My favourite companion of all time is Clara (my forum username probably gives that away !) She appeared in 37 episodes in total, that figure includes her echoes (Asylum of the Daleks and The Snowmen). This made me wonder which companion has appeared in most episodes? I imagine Sarah Jane Smith will have appeared in lots, as she has featured in the new Dr Who as well as the classic series. I am sure there must be some clever forum member out there who knows the answer

Considering the number of episodes they made per season back in the Sixties, I reckon it'd probably be Jamie as he was there for (almost) the entire Troughton era, and came back a couple of times in the 80's. Troughton and Hines...great combination!

eta 116 episodes!

http://doctorwho.answers.wikia.com/w...ning_companion


Even though Hines wasn't in Troughton's first story, it's still difficult to imagine the two without each other. He's like the Robin to the Second Doctor's Batman, but with a kilt.

Must admit, Jamie and Sarah sprung to mind straight away!

As it said on the link provided, it really is open to interpretation and what's included. I found it interesting The Brigadier could be in contention for the title with the right permutations!

Considering he started in '68 and was last seen in Doctor Who itself until 89, (or last year if you want to be really picky and include his slightly bizarre 'Cyber' appearance in last year's finale) he could be a winner.....but does he count as a companion?!!!!

Also thought Tegan had to be in there somewhere. She did do the equivalent of almost 2 and a third Seasons(if you factor in Logopolis as well).

I guess the TARDIS doesn't count as a companion

Going by just the main show and not spin-offs, it would be Jamie, The Brigadier and Sarah Jane Smith in that order, I think.

Jamie has the advantage of the larger number of episodes in the 1960's (40+ per season.)
The Brigadier has the advantage of being around for three different Doctors fairly regularly and then showing up now and again over a great period of time.
Sarah Jane has the advantage of being one of only two companions to show up in (the main series of) Doctor Who in both centuries (K-9 was the other one, by the way).

I think you'd need to compare it by minutes rather than episodes. Today's seasons are shorter but the episodes are twice as long.

Its the same for Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy. Technically, McCoy made three season and Baker two, but in Baker's first season the episodes were twice as long so he effectively made as much Doctor Who as McCoy.

Be that as it may, the modern seasons have half as many episodes as say, the 1970's, seasons. Thus a season in 1975 is still fairly analogous to a season in 2015.

However, that said, it should be noted that the 1960's seasons will be twice as long as modern seasons by time and the later 1980's seasons will be half as long as the modern seasons by time.

You know what, I am decently drunk and this seems like a fun hour to spend, so I will tally up the numbers for our three main contenders, Jamie, The Brigadier and Sarah Jane. I don't think that anybody else come close, so we will work with these three. We will weight Sarah Jane's modern episode as two in order to give fair value to full time. I will go by the number of episodes in the serial (since it is almost all 20th Century Who) and count those episodes as for that character, except where I distinctly remember the character being there for less. There may be an episode or two wherein a companion does not appear due to the script, illness or holiday, but, nevertheless, this should serve as a somewhat rough, but fairly accurate episode count for each companion. (In other words, I am not going to re-watch every single episode to make sure that each companion appeared in them for the absolute accuracy of this exercise.) Also, I will be ignoring "The Brigadier's Corpse's return in Moffat's abomination Death In Heaven since it was not The Brigadier or even his corpse, but an animated Cyberman who may or may not have had The Brigadier's memory.


Jamie McCrimmon:

Second Doctor Period:
The Highlanders = 4 Episodes
The Underwater Menace = 4 Episodes
The Moonbase = 4 Episodes
The Macra Terror = 4 Episodes
The Faceless Ones = 6 Episodes
The Evil of The Daleks = 7 Episodes
The Tomb of The Cybermen: 4 Episodes
The Abominable Snowmen: 6 Episodes
The Ice Warriors: 6 Episodes
The Enemy of The World: 6 Episodes
The Web of Fear: 6 Episodes
Fury from the Deep: 6 Episodes
The Wheel in Space: 6 Episodes
The Dominators: 5 Episodes
The Mind Robber: 5 Episodes
The Invasion: 8 Episodes
The Krotons: 4 Episodes
The Seeds of Death: 6 Episodes
The Space Pirates: 6 Episodes
The War Games: 10 Episodes

Fifth Doctor:
The Cave of Androzoni: (I believe just) 1 Episode

Sixth Doctor:
The Two Doctors: 3 Episodes, but double length, so: 6 Episodes

Total: 120 Episodes.


