Companion


 * ''You may be looking for a list of companions or a list of their appearances.

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. They often directly saved his life (DW: Rose) or provided him with a perspective that prevented him from abusing his Time Lord powers. (DW: The Runaway Bride, The Waters of Mars) On some occasions, they were the proximate reason that the Doctor sacrificed his then-current life and regenerated. (DW: The Caves of Androzani, The End of Time) On others, they lost their lives in pursuit of the Doctor's goals. (DW: "The Traitors", "The Destruction of Time", Earthshock, Voyage of the Damned)

Because the term was a shortening of the expression "travelling companion", most companions did in fact voyage with him in the TARDIS. Depending on the situation, other words could be used to describe the same relationship — most frequently, "assistant". However, it was somewhat unusual to hear the Doctor describe his friends using either term, and both terms were sometimes problematic. For instance, the London police once interpreted the word "companion" sexually. (DW: Aliens of London) On another occasion, two of the Doctor's companions briefly bickered over the appropriateness of the term "assistant". Rose Tyler once flatly said, "I'm not his assistant" when Sarah Jane called her one, which caused Sarah to ironically exclaim "Get you, tiger!", intimating that Rose was just fooling herself. (DW: School Reunion) However, Rose seemed happier being called a "companion", as when Harriet Jones called out over the Sub-Wave Network for "former companions of the Doctor". (DW: Journey's End)

People were companions or assistants to the Doctor for varying lengths of time, but most stayed with the Doctor for more than one adventure.

Humans
In the main, the Doctor travelled with humans, a number of whom were from the 20th and 21st centuries. His fondness for humans was one of the reasons he was exiled to Earth by the Time Lords. (DW: The War Games) Amongst his human companions, he tended to prefer females — a fact he once sheepishly tried to hide from Amy Pond. (DW: Meanwhile in the TARDIS) Still, he did travel with male companions for significant lengths of time. His second incarnation was never long without a male assistant, and then typically only after the Time Lords forcibly removed Jamie McCrimmon from his side. (TVC: at least Action in Exile through The Night Walkers, but possibly all TVC Second Doctor stories; PDA: World Game, ST: Golem, Blue Road Dance, Scientific Adviser, That Time I Nearly Destroyed the World Whilst Looking for a Dress, Mother's Little Helper, Reunion, Dust) The Doctor's original incarnation almost always had a male companion following his introduction to Ian Chesterton. In fact, it was only during his first life that the Doctor travelled exclusively with a male human, albeit for a brief period of time. (DW: "War of God", BE: Roses, ST: Making History, Waiting for Jeremy)

Historically "famous" humans
Occasionally, the Doctor had adventures with 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).

Near- and non-humans
Despite a statistical preference for humans, the Doctor did have non-human companions, or at the very least companions who were not from Earth. On at least three occasions he traveled with members of his own species, the most long-serving of whom were his own granddaughter and Romana — but Lady Serena was significant, as well, for sacrificing her life in service to the Doctor's goals. (PDA: World Game) Other near-human species with whom he adventured included, but certainly weren't limited to: Trakenites, Alzarians, Cyber-converted humans, and people from Sto. (DW: Logopolis, Full Circle; DWM: The Company of Thieves; DW: Voyage of the Damned'')

The Doctor did not always travel with humans, however. On occasion, he took on board the TARDIS obviously non-human species, like Whifferdills, Ice Warriors, Oblivioners, Eutermesans, and Vessicans. (DWM: The Shape Shifter; RT: Descendance; DWM: Bad Blood; BFA: The Creed of the Kromon; DWM: Thinktwice)

Artificial life-forms sometimes travelled with the Doctor, as well. Clearly, K9 was the Doctor's most-beloved robotic companion, given the number of new models the Doctor built, (DW: The Invasion of Time, School Reunion, KAC: A Girl's Best Friend) and the enthusiasm he displayed when he re-encountered a version of the robot. (SJA: The Wedding of Sarah Jane Smith) The Doctor seemed empathetic to artificial life-forms with errors in their programming, and once effectively euthanize an android companion in irremediable distress. (DW: Planet of Fire)

