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Worst treated companion


View Poll Results: I think the companion who was treated the worst was
Susan 8 5.67%
Jamie and Zoe 7 4.96%
Sarah Jane 10 7.09%
Peri 20 14.18%
Rose 3 2.13%
Captain Jack 19 13.48%
Donna 22 15.60%
Someone else 52 36.88%
Voters: 141. You can't vote on this poll right now - are you signed in?

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Old 29-04-2010, 14:34
tingramretro
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I'm trying to think of other companions, not already mentioned, who may have not been treated very well. I've thought of two:-

1. Vicki (a First Doctor companion) left at the end of Myth Makers. In that story she had been renamed Cressida by the locals and had fallen in love with a character named Troilus. She decided to stay behind in order to marry the said Troilus. Well, this may sound like a "happy ever after" situation, but wasn't Trolius and Cressida a Shakespeare tragedy?

2. Victoria (a Second Doctor companion), who left at the end of Fury From The Deep. Didn't the Doctor just dump her, one hundred years after her time, with the rather boring Harris family? Did she actually want to stay with them? Did they actually want to look after her?
The Doctor didn't dump Victoria anywhere, she chose to stay on 20th Century Earth because she'd had enough of being terrified all the time and realised she would no longer fit in back in Victorian England. The Harris family offered to let her stay with them, and she accepted. The Doctor didn't want her to go, it was her choice.
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Old 29-04-2010, 14:36
Listentome
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Apart from the few that actually died, I wondered who is considered to have been the worst treated of the Doctor's many companions - in terms of their departure from the TARDIS.

The Doctor's appalling track record begins on Boxing Day 1964 when he locked his own grand daughter out of the TARDIS and left her behind in 22nd century London, to live out the rest of her days as part of a devastated society in a destroyed city. Nice!

Jamie and Zoe had their memories wiped and were forced to return to their own eras with no memory of their time with the Doctor . . as did Donna forty years later!

Sarah Jane was pretty much dumped back on Earth out of the blue. She was given her marching orders and booted out the door in two minutes flat - and that was after years of travel on board the TARDIS.

Peri was simply abandoned. She was left behind on an alien planet with no option but to marry King Yrcanos (it worries me that I knew how to spell that!). The Doctor had the chance to return and save her but it appears he chose not to.

Captain Jack was abandoned in the far future surrounded by Dalek dust.

And Rose was left trapped on a parallel Earth. I mean, OK, the first time it wasn't the Doctor's fault. But the second time it was on purpose. Although she did get a Doctor of her own to play with (and a 10th Doctor at that!).

Tegan left the Doctor in less than perfect circumstances, but at least that was 100% her choice (although he did whizz off in the TARDIS seconds later, which hardly gave her the chance to change her mind).

So - who do you think got the worst treatment? One of the above, or do you have your own to suggest?
The Time Lords didn't wipe the Doctor from their memories, they retained their first adventure with him, but all subsequent ones were removed.
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Old 29-04-2010, 14:58
crazzyaz7
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Yes, interesting that. If the Doctor wasn't running away from Jack, he would never have come across Professor Yana, the events which led to the latter's regeneration into John Simm's Master would not have occurred and present day Earth would not have suffered (prior to reset) the events of the Series 3 finale. So, as well as being Earth's defender the Doctor was indirectly its persecutor.

Another such example where the Doctor is indirectly the persecutor is Human Nature/Family of Blood. Had the Doctor not chosen to hide as the human John Smith in England in 1913, then that school and the nearby village would not have suffered at the hands of the Family of Blood.

exactly, a lot of what the Doctor did had quite big consequences....in fact the whole Saxon thing goes back to when he disposed of Harriet Jones, due to his Time Lord ego. And this has always been proof to me that the whole RTD making the Doctor into a Christ type figure...doesn't actually exist. what has been done is that this theme of us ordinary beings easily making someone into worthy of worship...when in fact the person doesn't truly deserve it.

I don't think whatever gripes Martha had are comparable to:

Katarina, Sara Kingdom, Adric (dead)
Dodo chaplet (brainwashed, abandoned, dead)
Jamie & Zoe (forced to forget several years of their lives and, in Jamie's case, dumped back into the middle of a war)
Peri (abandoned on an alien planet after narrowly escaping a fate worse than death)
or Donna (also mindwiped)

As I recall, Martha chose to leave and ended up doing something heroic with her new husband. She hasn't got a lot to moan about in comparison to the others.
That is how I feel too....Martha despite have put up with cr*p, left with a lot of respect and head held high....and whenever she needed to Doctor again....it was never for an emotional reason....she really grew up.
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Old 29-04-2010, 18:13
Fizzbin
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Kamelion has to be the worst. Put in a cupboard and forgotten about.
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Old 29-04-2010, 18:15
tingramretro
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Kamelion has to be the worst. Put in a cupboard and forgotten about.
And then brutally murdered by a homicidal fifth Doctor.
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Old 29-04-2010, 18:49
saxy
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I like the point made earlier about whether the poll means being treated worst by the Doctor, or by the scriptwriters.

I understood this to be about companion treated worst by the scriptwriters... and I voted for other. Leela.

Fearless warrior, always ready to lay her life on the line. Does she go out in a blaze of glory... no.

She gets an uncharacteristicly girly 'falls in love and stays behind' story.

