Steven Taylor

Steven Taylor was a companion of the First Doctor.

After two years as a prisoner of the Mechonoids, Steven stowed away aboard the TARDIS and joined the Doctor and Vicki Pallister on their adventures. He suffered a number of losses during his travels, including his friends and companions Katarina, Bret Vyon, Sara Kingdom and Oliver Harper. He travelled alongside Dodo Chaplet for a time before deciding to remain on the planet of the Elders and Savages.

Steven ruled as king for a number of years and was reunited with the Doctor in his fifth incarnation in the Death Zone and the original just prior to his regeneration.

Home era
According to one account, Steven was born in the 24th century, (AUDIO: The Little Drummer Boy) which is consistent with Vicki Pallister's claim that he was from an era less advanced than her own, (AUDIO: The Bounty of Ceres) the late 25th century. (TV: The Rescue, PROSE: Byzantium!)

According to another account, he was born in a period after the Human-Draconian War, the Second Dalek War and the Third Dalek War, (PROSE: The Chase) the first two of these conflicts having been fought in the 26th century. (TV: Frontier in Space)

He once suggested to Vicki that he hailed from the 28th century, having very fond memories of the 2784 Olympics. (AUDIO: The Ravelli Conspiracy) Yet another account claimed that, while Vicki's time was a few centuries before Steven's, his time was a few centuries before Sara Kingdom's home era of 4000. (PROSE: Mission to the Unknown)

Childhood
Steven was English (PROSE: The Time Meddler) and was born on 10 February, (AUDIO: Return of the Rocket Men) being raised in a Hiveblock on Earth during the war against the Krayt. (PROSE: The Empire of Glass) He believed in an afterlife (AUDIO: The Secrets of Det-Sen) and claimed to be a Protestant when Gaston de Leran suggested it. (TV: The Massacre)

As children, Steven and his classmates built a 5D representation of East Berlin. (AUDIO: The Anachronauts) He learnt about Daleks, (PROSE: The Chase) Cybermen, (PROSE: Salvation) Sontarans (AUDIO: The Sontarans) and Rocket Men without encountering them. (AUDIO: Return of the Rocket Men)

Steven once asked his mother why they celebrated Christmas, but she did not know. (AUDIO: O Tannenbaum) He was close to his grandmother, who played a large role in his childhood and who died when he was a teenager. (AUDIO: The Secrets of Det-Sen)

As a pilot
Steven went to flight school (AUDIO: The First Wave) and studied basic anatomy as part of his training. (AUDIO: The Suffering) On his 21st birthday, he was flying a cargo ship when he was attacked by the Rocket Men. Beaten and shot in the legs by their captain, Van Cleef, Steven was saved by his future self disguised as deceased Rocket Man Ramirez. Steven lost consciousness in his ship and was recovered by the Protectorate arm of the Galactic Heritage, who took him to a field hospital. (AUDIO: Return of the Rocket Men)

Steven worked in traffic control. He found himself bored of the profession (AUDIO: The First Wave) and, after visiting the ruins of New York City left after the 22nd century Dalek invasion, (PROSE: Salvation, AUDIO: Return of the Rocket Men) enlisted in the military in order to explore the universe. (AUDIO: The First Wave)

He served as helmsman on a battleship and later as a solo combat pilot, going from one spaceship or space station to another, holding the latter post as a form of reprisal for reporting the killing of a homeless person on Roylus Prime, which he visited on shore leave. (PROSE: Salvation, AUDIO: Return of the Rocket Men) He lived through parts of the Dalek Wars, in which some of his friends were killed. (AUDIO: The Dalek Occupation of Winter)

Steven fought in the war against the Krayt, which had stretched on for almost fifty years. On one mission, the Krayt shot down his fighter, causing him to crash on the planet Mechanus. (PROSE: The Empire of Glass, AUDIO: The Sontarans) He wandered around the jungle for days, trying to avoid the hostile plant life, and was captured by the Mechonoids. He was taken to their city where he was held prisoner, alone but for a toy panda mascot he called HiFi. He built a wooden construction rather like a climbing frame to keep himself active and which let him climb up to the roof for fresh air. (TV: The Chase)

