Read Companions: Fifty Years of Doctor Who Assistants Online
Authors: Andy Frankham-Allen
Tags: #Doctor Who, Television, non-fiction
Companions: Fifty Years of Doctor Who Assistants
COMPANIONS
FIFTY YEARS OF DOCTOR WHO ASSISTANTS
An unofficial non-fiction reference book
based on the BBC television programme Doctor Who
Andy Frankham-Allen
CANDY JAR BOOKS CARDIFF
A Chaloner & Russell Company
2013
Copyright Andy Frankham-Allen 2013
Published by Candy Jar Books
Doctor Who is copyright British Broadcasting Corporation, 1963, 2013.
This book is available in print at most online retailers.
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a
retrieval system, or transmitted at any time or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the copyright holder.
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only.
A catalogue record of this book is available
from the British Library
Dedicated to the memory of...
Jacqueline Hill
Adrienne Hill
Michael Craze
Caroline John
Elisabeth Sladen
Mary Tamm
and Nicholas Courtney
Companions forever gone,
but always remembered.
‘I only take the best.’
The Doctor
(
The Long Game
)
Table of Contents
The First Doctor: William Hartnell
The Second Doctor: Patrick Troughton
The Fifth Doctor: Peter Davison
The Seventh Doctor: Sylvester McCoy
The Eighth Doctor: Paul McGann
The Ninth Doctor: Christopher Eccleston
The Tenth Doctor: David Tennant
The Eleventh Doctor: Matt Smith
The Brigadier: Nicholas Courtney
For
ew
o
rd
When I was very young I fell in love with
Doctor Who
– it was a series that ‘spoke’ to me unlike anything else I had ever seen. And of course, my main way of entering its weird, scary, thrilling, subversive worlds was through the eyes of the Doctor’s friends, his assistants, his companions.
So what is the companion there for? Somewhat accurately, but cynically, pointing out a flaw in the show’s format back in 1971, the writers described the companion as someone who was there to pass the Doctor his test tubes and tell him he was brilliant. However this is a rather unfair generalisation and had the people responsible for that swipe subsequently shaken up what they perceived as the status quo and done something to change that conception, one might be more forgiving of their little piece of whimsey.
Because the companion is far far more important than that. Yes, of course they are a sounding board, someone to pat him on the back, or get into trouble and need rescuing, or point out the bleedin’ obvious when he gets all spacey and alien and misses the little details. But above all else, the companion is there to be his best friend. And, as a result, the viewer, especially the under tens, become the Doctor’s best friend by default. Because they identify with the companion. More than anything else, if I was in any way the ‘typical’ viewer back in the 1960s and 1970s, I wanted to
be
the companion. We aspire to be the companion, we want to find our own magical police box and be whisked off into space and time, fighting Daleks, stopping Cybermen, facing down the Weeping Angels. Because that’s exactly what we’d do to help the Doctor.
That’s why this show so captured the imaginations of generations, yes generations, of children. The need, and the love the viewer has for the companion, is as valid and true in 2013 as it was on that foggy night in November 1963.
My first ‘best friends’ were Ben and Polly. My first tears shed when a companion said goodbye was for Jo Grant. My first ‘blimey she’s sexy’ was Leela. My first ‘I don’t like this companion’ was K9 (sorry, but I cannot abide cute robots and much as I respect the little mutt now, back in 1977 I wanted to punt him into outer space). Yes, the middle-aged
Doctor Who
fan I am now can look back and say ‘that one worked well’ and ‘that one wasn’t really that well developed as a character’ and ‘what were they thinking?’ – but the pre-teen inside me who fell in love with this madcap, insane and brilliant show, still looks at each and every companion, from Susan to Clara, via Jamie, Sarah Jane, Tegan and Mel and all the others, with affection, admiration and of course a huge amount of jealousy. Because they got to do what I never did. They found their madman with a box.
Which brings us neatly to this book, and Andy Frankham-Allen’s guide to each and every one of those companions (and a few other friends that don’t quite count as companions but were of equal importance to the Doctor at any given moment). Of course there have been books about companions before – but few of them going into this amount of detail, display this amount of in-depth knowledge and above all, this amount of love. As a celebration of everything that makes the Doctor’s (and therefore our) best friends unique and special, this book is essential.
Whether you were there through the days of Ian & Barbara, Victoria and Zoe, Liz and the men of UNIT, the two Romanas, Adric and Nyssa, Peri, Ace and Grace – or whether you only discovered your Doctor through the eyes of Rose, Martha, Donna or Amy & Rory, this is the book for you.
So step aboard your own Police Box and take a trip through the Doctor’s outer-space Rolodex and get reacquainted with old chums, or discover some fantastic new ones. It’s good to know who these guys are – because if you do find that Police Box of your own, you might just need to know what they did to ensure you don’t get exterminated in the first five minutes!
Gary Russell
Cardiff, 2013