Very unfair. IMHO of course.
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Old 29-04-2010, 20:18
amos_brearley
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Seriously: do you blame him? I'd have chucked her out of an airlock long before...

Nope-she was left on Thoros Beta in dire peril (and, at first, it seemed actually killed) when the Time Lords yanked the Doctor off to stand trial. We later found out she'd survived and supposedly married a barbarian warlord, presumably because she didn't have many other options.


It was a bit unfortunate...
Surely if you believe the books to be canon, you acknowledge that Peri has multiple endings, in one of which she forgave the Doctor and returned to Earth!

(Didn't Yrcanos become a wrestler in one account?!)
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Old 29-04-2010, 20:35
tingramretro
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Surely if you believe the books to be canon, you acknowledge that Peri has multiple endings, in one of which she forgave the Doctor and returned to Earth!

(Didn't Yrcanos become a wrestler in one account?!)
With Peri as his manager, yes. But personally, I'd still have made the good Doctor suffer a bit-the sod could have gone back for her straight away after the Trial was over!
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Old 29-04-2010, 21:01
Fizzbin
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Surely if you believe the books to be canon, you acknowledge that Peri has multiple endings, in one of which she forgave the Doctor and returned to Earth!

(Didn't Yrcanos become a wrestler in one account?!)
I could have sworn I once saw him present an episode of Have I Got News For You...
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Old 29-04-2010, 21:12
amos_brearley
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With Peri as his manager, yes. But personally, I'd still have made the good Doctor suffer a bit-the sod could have gone back for her straight away after the Trial was over!

Very little in ToaTL actually makes sense when you look too closely. The Valeyard, the Doctor's evidence from his own future, the Master's involvement, the editing of evidence, the dialogue, the plot, the acting etc etc etc
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Old 29-04-2010, 21:59
J_Peasmould
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Dodo! Jackie Lane had a terrible exit from the show!
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Old 30-04-2010, 11:45
Mulett
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Very little in ToaTL actually makes sense when you look too closely. The Valeyard, the Doctor's evidence from his own future, the Master's involvement, the editing of evidence, the dialogue, the plot, the acting etc etc etc
The fact that Peri had survived was also a last-minute change (originally she died). So I guess the writers didn't have much of a chance to resolve her story properly. That said, within the narrative of the show, it doesn't reflect well on the Doctor that he found out she was still alive and did nothing about it (as far as we know)
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Old 30-04-2010, 11:51
SoundWall
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Definatly Dodo, never has a character been brushed off so completely in favour of newer more trendy and attractive ones.

Shame!
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Old 30-04-2010, 12:05
chuffnobbler
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The trendy and attractive ones got a crap send-off, too. Things were different in the mid 60s ...
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Old 30-04-2010, 12:08
Vabosity
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I see that "someone else" is currently miles ahead in this poll, which isn't really telling us that much. It would be nice to have this category broken down a little. Perhaps the people who voted for this option (I'm one of them) would like to state which companion they actually had in mind.

I had Dodo in mind when I voted "someone else".
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Old 30-04-2010, 12:15
tingramretro
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I see that "someone else" is currently miles ahead in this poll, which isn't really telling us that much. It would be nice to have this category broken down a little. Perhaps the people who voted for this option (I'm one of them) would like to state which companion they actually had in mind.

I had Dodo in mind when I voted "someone else".
I think most people did. I can't quite work out why such an obvious contender wasn't a poll option.
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Old 30-04-2010, 15:02
chuffnobbler
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I feel that the poll was created with new series characters in mind. Even some of us familiar with the old series may struggle to recall Dodo, the poor old thing.
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Old 30-04-2010, 15:06
bazellis
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Who is Dodo and why is her exit so bad?
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Old 30-04-2010, 15:15
tingramretro
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Who is Dodo and why is her exit so bad?
Dodo Chaplet was a teenager introduced in William Hartnell's third series. She travelled with the Doctor from the end of The Massacre to The War Machines, just five stories later, before being unceremoniously dropped from that story halfway through after being brainwashed, and then written out in the final episode with one line about her having gone down to the country to recover. Later, one of the novels (set during her time in the TARDIS ) had her contract an STD, and another (set after she got home) had her murdered by the Master.
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Old 30-04-2010, 15:33
bazellis
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Thanks
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Old 30-04-2010, 17:27
amos_brearley
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I too was thinking of Dodo. Unlike the writers or the Doctor for that matter.
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Old 30-04-2010, 17:49
kitkat1971
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Then she got the clap and was murdered by the Master in the books.
Absolutely. Even without the books continuation, she had a rotten exit.

From New Who, probably Jack being left stranded in the future with no-one left alive but at least he was a resourceful boy who was used to looking after himself.

Some of the others aren't very nice (Jamie, Zoe, Peri, Donna, Sarah) but at least they are not the doctors fault (time lords and daleks leaving him with no other choice) whereas Dodo and Jack are which make it worse.
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Old 01-05-2010, 03:28
Gutted Girl
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My vote was another and it was Dodo.
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Old 01-05-2010, 12:25
Mulett
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Dodo's got a bit of a cult following, I think.

She's like the Rosencrantz and Guildenstern of Doctor Who.
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Old 01-05-2010, 12:42
Tegan Jovanka
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Gotta be Peri. At least Dodo would have had peace in the country. Peri married to Brian Blessed. A fate worse than death
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