Contrary to popular belief, the classic Doctor Who companions didn’t spend all their time screaming and tripping over their own heels. Here’s a breakdown of some of the Time Lord’s feistiest friends…
Barbara
The first of our Doctor Who companions was part of the original TARDIS line-up. Barbara was a school teacher and, as you can imagine, had no time for nonsense. She may have described herself as a very unwilling adventurer, but even in the earliest days of the series, it was clear that this was a Doctor Who companion who was more than capable of holding her own. By the show’s seventh episode, she was tackling Daleks head-on by plastering their eye-stalks in mud.
Barbara also had no compunction with calling out the Doctor’s unreasonable behaviour. In ‘The Brink of Disaster,’ the Time Lord accuses Barbara and Ian of sabotaging the TARDIS in order to exact revenge on him, and this is an accusation that Barbara won’t entertain. “How dare you!” she retorts. “Do you realise, you stupid old man, that you’d have died in the Cave of Skulls if Ian hadn’t made fire for you? …Accuse us? You ought to go down on your hands and knees and thank us! But gratitude’s the last thing you’ll ever have, or any sort of common sense either!” Ouch.
There is also the scene in ‘The Rescue’ where Barbara saves Vicki from a monster, which she shoots. Unfortunately, this was one of Vicki’s pets, but there’s no faulting Barbara’s courage.
Sarah Jane
Sarah Jane Smith is often considered one of the archetypal Doctor Who companions, and she’s certainly the best-remembered of the classic era. She was deliberately put into the show by producer Barry Letts in order to be feisty and to ask questions, and the team decided that the best way to do this was to make her a journalist.
This tag was slowly forgotten as Sarah Jane settled into the TARDIS but, like all good Doctor Who companions, Sarah Jane was certainly good at asking questions. It would be unfair to say that this was her defining characteristic, however, as she was also a keen and brave adventurer. One of her best scenes is in ‘The Ark in Space’ where she volunteers to run a cable through a narrow ventilation shaft. She panics when she gets stuck, so the Doctor ‘encourages’ her by calling her a “stupid, foolish girl.” Sarah Jane gets so mad that she finds the strength to pull herself through, just in time to give the Doctor a good slap!
It’s also worth noting that Sarah Jane is one of the few Doctor Who companions to have been afforded her own spin-off series – once in 1983 with K9 and Company, and then in 2006 with The Sarah Jane Adventures, where she effectively takes on the role of the Doctor with her own roster of companions.
Leela
The next of our Doctor Who companions belonged to the Tribe of the Sevateem, and was the closest thing to a warrior the Doctor has ever had on board the TARDIS. Leela was almost too brave, and it was the Doctor’s job to rein her in – for her own safety, as well as the safety of those around her. Leela had a penchant for whipping out her knife at the slightest provocation, and would think nothing of taking out enemies with her personal supply of janis thorns.
This Doctor Who companion did soften over time, however, partly at the request of the actor Tom Baker who was uncomfortable with having a companion who went around killing people. And so, by Season 15, Leela became a little less ‘trigger happy,’ but no less heroic. All of this culminated in a whirlwind romance with a Time Lord called Andred, whom Leela eventually left the TARDIS for, settling down on Gallifrey at the end of ‘The Invasion of Time.’
Tegan
Sometimes described as a “mouth on legs,” the next of our Doctor Who companions was an outspoken Australian who, after training to become an air hostess, found herself unwittingly caught up in the Doctor’s world after stumbling into the TARDIS.
The writers made a conscious effort to make Tegan a positive female role model, and Christopher H. Bidmead (the author of her first story ‘Logopolis‘) deliberately added a scene in her first episode that would pass what is known as the Bechdel test. Simply put, this is a test for any writer to pen a scene between two females in which they don’t talk about a man, and Bidmead achieved this with Tegan and her Aunty Vanessa when they broke down at the side of the road and replaced a flat tyre.
Overall, Tegan was a straight-thinking, no-nonsense Doctor Who companion. She was given a good opportunity to stand on her own two feet in the Season 20 story ‘Arc of Infinity’ where she assists a man called Robin as they investigate her cousin’s disappearance in a mysterious crypt, in Amsterdam. She was later recruited by UNIT in the 2022 story ‘The Power of the Doctor,’ where it was revealed she had taken up a life of travelling the world on various philanthropic missions.
Ace
Like Leela, Ace was a Doctor Who companion who was almost too feisty, to the point of danger. Ace enjoyed blowing things up and crafting her own explosives, which is useful when you’re being pursued through a storm drain by a toothy beast on Terra Alpha, but it wasn’t without risk. She almost killed the Doctor in ‘Remembrance of the Daleks‘ when she misjudged the timing mechanism on one of the bombs she’d given him – but at least it took care of the Dalek.
And speaking of Daleks, the scene that Ace is probably best-remembered for is the one from the chemistry lab in ‘Remembrance’ part two, when she bludgeons one of the metal mutants with a baseball bat before making her escape through a plate-glass window.
Overall, though, Ace was perhaps one of the most well-rounded of the classic Doctor Who companions, as the writers were keen to add more depth and nuance to her character. This was most obvious in Season 26, where Ace almost became the central character in many of the adventures, which explored her pains, fears and even her sexuality. It made sense, therefore, for her character to be called upon in ‘The Power of the Doctor,’ where she was recruited alongside Tegan to tackle the Master, the Cybermen and the Daleks. No easy task!
But over to you, reader. Who do you think is the ‘feistiest’ of the classic Doctor Who companions? And who is your favourite? Let us know in the comments below.
Leave a Reply