There’s this old myth about Doctor Who that says every companion only exists to scream and be saved (Classic Who) or serve as an exposition tool (NuWho), and while there’s some true to that, I think it’s a little reductionist and fails to account for the relationship between the Doctor and their companions, which changes very often and is key to the success of the show and whatever Doctor is on the screen, so I came up with this:
I think, historically, you can definitely organize Doctor Who companions and their function on the show on a three-headed spectrum of 1. Has the emotional intelligence the Doctor lacks, 2. is incredibly competent in their field, which makes them very valuable when shit goes down, and 3. just loves the absolute shit out of the Doctor and believes in them more than anything. Every companion has some level of those three qualities (specially 3) but they place on different points on that spectrum depending on the character and what each Doctor needs out of their companions and what works best them.
So for example you have the prototypical archetypal companions of each side of that spectrum
Type 1 are characters like Rory, Donna, Jo Grant, who are usually there to remind the Doctor of what is like to not be a Time Lord, that they have the responsibility to help people and to care, and, ultimately, ground the Doctor..
Type 2 have some of most of the heavily underrated companions like Martha and Zoe Heriot, and some recognized to be the best ever like Sarah Jane, Jack, Ace… these often do not need the Doctor to get shit done and have many stories in which they are on their own. They’re very good fighters or extremely intelligent or both, and curiously I found that this archetype happened a lot more in classic who then it does in nuwho.
And, finally, Type 3, who are ones who are better and make the Doctor better because of their special bond. I don’t think any companion is a better example of that than Amy, but there’s also characters like Peri Brown, Jamie McCrimmon and Rose Tyler.
These also somewhat reflect the roles of the 3 original companions: Barbara (Type 1), Ian (Type 2) and Susan (Type 3).
Of course these characters aren’t set to a specific role and they can develop and grow, they might even change where they place depending on the season or the Doctor they’re with. Some might even be prototypical of two different types, like Yaz (2 & 3), or Victoria (1 & 3) or Clara (arguably all 3). But overall I think this is a good baseline to understanding how companions actually work on Doctor Who.
So if you put everything on a graphic, you end up with something like this (NuWho only), which is definitely not entirely accurate and is up to interpretation and discussion, but is a good illustration of what I mean.
I don’t think any type of companion is necessarily better than the other but I do think there’s some relevant observations that can be taken from this, like 3 out of the 5 white men to have been companions in NuWho serving as a morality guide for the Doctor, or the argument that the reason why Clara is so controversial is because she fluctuates so much inside this spectrum, going from genius (Asylum), to the Doctor’s emotional and moral guide (Day of the Doctor, series 8), to the Doctor’s best friend ever (series 9) - I say this a big fan. I also didn’t get into how effective each companion is in their roles, which is definitely a big factor, but it’s also a lot more subjective, so I’m not touching that. There’s not value placed here, it’s just a simple interpretation of the text.
Anyway, this isn’t a perfect system, and maybe there’s more to be added or taken from this, but I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this and I do think it has some merits. At the very least it’s a lot better than the simplification of ‘screams for the doctor or not’.
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