to stick around on a liberated
space station after behaving bizarrely and removing most of her clothes
as an unofficial act of making up for the fact that she was previously
the most fabric-covered companion in the show's history. Still, she was a compassionate yet consistently even-keeled member of the crew, as well as the best one during Peter Davison's tenure.
10. Ian Chesterton One of the OG companions introduced in the first episode
An Unearthly Child, Ian Chesterton ended up serving his purpose as a man of action when need be, considering that William Hartnell's long-in-the-tooth Doctor was hardly one to engage in fisticuffs and the like. The fact that William Russell's Ian was a science teacher and not a professional athlete hardly mattered in the course of his sixteen story run whenever the script needed him to sword fight or utilize martial arts, but as any Dungeons & Dragons campaign can attest to, every party of adventurers needs its muscle. Ian and fellow schoolteacher tag-along Barbara Wright had a non-romantic chemistry with each other, and Ian often went out of his way to protect or save her, though not any more than any other companion did for their fellow travelers. Both Ian and Barbara stuck around for the same number of serials, being granted a fun photo montage once they finally returned to earth after defeating the Daleks in
The Chase, much to the protesting Doctor's chagrin. The show was still trying to find its legs during its first season or so and in this respect, the companions got as much screen time if not more so than the Doctor did as the program was more ensemble friendly in its infancy. Ian was an essential part of that initial chemistry and set the template for most of the male companions that would follow.
Out of the three initial Doctor Who companions, history teacher Barbara Wright was the most agreeably handled. Whereas her fellow teacher-turned-space-traveler Ian Chesterton was tasked with more physical actions than ones that pertained to his science educator background, and the Doctor's "granddaughter" Susan was mostly tasked with being hysterical and getting captured, Barbara's acts of curiosity when landing anywhere back in time were more justified due to her profession. She also dealt with a lot of bullshit besides accidentally stumbling into the TARDIS with Ian in the first episode An Unearthly Child, at which point the Doctor figured he could not let them go because they would tell people about him, (which has never been an issue for any incarnation of the Doctor since). Barbara was sold as a slave, nearly guillotined, got infected by a deadly insecticide, and even had the distinction of being the first character to meet and be threatened at blaster-range by a Dalek. She also memorably tried to stop ancient Aztec people from human sacrificing each other, (something that the Doctor pushed back on), bringing to the forefront the time travel conundrum where changing history even with the noblest of intentions can either be impossible or disastrous.
Whereas most of the Doctor's post-Barbara lady companions had interchangeable characteristics from each other, (meaning look adorable, get captured, and scream every now and then), Zoe Heriot was a refreshing addition in the fact that she was a certifiable math wiz. Zoe allegedly possessed an IQ that was on par with the Doctor's, at least when it came to doing calculations and the like. She even hilariously utilized this ability to make an annoying, automated secretary machine blow up in The Invasion by asking it a series of unanswerable questions. Stemming from the 21st century where the Doctor and Jamie meet her on board of a space station dubbed the Wheel, Zoe has a naivete to match her book smarts, going along on the TARDIS out of frustration in her stuffy librarian gig and wanting to get some adventures under her belt. Eight such other adventures followed, where she encounters the Ice Warriors, the Cybermen twice, a comic strip character from the future that she ridiculously bests in physical combat, and eventually the Time Lords themselves in Patrick Troughton's farewell The War Games. Charming and beloved, Zoe and fellow companion Jamie completed the best trifecta of the Second Doctor's era.
While the last handful of years in
Doctor Who's initial running may have left much to be desired, at least the program's final companion before its cancellation in 1989 was one that hardly anyone could find fault with. Not since Leela was there a companion of any kind, (let alone a female one), who had no damsel in distress qualities. Ace was a tomboy from the suburbs of modern day London with a troubled past, one that was actually dove into and expanded upon during her nine story tenure on the program. She was transported to the future after indulging in her favorite past time, (blowing shit up with homemade explosives), begrudgingly working as a waitress when she met Mel and the Doctor and giddily joined the latter on his travels. Her instantaneous loyalty to the Doctor, delightful habit of calling him "Professor", and quick-thinking/fight back instincts made her a refreshing partner in shenanigans. The Doctor purposely provoked her at times, bringing her to significant locations from her past that contributed to trauma that she suffered. Even when emotionally pushed though, Ace always found a way to both enjoy herself and keep her survival instincts in check, even going so far as to
beat the fuck out of a Dalek with a baseball bat. It is no wonder then that the Doctor trusted her in a jam and knew that she could handle the companion assignment with flying colors.