The Brigadier:

Second Doctor:
The Web of Fear: 6 Episodes (but he came in famously in the still missing Episode 3), so: 4 Episodes
The Invasion: 8 Episodes

Third Doctor:
Spearhead From Space: 4 Episodes
Doctor Who and the Silurians: 7 Episodes
The Ambassadors of Death: 7 Episodes
Inferno: 7 Episodes
Terror of the Autons: 4 Episodes
The Mind of Evil: 6 Episodes
The Claws of Axos: 4 Episodes
The Daemons: 5 Episodes
The Time Monster: 6 Episodes
The Three Doctors: 4 Episodes
The Green Death: 6 Episodes
Invasion of the Dinosaurs: 6 Episodes
Planet of the Spiders: 6 Episodes

Fourth Doctor:
Robot: 4 Episodes
Terror of the Zygons: 4 Episodes
The Masque of Mandragora: 4 Episodes

Fifth Doctor:
Mawdryn Undead: 4 Episodes
The Five Doctors: 1 Episode (triple length), so: 3 Episodes

Seventh Doctor:
Battlefield: 4 Episodes

Total: 111 Episodes


Sarah Jane Smith:

Third Doctor:
The Time Warrior: 4 Episodes
Invasion of the Dinosaurs: 6 Episodes
Death to the Daleks: 4 Episodes
The Monster of Peladon: 6 Episodes
Planet of the Spiders: 6 Episodes

Fourth Doctor:
Robot: 4 Episodes
The Ark in Space: 4 Episodes
The Sontaran Experiment: 2 Episodes
Genesis of the Daleks: 6 Episodes
Revenge of the Cybermen: 4 Episodes
Terror of the Zygons: 4 Episodes
Planet of Evil: 4 Episodes
Pyramids of Mars: 4 Episodes
The Android Invasion: 4 Episodes
The Brain of Morbius: 4 Episodes
The Seeds of Doom: 6 Episodes
The Masque of Mandragora: 4 Episodes
The Hand of Fear: 4 Episodes

Fifth Doctor:
The Five Doctors: 1 Episode (Triple length), so: 3 Episodes

Tenth Doctor:
School Reunion: 1 Episode (Double length), so: 2 Episodes
The Stolen Earth/Journey's End: 2 Episodes (Double length), so: 4 Episodes

Total 89 Episodes


I think that this is all correct (but please feel free to check my math since I have been drinking wine). If it is all reasonably accurate, then my instincts were correct and it is Jamie followed by The Brigadier followed by Sarah Jane.

Going by IMDB I think Jo Grant and Corporal/Sgt/RSM Benton would be 4th and 5th with 77 and 71 episodes respectively.

After all if the Brig counts as a companion then so should Benton

I guess if Jamie's hallucinatory appearance in Androzani counts, then his illusory appearance in The Five Doctors should too (1 episode)?

I agree that Benton is a companion and I do like him.

The Brigadier is a companion easily. He is in multiple Doctor Who episodes, he works closely with The Doctor and he travels in The Tardis. Those, in my opinion, are the three rules of "companionship". While you can be a companion without actually traveling in the Tardis (think Liz), and you can be a companion while being in only one episode of Doctor Who (think Grace or Christina), you cannot be a companion without working closely with The Doctor (think Rose's Mom who was in several episodes and traveled in the Tardis, but is not a companion because she never worked closely with The Doctor; thus, she is a tangential character to a companion, but not a companion herself). Mickey starts out as a tangential character to a companion, Rose, but he later (Series 2) becomes a companion in his own right whilst working and traveling with The Doctor in Class Reunion and the subsequent episodes.

Hmmm.... I forgot about that one. We could debate counting them or not, but if one counts, then the other should, yes.

