Companions: Fifty Years of Doctor Who Assistants (7 page)

The worst, however, is saved for when she leaves the Doctor. The novel
Who Killed Kennedy?
details Dodo’s life after the Doctor palms her off to recover in the country. It is revealed that she spends several months in the country, then returns to London to get a job. It does not work out too well for her as she starts experiencing blackouts and memory loss, a result of the conditioning from WOTAN. She goes to a series of psychiatric hospitals, and even undergoes fourteen months of electro-shock treatment. She is interrogated by the Master, once he learns she used to know the Doctor, who then wipes her memory of said event. She lives in a halfway house for homeless people and eventually gets in touch with journalist James Stevens, who is on a mission to expose UNIT and the cover-ups of alien invasions, after reading an article of his about mind control. They end up becoming lovers and she falls pregnant. While James investigates the Glasshouse, a special UNIT-funded hospital (secretly run by the Master – who was goading James to be a thorn in UNIT’s side), she is shot in her home. She is buried in South London and one of the shorter-run Doctors (either the Second or Seventh) attends her funeral carrying a white rose.

Another gap that does not exist is the short time Ben & Polly travelled with the First Doctor, yet they do appear in a couple of stories, both in short form and in a novel. Understandably we learn very little (we learn more during their time with the Second Doctor).

In the 2002 novel,
Ten Little Aliens
, we learn that Ben has an older brother who taught him how to swear when they were in school. He is a little conscious of his height, since Polly is a good inch taller than he. Polly tends to think of people as either cat or dog people, and considers Ben a dog person, whereas she is a cat person due to her independent nature. She seems to have had a rather privileged upbringing, being more used to Beaujolais Nouveau parties, and having attended a finishing school in South Kensington, London. When Polly becomes the object of Trooper Matthew Shade’s affections, Ben finds himself becoming a little jealous, even though he is getting close to Trooper Mel Narda. We also learn that the Doctor reminds Ben of his father, who had a knack for fixing things haphazardly.

As with all incarnations of the Doctor, the first has several companions that are exclusive to Expanded Universe, and the first were introduced in 1964 and still remain the most well-known; Dr Who’s two grandchildren, John and Gillian. They travelled with Dr Who (during the ‘60s comics he was always referred to as such) for four years in total, until the first episode of
Invasion of the Quarks
in 1968, by which time they were travelling with the Second Doctor. There is no discernible moment when they leave and return, indeed it is strongly implied that they never did leave their grandfather and were, thus, with him for his regeneration in the comic-verse. More on their travels and eventual departure in The Second Doctor Expanded Universe.

Over in the
Doctor Who Annual
Dr Who is joined by several companions, first in the 1966 annual story,
The Monster from Earth
(released in 1965). Playing hide and seek, brother and sister, Amy and Tony Barker, decide to hide in a Police Box and find themselves off on an adventure with the Sensorites (who barely resemble their TV counterparts), before the Doctor, after feeding them, take them back home. The following year a whole plethora of prose companions are introduced to readers, first in the novella-length release,
Doctor Who and the Invasion from Space
and later in the 1967 annual. Other than annoying Dr Who, the Mortimer (some sources say Mortimore) family does little except take up space and get into trouble. They are George and Helen, and their two children, Ida and Alan, who, at the beginning of the story, are fleeing the Great Fire of London and run into the TARDIS before it dematerialises. In the annual story,
The Devil-Birds of Corbo
, we are introduced to Harroll Strong, an Earth-maker looking for minerals on the planet Corbo, and his twin children, Jack and Dot. The Doctor rescues them from the Devil-Bird of the title, as well as three other astronauts, Shelly, Chertzog and Hill. They return in the follow up story,
Playthings of Fo
, and at the end of that tale they set course for Earth. Other than John and Gillian, none of those Expanded Universe companions are heard of again.

The next Expanded Universe-only companion comes along in 2011, when we are introduced to Oliver Harper. A city trader from 1966, Oliver joins the Doctor and Steven in the audio book,
The Perpetual Bond,
and is killed two stories later in
The First Wave
. His mind continues to exist, and he remains with the Doctor (who is completely unaware of his presence) for the rest of his first incarnation until fading out when the Doctor regenerates.

The last Expanded Universe companion is, probably, the most interesting, in that she was created for television, but never intended to be an ongoing companion. Sara Kingdom appeared in the epic twelve-part story
The Daleks’ Masterplan
, and was killed in the closing moments. Her position as companion has been hotly contested by fans for decades. A debate that was ratcheted up in 1989 when John Peel adapted the story into two books, fixing a very definite six month gap between episodes seven and eight. During that time, Sara continues to travel with the Doctor and Steven, as seen in several audio books and short stories. But in the audio book
Home Truths
we learn that Sara’s mind is copied by a house, and later she is reincarnated as an older woman – and it is this Sara who appears in the audio play,
The Five Companions
.

The Se
c
ond Doc
tor

Patrick Troughton

‘Our lives are different to anybody else’s. ...Nobody in the universe can do what we’re doing.’

The Doctor
– The Tomb of the Cybermen

With the change of Doctor a radical shift in the companion dynamic occurred. Up to this point the majority of the Doctor’s companions were contemporary (and even when they were not, very little was made of the ‘out of time’ aspect of their characters), with a nice balance between male and female. But along came the Second Doctor, and off go Ben & Polly. Their replacements were three very distinctively different types of companions – and not one contemporary character among them – a fact that was tailored to the stories’ benefit, and, indeed, the Doctor’s.