Meeting the Doctor
After two years of isolation in the Mechonoid City, Steven met the First Doctor, Ian Chesterton, Barbara Wright and Vicki Pallister, with whom he escaped before returning for HiFi. He fell from a great height when the Daleks destroyed the city and stumbled through the jungle before finding and entering the TARDIS whilst the Doctor and Vicki were saying goodbye to Ian and Barbara. He passed out (TV: The Chase) and was found by the Doctor and Vicki when they returned. They explained the ship's functions to him. (TV: The Time Meddler)

According to one account, Steven joined the Doctor whilst on compassionate leave and knew that he would soon have to return to a Space-Research Project base to avoid being in trouble. (PROSE: The Myth Makers)

With Vicki
Landing in 1066 Northumbria, Steven and Vicki found another TARDIS and met its owner, the Monk, who tried to kill them and the Doctor. As there was no direct route home for Steven via TARDIS, he continued travelling with the Doctor and Vicki. (TV: The Time Meddler) They landed on a planet where they were scared away by Xenith. (COMIC: Are You Listening?)

They travelled to England in 1912 where an alien skull possessed Vicki. Steven had to find the ingredients that the Doctor needed to forge the skull, as its discovery was important for the history of humanity. (AUDIO: The Suffering) In 1814, Steven caught the attention of a number of women and met Jane Austen, who helped the travellers kill the Cinder. During the adventure, Vicki pranked Steven by saying he was a great dancer so that, at a party they were invited to, he made a fool of itself by dancing miserably. (AUDIO: Frostfire) He and Vicki met the Fifth Doctor after the Monk meddled with the Doctor's lives. (AUDIO: The Secret History)

The TARDIS landed in the attic of 10 Downing Street where they faced a time fungus. (AUDIO: Upstairs) Steven saved the Doctor's life when he was attacked by a robot on Ceres (AUDIO: The Bounty of Ceres) and spent several months in Spain where they were almost killed by the Spanish Inquisition. (PROSE: Managra) Not long after, they met William Shakespeare. (PROSE: The Empire of Glass)

In Winter, Steven was shown around the Dalek factory by Amala Vost, whom he grew close to and who dismissed his concerns about the Daleks. After the Daleks were apparently defeated, Amala chose not to leave with the travellers but gave Steven a kiss. (AUDIO: The Dalek Occupation of Winter) Immediately after leaving Winter, the TARDIS team visited T19. Steven injured himself during a terraforming storm but was rescued by Grant and learnt why his crew was there. He was accused of sabotage. Upon learning that the Doctor was ill, he demanded from Traherne the best medicine from the ship to cure him. (AUDIO: An Ideal World)

The TARDIS team visited the University of Cambridge after a bumpier than usual landing. Against the Doctor's advice, Steven rescued Guy Burgess and Kim Philby from falling off a wall in Sedgwick College. He helped Vicki investigate why Isaiah Hardy went missing and discovered a strange machine in Hardy's room. He helped to stop Hardey's plans. Upon leaving in the TARDIS, something went wrong and he saw Vicki vanish, (AUDIO: Entanglement) having travelled back into her own past. He found himself on the UK-201 in an aborted timeline, where he helped Vicki realise that she couldn't change the past, and together they restored the original timeline. (AUDIO: The Crash of the UK-201)

The Doctor intended to take Steven and Vicki to the Olympic Games in 2784 but ended up landing in Florence in 1514 where they met Pope Leo X. He he was accused of plotting to murder the pope. (AUDIO: The Ravelli Conspiracy) They also visited the French Revolution, (AUDIO: Fields of Terror) the Etherlands, (AUDIO: Etheria) a space cannon (PROSE: Corridors of Power) and Indiana. (PROSE: The Schoolboy's Story)