Yeah, I'd say The Five Doctors counts, even if it wasn't really him!

Jamie definitely wasn't in Caves of Androzani in any form, though. It was just Davison's companions who pop up as he's regenerating. Do you mean the 'Resurrection...' sequence when the Doctor's mind is being wiped or transferred to his duplicate or whatever the heck was going on in that sequence and we saw past Doctors/companions?

Eta Ah, looked again at Theophile's list and they meant The Five Doctors rather than Caves, I think. Sorry!

Eta again: Wasn't being a smartarse there, Theophile. It's a v comprehensive list!

Ah, the wine does strange things to people, but this one great list though as has been mentioned, I think you probably meant Jamie's fleeting appearance in Resurrection of The Daleks as he wasn't in COA as that was just the Fifth Doctor's companions(plus The Master) for that one.

Personally thinking that if we add in all the spin offs Sarah would win hands down as she's had K9 and Company, The SJA Adventures plus her appearances in New Who plus The Five Doctors. AND Dimensions In Time!

And if we're going even further, she also played Sarah in several spin of stories in the 90's as well.

Not only that she's also played Sarah in two seasons of Big Finish stuff so I would say she's played a companion more times than any other if we throw in all those!

If Benton had appeared in The Five Doctors as originally planned his total would have been 72 episodes

Thanks for the compliments on the list, guys. And, yeah, I didn't mean Caves of Androzni, but I just couldn't remember which one he was in, just that it was one, so I mis-remembered.

I think that the main show is the best way to do it, not adding in the spin-offs. Although, if you did add in the spin-offs, K-9 would be way up there as well. LOL! Not only was he in K-9 and Company and The Sarah Jane Adventures (just like Sarah Jane), but he was also in K-9. In fact, I think that his only missing credit would be Torchwood.

Fair enough - I couldn't remember who appeared in Caves, assumed he must have.

Well obviously the TARDIS, which we know to be sentient and therefore a perfectly valid companion, but also, to put a little bit of a darker spin on things, in the episode 'Rose' when Clive describes the Doctor, he says something along the lines of - 'the Doctor has a constant companion - Death'.

Think Jamie wins but you've missed some of the Brigadiers appearances, Colony in Space, Day of the Daleks, The Time Warrior and The Five Doctors is closer to 4 x normal length. Saying I can't remember him The Masque of Mandrogora.

Well spotted, he wasn't!

I also see Sarah Jane wasn't down for her cameo in the second part of The End Of Time either but not being critical, just pointing it out!

It was a good list to do while being drunk, sure if I'd have done it, I would have missed out a lot more!!!!!

There's a great chart which shows the length of time each Doctor was on screen (as of mid 2013 with estimates for DOTD and TOTD), counting the length of whole episodes they were in. This adjusts for the different length of stories.

http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/...3zcxgqnt1j.jpg

Something similar for Companions would be fascinating too

Thinking about it though, while the Brig may have been in lots of episodes, in many of them he's not on screen for very long, as he was never the "main" Companion to the Doctor. Thus while SJS may have been in fewer episodes than the Brig, her screen time was almost certainly longer! Someone like Benton has even less screen time

As an additional adjustment, there's a big different between being the sole Companion, and being one of many. When Jamie first joined, he was one of three Companions, with little to do or say, so surely this needs to be factored in as well

I think these are all really good points. I doubt there will ever be a consensus on how these things should be measured but I am much more on the side of screen-time. I also like your point about whether a character was a main companion or part of the Doctor's posse during different periods.

But then I don't think we even have a consensus on who is and is not a companion.

Here is my favorite chart on the subject:

http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2011/12/an...r-who-doctors/

The only problem is that they don't update it and I don't know how.


While I am a giant Doctor Who fan (geek?), even I wouldn't try to exactly allocate screen time. It would probably be an incredibly tedious task which would suck all of the joy out of watching the episodes. Also, you would have to watch each episode a number of times equal to the number of companions with a stopwatch at the ready. No thanks.

Given any better alternative, for an overall view, I think that the number of episodes in which they appear does just fine.

You missed Dimensions In Time. She was in that too.