back to article Are you experienced? The Doctor Who assistants that SUFFERED the most

There is a range of events the Doctor’s companions can expect to encounter, from meeting his most arch of enemies to being flung bodily through time and space, and undergoing various forms of attack. One might presume the more adventures they have, the more of these experiences they’ll gain, so the radius of the slices …

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  1. Alex Walsh

    Adric suffered the most- he bloody died. Mind you Peri suffered a lot- those costumes barely held her in.

    1. Michael Shelby

      If you want to talk about dying, I think Rory had Adric beat at least 5 to 1. How many times did Rory die, anyway?

      1. jerry 4

        Not enough, and he forgot to take Amy with him.

      2. Jordan Davenport

        How many times did Rory die, anyway?

        Infinity excluding the final paradox, technically.

    2. Matthew Smith

      Peri has strangulation by Doctor.

    3. Gav

      Everyone hated Adric, because he was a whiney man-child, so he doesn't count.

    4. Oliver Mayes

      What about Captain Jack? I think he's died more times than anyone, not to mention spending a few hundred years buried 'alive', being blown apart by a bomb in his stomach and painfully regrowing his body.

      They should add an extra slice to that chart 'Traveled through time while clinging to the outside of the TARDIS'

      1. Anonymous John

        Didn't most of that happen in Torchwod?

      2. RAMChYLD

        Captain Jack

        +1. Disappointed that Jack Harkness isn't listed.

    5. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Adric suffered the most- he bloody died

      I was at boarding school when this happened and Dr Who was part of Saturday afternoon routine. Remember that when he died (crashed Cybership into earth with side-effect of causing extinction of dinosaurs!) they ran the closing credits with no music for added effect ... didn't work though since as soon as we realized Adric was no more we all cheered!

      Mind you Peri suffered a lot- those costumes barely held her in

      Well past my schooldays ... must explain why I have no recollection of her/her costumes!

  2. graeme leggett Silver badge

    Romana - not only duplicated once but met two doppelgangers of herself (or one-and-half depending how you feel about the Romana/Astra relationship).

    Tough on Liz Shaw, now if it had said travelled to an parallel universe....

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Romana

      Romana married Richard Dawkins, which surely counts for something on the chart.

      1. Robert Carnegie Silver badge

        Re: Romana

        She married The Doctor as well, is there a box for that?

        1. Simon Harris
          Alert

          Re: Romana

          Not exactly a companion, but "The Doctor's Daughter" of the 10th Doctor, is the daughter of the 5th Doctor and Hitchhiker's Guide Trillian - what box does that fit into?

          1. Bod

            Re: Romana

            "Not exactly a companion, but "The Doctor's Daughter" of the 10th Doctor, is the daughter of the 5th Doctor and Hitchhiker's Guide Trillian"

            More than that, she married the 10th also.

            1. Afflicted.John

              Re: Romana

              Insidious incest!

    2. Robert Carnegie Silver badge

      I think Liz Shaw already existed in a parallel universe

      But does that count as duplication?

      She got mind-controlled in the 3-D EastEnders crossover "Dimensions In Time".

  3. Eclectic Man Silver badge

    What about K-9?

    K-9 definetely had a personality, and met a whole host of the good Doctor's enemies.

    Also, Captain Jack Harkness, desn't he count as an asistant?

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Not just assistants that suffered...

    ...the rest of us suffered when Bonnie Langford joined.

    1. Uncle Slacky Silver badge

      Re: Not just assistants that suffered...

      That pretty much marked the point where I gave up on the classic series...

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Not just assistants that suffered...

        Yep, her and also Sylvester McCoy...

  5. Suricou Raven

    I want closure!

    What happened to Ace? The series needs to address this.

    1. Mark Eccleston

      Re: I want closure!

      Duh....Nitro-9 accident.

    2. DJ Particle

      Re: I want closure!

      She eventually got back to contemporary times and started a charity called "A Charitable Earth"

      This was revealed at the end of one of the Sarah Jane episodes, "Death of the Doctor" - notable not only for the Doctor's appearance, but also the return of Jo Grant.

      Other revelations from that episode:

      Barbara and Ian resumed their jobs, and later became educators at Cambridge U, but strangely haven't aged in nearly 50 years.

      Tegan became a spokesperson for aboriginal rights in Australia.

      Ben and Polly got married and run a home for orphaned children.

      Harry is no longer alive, but played key roles in medical research.

      And, of course, Jo is still married and traveling the world with some of her family for various environmental causes. :)

  6. Simon Harris
    Happy

    Missing experiences...

    You missed out - assistants' clothes diminishing from the range of experiences.

    Thinking particularly of Nyssa in Terminus for this one.

    (I really should stop thinking about that before I have a NSFW moment).

    1. Anonymous Custard

      Re: Missing experiences...

      Forget Nyssa, it was more Peri almost continually falling out of her costumes that was more memorable...

    2. NogginTheNog
      Thumb Up

      Re: Missing experiences...

      Peri joined the Doctor whilst wearing bikini, so strictly speaking her outfits became less revealing, not more! Still not all that much more though...

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Missing experiences...

        I've always assumed the early location scenes of Attack Of The Cybermen were shot on a cold day........

      2. Wize

        Re: Missing experiences...

        Ah Peri. The only reason I stuck through the Colin Baker years.

        Though not his fault it was crap. He wanted a dark suit and to take the Dr's character somewhere dark. They gave him a clown suit instead. And now they are looking at the Dr's dark side.

  7. This post has been deleted by its author

    1. James Micallef Silver badge

      Re: Death?

      Yes, I would think that losing life or limb and / or ending up stuck somewhere completely different is pain on a different order of magnitude to simply meeting a villain. One is danger (ie potential harm), the other is real actualised harm

    2. DrStrangeLug

      There's a difference

      Never understood that.

