The debate over who is the best Doctor Who has raged for decades, but what about their trusty companions?
Those plucky fellow travellers have risked life and limb to help the Doctor in the crusade to bring justice to the universe for 60 years now.
So, with the show's big diamond anniversary upon us, it's time to decide which of the Time Lord's pals makes it to the top tier of sidekicks?
Read on as we reveal the top 10 Doctor Who companions ever…
10. K9 (John Leeson/David Brierly, first appeared 1977)
The mid-70s saw sci-fi sensation Star Wars make cute robots the order of the day, and Doctor Who came up with its own take — on a BBC budget, of course!
Tom Baker’s fourth Doctor and metal mutt K9 made a great team (though Baker wasn’t keen on the dog stealing his focus) and the tin dog was quickly promoted from the one-off appearance to series regular.
Junior viewers immediately gave the Doc's new best friend a big "affirmative", but older fans cringed at the rather rickety robot, worrying the show was leaning too much into comedy at the time (not surprising, as K9’s era saw Douglas Adams of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy fame work as script editor on the show).
K9 certainly brought thrills to the screen, often saving the day with his ray gun concealed in his nose. And like all good companions, he required rescuing by the Doc from many a hairy situation, including decapitation, the white heat of a furnace and an almost drowning off Brighton Beach.
K9 is now one of the show’s most recognizable icons, making return appearances in both the classic and the modern versions of Doctor Who.
Spin-off show, K9 and Company, even saw him steal top billing from his co-star Sarah Jane – but she got her own back when K9 became a recurring feature in her show, The Sarah Jane Adventures.
Essential viewing: The Androids of Tara
At first, K9 appears as an anomaly in the seemingly medieval world of Tara. But appearances can be deceptive, and in a story centered around android doubles, K9‘s skills are essential in identifying the bad guys and rescuing the Doc from some deadly dramas.
9. Bill Potts (Pearl Mackie, first appeared 2017)
The Doc’s relationship with companion Clara had turned rather stifling and dark in its final days, eventually leading to Clara’s downfall via a shocking death sentence. So, when the 10th series of the modern series opened, new companion Bill was a much-needed breath of fresh air.
Wide-eyed with enthusiasm, sci-fi fan Bill was unfazed by the doctor's intergalactic life. She brimmed with opinion and dared to ask the questions others wouldn’t (she’s the only companion we can recall asking to use the TARDIS toilet!). Alongside Matt Lucas’ Nardole, the trio made a jolly Tardis family, despite some dark stories.
Sadly, Bill’s exit was one of the most shocking and brutal ever seen in Doctor Who (she was shot through the chest and then graphically converted into a Cyberman). However, Bill did get a Doctor Who happy ending of sorts. Her water creature girlfriend Heather managed to transform her into a creature like her, allowing the lovers to float around the universe together.
Essential viewing: The Pilot
This opening episode is the perfect soft reboot for the show, and introduces Bill brilliantly, featuring some of her best lines — you just know that you are going to love travelling the universe with this one.
8. Tegan Jovanka (Janet Fielding, first appeared 1981)
The chance to hurtle through space and time on thrilling adventures is usually embraced by those lucky companions. Not so for Tegan Jovanka, the bolshy Australian air hostess who stumbled on board the Tardis thinking it was a real police box then proceeded to moan and gripe about her travels through time and space for the next three years.
But it was her attitude that what made Tegan so entertaining. She had a sharp tongue, didn’t suffer fools and certainly had a “brave heart”, as the Doctor used to put it, when it came to the horrors she faced.
Tegan left as quickly as she arrived. Finally pushed over the edge by the death and destruction she witnessed courtesy of the Daleks, she put her money where her moany mouth was and said her rushed goodbyes.
However, those adventures with the Doctor never leave you, and when we meet Tegan 30 years later in 2022’s The Power of the Doctor, she was embarking on a battle with the Cybermen, her nature as spiky as ever.