Steven faced the Daleks on Entropica where he was almost robotised, but he was saved by and helped a Dalek who went on to become Emperor. (AUDIO: Across the Darkened City) At the Charles University in Prague, he was suspicious of Jane Childress, who was trying to reverse evolution, and briefly became a monkey. (PROSE: The Long Step Backward) To gain access to a possessed Snowy Boots, Steven posed as the assistant to the Doctor's Santa Claus in New York City. (PROSE: Snowman in Manhattan) On Phobos, Steven commandeered a rescue ship and saved Hazam from his exploding spacecraft. They crashed onto the planet's surface and were stranded in a sandstorm, the oxygen in their spacesuits running out. They were picked up by another rescue ship sent from the station. (PROSE: Mars)

The TARDIS crew stopped a war between humans and the Kel-T over mining rights on Ca-Mon Green (PROSE: The Power Supply) and, after being locked out of the TARDIS in 1972, Steven had to get a job to pay for their lodgings. (AUDIO: The Founding Fathers) He was suspicious of the Drahvins when he met them and helped to defeat their leader, Maaga. (TV: Galaxy 4) They later helped a stranded Lapino gather enough emotional energy to send a message to his home planet after the Doctor arranged for Steven and Vicki to believe that they were Cinderella and her prince. They later remembered little of the event. (PROSE: Planet of the Bunnoids)

According to one account, the Doctor promised to take Steven and Vicki to 1960s London, a place that they thought that they might be happy and belong for once. (PROSE: The Myth Makers)

In the city of Troy, Steven temporarily adopted the name "Diomede". He was wounded in the shoulder by a sword thrust and suffered blood poisoning, but received help from the handmaiden Katarina. Whilst Vicki remained in Troy to be with Troilus, Katarina joined the Doctor and Steven in the TARDIS. (TV: The Myth Makers)

With Katarina and Bret
After leaving Troy, the TARDIS collided with a future version of itself being flown by the Second Doctor. Steven, the Doctor and Katarina landed on Urbinia, where Steven was able to get his wounds properly treated. With a damaged dematerialisation circuit, the companions were stuck there for some time, during which Steven got a job at a spaceport. He met the Second Doctor, Jamie McCrimmon and Zoe Heriot and, after a Dalek attack, the TARDIS collision was undone and time rewritten. (AUDIO: Daughter of the Gods)

The TARDIS materialised on Kembel where Bret Vyon entered and told Katarina to administer medicine from his bag to Steven. The three travellers joined Bret in taking Mavic Chen's Spar to travel to Earth and thwart the Daleks' plan to use a Time Destructor powered by an emm of taranium which the Doctor stole. The ship crashed on Desperus where Kirksen boarded and threatened to kill Katarina. To protect her friends, Katarina ejected herself and Kirksen from the airlock.

Bret's friend Daxtar informed Chen of the situation, causing him to send Sara Kingdom to the ship to kill Steven, the Doctor and her brother Bret. After shooting the latter, she walked in on Steven and the Doctor teleporting to Mira and went with them, where they told her the truth of Chen. (TV: The Daleks' Master Plan)

With Sara
Having got Sara on their side, Steven and the Doctor continued the fight against the Daleks. In a Dalek ship, the three left Mira and Sara teased Steven for his technological prowess and primitive understanding of science. They handed over a fake taranium core and left before they could realise, travelling to 1965 Liverpool and 1921 Hollywood. (TV: The Daleks' Master Plan)

The TARDIS smashed into an experimental space-time vessel whilst the crew celebrated Christmas and, after Natalie Lang took control of their ship, Steven had a delusion that he was in Berlin. He realised that what he saw was not real due to Sara showing weakness and a romantic interest in him. (AUDIO: The Anachronauts) The TARDIS took them to a number of other Christmases afterwards, including 1914 where Steven and the Doctor decided to celebrate the Christmas truce with the soldiers. They found it to be due to a boy named Robert whom they took to Mars, where he died in Sara's arms. (AUDIO: The Little Drummer Boy)

