Saying you have a favorite companion is like saying you have a favorite doctor. They all brought something different to the character, so the measure of a good companion was how well they meshed with the Doctor Du Jour.
Jo Grant was always my favorite. Showing my age I think.
Sarah Jane I liked, but mostly because she worked well with the TB Doctor.
I actually preferred Romana I. I think I'm in the minority there. I found Romana II a bit lifeless at times, unless she happened to be under the mind control of an alien presence.
Oh and definitely K-9, for his nuianced characterizations. That actor was amazing.
I do have a favorite Doctor...Chris Eccleston
My favorite Companion is Captain Jack, though he wasn't truly a companion...wasn't around long enough, I do like Sarah Jane and really enjoyed the appearance in the new series.
It's a threeway tie between Sara Jane, Leela and Amy Pond.
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Amy Pond is easy to look at, and I like her attitude. I'm still kind of waiting to really connect with the character, though. Plus her husband is pretty annoying.
:)
Plus, if you missed it last page:
The Brigadier has already been in Sarah Jane Adventures (Season 2, Episodes 11 & 12, Enemy of the Bane). :)
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Amy Pond is easy to look at, and I like her attitude. I'm still kind of waiting to really connect with the character, though. Plus her fiancee is pretty annoying.
The hot girl/stupid guy combo is annoying, and crops up too often -- though Rory's certainly grown on me since he first appeared.
As with a lot of family shows there's plenty of dad-service, bith in the new series and the original series -- Amy's legs, Peri's breasts, Rose, Nyssa's lack of skirt (*vital* to the plot...), Leela's general lack of clothes, and Zoe was pretty scandalous back in the day.
As for my choices... probably Romana 2, Nyssa, Teegan, and Amy in no particular order.
Rory has improved for certain. My favourite companion is still Sarah Jane Smith...a great dynamic with the Fourth Doctor. Runners-up are (in no particular order). Leela, Romana and Donna.
Cheers
Mark
The new series Companions are more of an extended family. With Donna Noble in particular the Doctor did not just take on a Companion, he to some degree became part of the Noble family as well, perhaps the only time he's ever been part of one while in his full memory since his exile from Gallifrey.
Donna is my favourite of the nuWho companions...just a good character with an interesting relationship with the Doctor. She was a kind of red herring in The End of Time and that was a bit disappointing but once the decision to have Wilf as the Maguffin for the regeneration it's a bit hard not to include the rest of the Noble family.
Cheers
Mark
It's a threeway tie between Sara Jane, Leela and Amy Pond.My affection for Leela has waned a bit as I've matured. I like that Ace became just as much an action girl as Leela did without having to ride on fan service to do so. Plus she inspired some immortal lines like the following.
"Ace!, Hand me some of that Nitro-Nine you're not carrying."
Ace was cool, I liked her attitude, and I have actually met Sophie.
Pond is very easy on the eyes with some attitude, if a little young (but that's 'cause I'm not exactly young).Peri did have a couple of reasons to watch her ;-)
I avidly watched the "old" stuff when it aired the first time and loved it, but I really like the new, the writing is on the whole is very good.
Favourite:- Any companion that didn't break down in hysterics every time it got "scary".
I forgot to mention my honorable mention - Sally Sparrow
She would be my favorite but she never actually traveled with the doctor.
I think the Amy Pond character is based off of Sally Sparrow, they are both smart, brave, funny, very pretty and had nebbish boyfriends.
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1. Sarah Jane Smith (I was in love with her when I first found her at age 12; still am)
2. Peri
3. Leela
4. Ace
5. Romana (Mark 2)
6. Nyssa
7. Adric
8. Jo
9. Tegan
10. K-9
11. Lethbridge-Stewart
12. Harry SullivanAs far as the new series compared to the old series; they are just different. The new show has more of a sense of whimsy and serious drama. And the Doctor would have never had romantic feelings for any of his companions on the old series.
I wrote this list pre-Amy Pond. Move her to my number 2 spot. She is super-hot and I love her attitude....
Oh my goodness.
A year ago, I was surprised and thrilled when dmchucky69 started a thread about classic Doctor Who (as opposed to "New" Who,) as I didn't think there were a lot of classic Who fans on these boards. When Vic Wertz contributed to that thread, I was in heaven.
And now, I find out that back in 2007, there were threads on the subject in which Erik Mona demonstrated EXTENSIVE knowledge of the show! Not to mention so many familiar names, like Matthew Morris, Chris Mortika, Aubrey the Malformed, The Jade, flash_cxxi...
Oh my goodness.
