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Doctor Who Companion Profile: Barbara Wright

Barbara Wright is a history teacher at the Coal Hill School alongside Ian Chesterton. We are introduced to her in the series’ pilot episode as the teacher of Susan Foreman, who is soon revealed to be The Doctor’s granddaughter. Perplexed by Susan’s strange behavior, Ian and Barbara follow her back to her home in a junkyard, where they see her enter a mysterious police box. They follow her in, only to discover the TARDIS, the time machine that serves as a home to Susan and The Doctor. Though they promise to keep the secret, the paranoid Doctor refuses to let them leave and instead whisks them off through space and time.

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Doctor Who Companion Profile: Mickey Smith

Mickey is a fairly nondescript young man when his girlfriend Rose encounters the Doctor. Swept along (and nearly killed by the Autons), he initially reacts with fear and disbelief to the dangers represented by the Doctor. After Rose leaves with the Doctor, disappearing for a year, as far as her mother and the police are concerned, Mickey is suspected of being responsible for her disappearance and this nearly destroys his life. After a few more adventures with the Doctor on Earth, he’s invited aboard the TARDIS, but turns down the Doctor, still fearful, but eventually he invites himself aboard, much to Sarah Jane’s delight, and travels with the Doctor and Rose for a few stories before opting to stay in a parallel universe in which they find themselves. He of course ends up back home before too long, though.

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Doctor Who Companion Profile: Kamelion

Kamelion Voiced by: Gerald Flood Doctor(s): Fifth Doctor Tenure: 2 stories- The King’s Demons (March, 1983) and Planet of Fire (March, 1984) Background: Kamelion is a robot introduced in the control of the Master, as part of his nefarious scheme to undermine the reign of King John. The Master had discovered Kamelion prior to this …

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Doctor Who Companion Profile: Leela

Leela is fierce, bold, and combative. She’s surprisingly flexible to life aboard the TARDIS, given her background, and she bonds quickly with the Doctor, who takes it upon himself to sand down her rough edges. As a warrior, her initial instinct in any given situation is to quickly and permanently shut down threats. This makes her a natural counterpoint to the Doctor and while she grows tremendously due to her travels with him, she never entirely abandons her more physical approach to conflict resolution. Leela is a woman of few words and an ally to the oppressed. She has little patience for weakness however, finding those unwilling to help themselves, relying instead on others for protection, obnoxious and unworthy of assistance. She’s incredibly determined and self-motivated, jumping aboard the TARDIS after the Doctor denies her request to travel with him, and despite these many elements to her gruff exterior, Leela can be sensitive and emotionally vulnerable from time to time.

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Doctor Who Companion Profile: Dr. Grace Holloway

Dr. Grace Holloway is a cardiovascular surgeon in San Francisco. She has a strained relationship with her live-in boyfriend, due to her constantly being constantly either at work or on call. When she has to leave Madama Butterfly during the start of the second act, this is the last straw; he’s moved out by the time she gets home, with the newly regenerated Doctor in tow (he’s the patient she’s called in to do surgery on).

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Doctor Who Companion Profile: Martha Jones

Dr. Martha Jones is a medical student when she encounters the Doctor at her hospital, mid-investigation. What else is a girl to do after her workplace is transferred to the moon but begin time traveling with a charming alien who saves her life? In contrast to Rose, Martha comes from an upper middle class background and is a driven career woman. When given the opportunity to have an adventure or two and be home in time for rounds the next day though, she jumps at the chance.

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Doctor Who Companion Profile: Susan Foreman

Susan is introduced as a British teenager who doesn’t particularly fit in with her peers at Cole Hill School. We discover in the pilot that she’s actually an alien (the Time Lords aren’t named until the end of the Second Doctor’s run) who lives with her grandfather in a dump, in what looks to be a police box but is actually the TARDIS, a space-time ship. She loves England of the ‘60s and wants to stay for a while, but when her teachers Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright follow her to the TARDIS and discover who she and The Doctor really are, the Doctor takes off in the TARDIS, kidnapping Ian and Barbara and kicking off the series.

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Doctor Who Companion Profile: Sarah Jane Smith

Sarah Jane is a journalist sneaking in to UNIT with her virologist aunt’s credentials when she meets the Doctor. She’s eventually caught, but she leaves an impression and ends up replacing the recently-departed Jo Grant as the Companion. After traveling with the Doctor, he drops her off in the wrong city, if not the wrong time, leaving her behind when faced with a summons to Gallifrey. Sarah runs into the Doctor again much later, allowing her to meet Rose and Mickey and get some much-needed closure.