In 3999, Steven and the Doctor were trapped in the Great Clock, which Sara destroyed in order to save them. This inadvertently caused the power crisis that led to Mavic Chen making an alliance with the Daleks. (AUDIO: The Guardian of the Solar System) He helped rescue miners on an asteroid with a sentient silver sea (AUDIO: The Drowned World) and visited an intelligent house in Ely. (AUDIO: Home Truths) They also visited 1916 where they found that the Battle of the Somme was a month overdue and time was compensating for those who were meant to be dead. (AUDIO: Men of War)

After crash-landing in 1950s London and the Doctor disappearing, Steven and Sara lived a normal life for two weeks with Joseph Roberts and his niece and nephew, Audrey and Michael Newman. Steven got a job at the docks with Michael, where his friendship with the immigrant put him at odds with his racist colleagues, but he was fired after getting into a fight to defend him. He witnessed the arrival of the anemone changelings and, later, he himself was copied. Due to this, he only remembered a little of his time being stranded with Sara. (AUDIO: An Ordinary Life)

In the Sulgrave Asteroid Belt, Steven was arrested by the Space Security Service and later captured by the Sontarans. Field Marshal Slite interrogated and tortured him for information, but Steven was careful to mention nothing about the taranium or Time Destructor. Once the Sontarans were defeated, the travellers left in the TARDIS, which detected an unidentified time machine following them, leading them to return once more to the struggle against the Daleks. (AUDIO: The Sontarans)

The TARDIS landed on Tigus alongside the other time machine, which they found to belong to the Monk. The Monk followed them to Egypt and took Steven and Sara as prisoners to Chen and the Daleks, who handed them over to the Doctor in return for the taranium. Having stolen the Monk's directional unit, they went after the Daleks to reclaim the taranium. They stole the Time Destructor and detonated it on Kembel, killing Sara who left the safety of the TARDIS. Steven asked the Doctor if he considered the loss of so many lives - namely Sara, Bret and Katarina - worthwhile to defeat the Daleks. (TV: The Daleks' Master Plan)

With Oliver
After leaving Kembel, the TARDIS landed in 1966 London where Steven and the Doctor encountered the human-trafficking Fulgurites. The two met city trader Oliver Harper and, with his help, were able to put an end to the Fulgurites' activities, after which Oliver was welcomed aboard the ship. (AUDIO: The Perpetual Bond)

Steven continued to have nightmares about the deaths of Katarina and Sara. He spoke with the Doctor one restless night in the TARDIS and the Doctor told him the story of when he and Susan encountered an unknown entity in London during the Blitz. (PROSE: Ash)

They next landed on a satellite where Steven saw and was worried by a wreckage field. He met the Calleons and, using his knowledge of space flight and mathematics to calculate the orbit of the broken satellite in order to get himself and Oliver back to the TARDIS. Whilst there, Oliver told Steven that he was gay, a fact that did not matter in the least to Steven. (AUDIO: The Cold Equations)

Steven, the Doctor and Oliver went to Grace Alone due to being aware that they would go there in the future. They encountered the Vardans and defeated them. Oliver jumped in the way of a Vardan to save Steven and the Doctor, dying but living on as a ghost in the TARDIS, watching over them. (AUDIO: The First Wave)

Alone with the Doctor
Steven was resting in the TARDIS when the Doctor was Time Scooped to the Death Zone. (PROSE: Roses) The recent loss of his friends weighed heavily on his mind and he also thought about Ian and Barbara whilst aboard Not-Home. (PROSE: Helmstone) He signed a peace treaty on behalf of Space-General Robert Simmons's death. (PROSE: Making History)

In 2005, Steven went back in time to 1953 to tell Maggie Baxter that her lover Jeremy was dead so that she would not waste fifty years waiting for him. Upon returning, he found that Maggie believed that Jeremy was married and pretending to be dead and that she had been visiting the same café for fifty years in case he changed his mind. Steven wanted to try again but the Doctor refused. (PROSE: Waiting for Jeremy)

