10 Most Useless Doctor Who Characters

Anyone who says that Adric is the Fifth Doctor's worst companion is wilfully ignoring Turlough. Adric is a passable TARDIS pilot who's really good at maths, while Turlough is an overgrown schoolboy who starts his time in the TARDIS by trying to murder the Doctor on the instruction of the Black Guardian. And yet, despite the multiple opportunities presented to him throughout his first serial, Mawdryn Undead, he relents.

Charitably, Turlough's reluctance to kill the Doctor in Mawdryn Undead could be compared to Hamlet, but writer Peter Grimwade is no William Shakespeare, and actor Mark Strickson is no Laurence Olivier. Once Turlough finally rejects the Black Guardian in Enlightenment, he goes from being a useless assassin to being a useless Doctor Who companion.

He's more cowardly than Mickey, more prone to fright than Victoria, and generally spends most of his time smugly winding up Tegan. It's not entirely certain that he's given up on his mission to kill the Doctor either. Memorably, in Warriors of the Deep, Turlough pronounces that the Doctor has drowned to death mere seconds after the unfortunate Time Lord hits the water.

Speaking of drowning, Turlough does save Peri from a watery grave at the start of his final story, so he's not 100-percent useless. That being said, looking back across his time with the Doctor and Tegan, it's hard to discern exactly what Turlough brought to the TARDIS - aside from a nice sketch of the Eye of Orion.