The companion with the most televised stories under his belt by a significant margin, (twenty-two of them), was the Second Doctor's almost consistent tag-along Jamie McCrimmon. Appearing in every Patrick Troughton serial except
The Power of the Daleks, (which is only available in animated form anyway), Jamie and the Second Doctor therefor make a near inseparable team. An 18th century Scotsman with the appropriate dialect and kilt in tow, Jamie was a gentleman, a formidable fighter, worldly and practical instead of scientifically-minded due to the historical era from which he was snatched, and had a well-rounded rapport with the Doctor that bounced between confrontational to playful. He remained devoted to him until the end though, and there is probably not another companion in the show's initial run that was more likely to stick around indefinitely unless outside forces intervened. This ended up being the case at the end of
The War Games, where the Doctor was forced to regenerate and begin his exile on Earth, while both Zoe and Jamie were returned to their respective places in time, yet with their memories erased as to their moments on board the TARDIS. A cruel fate, especially for Jamie considering the sheer amount of adventures that he was involved in. Actor Frazer Hines is also unique in that he has continued not just as Jamie in the audio adventures, but as the Second Doctor himself, being able to do
a solid Patrick Troughton impression on top of his trusty Scottish accent, all in single takes no less.
Unless one counts Susan whose "relation" to the Doctor was never explored yet may be of the fellow Time Lord equation, Romanadvoratrelundar, ("Romana" for merciful short), was the only other fellow Gallifreyian to be a companion. Thus being the case, she was given the regeneration treatment, embarrassingly so in the seventeenth season opener Destiny of the Daleks where she "tries on" several bodies before settling on Lela Ward's, who played Princess Astra in the proceeding The Armageddon Factor. So Time Lords can just do that apparently? Initially though, Romana was portrayed by Mary Tamm during the season-long A Key to Time arc, assigned to the Doctor by the White Guardian to help retrieve the all-powerful artifact of the title. Tamm and reigning Doctor Tom Baker were never able to click as well as other TARDIS duos were, but since she was reluctantly thrust upon him anyway along with an equally unwanted assignment, their lack of on-screen chemistry made sense. Baker and Ward on the other hand, (who quickly married and just as quickly divorced), were a different story and had the warmest and most humorous compatibility with each other since Sarah-Jane Smith was in the mix. More to the point, Romana was the one companion that could be seen as the Doctor's intellectual equal, someone that he did not have to condescendingly explain things to or educate in the ways of the universe. Granted this meant that Baker was allowed to act like a buffoonish savant for several successive stories, but still, their paring at its best made one wish that the show was called Doctors Whos instead, since seeing two Time Lords put their heads together to solve predicaments was that much more engaging.
04. Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart
Less of a traveling companion and more of a trusted confidant to collaborate with amongst Earth threats from intergalactic baddies, Brigadier Sir Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart was singular in the ranks of the Doctor's allies. The great Nicholas Courtney portrayed the Brigadier twice before he became a regular during most of Jon Pertwee's five season run, getting his upgraded military title in his second appearance The Invasion, doubling as the debut of UNIT for which Lethbridge-Stewart would forever be identified with. Even after retiring from the military, the Brigadier still got back in action on three more occasions, memorably in The Five Doctors and especially Mawdryn Undead, and less memorably in season twenty-six's Battlefield. Saying things like "five rounds rapid" and persistently rolling his eyes at the ineffectiveness of Earth weapons against literally every extraterrestrial menace, the Brigadier was a consistently humorous presence, commenting on the show's more ridiculous narrative hallmarks with a nod and a wink. He also holds the distinction of being the only companion to have run-ins with all seven of the initial Doctors, well-used to the fact that they keep changing personalities and physical appearances every time that they pop back up in some potentially disastrous situation. No matter what situation that was though, (unless one counts his ranting and raving Reverse-Spock turn in Inferno), the Brigadier remained calm, collective, inquisitive, determined, and cooperative, doing what was necessary and increasingly trusting the Doctor's judgement no matter how tied his hands were or how useless UNIT's firepower was.