Steven flew a helicopter whilst the Doctor hung from it holding a bottle of washing-up liquid whilst chasing a giant mosquito. (PROSE: Do You Smell Carrots?) Together they stopped the Gelidons in 2008 Antarctica (PROSE: White on White) and discovered a family forced for generations to care for alien trees, managing to establish a more amicable relationship between the family and trees and then departing to celebrate Christmas themselves. (AUDIO: O Tannenbaum)

The two travellers met the Vardans again, this time on Earth where they were spreading a virus through comedy television. Steven was stranded once again in 1950s London and encountered the Vardans again. He and the Doctor helped Teddy Baxter defeat the Vardans and chase them from Earth. (AUDIO: The Vardan Invasion of Mirth) In 1906, Steven and the Doctor ensured the creation of the Dreadnought to maintain the correct timeline. (AUDIO: Peace in Our Time)

When the travellers arrived in Paris in 1572, they were separated - whilst the Doctor blamed Steven for leaving the tavern that he left him at, Steven blamed the Doctor for not returning to him after looking for Charles Preslin. He was disgusted by the Doctor's abandonment of his Huguenot friends, in particular the young Anne Chaplet. (TV: The Massacre)

With Dodo
Disillusioned with travelling in the TARDIS after all the death that he had seen, Steven left the Doctor after an argument when they landed in 1966 London, only returning to warn him of approaching policemen. He met Dodo Chaplet, who he believed might be a descendant of Anne Chaplet and thus evidence of her survival. (TV: The Massacre) He picked up her cold virus, as he had no immunity to it. (TV: The Ark)

Steven and the Doctor's first adventure with Dodo was to 1965 New York where they fought the Latter-Day Pantheon. (PROSE: Salvation) They then went to the Ark where he fell very ill due to the cold that he caught from Dodo. He was cured by the Doctor's vaccine and they left after defeating the Monoids (TV: The Ark) whereupon the Celestial Toymaker captured them and forced Steven and Dodo to complete a number of tasks whilst the Doctor solved the trilogic game. (TV: The Celestial Toymaker)

After the Doctor broke his tooth, he took Steven and Dodo to Tombstone, Arizona in 1881 where they posed as "Steven Regret, tenor" and pianist "Dodo DuPont" and were for a time forced to perform Last Chance Saloon by the Clantons. (TV: The Gunfighters) Afterwards, the trio went on a holiday to 1812 Russia where they encountered a shapeshifter that wanted to steal the TARDIS. (AUDIO: Mother Russia) Only a few days after defeating the Toymaker, they were again summoned to the Celestial Toyroom where they had to play horrific games. (PROSE: Murder in the Dark)

Steven and Dodo met the Sixth Doctor on Bukol (PROSE: The Golden Door) and Steven punched Roztoq. (PROSE: 64 Carlysle Street) They visited Kyiv, (PROSE: Bunker Soldiers) Logopolis and (AUDIO: He Jests at Scars...) the Jungle of Tropicalus. (COMIC: Death to the Doctor!) The three travellers went to Africa in the Boer Wars to find a crashed spaceship carrying Kali Carash. (AUDIO: Tales from the Vault)

The Doctor, Dodo and Steven landed in the Tibetan Himalayas in 1630, where Steven suffered altitude sickness and talked to Pema Tsering about life in the mountain. He eventually recovered after some food and rest. When bandits attacked the monastery, Steven lent his hand to protecting the people. He thought that Oddiyāna was behind the bandits' arrival. (AUDIO: The Secrets of Det-Sen)

In 1966, Steven was implicated in the theft of the World Cup after a goldsmith placed part of the trophy in his hands. (AUDIO: This Sporting Life) Steven prevented his past self from being killed at the hands of the Rocket Men and saved Dodo and the pioneering colonists on Ulysses 519. After this, he began to wonder if his time with the Doctor was coming to an end. (AUDIO:  Return of the Rocket Men) Soon afterwards, they arrived on Comfort where they overthrew a computer. Steven wondered told the Doctor that they could not simply leave the planet without knowing how the new society would evolve, causing him to decide that he would make a lasting impression on the next planet they landed on. (AUDIO: The War To End All Wars)