Ben Jackson & Polly – Michael Craze & Anneke Wills
continued... (
The War Machines
to
The Faceless Ones
)

During the rest of their travels with the Doctor, we learn very little about Ben & Polly, even though they continue with him for a further six adventures. It is a curious thing that from the start, despite having seen the Doctor’s ‘renewal’, Ben refuses to accept that the Doctor is indeed who he claims to be. Once again Polly is the voice of reason, willing to accept what she has seen, even if she cannot really understand it. Throughout their adventure on the human colony on Vulcan (
The Power of the Daleks
) Ben continues to be irritable and highly strung, while Polly opts for calmness. It is only when a Dalek recognises the Doctor that Ben finally accepts this strange man in the frock coat is the same old man he had come to trust.

Throughout his travels, Ben is heard moaning and complaining a lot, often responding with aggression, but at his heart he is a good man; a hero of sorts, although sometimes he is not the sharpest of travelling companions. His lack of historical knowledge is proven when the TARDIS takes its occupants to the Battle of Culloden in 1746 (
The Highlanders
) but he displays an unexpected level of scientific knowledge on the Moonbase when helping Polly find a way to combat the Cybermen. He reveals himself to be a little ignorant of other cultures when he points out that Polly can speak ‘foreign’ and continues to be protective of Polly, calling her ‘Duchess’ on many occasions. When separated for some time, Ben’s first thought on seeing the Doctor is always, ‘Where’s Polly?’

With the arrival of Jamie, Ben finds a kindred spirit – another young man who is not shy of taking action. They bond in an almost sibling-like way, although they almost come to blows when Ben suggests that Jamie ‘cracks up’ while on the Moonbase. His will is easily overcome by the Macra (
The Macra Terror
), who turn him against his travelling companions, but the brainwashing is eventually fixed by the Doctor, who has already prevented Polly from succumbing to the same brainwashing technique.

Polly maintains her usual level of optimism whilst travelling, although the horror of the events she has witnessed continues to affect her. She is sickened by the Daleks’ slaughter of the human colonists on Vulcan, but despite her revulsion at witnessing the death of Gascoigne (
The Faceless Ones
) she still goes to check his body. Regardless of her outward ‘dolly bird’ appearance, and her well-to-do upbringing, she remains a strong and determined person, not ashamed to use her feminine wiles to gain the assistance of British soldier Finch, while on the Scottish highlands of 1746, as well as dominating the much weaker Kirsty McLaren, daughter of the Laird of the clan McLaren. She considers Ben a ‘real man’ and never loses hope that one day the Doctor will take her home (she thinks of Chelsea in
The Underwater Menace
, which suggests that is where she is from). She is partly responsible for Jamie joining the Doctor. It is her who suggests that he should come with them, rather than be left to fend for himself on the Scottish highlands.

Much like Dodo before them, during their last adventure set in London (
The Faceless Ones
) Ben & Polly are sidelined. In this case both disappear by the end of the second episode; Polly is replaced by an alien Chameleon in the first episode, calling itself Michelle Leuppi, while Ben is last seen in the second episode being frozen by the Chameleon, Spencer. The Doctor never gives up looking for them and eventually frees them at the end of episode six, in which they return for one final scene. Ben is the first to realise that the date, July 20th 1966, is the exact same day the pair joined the Doctor in
The War Machines
. Ben & Polly want to remain in London for a while, glad to be in a normal place again away from monsters. They both decide it is time to stop travelling, but only if the Doctor doesn’t mind. The Doctor is saddened to see them go, but makes Polly promise to look after Ben, which she does.

We never see them again on television, but in 2010 we discover in
The Sarah Jane Adventures
that Polly made good on her promise, and she and Ben remained together running an orphanage in India.

James Robert McCrimmon was quite unique in
Doctor Who
history. Not only did he appear in more episodes than any other companion (not counting any return appearances), but he travelled with the Second Doctor for all but one of his adventures (the only companion who came close was Tegan Jovanka who travelled with the Fifth Doctor for all but two of his stories). It was, therefore, of little surprise to learn that even today the Doctor regarded Jamie with great affection, having mentioned him several times in later incarnations; he even used Jamie’s full name as an alias when, in his tenth incarnation, the Doctor encountered Queen Victoria on the moors of Scotland (
Tooth and Claw
).

Jamie McCrimmon – Frazer Hines
(
The Highlanders
to
The War Games,
and
The Two Doctors
)

The Doctor first encounters Jamie in the Scottish highlands during the aftermath of the Battle of Culloden in 1746 (even though Jamie later explicitly states he comes from 1745 when being questioned by the Security Chief in
The War Games
). It is a violent first encounter, in which Jamie holds a dirk to Ben’s throat, but the Doctor soon convinces the highlanders that he and his friends are not English spies. At the time Jamie is a piper for the McLaren clan. Surviving death at the gallows, Jamie helps the Doctor, Ben & Polly across the glen, suspecting they will become lost if they try to find their way on their own. Realising the danger, Polly convinces the Doctor to let Jamie go with them. Jamie is a little uncertain at first, wondering what he has ‘come upon’, but soon enters the TARDIS to be spirited away to Atlantis (
The Underwater Menace
)
.