Ben Jackson

Benjamin "Ben" Jackson was a companion of the First and Second Doctors, along with his future wife, Polly Wright, and Jamie McCrimmon. He was also acquainted with Dodo Chaplet, briefly meeting her after Polly did.

Early life
Ben was a Cockney. He was born in December 1942 (PROSE: Invasion of the Cat-People; AUDIO: The Forsaken) and grew up opposite a brewery. He mentioned he once had a headmaster who "got nicked for not paying his bus fare." (TV: The Power of the Daleks)

As a child, Ben often searched wreckage left by bombs from World War II with his friends. They sometimes found the corpses of animals trapped by the explosions. (AUDIO: Lost and Found)

In 1956, at the age of fourteen, he sneaked onto his father's ship. When he was found out, the captain promised him a job when he was fifteen (which was four months away). (PROSE: Invasion of the Cat-People)

Ben served in the Atlantic Ocean. (AUDIO: The Mouthless Dead)

His father died of a heart attack prior to July 1966. (AUDIO: The Yes Men)

Travels with the First Doctor
By 1966, Ben was assigned to the Royal Navy vessel HMS Teazer as a radar plot third class. He made Polly Wright's acquaintance in the Inferno nightclub in Covent Garden on 12 July, having briefly crossed paths with her there a week earlier. Ben was depressed at the time because he was stuck on a six month shore posting while his ship patrolled the West Indies. He spent most of his nights at the Inferno.

He helped the First Doctor defeat the sentient computer known as WOTAN and its War Machines on 20 July 1966. Shortly thereafter, Ben and Polly, mistaking it for an ordinary police box and using the key The Doctor gave Ben, entered the TARDIS by accident. (TV: The War Machines)

In his investigation of reports of a series of agent provocateurs known as "the Doctor" who had been involved in numerous unusual incidents, the journalist James Stevens discovered evidence of Ben's involvement in the C-Day fiasco. (PROSE: Who Killed Kennedy)

The Doctor first took them to 17th century Cornwall, where they met Henry Avery's band of pirates. (TV: The Smugglers)

The Doctor, Ben and Polly later arrived in New York City in the 1890s where four Ovids — beings of pure thoughts who travelled from world to world in crystal spheres — had become trapped. Their presence caused people's dreams and nightmare to manifest in reality. The time travellers were able to free the Ovids with the assistance of Harry Houdini. (AUDIO: Smoke and Mirrors)

The Doctor later took them to Antarctica in December 1986, when the Earth faced invasion by the Cybermen of Mondas. Ben played an important role in the defeat of the Cybermen when he disarmed the bomb that General Cutler intended to detonate and realised the Cybermen's weakness — their fear of radioactivity. Shortly afterwards, suffering from exhaustion, the Doctor collapsed onto the floor of the TARDIS control room and regenerated in front of them. (TV: The Tenth Planet)

Adventures with the Second Doctor
Ben showed more scepticism than Polly toward the newly-regenerated Doctor, suspecting him of being an imposter. But on the planet Vulcan, which the three time travellers visited next, a Dalek recognised the Second Doctor. Ben then accepted the Second Doctor as the man he had known. (TV: The Power of the Daleks)



Ben continued to travel with the Doctor, facing foes such as the Cat-People (PROSE: Invasion of the Cat-People) and the Selachians. (PROSE: The Murder Game) He and Polly were then joined by Jamie McCrimmon. (TV: The Highlanders) At one point in Ben's travels, he was mind-controlled by the Macra, but ultimately he fought against their control and saved his friends. (TV: The Macra Terror)

When they landed in 1920 he had to explain to Jamie what a train was. He thought that someone was following them after Jamie, Polly and him left the signal box. He was the only one to see this man when he saw it again. After seeing the man more clearly he realised that they looked how they thought the people who died at the Battle of Jutland. (AUDIO: The Mouthless Dead)

The Doctor decided to teach Ben and Polly how to pilot the TARDIS. After the TARDIS faltered in the vortex they landed in New Houston. He took advantage of a Yes Man before they kidnapped him. They brought him to an underground city and made him work like the humans on the surface did to them. Ben was forced to relive his experience against the Daleks on Vulcan in order to learn how to fight. (AUDIO: The Yes Men)