Departure and rule
Landing on an Earth-like planet with the intention of leaving a mark, (AUDIO: The War To End All Wars) Steven helped bring together the Savages and the Elders and was invited by Chal to help the unification work. The Doctor encouraged him to do so, telling him that he was "quite ready for the task", and so he accepted the offer and said farewell to him and Dodo. (TV: The Savages)

Steven became king of the planet and used his power to set up schools to teach the people their history in the hopes that they would not repeat it. He had three daughters, the youngest of whom was Dodo Taylor, his favourite. He insisted that the copy of the Doctor's mind, which was placed in a jar, was not the Doctor as it did not have the morality of the original. (AUDIO: The War To End All Wars) A Sontaran ship once landed on the planet and Steven learnt about the probic vent weakness.

Many years after leaving the TARDIS, Steven was Time Scooped to an alternative version of the Death Zone by Borusa, where he met the Fifth Doctor, Polly Wright and Nyssa and was reunited with Ian Chesterton and a copy of Sara Kingdom. They assisted the Doctor in defeating Daleks and Sontarans and, after they had done so, the Doctor promised that he would check up on his companions. Steven acknowledged that, despite his best intentions they would most likely never see him again. (AUDIO: The Five Companions)

Later life
After Dodo was killed by assassins and his two other daughters demanded parts of his kingdom, Steven abdicated so that the people could govern themselves, retreating to a cabin in the mountains where he told his granddaughter, Sida, about his travels with the Doctor. When Sida one day asked why he gave up the throne, he told her about his experience on Comfort and of the importance of self-governance.

Sida told Steven that the copy of the Doctor was running to become the new ruler, (AUDIO: The War To End All Wars) prompting him to tell her the story of the time he met Benjamin Franklin to explain why the copy was not the true Doctor; the Doctor thought nobody unimportant and would not kill. He began building a radio-telescope on his hill (AUDIO: The Founding Fathers) to contact the Doctor.

Three years later, the telescope was complete and he used it to contact the Doctor at Snowcap base in Antarctica whilst he was regenerating. Unbeknownst to him, he was being manipulated by half of the remains of the Vardan woman into summoning the Doctor and reconstituting herself. Steven and the Doctor were able to defeat the Vardan with the help of Sida, who used the Doctor's copy. Steven sent the Doctor back to Antarctica with the copy to improve his chance of surviving the trip along the radio waves. (AUDIO: The Locked Room)

Undated events
At some point, Steven 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)

At another point, Steven was abducted by Adam Mitchell as part his plan to get revenge on the Doctor, in collaboration with. He was placed in stasis alongside the Doctors' multiple other companions, before being released by the Doctors' first eleven numbered incarnations with the help of Frobisher. (COMIC: The Choice, Endgame)

Alternate timelines
In a parallel universe, the First Doctor, Steven and Dodo went to 13th century city of Kiev. A short period after, they went to Logopolis. (AUDIO: He Jests at Scars...)

In an alternate timeline in which the UK-201 never crashed on Dido, the Doctor never met Vicki and ultimately never travelled to Mechanus to meet Steven. After spending further years as a Mechanoid prisoner, Steven was driven to suicide by jumping off the edge of the city to the jungle floor far below.

Steven from the prime timeline was sent into this timeline by the Doctor to rescue Vicki. In doing so, he helped Vicki and the crew prevent the UK-201 from crashing in the first place. Because his younger self died in this timeline, Steven became a paradox and eventually began fading away. He helped Vicki again to the best of his ability when she agreed to relive the crash and they both returned to the natural timeline. (AUDIO: The Crash of the UK-201)

