10 False Doctor Who Facts You Probably Still Believe
7. Adric Was The First Companion To Die
When many people think of the first Doctor Who companion to pop their clogs, their brain naturally goes to Adric. After all, he'd travelled with two incarnations of the Doctor and had a dramatic ending, crashing a freighter full of dead Cybermen into prehistoric Earth.
In reality, Adric wasn't the first Doctor Who companion to die, but it's easy to see why people think that.
Firstly, the serial in which not one, but two companion deaths take place – The Daleks' Master Plan – is mostly missing from the BBC archives. Secondly, one of those companions – Jean Marsh's Sara Kingdom – disputes that she's even a Doctor Who companion in the story!
The first of those two deaths was Katarina, the ancient Greek handmaiden who joined the Doctor and Steven at the end of The Myth Makers. Like Adric, Katarina's death also takes place on a spaceship and she also sacrifices herself to save her friends, by opening an airlock and blasting herself and the villain Kirksen into space, so the Doctor can continue his mission.
Well that's alright then!