Landing in London in 1648, Ben was separated from his friends and was press-ganged onto a different ship called The Teazer captained by a rather unpleasant Dutchman called Stanislaus. While ashore in Amsterdam Ben meets Captain Sal Winter and joins her crew. Despite a raid on Sal's ship The Demeter by Stanislaus' crew and almost being trapped and killed in the boggy marshes on the English coast Ben makes it back to London and his friends. There he helps to foil the plot involving Stanislaus and smuggling King Charles I out of the country. (PROSE: The Roundheads)

When the Selachians arrived at the Galacti-bank he managed to escape which helped the Doctor in his plans. He devised a plan to stop the Selachians by blocking their gills. (AUDIO: The Selachian Gambit) He managed to find some casino chips when the Doctor took them to one and decided to play one of the futuristic games. He opened a line of credit in the casino and when he couldn't repay it he had to play a game of chance where the looser would die. (AUDIO: House of Cards)

Polly, Ben, Jamie and the Doctor landed in Kenga, Singapore during World War II. When Clive Freeman took them to the nearby hotel where he met his father, James Jackson. He later found Andrews dead. He helped to capture the Forsaken. Whilst searching the jungle he noticed the body of Freeman who had been dead for days. (AUDIO: The Forsaken)

Throughout his journeys, Ben never lost sight of his desire to return home, and to his ship, HMS Teazer. Before leaving, Ben and Polly insisted that they would stay if the Doctor needed them. The pair departed from the Doctor at the same time, having discovered they had arrived back on Earth on the very same day they left. (TV: The Faceless Ones) Unbeknownst to Ben, Edward Waterfield had been blackmailed by the Daleks into finding the Doctor. Ben, as one of his companions, was originally factored into the plan and a photograph of him was given to Waterfield. However, when Waterfield learned that both Ben and Polly had left the Doctor's company, he decided not to involve them further. (PROSE: The Evil of the Daleks)

Life after the Doctor
At some point, Ben was taken to the Black Archive by UNIT to have his record as a companion of the Doctor taken. His memories of the visit were subsequently erased and he was sent on his way. (TV: The Day of the Doctor)

Ben proposed to Polly in 1966 at the top of the Post Office Tower, which was witnessed unbeknownst to them by the Ninth Doctor and Rose Tyler. (COMIC: The Love Invasion) He was taken home to meet Polly's parents, but they were shocked by him. (AUDIO: The Five Companions)

However, the relationship did not last. They both eventually married others, but on New Year's Eve 1986 were once more reunited. (PROSE: Mondas Passing) In 1999, the Second Doctor helped Ben meet Polly once more. They were both widowed by then. Ben and Polly admitted their love for each other. (PROSE: That Time I Nearly Destroyed the World Whilst Looking for a Dress)

They eventually embarked on a successful marriage. (AUDIO: The Five Companions)

In 2010, Sarah Jane Smith stated that the two of them were running an orphanage in India. (TV: Death of the Doctor)

Personality


Ben was practical and a realist. It took him a while to believe that the TARDIS really travelled through time and space. He was also more sceptical than Polly when the Doctor regenerated, believing that the new incarnation was an impostor. It took a Dalek recognising the Doctor to finally convince Ben of the truth. (TV: The Power of the Daleks)

Though they came from different backgrounds, Polly, whom he nicknamed "Duchess" because of her upper-class accent, and Ben became good friends during their travels. They trusted each other, and their relationship was punctuated by good-natured teasing and banter. They complemented each other well, making a good team. When Polly created a chemical potion to kill the Cybermen on the Moonbase, Ben worked out its practical application of it — using fire extinguishers to deliver Cocktail Polly. (TV: The Moonbase)

Ben was clever and never shirked danger or action. He was sensible enough to realise that taking on a Cyberman with a screwdriver would be a big mistake, and managed to dazzle one with the light from a film projector before killing it. Ben also worked out that the Cybermen were avoiding radiation, and helped devise a plan to destroy them using the Snowcap Base's reactor fuel rods. (TV: The Tenth Planet)

Ben might have been headstrong and impetuous, but he proved to be mentally weaker than his companions when they faced the hypnotic processing of the Macra. However, he did struggle against it, failing to report Jamie for having taken Officia's keys. (TV: The Macra Terror)

During their travels together, he and Polly thought of Jamie as being like their "baby brother." (AUDIO: The Forbidden Time)

Behind the scenes

 * The role of Ben in the Big Finish plays has been portrayed by Elliot Chapman, as Michael Craze had died a year prior to the company's first Who audio.

  Бен Джексон