Well, there's no contest for my favorite Who companion. Ever since I was a kid, my favorite was K-9. I was always a fan of robots, ever since I saw R2-D2 in Star Wars. (I hated Kamelion, though.)
My favorites:
Barbara Wright (smart, capable, very, very human, gave the Doctor what-for when he deserved it)
Zoe Heriot (talked a computer into exploding. 'Nuff said.)
Leela ("Don't worry, Doctor! I shall protect you!" I LOVED that turnaround.)
Romana (Particularly the Tamm version who's grown on me a lot; there was something lovely about her particular mix of naivete and snark.)
Tegan (The episode "Kinda" is what got me hooked to Doctor Who, with her ordeal with the Mara. Plus I like the brash mouthy ones.)
Ace (Not just 'cause she blew things up, but I really liked her relationship with the Doctor, a really nice mentor/mentee relationship and a great friendship.)
Donna Noble (Favorite NuWho companion by far. The fact that I myself am a mouthy spunky secretary probably helps.)
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And a word on less loved companions (NOT looking to start an argument here, just wanted to say...). I will spoiler it since it's a bit off topic.
Susan Foreman: She was awesome for a couple episodes. And then they turned her into the first ankle twister archetype that has stuck with Doctor Who fans' memories far more than it should have. I always felt sorry for Carole Ann Ford for the creators not developing Susan the way they should have. She was smart and psychic and should have been awesome. In her best moments, though, she shines, and of course her relationship with her grandfather (the Doctor) was lovely.
Adric: I will be the first to say I hate the boy, but... I think he was also just the wrong companion brought in--or kept--at the wrong time. He actually worked well with the 4th Doctor and Romana II---this naive boy with these two Time Lords worked really well. But he did not work well at all with Peter Davison, and his role of "genius teenager" was way too overlapped with Nyssa--who had way better chemistry (generically speaking) with both the Fifth Doctor and Tegan.
Peri Brown: She's a forthright, intelligent young woman, and she can shout louder than you can (Best Tell-Off to the Master, EVER). A botany student, who in rare moments when a writer actually gave her character thought, could show off her expertise wonderfully. And yet to most people, she's just a pair of teats, and I think that's really sad. Not that I think anything is wrong with boobies, I have two of them myself and enjoy others' as well (read into that what you will). She was written inconsistently, unfortunately, so her appearance is largely what's left her, her best (admittedly rare) moments are forgotten in favor of her leotards. Nicola Bryant's dreadful American accent didn't help matters, but she and her character had so much potential to be more.
Mel: Poor Mel. Everyone hates on Mel. Mel's problem goes back to one very simple thing: we don't know a damned thing about her. She was a collection of character traits in perky 80s clothing. Every companion before and since had an introductory episode that really focused on that person, what they did for a living, how they met the Doctor, and set up the nature of what their relationship would be. Even if the companion afterward didn't get a lot of good forward development (which occasionally happened, though less often than some accuse OldWho of doing) they had that anchoring introduction that helped people relate to her. Mel just go thrown into her first story headlong, her meeting with the Doctor forever off screen. Some people hate on Bonnie Langford--yes, she's perky, yes, she's a stage actress and it shows--but if anything, she at least gives what was a very woodenly written character some semblance of life. I've heard Mel was redeemed somewhat in the Big Finish audios, and while I could never afford to catch up with the masses of BF productions (and I've noticed of the ones I have listened to, they vary in quality widely), I might have to check one of hers out at some point.
Stuff about Mel
I too felt sorry for Mel/Bonnie. Unlike a lot of others coming through the studio doors Bonnie was, at least, an experienced actress but hamstrung by the public and press perception of her as either an annoying brat (her role in the Just William tv series or as a perky dancer from Cats and others. I've read that the first press screening of her character was of her skipping and Bonnie wanted the ground to swallow her up. It's the writers fault for scripting her as what we dreaded she would be like.
Big Finish stuff does vary in quality but I've found that all the 'classic' cast come of better, treated with a little more love for the characters. Colin Baker gets to be the Doctor he wanted to all along (and no costume!) and Peri comes off smarter. I've yet to hear the recent Fifth Doctor stuff with the old full Tardis complement.
Cheers
Mark
Sarah Jane Smith will always be the woman I can never obtain. As someone else mentioned in a previous post, I, too, fell in love with her as a boy. I'll always look at her wistfully.
Romana 1 was easy to look at, but I really preferred Romana 2.
Leela was awesome, and I found out that Louise Jameson was, herself, also awesome (Met her briefly at a Legion of Rassilon meeting ages and ages back - directed her to the KTEH studios in the same building so she could make the interview she was doing with George Sampson that night... She was so polite and friendly!).
