Then they didn't need Matt's scene if they believed that was the case.

With Pertwee's Doctor, it depends on how you define Companions, but when he finally was allowed to go travelling he had a single female Companion. To me the Brig and UNIT were never Companions in the true sense, they belong in their own category, with Liz, Jo and SJS being his actual assistants

The majority of the Tom Baker era was a single female (especially if you discount K9!)

The point of the 11 appearance wasn't to convince Clara that 12 was the Doctor, but rather to ask her to give him a chance, and that the new Doctor would need her to be with him.

His Doctor was written to be deliberately different, a hard change for any human to cope with, especially one with a strong bond with the previous one.

Very much agreed. Personally, I enjoyed the nice time travel element involved and the continuity with the scenes on Trenzalore. It was a nice touch, and wasn't done to convince anyone of the new Doctor's identity. As you rightly said it was 11 asking Clara to trust and accept 12.

I didn't like Smith's cameo in Deep Breath as it felt it was overshadowing Capaldi's debut. I understand they may have felt people would have some difficulty adjusting to an older and more serious Doctor, but maybe as somebody whose whole family had no difficulty adjusting to him it just didn't feel right (though my mother loved the scene for some reason, despite hating Smith's Doctor and being a huge admirer of Capaldi). I think if anything it would have made people less likely to let Smith go.

Very good episode though. Series 8 had a solid start in my opinion until Robots of Sherwood. :P

How can you discount the Brigadier or K-9! LOL!

K-9 was there for so much of Tom Baker's run. Also, he had Adric and Harry and The Brigadier as well.

Also, the entirety of the first and the second Doctor's tenures were spent with multiple companions. And so was pretty much all of the fifth Doctor's tenure.

My point still stands, the majority of the first five Doctor's episodes had multiple companions (and that statement would still hold up, I think, if you did discount the Brigadier and K-9, but I can't believe that they should be discounted).

To me the Doctor's assistant/Companion has to be someone who serves the Doctor in some way, who's on his side, and the Brig is too independent for that, sometimes bringing in troops and blowing things up against his wishes.

Nobody calls Kate Stewart a Companion, and she does pretty much the same job as her father, similarly not always doing what the Doctor wants.

On my basis (), that's 5 season of Pertwee with just single female Companions, and (discounting K9) around 5 out of 7 Tom Baker seasons were just with single female Companions as well...

LOL! When push came to shove, The Brigadier did what The Doctor ordered. But, like I said, even if you were able to discount both him and K-9, the math would still hold on my side of things for the first Five Doctors.


By the way, speaking of underrated stories, I really have always liked The Invasion of Time. I watched it again tonight and I love the pacing of the show, the double-threat and how The Doctor is not like himself at all for the first three-ish episodes.