      Yeah, he can't go back to New York without blowing up the planet. So why not nip back to , say , Boston, a couple of days before they arrive and send them a telegram. A telegram that states something like "TARDIS IN BOSTON STOP GET THERE NOW STOP" .

      1. Dan 55 Silver badge

        Re: There's a difference

        Because there were too many timey-wimey things happening at at that point in time in NY and even sending a telegram there to change history after they found out the date of their death by looking at the gravestones thus making it a fixed event in the present could push the universe over the edge.

        No, I didn't believe it either.

        1. ThomH

          Re: There's a difference

          I think it was more the bit where if he had read it in the book then it had to happen than the getting into NY trouble, as per the stuff with River's wrist. The book said "final farewell".

          So, yeah, convoluted plot contrivances concerned with arm waving and brief mentions of causality.

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: There's a difference

          "Because there were too many timey-wimey things happening at at that point in time in NY and even sending a telegram there to change history after they found out the date of their death by looking at the gravestones thus making it a fixed event in the present could push the universe over the edge."

          So, skip forward to 1940. And the date on a gravestone says nothing about when a time traveller died any more than it tells you who, if anyone, is in the grave.

          Total shite writing. Moffat persists in the notion that a program about a time traveller is all about time travel in the same way that travel programs are presumably supposed to be all about airports. Which is all the worse when he makes plotting blunders the size of the ones in Angels Take Manhatten which has to be the worst Dr Who ever recorded.

  8. Winkypop Silver badge
    Black Helicopters

    Tegan

    Poor old Tegan missed her flight!

    1. Petrea Mitchell
      Unhappy

      Re: Tegan

      It hadn't occurred to me that Tegan would be one of the top scorers, especially, in comparison to the much less stressful lives of her contemporaries! No wonder she eventually ran off saying "I've had enough!"

  9. Anonymous Custard
    Childcatcher

    Mel

    and yet Mel and Harry undergo more trials and tribulations in a similar number of episodes.

    Yes, but Mel was played by Bonnie Langford, so it can be considered karmic retribution for past career sins and torments inflicted (scream and scream and scream until I'm sick etc)...

  10. EssEll

    Sarah Jane

    Surprised no-one's mentioned Sarah Jane. She got hit by everything and *still* went on to have her own series.

  11. Eclectic Man Silver badge

    And Clyde?

    (I think it was Clyde) The schoolboy off of the Sarah Jane spin off, who is somehow 'entangled' with the Doctor. The Dr. managed to swap their locations in one episode, leaving Clyde distinctly stranded on an alien planet until the Doctor could get around to resucing him.

  12. David Paul Morgan
    Happy

    I love it that...

    Elisabeth Sladen seems to have 'full house'!

    Her biography is lovely, with a nice foreword from Tennant.

    Also her description of how the SJ Adventures came about...

    In other news, there's a plaque to Terry Nation being unveiled in Llandaff, Cardiff next week. 12:00, Wed 20th Nov.

    Can't wait until the 23rd!

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    What about the TARDIS (Possible spoilers if you have been living in a cave several years)

    Surely the old girl has suffered more than any assistant, she's been blown up at every point in the universe, dropped into the middle of a planet, kicked out of her body, stolen by almost every enemy known to the doctor, painted pink by the Happiness Patrol, shoved though a CVE into N-space, thrown into a core of Z-Neutrino energy with no shielding, crashed into by a replica of the Titanic,, dropped off several cliffs, crashed into the Pond's back garden. and continually flown by someone who leaves the hand-brake on. Surely she deserves a mention for all that :)

  14. darklord

    K9????????? - I always hated that programme its worse than crossroads.

  15. cosymart
    Megaphone

    What about...

    River Song being brought up by aliens and then killing her husband?

  16. IR

    So giving birth to a timelord doesn't count as meeting one? Or does River not count because her timelordiness was cause by the TARDIS?

  17. Stevie

    Bah!

    Interesting.

    Personally, I always wondered why the Doctor didn't hit Tegan in the face with a shovel. What an annoying whiny woman. The Tegan/Fifth Doctor combo was more than I could stand and this marks the point I stopped paying any attention to the show.

  18. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    An article about

    Dr Who's assistants in el reg, and no pix of Leela, Zoe, Ace or Peri

    shome mishtake shurely?

  19. Number6

    Amy and Rory benefit because their stories were mostly single episodes, so they could get through a lot i a single run. Back in the classic days, they were often 4-part or 6-part stories, so you might only get three or four in a season/series.

    1. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

      Yes, the format change makes the comparison between Old Who and New Who in the chart pointless. Perhaps something like "story-hours in stories featuring X" would be a better metric.

  20. Ian 55

    Doing a nude photoshoot

    Jo Grant... anyone else?

    Not that it matters, even most of the actors playing the Dr reckoned she had the nicest bum (the perks of being backstage at a Dr Who con including overhearing discussions like this...)

  21. akaikoru

    Rose inaccuracies

    When Rose was controlled by Cassandra she was basically being Mind Controlled.

    AND while not in your chart

    Rose looked into the heart of the Tardis and controlled it's power.

    Rose made 1 man almost immortal.

    Rose (and Mickey) travelled to another dimension.

    Rose saved the world.

    You should also really add a category for:

    witnessed a regeneration.

    Piloted the Tardis

    Used a Sonic Screwdriver

    Saved the Doctor's life

    1. Stevie

      Re: Rose inaccuracies

      You missed "annoying accent".

      And "Had Irritating Mother (with annoying accent)". Never was a cyberization so well targeted or so well-received.

      I'm hoping the new doctor continues the trend of keeping well clear of Eastendersland.

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