Companion




 * For a full list of the Doctor's companions see: List of companions.

Companions were the Doctor's closest friends. Such people knew the Doctor's "secret" — namely that he was someone probably non-human who travelled in space and time in a police box-shaped craft called the TARDIS. Because the term was a shortening of the expression "travelling companion", most companions did in fact travel with him in the TARDIS. Depending on the situation, other words could be used to describe the same relationship — most frequently, "assistant".

Companions of the Doctor
to be added

Historical figures
Occasionally, the Doctor had adventures in which he was assisted by people considered to be "famous" historical figures on Earth. Examples included H. G. Wells (DW: Timelash), Charles Dickens (DW: The Unquiet Dead), William Shakespeare (DW: The Shakespeare Code), and Vincent Van Gogh (DW: Vincent and the Doctor).

Agatha Christie assisted two separate incarnations of the Doctor. Once, the Tenth Doctor and she encountered a Vespiform in rural England. (DW: The Unicorn and the Wasp) At another time, she travelled in the TARDIS with the Eighth Doctor. (BFA: Terror Firma)

The Tenth Doctor invited Madame de Pompadour of France to travel with him, but she died before she could take him up on his offer. (DW: The Girl in the Fireplace)

The Eighth and Tenth Doctors shared adventures with Mary Shelley. As with Christie, Shelley had an Earth-bound adventure with the later Doctor but actually travelled for an unknown length of time with the earlier. (BFA: Mary's Story, DWBIT: The Creative Spark).

The Tenth Doctor also claimed to have taken Isaac Newton to an alien planet, as well (IDW: Final Sacrifice).

Companions of other Time Lords
Other Time Lords had companions in their travels. Before his final corruption into the renegade known as the Master, the Time Lord Koschei was accompanied in his hunt for the Doctor by Ailla. Koschei believed Ailla to be a young woman from a 28th century Earth colony, but she was in fact a Time Lady agent sent by the High Council to spy on the increasingly erratic Koschei's actions (MA: The Dark Path). In his battle with the newly regenerated Eighth Doctor, the Master was assisted by Chang Lee, a young man in 1999 San Francisco. Lee had been convinced by the Master that the Doctor was evil. Only too late did he learn the truth as the Master killed the boy, although the Doctor subsequently restored him to life. (DW: Doctor Who)

The Master took the Time Lord-companion relationship one step further by marrying his human companion Lucy Saxon, with every indication that a passionate relationship initially existed between them (DW: The Sound of Drums), only for it to turn physically abusive later, culminating in Lucy shooting and apparently killing her husband. (DW: Last of the Time Lords)

The Time Lady known to the Doctor as Iris Wildthyme had several companions such as Timmy, Frobisher and Kroton. (EDA: The Scarlet Empress)

When she left the Fourth Doctor in E-Space, Romana was accompanied by K-9 Mark II, and K-9 continued to be her companion after she returned to normal space (WC: Shada, et al). After returning to Gallifrey, Romana has shared numerous adventures alongside one of the Doctor's former companions, Leela (BFA: Gallifrey).

After saving him from the Cybermen, the Rani took Cyrian as her companion. (DWA: Rescue)

Sometime after leaving the Doctor, Lucie Miller travelled with the Meddling Monk, apparently after responding to an ad he placed in 2010 for a companion. (BFA: Situation Vacant) He would later abandon her, convincing Tamsin Drew, the Doctor's current companion, to join him instead. (BFA: The Resurrection of Mars)

In an Alternate timeline, Ellie Martin was the companion of The Valeyard. (DWU: He Jests at Scars)

Jackson Lake, while believing himself to be the Doctor, had Rosita as his companion, and in fact the real Doctor initially considered himself to be Jackson's companion. (DW: The Next Doctor)

Companions of former companions
Companions such as Bernice Summerfield, Jack Harkness, Sarah Jane Smith, K9 Mark 2, who had their own adventures after leaving the Doctor, were aided by friends who may be considered their own companions.

Non-companion stories
Prior to the 2005 series revival, the only story in which the Doctor did not have a companion from beginning to end (as opposed to gaining a companion during the adventure, or working with a "one-off" companion) was The Deadly Assassin. The 1996 TV movie and the 2006 and 2007 Christmas specials, The Runaway Bride and Voyage of the Damned, featured the Doctor without an ongoing companion, although he worked closely with "one-off" companions (and invited all three to join him in his travels), and these characters (Grace Holloway, Donna Noble and Astrid Peth, respectively) were and are referred to as companions by the BBC and in reference works (though Donna is a special case as she later returned as a full-time companion). Beginning with the 2008 Christmas special, The Next Doctor, and continuing throughout the 2009 specials, the Doctor again worked with "one-off" companions rather than an ongoing partner, one of whom was Wilfred Mott, the grandfather of series 4 companion Donna Noble. Unlike the earlier examples, the Doctor made no attempt at recruiting anyone for full-time companionship, and in Planet of the Dead abruptly refuses a direct request from Christina de Souza to join him. This was also reflected in BBC Audio and BBC Books releases during this period, which on occasion had the Doctor work with one-offs, but also completely on his own, although IDW Publishing chose to have the Tenth Doctor travelling with companions in the post-Planet of the Dead continuity of the Doctor Who Ongoing comic series and Doctor Who Magazine, likewise, gave the Doctor a companion for the later-era comic strip. With series 5, however, the Eleventh Doctor travels again with at least one regular companion.

Unofficial companions
Aside from unlicensed fan fiction, only one case is known of the Doctor being shown with a companion in a sanctioned, but unofficial context. In 2007, the BBC/HBO series Extras aired The Extra Special Series Finale, a Christmas-themed episode that concluded the award-winning comedy series. The series starred Ricky Gervais as down-on-his-luck actor Andy Millman. In this episode he is shown taking roles in any TV show or movie offered to him -- including Doctor Who. In the resulting scene, David Tennant cameos as the Doctor in a scene in which Millman plays a monster and Claudia Sermbezis appears as an unnamed companion shown dressed in an Royal Navy uniform; this character has no apparent analogy to any other Tenth Doctor companion. As the scene is intended as a spoof, and is set in the "real world", there is no canoncial basis for the Royal Navy character.

Longevity
Although several companions of long-standing have appeared in the series, with Jamie McCrimmon, Sarah Jane Smith and Romana, for example, appearing over multiple seasons, this is actually a rarity. During the course of the series, most companions have only stayed for either one season, part of a season, or portions of consecutive seasons. This began early on, when Carole Ann Ford (Susan Foreman) left the series shortly into its (and her) second year. Caroline John (Liz Shaw) appeared in only one season, while Matthew Waterhouse (Adric) appeared in the last few stories of Tom Baker's final season, and the first few stories of Peter Davison's before leaving. In the 2005-present revival, to date only Billie Piper (Rose Tyler) appeared as a regular in more than one consecutive season, though she later returned for guest appearances, as did Freema Agyeman (Martha Jones) and Catherine Tate (Donna Noble), both of whom were regulars for only one season. Discounting "one-off companions" who appeared in only a single story such as Sara Kingdom and Astrid Peth, the TV companions with the shortest multi-story tenure to date have been Katarina and Adam Mitchell, both of whom appeared in only two storylines (though Katarina appeared in more individual episodes than Adam). Amy Pond's return for a second season with the Eleventh Doctor means she will be the most recent companion to have appeared over two consecutive seasons.