Essential viewing: Kinda
As if travelling in the Tardis wasn’t trouble enough for Tegan, this complex adventure saw her taken over by an entity known as The Mara, with Janet putting in an impressively sinister performance as the possessed Tegan.
7. Amy Pond (Karen Gillan, first appeared 2010)
Amy’s whole life had been defined by the Doctor. She was visited at the age of seven by a disheveled eleventh when he crash-landed in her garden soon after his regeneration. The Doctor disappeared as quickly as he arrived, promising to come back for her, and Amy then waited patiently for her "raggedy man" to return.
When he did return (just the 12 years later!), the Doctor whisked Amy off on adventures through time and space. Together with Amy’s hapless fiancé Rory, the trio formed a classic TARDIS team, helping to relaunch the show into the dark fairy-tale of new showrunner Steven Moffatt's era.
Amy’s final scene with her "raggedy man" — where she allows the Weeping Angels to send her back to the 1930s so she can live her life out with a trapped Rory — is one of the show’s most emotional ever.
Essential viewing: The Girl Who Waited
Amy is trapped in an accelerated time stream and Rory meets this older Amy, who he must sacrifice to regain the younger Amy he knows and loves. This features an amazing performance by Karen Gillan as the older Amy.
6. Jo Grant (Katy Manning, first appeared 1971)
With the Doctor banished to the Earth by the Time Lords, he began working with military organisation UNIT and hanging out with some rather foe-faced military types. So, producers decided they needed to bring something a bit more fun into the mix — enter Jo Grant, big-hearted, brave, clumsy and the perfect chick for Jon Pertwee’s mother hen Doctor to take care of
Over her three years, we saw Jo and the Doc take on the world — and the universe — before she fell in love with Clifford Jones — a clever, charming, principled professor with more than an air of a young Doctor about him.
Jo’s departure to head down the Amazon with Cliff was only the beginning of her story. When we meet her again in spin-off The Sarah Jane Adventures 30 years later, we discover Jo has dedicated her life to fighting for environmental causes alongside her ever-expanding family. The Doctor would approve.
Essential viewing: Planet of the Daleks
With the Doctor in a coma after being shot by The Master, this story opens with Jo having to step up to the Doctor role, going solo as she navigates a hostile planet and wins allies to gain the help she needs.
5. Jamie McCrimmon (Frazer Hines, first appeared 1966)
The traditional view of the Doctor and companion set-up tends to be the Doc traveling with a younger female (although there have been many variations over the years, and Jodie Whittaker's 13th Doctor turned that completely on its head!).
However, Patrick Troughton’s second Doctor took a different approach, his long-standing partnership in space and time being his "bromance" with Jamie McCrimmon, an 18th-century Scottish bagpiper.
The pair traveled together through all but one of the second Doc’s adventures. At times they could behave like two naughty schoolboys, with the actors real-life relationship bleeding into some entertaining on-screen clowning.
However, when the going got tough, the Doctor was the brains and brave Jamie was the brawn, the soldier never flinching at terrors from the future like Cybermen and Ice Warriors, or mythical horrors from the past including the Minotaur and Medusa.
Essential viewing: The Evil of the Daleks
This seven-episode epic, supposed to be the final Dalek serial ever, and sees some great scenes for Jamie as his faith in the Doctor is tested to the limit when his friend appears to be collaborating with the Daleks — the sort of character moment rarely seen in Doctor Who at that time.
4. Donna Noble (Catherine Tate, first appeared 2006)
Comedian Catherine’s first appearance came in the 2006 Christmas special, with her character Donna a gobby bride-to-be, angry that she had been spirited away by extra-terrestrial forces on her wedding day.
When it was revealed that Donna was to return for a full series of adventures, fans were worried Donna’s overbearing manner could soon wear thin. But how wrong they were, with Donna proving both not only one of the funniest companions the show has ever seen, but also one of the most heart-breaking.
Donna’s initial reunion with the tenth doctor in Partners in Crime is arguably the most hilarious moment in the series' history, with not a line spoken as they mime to each other through a window.
Meanwhile, the sequence at that series' end when the Doctor is forced to save Donna’s life by wiping her memory of their time together is nothing short of devastating.
