If you think you know your Doctor Who companions, think again…
If you’ve been following Candy Jar’s publications for a while, you will know that they previously released a detailed tome about the Doctor Who companions about 10 years ago, named simply Companions. This took an in-depth look at the Doctor Who companions from the very first (Susan Foreman) to the very latest (Clara Oswald.)
Now, of course, Clara Oswald is no longer the latest Doctor Who companion. That would be Ruby Sunday, provided you buy this book before the launch of Series Two. But I think Candy Jar can be forgiven this tiny omission given that the upcoming Belinda Chandra hasn’t featured in any broadcast episodes yet.
The updated edition – Companions: More Than Sixty Years of Doctor Who Assistants comes courtesy of Doctor Who experts Andy Frankham-Allen and friend of Lovarzi Philip Bates, who also (ironically) runs the Doctor Who Companion website.
Here’s the blurb…
Doctor Who was never really about the Doctor. This is the story of the Time Lord’s companions – friends through all time and space.
Discover the journeys of every one of the Doctor’s assistants, from Susan, Ian Chesterton, and Barbara Wright, to Fifteenth Doctor companion, Ruby Sunday; including their adventures off-screen, in novels, comics, and audio.
Companions: Sixty Years of Doctor Who Assistants is an in-depth account of each companion, examining their arcs, significance in the TV series, and how they traversed different times, places, and mediums. Relive their travels on television. Learn what companions did after they left the TARDIS. And meet the Doctor’s wider network of friends, from Evelyn Smythe to Liv Chenka, Professor Bernice Summerfield to his grandchildren, John and Gillian.
See the universe anew through their eyes.
“Companions has been long out of print,” says editor Shaun Russell, “and I still get fans asking when it’ll be available again. With Doctor Who recently celebrating its sixtieth anniversary, now seemed the perfect time. What’s been so amazing, though, is seeing how much extra material there’s been to cover. It’s effectively the same amount as a brand new book!”
And this is a good way of looking at it, because a lot has changed since the 2013 edition. Clara, of course, was only partway through her travels with the good Doctor when the 50th anniversary special came to a close. And Donna Noble has had a whole new lease of life through her latest encounters with the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Doctors.
Other Doctor Who companions have also had their histories expanded. Melanie Bush, like Donna, has met the two latest Doctors, and of course there are the memory TARDISes from Tales from the TARDIS, which are referenced. And then there is Ace, and the book is brave enough to delve into her many, many alternate timelines and makes sense of them in an ordered, logical way.
But one of the most interesting aspects of this book is the fact that it dives into the Whoniverse’s more obscure Doctor Who companions, some of whom readers will (likely) have never heard of. Yes, you may be familiar with Lucie Miller or even Frobisher the penguin, but who the heck is Erimemushinteperem, or Gabby Gonzalez?
Moreover, this book provides what is probably the most concrete and comprehensive answer to the question of what, exactly, constitutes a Doctor Who companion? Does Sara Kingdom make the cut? Or Adam Mitchell? Or Duggan? Can a person simply be dubbed a Doctor Who companion by virtue of the fact that they’ve travelled in the TARDIS? And if so, are they still a companion if they only appeared in a single episode? And what is canon?!
These things, of course, will ultimately come down to personal opinion (particularly where canon is concerned) but this book is nothing if not thorough. At an eye-popping 700 pages, it gives The Ancient and Worshipful Law of Gallifrey a run for its money.
“I remain incredibly proud of Companions,” says the original author Andy Frankham-Allen. “The reception it had made the long hours noting down every important character beat worthwhile. My edition went up to the end of ‘The Name of the Doctor’ in 2013, so for this new edition, we’ve finished off Clara Oswald’s time with the Eleventh Doctor, then analysed the lives of many more companions since then like Bill Potts, Yasmin Khan, and even someone whose time on board the TARDIS we all thought was over, Donna Noble.”
Philip Bates adds: “Andy’s tome sits on my desk, a comprehensive and fascinating guide that I can turn to whenever my memory cheats. When Shaun and Andy asked me to get on board updating it, I was understandably over the moon. It quickly dawned on me how many more adventures there were to feature, so that meant starting again from page one – checking all the information was still correct or hadn’t been contradicted, then diving into other mediums to find out how classic and new companions have had their lives explored further. And it’s been an absolute joy.”
We can only hope that Andy and Philip will continue their Doctor Who companion fact-finding missing in time for the show’s 70th anniversary in 2033, by which time Toby Hadoke will be the showrunner, and David Tennant will be the Eighteenth Doctor. By then, of course, there will plenty of new details to add from all of the recovered missing episodes, which will have been digitised thanks to the BBC’s patented time window technology. Exciting!
In the meantime, tell us: who is your favourite Doctor Who companion? Let us know in the comments below.
Companions: Sixty Years of Doctor Who Assistants is now available from Candy Jar Books. It will be available on Amazon in June, along with a hardback edition.
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