Given the constant dangerous situations that traveling companions of the Doctor routinely face, who is best able to take care of themselves, and who is reduced to squealing “Doctor! HELP!”
I’m handicapped that I have very incomplete knowledge of the companions to the First and Second Doctors, so there are lots of candidates that I have no way to rate.
Romana might have to be put in a separate category because she’s a Time Lord (Lady?), with scientific knowledge on a par with the Doctor himself (if not quite the Doctor’s “street smarts”)
I’d give pretty high marks to two of the Doctor’s very first companions, Ian and Barbara. After an initial shock of discovering themselves in alien worlds and times, they generally acquitted themselves well in some very trying circumstances.
The companion I regard least favorably is Jo Grant (3rd Doctor). I can’t remember anything she ever did that reflected well upon her.
Best: Leela. By far. She might scream if startled, but was fearless and more than willing to kill someone with a Janus thorn. My favorite moment was when she was captured and about to be killed by Magnus Greel in “The Talons of Weng-Chiang” and she says, basically, “If you kill me, I’ll track you down in the afterlife and make you suffer.”
Worst: Kameleon, since they never really knew what to do with him – he appears, becomes a companion and then vanishes for ages until he comes back for one episode.
For a more visible candidate, I will quote the Doctor himself, “Harry Sullivan is an idiot!”
I liked Jo because she was plucky and cool and ready to try almost anything.
I liked Turlough least, mostly because he came across as whiny.
It looks like Jamie was the longest running companion (second doctor) and Katarina the shortest (first doctor). She was also the first to be killed off and the first to leave mid-story.
Liz was very competent and I liked having an Earth scientist on board who didn’t come off as a buffoon to make the doctor look better. But I have to say that the most competent companion was K9.
Yeah really, more love for Alistair. He had to put up with quite a lot: Ogrons, Yeti, dinosaurs…not to mention the Doctor himself. All with a stiff upper lip and shiny boots.
I nominate Peri as one of the worst. She was nothing but a whiny career victim. Adric joins the ranks as well. Whiny, neurotic and
His stupidity got hisself blowed up
One of my favorites was always Sarah Jane. She screamed and got in trouble a little too much to be a dependable companion, though. Still, you have to admire her pluck.
Leela was by far the most kick-ass of the female companions, so I’d have to say she’d be most competent in a fight, but not so much when it came to sciency stuff.
Tegan would seem to be one of the more competent companions. Brassy, level-headed, and not afraid to join in a laser fight.
Weren’t the early female companions simply there to scream and be rescued? K9 was a bit too good as a companion. But if we’re allowing K9 to be classed as a companion, then I think the Doctor’s ultimate companion has to be the TARDIS itself.
Of the human companions, I’d go for Leela or Romana.
I feel the need to put in a plug for the oft-overlooked Nyssa of Traken. Nyssa was a scientific genius, was level-headed and prudent, and got the thankless mechanical grunt-work done while the fifth Doctor was forever distracted in rescuing either Tegan or Adric. Nyssa was a quiet, soft-spoken character who was too often overshadowed by the more dynamic Tegan.
I think you’d also have to break this down per each Doctor, as the show seemed to change direction with each new leading man, and the assistant characters took on different functions). My choices per each Doc go like this -
First Doctor - most competant: Ian / least: Susan (perpetual hostage, I’d have kicked her out of the TARDIS long before the Doctor did) Second Doctor - I haven’t seen enough ep.'s to judge; but from I have seen Zoe was much more resourceful and reliable than Jamie Third Doctor - most: Liz (I read somewhere that Jon Pertwee demanded that the producers fire Caroline Shaw because her character was simply too self-sufficient, and didn’t need the Doctor to rescue her) / least: Jo (Liz’s immediate replacement adds credence to the above rumor) Fourth Doctor - Most: Leela or Romana (2nd incarnation) / Least: Romana (1st incarnation) - strikingly beautiful, but didn’t do much but model elegant clothes (which tended to be woefully inappropriate for a life of dangerous adventuring.) Fifth Doctor - most: Nyssa / least: Adric (poorly devised, badly written, badly acted, and extraneous - there simply wasn’t enough room in the stories for three companion characters) Sixth Doctor - most: Glitz (Yeah, I know, he wasn’t a companion, but he was a hell of a lot more useful to the Doc than either Peri or Mel) / least: Mel (her constant screaming annoyed the heck out of me)
Doctors Seven, Eight and (so far) Nine have had too few companions - about one or two apiece - to even make it a contest.
Adric. He deserved to die. Richly deserved to die - but not in a heroic or poigniant manner. I dont care about Gold Stars or his artful dodgerish nature, he deserved to have his head left on a pike on some dismal swamp planet. Ugh! Just to thunk of him tests my gag reflex.
Most competent was Jo Grant. And she was the cutest, too.
Favourite Brigadier line: “Sergeant Benson. Chap with the wings. Five rounds, rapid fire.”
…he always wore a gold star he won for being good at maths. 'Nuff said.
More love for Leela in her thigh-length leather savage costume diving headfirst in slo-mo through a glass window, although my favourite would have to be Sarah Jane, since she’s the first one I really remember. The Ark In Space was scary.
Warning: may be somewhat unsafe for work: no actual nudie bits on display, but naked 60’s dollybird in spangly thigh-boots draped suggestively around some lucky Dalek, said nudie bits artfully concealed by Dalek weaponry.