Doctor Who: 10 Most Embarrassing Classic Series Companions

By Mike Morgan / April 24, 2015

The Doctor needs a travelling companion. When he travels alone, he runs the risk of quickly turning into an out of touch egotist, ready to change history and spout guff like "I'm the Time Lord victorious!" Not only that, but viewers need a companion in the programme as a point of audience identification. It's hard to feel empathy for a 2,000 year old alien who can feel the ebb and flow of the universe around him. And almost always, these companions are terrific characters. Stalwart defenders of right and plucky helpers in the Doctor's endless crusade to defeat evil-doers across the cosmos. But sometimes, just sometimes, they turn out to be less than marvellous additions to the TARDIS crew. Not necessarily because they're bad characters or poorly acted, but because they were designed by the production team to be that way. An incompetent assistant can be an excellent means of driving a story forward. Take Jo Grant, for example. When she entered the Doctor's life in Terror of the Autons, she was a clumsy, unworldly ingénue. By the time Katy Manning's endearing character made her exit in The Green Death, she was still clumsy (mind those samples, Professor Jones!) but she was a lot more confident. But still, no matter how much the audience and the Doctor loved her, Jo was never going to win an award for Most Useful Assistant Ever. Here are the 10 companions from the Classic Series who were supposed to wow audiences but spectacularly failed to do so. These are cases when the characters are designed and written so badly that they're destined to grate on the audience's nerves no matter how much the actors and actresses strive to save the part through the sheer force of their performances. Sorry, but it's true.