But honestly, I'm a big Ace fan. She was a scrapper, she had -depth- to her background (Perivale, anyone?), and she had a magic baseball bat. What's not to love?
Recently started watching/listening to Doctor Who from the beginning. Out of the eight companions the first Doctor has had, I like the first three: Susan, Ian, and Barbara.
I love Audio Dramas, but am still bummed so many old Who's exist only as sound...
Chief Technical Officer
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Zoe was pretty scandalous back in the day.
See this shot from the set of "The Mind Robber" (the episode was black-and-white).
RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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Donna's crept up to the number 2 slot, behind Sarah Jane and pushing out Ace. Amy Pond I'm still not sure on, but then Matt Smith is still not quite set as the Doctor in my heart (though the Christmas special helped)
Physically (since, face it, eye candy doesn't hurt) Karen Gillian is still too damn skinny for my tastes.
I agree with what others have said about Mel. I can't stand her, but try not to hold it against Ms. Langford.
Anyone want to comment on 'The Stranger' with Colin Baker and Nicola Bryant? I've just heard about them, never seen them.
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RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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Zoe was pretty scandalous back in the day.See this shot from the set of "The Mind Robber" (the episode was black-and-white).
Zoe's assets aside, I miss the old Console.
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RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32
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Oh my goodness.
A year ago, I was surprised and thrilled when dmchucky69 started a thread about classic Doctor Who (as opposed to "New" Who,) as I didn't think there were a lot of classic Who fans on these boards. When Vic Wertz contributed to that thread, I was in heaven.
And now, I find out that back in 2007, there were threads on the subject in which Erik Mona demonstrated EXTENSIVE knowledge of the show! Not to mention so many familiar names, like Matthew Morris, Chris Mortika, Aubrey the Malformed, The Jade, flash_cxxi...
Man, Classic Who is awesome!
Doctor Who is by far my all time favourite TV show.
I've lately been going back and rewatching selections of old stories here and there from all eras. Still makes me as excited as I was when I was a kid. :)
Recent watches in order I watched them:
Destiny of the Daleks
Curse of Fenric
Ghostlight
Battlefield
Two Doctors
Mark of the Rani
Attack of the Cybermen
All of the 5th Doctor Stories (except for Kinda, & Snakedance)
The Chase
Colony in Space
Day of the Daleks
Curse of Peladon
The Mutants
Frontier in Space
Planet of the Daleks
The Monster of Peladon
Robots of Death
Currently watching Talons of Weng Chiang
Next in line is Horror of Fang Rock and then Brain of Morbius followed by The War Games
I started in the middle of the third Doctor, going all the way to the seventh...
Peri Brown is my favorite character as Companion, mostly because I'm a red-blooded American male. Quite a beautiful woman. Who wouldn't want her at your side?
Leela had the femininity and the strength. A skinny warrior-woman in animal skins. Wowza.
Tegan was also a favorite. You can tell I like the brunettes, the smarter, the better. :-)
Ace as my "pinch hitter". Caught in a time storm? This was forecasting for the deus ex machina we saw with Rose. But I'd take Ace over Rose.
It was hard for the Doctor to have a male Companion who wasn't a rival if he coveted the Time Lord's technology (or futuristic technology).
And I, too, await the day a green-haired Japanese woman calling herself Setsuna Meiou shows up...
My favourites are
Blink
The Empty Child
Battlefield
Curse of Fenric
Genesis of the Daleks
The Talons of Weng-Chiang
Girl in the fire Place
Midnight
School Reunion
Impossible Planet/ Satan Pit
Vincent and the Doctor
The female companions naturally provide a good counterpoint to the doctor but there's been some good roles for the guys too
The Brigadier and the UNIT gang were always great.
Harry, the UNIT Doctor (for male companion)
Jamie from the Troughton era but I have not seen enough of those old episodes aside from War Games, Mind Robber and a few others.
As for the girls well Sarah Jane still takes the cake, Leela, Jo Grant, Rose was great until RTD went stupid with it,
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Presumably River Song counts as a companion since (*dusts*off* HHGttG to check how to use time-travel related verb tenses... *gives*up*) even if she hasn't travelled with the Doctor in his timeline yet, she has already done so in her timeline. I'd have liked Michelle Ryan's Lara-Croft-alike to have lasted more than a single special. Presumably Jenny will re-appear at some point.
Although an ingenue is always going to be needed, the best companions tend to be the strongest/smartest ones so the Doctor has someone to bounce off. And its getting this balance right that sometimes presents problems -- providing strong/smart companions that can still serve as viewer surrogates.