Donna returned for the Tenth Doc’s final episodes The End of Time, and has more than earned the honor of taking center stage again in the 60th birthday episodes.
Essential viewing: Turn Left
A tour de force for Catherine Tate in a Doctor-less episode which sees a simple choice Donna makes create an alternative timeline. In it, the Doctor has died, and Donna must face the destruction of London before sacrificing herself to save the world.
3. Ace (Sophie Aldred, first appeared 1986)
Doctor Who companions have often been branded "screamers" (in fact, Bonnie Langford, playing Ace’s predecessor Mel, was even instructed to scream in the same pitch as the show's theme tune!), but Ace broke that mold.
A streetwise teen (albeit with a cringy line in BBC-friendly "slang"), Ace had to be held back from battering Daleks or blowing up enemies with her homemade explosive.
Ace is a real foreshadow of what lies ahead in 21st century episode. The classic series didn’t much go in for story and character ‘arcs’ the same way sci-fi series do these days. However, over the course of Ace’s stories, we discover the teen from West London has been manipulated onto her intergalactic path by the Doctor’s ancient enemy, Fenric. Meanwhile, through their travels together, the Doctor forces Ace to face her fears over her troubled past.
Essential viewing: The Curse of Fenric
When Ace travels back to wartime England, she bonds with a baby, only to discover the tot will grow up to be the mum Ace hates — a plot worthy of the modern-day show.
2. Rose Tyler (Billie Piper, first appeared 2005)
Bringing back a creaky old sci-fi show after 20-odd years off-screen was certainly a challenge for Russell T Davies.
While the casting of Christopher Eccleston brought a big wad of gravitas to the upcoming series, bringing in a pop-star-turned-actor as the companion seemed exactly the sort of lightweight stunt this big-budget revival should be trying to avoid. But Billie Piper as Rose was Russell’s masterstroke.
Likeable, relatable, funny and brave, the character won viewers' hearts from the word go.
Rose then took centre stage to bridge the gap during the modern show’s first change of lead character, as Chris Eccleston became David Tennant. Later, she left viewers in bits as she and Doc No. 10 were ripped apart after she ended up trapped in an alternative reality.
By the magic of the Who-niverse, Rose has since managed to make two returns to the show. Meanwhile, Billie Piper’s stellar career path has proven Russell’s eye for talent was spot on.
Essential viewing: Father’s Day
The revived series showcased the emotional depths it could now reach in this episode from the first series, as Rose travelled back to 1987 to catch a glimpse of her father on the day he died — with disastrous consequences for the timelines.
1. Sarah Jane Smith (Elisabeth Sladen, first appeared 1973)
The absolute top-tier companion, Sarah Jane has spent more time on the Who-niverse than any other, spanning the classic and the modern series, as well as featuring in two spin-off series, K9 and Company and The Sarah Jane Adventures.
Sarah first arrived on the show back in 1973, with the series already on a high under Jon Pertwee’s Doc. However, the combination of Sarah and the fourth Doctor, played by Tom Baker, saw the show soar even higher.
Sarah was forthright and contemporary (well, for the time anyway — she may have been a women’s libber and a successful journalist, but she was still prone to the odd scream and twisted ankle). The fourth Doctor describes her as his "best friend".
Sarah returned for 20th birthday shindig The Five Doctors in 1983, but her real renaissance came when she became the first companion from the classic show to return for the modern era in the episode School Reunion.
Soon, Sarah headed off to her own spin-off, The Sarah Jane Adventures, which ran for five series, with more to come were it not for the untimely death of much-loved actress Elisabeth Sladen in 2011 aged 65, whose faultless performance as Sarah was the driving force behind the success of this legendary character from her very beginning.
Essential viewing: The Temptation of Sarah Jane Smith
It's a bit of a cheat as it’s not a Doctor Who episode, but this Sarah Jane Adventures episode — where Sarah is tricked into preventing the untimely death of her parents — sees one of Elisabeth’s best performances in the role.