In another alternate timeline, the TARDIS crashed into its future self en route to Kembel and landed on Urbinia instead. Steven's injuries from Troy were treated but the team remained stranded there for three months. Steven found a simple job at the space port in Kiria City and helped maintain an apartment with the Doctor and Katarina. However, in their absence from Kembel, the Daleks completed the Time Destructor and commenced the Harvest of Urbinia. Steven worked with Krell at the space port to evacuate the population but the resistance prompted the Daleks to deploy the Time Destructor. Steven stayed with the First Doctor to protect the remaining civilians trapped in the hangar bay. Ultimately the Second Doctor was able to prevent the initial TARDIS collision and the timeline reset, with the TARDIS landing on Kembel to face the Daleks. (AUDIO: Daughter of the Gods)

In an aborted timeline created by the Decayed Master, Steven was dragged to the same address and date in 1963 as the Doctor’s companions and seven future selves. Later, Steven’s travels and first meeting with the Doctor would later be erased. This timeline was later negated primarily by the First, Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh Doctor s. (AUDIO: The Light at the End)

Legacy
The Seventh Doctor chanted Steven's name, amongst those of other companions, whilst under attack by Haemovores. (TV: The Curse of Fenric)

Personality
Steven was headstrong, loyal and, as a result of his two years on Mechanus, impatient, (PROSE: The Empire of Glass) choosing to repeatedly question the Doctor rather than listening and observing as Katarina did. (TV: The Daleks' Master Plan) He was a natural leader (TV: The Ark, The Savages, AUDIO: Daughter of the Gods) and Sara considered him to be a good ally and a good man to have around in a crisis. (AUDIO: The Guardian of the Solar System)

He could be nervous when arriving in a new location and berated Dodo for leaping out of the TARDIS without being prepared. He suffered from claustrophobia when he was locked up (TV: The Ark) and, because he grew up fighting the Daleks, he felt that he might know them better than the Doctor did. (TV: The Daleks' Master Plan) He was unable to deal with the amount of death that he experienced in the TARDIS, including Katarina, Bret, Sara (TV: The Daleks' Master Plan) and Oliver, (AUDIO: The First Wave) culminating in him storming out of the TARDIS after Anne Chaplet's presumed death. (TV: The Massacre)

He had a somewhat prickly relationship with the Doctor, with the two attempting to outdo one another during their early days together, (TV: The Time Meddler) but, despite often disagreeing with one another, the two had a shared respect. (TV: The Gunfighters) Steven came to believe that he knew how to play the Doctor, telling Sara to pretend to agree with him. (TV: The Daleks' Master Plan)

Steven considered football to be "an idiotic sport for idiotic people". (AUDIO: This Sporting Life)

Appearance
Steven was about six feet tall (PROSE: Galaxy Four) and weighed twelve stone. (PROSE: The Myth Makers) He was broad and handsome, (AUDIO: The Suffering, PROSE: 64 Carlysle Stree) with Jane Austen calling him handsome enough to set all the hearts of London aflutter and Vicki describing him as "quite dishy" and "rather dashing". (AUDIO: Frostfire) He had a nice smile, "lovely" brown eyes. (PROSE: 64 Carlysle Street) and an innocent face. (PROSE: The Empire of Glass)

Some accounts described Steven's hair as blond (PROSE: The Chase) or fair. (PROSE: Galaxy Four)

Behind the scenes

 * Steven was originally going to be called Michael.
 * Steven was notable for being the first known male companion to travel alone with the Doctor — something that would not happen again until Jamie McCrimmon had a brief solo stint with the Second Doctor. He was also the first of a rare breed of companion: one that neither joined nor departed the TARDIS at the planet on which they were born.
 * Peter Purves played an American tourist named Morton Dill visiting the Empire State Building in The Chase. Of the actors who played characters before playing companions, he is the only one who played both in the same televised story.
 * Peter Purves suggested a story where the Doctor returned to the planet of the Elders and the Savages, only to discover that Steven's leadership had become thoroughly corrupt.
 * He was written out of the show because Innes Lloyd and Gerry Davis felt the character was shallow and did not work well as a source of audience identification. Peter Purves was himself wearying of Steven's lack of development after a promising start, and was already considering leaving.