There's no need for the Doctor to explain to (say) River why they need to reverse the polarity of the flux capacitor, that's why Donna or Amy are there. This was a problem with Tom Baker's later stories -- he was travelling with Romana & K9, either there's no viewer surrogate or a Time Lady's having to have basic quantum mechanics explained to her.
So even when there's a good individual companion it sometimes dosn't work because of their role/interaction with other companions, or conversely 2 otherwise mediocre companions can work well together so that you don't notice their faults.
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Chief Technical Officer
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Jamie from the Troughton era but I have not seen enough of those old episodes aside from War Games, Mind Robber and a few others.
You may well have seen all of the complete stories, then. Only six stories from Jamie's three seasons are complete in the archives: Tomb of the Cybermen, The Dominators, The Mind Robber, The Krotons, The Seeds of Death, and The War Games. (And of those, The Krotons still hasn't been released on DVD.) "The Invasion" has also been issued on DVD, with new animation matched to the existing soundtracks of the two missing episodes. 12 further surviving episodes from Jamie's 14 incomplete or missing stories can be found on the "Lost in Time" DVD set. (Jamie was also in The Five Doctors and The Two Doctors in the 1980s.)
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RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32
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Jamie from the Troughton era but I have not seen enough of those old episodes aside from War Games, Mind Robber and a few others.You may well have seen all of the complete stories, then. Only six stories from Jamie's three seasons are complete in the archives: Tomb of the Cybermen, The Dominators, The Mind Robber, The Krotons, The Seeds of Death, and The War Games. (And of those, The Krotons still hasn't been released on DVD.) "The Invasion" has also been issued on DVD, with new animation matched to the existing soundtracks of the two missing episodes. 12 further surviving episodes from Jamie's 14 incomplete or missing stories can be found on the "Lost in Time" DVD set. (Jamie was also in The Five Doctors and The Two Doctors in the 1980s.)
I have them all. :)
And I even have reconstructions of the missing episodes. :)
In fact, I have a copy of every single Dr. Who Episode available, including reconstructions of missing episodes using sound bites and stills. I also have most of the Charity Specials as well, I think I'm only missing two.
Who Fan. Me? No, what gave you that idea...
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I have them all. :)
And I even have reconstructions of the missing episodes. :)
In fact, I have a copy of every single Dr. Who Episode available, including reconstructions of missing episodes using sound bites and stills. I also have most of the Charity Specials as well, I think I'm only missing two.
Who Fan. Me? No, what gave you that idea...
Perhaps a little worryingly, I know someone who almost certainly has more Who than you. They will probably be able to indulge in month-upon-month of debates on "reconstrucions of the missing episodes".
Possibly even more worryingly, in writing the above I've realised that I actually know 2 (more-or-less unconnected) scary-obscure-reconstruction of lost episodes people.
Jamie from the Troughton era but I have not seen enough of those old episodes aside from War Games, Mind Robber and a few others.You may well have seen all of the complete stories, then. Only six stories from Jamie's three seasons are complete in the archives: Tomb of the Cybermen, The Dominators, The Mind Robber, The Krotons, The Seeds of Death, and The War Games. (And of those, The Krotons still hasn't been released on DVD.) "The Invasion" has also been issued on DVD, with new animation matched to the existing soundtracks of the two missing episodes. 12 further surviving episodes from Jamie's 14 incomplete or missing stories can be found on the "Lost in Time" DVD set. (Jamie was also in The Five Doctors and The Two Doctors in the 1980s.)
Yeah actually just about, haven't seen the Invasion or the Krotons but otherwise I guess I have seen them all (save the incomplete/reconstructions.
Peri Brown is my favorite character as Companion, mostly because I'm a red-blooded American male. Quite a beautiful woman. Who wouldn't want her at your side?You know Nicola Bryant's British though, right? :)
And this is a problem??? I don't know if England is as separated into districts/accents as Japan or northeastern America is, but I never heard of any prejudice because of vocal accent on the Doctor's part.
Anyway, I was talking about myself, not the Doctor(s).
I’d probably say my favorites are:
1. K-9
2. Leela
3. Romana I
4. Amy Pond
5. Tegan
6. Sarah Jane
7. Captain Jack
8. Martha
As a side note, on the topic of missing episodes, I recall watching a lot of earlier episodes on my local PBS station (WHYY in Philadelphia) in the late 70s/80s. Were all of those episodes I saw back then ones that are still available (if not released on DVD) or are some of the episodes I saw back then the ones missing now? And if the latter, how did the BBC and all of these various PBS, etc. stations not manage to have a copy somewhere?