A literal precursor to Sarah-Jane Smith, Jo Grant served the purpose of a surrogate for the audience, someone who was effortlessly likeable and could ask the Doctor any question that needed to be explained to the people watching at home. It was that likeability part that made her so enduring though. Jo Grant first showed up in season eight's kick-off Terror of the Autons, (the same story that likewise introduced the Master and UNIT Captain Michael Yates), assigned to the Doctor by the Brigadier after her well-positioned uncle allegedly pulled some strings to get her the gig. It took hardly any time for Jo to warm the Doctor's bitter heart, and who could blame him? Katy Manning brought a bubbly energy to her portrayal from the onset, steering clear of being a full-blown ditzy blonde, instead possessing a charming naivete that made everyone around her as eager to look out for her as she was to look out for them. Jo willingly went with the Doctor into one dangerous scenario after the other, complaining less than most. She particularly endured the exploits of Roger Delgado's Master on eight different occasions, though even he was hard pressed to resist Miss Grant's pizzazz and said as much on occasion. Because it was so well-earned during her time with the Doctor, (both of whom proved their fondness and loyalty to each other ad nauseam), Joe's departure at the end of The Green Death still stands as the best and most heart string-pulling that any companion ever got.
By far the most popular Doctor Who companion and the only one to get not one but two spin-off series, freelance journalist Sarah-Jane Smith crystalized the best and most frequented attributes of the tag-along role. She was endlessly delightful, no dummy, full of piss and vinegar, devoted, never at a loss for asking questions that the Doctor could answer and ergo cue the viewer on, and was given her own agency just as much as she was required to scream at monsters while being terrorized. Amazingly, Elisabeth Sladen was a replacement for the part, coming in after initial actor April Walker allegedly got on disastrously with Jon Pertwee. As the cliche goes, it is impossible now to imagine anyone else as Sarah-Jane, Sladen becoming so known for the role that a bulk of her screen career afterwards revolved around revisiting it. Sarah Jane did everything from formulating a revolt against Thal oppressors in Genesis of the Daleks, (and was also the voice of reason in trying to convince the Doctor to commit genocide against the Dalkes in their infancy when given the chance), to mouthing off against medieval bandits and Sontarans in The Time Warrior, to inadvertently resurrecting an extraterrestrial super power in The Hand of Fear. This just scratches the surface from her original run where both Pertwee and Tom Baker's Doctors had undeniable chemistry with her, and she even managed to team up with K9 and David Tennant for a spell later on. It helped that the show was churning out many of their best stories during her tenure, and she appeared in over nineteen of them before the program's cancellation. Considering that most casual Who fans could name her over any other companion just goes to prove that her legacy is sound.
Doctor Who hit its stride in the 1970s, so it is no wonder that the show offered up its three best companions in a row during this era. Leela of the Sevateem showed up in season fourteen's exceptional The Face of Evil, a savage woman whose answer to most problems was to throw poisonous janis thorns at it and ask questions later. She was miles removed from every other companion before or since, providing the best possible juxtaposition between her and the pacifist man of science Doctor. Yet Leela would not have worked if she was Neanderthal-brained or merely meant to be something sexy to look at. Her warrior instincts and lack of scientific knowledge made her the perfect protegee for the Doctor, who took it upon himself to educate her in the ways of trusting science over blind superstition, as well as the merit of not killing anyone who opposes you before trying less violent methods of communication. The fact that the Doctor acted begrudgingly to this pairing at first, (Leela runs into the TARDIS at the end of The Face of Evil and dematerializes it as he is trying to leave her on her home planet), was actually a natural byproduct of Louise Jameson and Tom Baker's rocky professional relationship with each other at first. Baker was uncomfortable working with a half-naked actor and missed his rapport with Elisabeth Sladen, but he and Jameson eventually buried the hatchet during the making of The Horror of Fang Rock, where Leela hilariously slaps the shit out of the screaming damsel in distress character. They have continued to do numerous audio adventures with each other since, and even though Leela appeared in only nine stories, several of them are some of the most outstanding. More to the point, she was simply the most badass Who companion, quick on her feet, quick to learn from the best, and damn good with whatever weapons she could get her hands on.