Joining the Doctor
The Doctor began relationships with his assistants in a wide variety of ways. Some, like Adric, Leela and Zoe actively stowed away on the TARDIS, fully aware that it was a ship that could take them away from their home environment. (DW: State of Decay, The Face of Evil, The Wheel in Space) Others like Ian Chesterton, Barbara Wright, and Dodo Chaplet were dematerialised away from their homes without their consent. (DW: "An Unearthly Child", "Bell of Doom"). He was also occasionally assigned assistants by those in nominal authority over him. During his exile on Earth, the Doctor's assistants were mostly simply supplied by the Brigadier. (DW: Spearhead from Space, Terror of the Autons) In the case of UNIT soldiers, the Doctor worked with whomever the Brigadier happened to have on duty at the time of a crisis, as how he first met Mike Yates. (MA: The Eye of the Giant) The Doctor's other "bosses" — the Time Lords and the White Guardian — also occasionally provided companions, inevitably against the Doctor's wishes. (PDA: World Game, BFA: Blood of the Daleks; DW: The Ribos Operation)

All that said, the most common way of initiating TARDIS travel was simply to be invited by the Doctor. Though there was, from their perspective, a significant gap of time between first becoming aware of the Doctor and eventually getting to travel with him, Amy Pond and Rory Williams were companions who began travelling at the Doctor's request. (DW: The Eleventh Hour, Vampires in Venice) Likewise, Martha Jones, Donna Noble, Rose Tyler, Jack Harkness, Wilfred Mott, Ace, Turlough, Izzy Sinclair, Charley Pollard, Arnold, Jamie McCrimmon, Victoria Waterfield, Vicki and others all began their travels with the Doctor because he invited them.

Rarely, the Doctor invited people to travel with him, like Astrid Peth, only to have their death prevent their travels. (DW: Voyage of the Damned)

Leaving the Doctor
The reasons people left the Doctor's side were as varied as the reasons they first walked through the TARDIS doors. However, reasons for discontinuing a relationship with the Doctor were broadly of three types: either the companion wanted to leave, the Doctor wanted the companion to leave, or some external force compelled the companion and Doctor to be separated.

The companion's choice
The choice to leave was sometimes that of the companion.

A common reason for the departure of female human companions was romance. Sometimes, as with Vicki, Jo and Leela, they left to get married, (DW: "Horse of Destruction", "The Green Death, The Invasion of Time) while at least one other companion, Martha Jones, left because she realised her romantic feelings towards the Doctor would never be reciprocated. (DW: Last of the Time Lords)

In the Doctor's youth, before he established reasonable control over the TARDIS, companions sometimes left, at least in part, because they happened to have access to their own time period again. This was especially true of the companions who had not actually chosen to travel with the Doctor, such as Ian, Barbara, Dodo, Polly, and Ben. (DW: "The Planet of Decision", The War Machines, The Faceless Ones)

Some companions left to improve a particular society they had encountered with the Doctor. Nyssa of Traken left to help cure Lazar's disease (DW: Terminus, whilst Steven Taylor stayed behind on the planet of the Elders in order to be its leader. (DW: The Savages) Later, Mickey Smith would deliberately choose to stay in a parallel world just to help Pete's World defeat the Cybermen. (DW: The Age of Steel)  Mickey would prove especially independent when it came to departing the Doctor's side, as he later left the TARDIS again, this time choosing to return to his "home" Earth, ultimately to defend it from alien threats. (DW: Journey's End, The End of Time)

Others left for more personal improvement. Melanie Bush parted ways the Seventh Doctor purely to have new adventures in space — but not time — with Sabalom Glitz. (DW: Dragonfire) Liz Shaw left UNIT and the Third Doctor in order to return to her research, telling the Brigadier that all the Doctor needed in an assistant was little more than "someone to pass him his test tubes and tell him how brilliant he was". (DW: Terror of the Autons)

Because they were Earth-based assistants who either never wanted to travel with the Doctor on a long-term basis, or never were invited to do so, a few companions made only a single journey or two, but otherwise provided significant assistance from Earth. The Brigadier and Wilfred Mott were classic examples of this sort of assistant, but Jackie Tyler, Harriet Jones, Maxwell Edison and, for a time, Mickey Smith could be viewed in this regard as well.

The Doctor's choice
Sometimes companions were kicked out of the TARDIS, either as punishment, or for the companion's personal growth. Adam Mitchell was summarily ejected, after it was discovered he was trying to use his trip into the future to alter his own personal fortunes. (DW: The Long Game)

Susan, Arnold, John and Gillian were more charitably dismissed, the Doctor clearly believing he was doing them good by ending their travels. In all these cases, the Doctor prevented these youths from continuing to travel with him because he felt it would interfere with their natural maturation. (DW: "Flashpoint"; TVC: "The Amateur" — Third Doctor version only, Invasion of the Quarks)

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.