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Doctor Who Companion Profile: Donna Noble

While working as a temp at a large security firm in London, Donna meets a coworker to whom she eventually becomes engaged. On her wedding day, as she’s walking down the aisle, she starts glowing, screams, and is teleported into the TARDIS, where she meets the Doctor. She discovers her fiancé had been poisoning her coffee as part of a nefarious scheme and, after saving the day with the Doctor, turns down his offer to travel with him, being too afraid of what that life means. Soon, though, she regrets her decision and refocuses her life on finding the Doctor and getting a second chance, hunting out alien plots and schemes, which is what she’s doing when she comes across the Doctor a second time, foils the Adipose with him, invites herself aboard the TARDIS, and heads out to the stars.

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Doctor Who Companion Profile: Adric

Adric is a child genius, with a focus in math, from the 32nd century. Though he looks outwardly human, he’s actually Alzarian, or from Alzarius, a planet in E-Space (a parallel dimension). After working with the Doctor and Romana to help the Alzarians take to the stars, Adric stows away aboard the TARDIS and joins them on their adventures.

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Doctor Who Companion Profile: Liz Shaw

Dr. Elizabeth Shaw is a scientist with a physics degree and a medical degree, among others. She’s an expert in meteorites as well and is initially brought in from Cambridge by the Brig to serve as UNIT’s scientific advisor. Though initially skeptical, after encountering the Doctor and fighting the Autons, she stays on and becomes the Doctor’s assistant, after he takes the job initially offered to her.

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Doctor Who Companion Profile: Ace

Dorothy Gale McShane, nicknamed Ace (which she says rather frequently) is troubled teenaged chemistry whiz, Ace enjoys cooking up bombs of her own recipe, Nitro-9, which she’s fond of carrying around just in case. While she was experimenting with explosives in her room, a time storm swept her off from contemporary (to when her stories aired) England to a spaceport in the far future, where she encounters the Doctor, who takes an interest in the displaced teen.

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Doctor Who Companion Profile: The Brigadier

Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart is a Colonel when we first meet him in The Web of Fear. He works with UNIT, the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce, and commands the British contingent, monitoring and defending against extraterrestrial threats. He works well with the Doctor and, when he starts his run with the Third Doctor, he’s been promoted to Brigadier, a title he keeps for the rest of his life (mostly because that’s how fans know the character- he would likely have been promoted several levels above Brigadier). Eventually, after a particularly traumatic experience, he retires, becoming a teacher at a prep school, where he once again runs into the Doctor, and afterward, he goes back to work with UNIT.

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Doctor Who Companion Profile: Adam Mitchell

Adam is a highly intelligent young man from 2012 who we meet when he’s working for American collector Henry van Statten. He is a tech whiz who bonds with Rose during the events of “Dalek”, prompting her to ask the Doctor to take him aboard the TARDIS. Adam proves to not be cut out for time travel, however, when he almost immediately starts taking advantage of his first trip in the TARDIS for personal gain, risking significant damage to the time line in doing so. Adam is designed to demonstrate what a Companion must not be, and he’s successful in this, but it makes him a not particularly interesting character on his own right.

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Doctor Who Companion Profile: Dodo Chaplet

We know very little about Dodo when she literally wanders into the TARDIS right before it takes off, thinking it’s a police box. We do find out her grandfather is French, letting viewers hope that potential Companion Anne Chaplet from The Massacre of St. Bartholomew’s Eve survived the slaughter of the Huguenots. Dodo, short for Dorothea, is a British teen from 1966, making her contemporary for when her stories aired.

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Doctor Who Companion Profile: Romana I

Romanadvoratrelundar (the Doctor dubs her Romana) is a Time Lady who is foisted upon the then-Companionless Fourth Doctor (and vice versa) by the White Guardian* to help him in his search for the Key to Time, a highly powerful item broken into six parts and scattered throughout the universe. She’s fresh from the Academy and incredibly intelligent, more so even than the Doctor. Romana is also much younger than the Doctor and, having just left Gallifrey for presumably the first time, he’s a far more experienced adventurer.

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Doctor Who Companion Profile: Ian Chesterton

Ian Chesterton is a science teacher at the Coal Hill School alongside Barbara Wright. We are introduced to him in the series’ pilot episode as the teacher of Susan Foreman, who is soon revealed to be The Doctor’s granddaughter. Perplexed by Susan’s strange behavior, Ian and Barbara follow her back to her home in a junkyard, where they see her enter a mysterious police box. They follow her in, only to discover the TARDIS, the time machine that serves as a home to Susan and The Doctor. Though they promise to keep the secret, the paranoid Doctor refuses to let them leave and instead whisks them off through space and time.

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Doctor Who Companion Profile: Jack Harkness

Captain Jack Harkness is human from the 51st century who is a former model turned former Time Agent turned con man when he first meets The Doctor in WWII London. After helping the Doctor and Rose save the day, Jack joins the TARDIS team until his death. Brought back to life (permanently) by a Time Vortex-y Rose, Jack goes on many other adventures (detailed in Torchwood) before running across the Doctor and Martha. Jack leaves the TARDIS a second time (more Torchwood), before returning to help the Doctor and Donna save the universe and leaving the TARDIS for the third and, so far, final time.

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