L
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Chief Technical Officer
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As a side note, on the topic of missing episodes, I recall watching a lot of earlier episodes on my local PBS station (WHYY in Philadelphia) in the late 70s/80s. Were all of those episodes I saw back then ones that are still available (if not released on DVD) or are some of the episodes I saw back then the ones missing now? And if the latter, how did the BBC and all of these various PBS, etc. stations not manage to have a copy somewhere?
It's a long story—so long that there are entire books written about it. Here's a pretty good—but long—article to start with.
The short answer to your question is that the shift from junking old episodes to archiving them happened in 1978. At that point, they had junked only Hartnell, Troughton, and Pertwee episodes, and they were mainly selling Tom Baker stories overseas at that time. Nevertheless, one of the first things they did was pull back material that had been sold overseas, which netted them all of the missing Pertwees except for Invasion of the Dinosaurs Episode 1 (which was later recovered from a private collector) and some of the Hartnells and Troughtons. (Some of the Pertwees are still only held in black-and-white, though.)
There are folks going through TV broadcast logs in pretty much every location that ever aired Doctor Who, looking to find listings of episodes airing after they had supposedly been junked, but as far as I know, that hasn't yielded any results.
So anything you saw after 1978 is held in the archives.
However, WHYY did air Doctor Who prior to 1978, and WHYY definitely did broadcast some Pertwee episodes in color that currently only exist in black-and-white—specifically, certain episodes from the stories "Ambassadors of Death" and "Mind of Evil." So if you know anybody who has an off-air recording of those broadcasts, they're needed—even if they're low-quality.
They have ways of combining a low-quality color signal with a high-quality B&W film print with decent results. Specialists have also come up with a way to recover color information from certain BBC B&W film recordings, and they're using that technique on Ambassadors of Death now, but it's known that that process will not work with Mind of Evil 1, so that particular episode would be an especially good find.
To be really specific here, the recordings that are needed are color recordings of Mind of Evil, and color pre-2002 airings of Ambassadors of Death Episodes 2 through 7.
(In 2002, they used that combined form of color recovery I mentioned on Ambassadors Episode 5, and parts of 2, 3, 6, and 7, so any post-2002 color recordings would be from those sources. Original color recordings are still sought.)
Top Three:
1) Liz Shaw (you like Martha Jones? Liz was Martha done right, where they actually engaged the character's premise.)
2) Donna Noble (Such a breath of fresh air. That Catherine Tate's such a damn good comedic actress has a lot to do with it, but she's so refreshingly human.)
3) Turlough (one of the biggest conceptual gambles that the show's taken...sort of the precursor to River Song in an odd way...he suffers from the awkward time in television history, but provides a distinctive voice with some great and memorable moments.)
And, since we've given shout outs to both the Brigadier and to Benton, I think that Yates needs one as well.
K-9!
Following K-9, I would say Captain Jack, Sarah Jane Smith, Ace, Leela, River Song, Romana I, Romana II, Jamie McCrimmon, Rose Tyler, Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, and Kamelion.
As a side note, on the topic of missing episodes, I recall watching a lot of earlier episodes on my local PBS station (WHYY in Philadelphia) in the late 70s/80s. Were all of those episodes I saw back then ones that are still available (if not released on DVD) or are some of the episodes I saw back then the ones missing now? And if the latter, how did the BBC and all of these various PBS, etc. stations not manage to have a copy somewhere?It's a long story—so long that there are entire books written about it. Here's a pretty good—but long—article to start with.
The short answer to your question is that the shift from junking old episodes to archiving them happened in 1978. At that point, they had junked only Hartnell, Troughton, and Pertwee episodes, and they were mainly selling Tom Baker stories overseas at that time. Nevertheless, one of the first things they did was pull back material that had been sold overseas, which netted them all of the missing Pertwees except for Invasion of the Dinosaurs Episode 1 (which was later recovered from a private collector) and some of the Hartnells and Troughtons. (Some of the Pertwees are still only held in black-and-white, though.)
There are folks going through TV broadcast logs in pretty much every location that ever aired Doctor Who, looking to find listings of episodes airing after they had supposedly been junked, but as far as I know, that hasn't yielded any results.
So anything you saw after 1978 is held in the archives.
However, WHYY did air Doctor Who prior to 1978, and WHYY definitely did broadcast some Pertwee episodes in color that currently only exist in black-and-white—specifically, certain episodes from the stories "Ambassadors of Death" and "Mind of Evil." So if you know anybody who has an off-air recording of those broadcasts, they're needed—even if they're low-quality.
They have ways of combining a low-quality color signal with...
Wow, great response Vic. You really know your Doctor Who history. Thanks for the excellent information. Unfortunately, I know I don't have any recordings of any of those episodes myself.
L