Doctor Who: Meet the Companions

Doctor Who is my favourite TV show. It was also the reason I first started getting into Big Finish. I listened to The Light at the End and I was hooked. I haven't heard everything Big Finish has to offer, but from what I've heard, they have done a lot with the companions, both those that returned from Classic Who and the ones created for Big Finish. If you're looking to get into Big Finish, it is always good to find a Doctor/companion combination that you like and a story that sounds interesting.


Most of the surviving companions from the classic TV series have appeared in Big Finish stories at some point. Big Finish has so much Doctor Who related media that I haven't heard anywhere near all the companions, but here is a list of those I have.

• Peri returns to travel with both the Fifth and Sixth Doctors. She starts off a bit shakily, but in her later episodes, her character greatly improves and she excels in the historical stories. 
• Mel is back, mostly travelling with the Sixth Doctor but occasionally with the Seventh Doctor as well. I never liked Mel, and I haven't started liking her, but her character is much less irritating on audio than she ever was on TV. 
• Turlough travels with the Fifth Doctor, both on his own and with a full TARDIS that includes Nyssa and Tegan. His character gets little room for development in a full TARDIS, since those stories tend to focus more on Nyssa or Tegan. He still spends most of his time complaining about how often they go to Earth, and his stories don't really stick out as terribly memorable. 
• Tegan travels with the Fifth Doctor, but she always travels with Nyssa and Turlough as well. If you liked Tegan on the TV show, you'll like her fine here. If you didn't like Tegan before, you still won't like her now. 
• Nyssa travels with the Fifth Doctor, mostly on her own, but also with Tegan and Turlough. The relationship between Nyssa and the Doctor is very strong, and it is fascinating to hear how they treat each other after they've been travelling together for so long. 
• Ace was one of my favourite companions on the Classic series, and she is still one of my favourite companions from Big Finish. The way she is written, she has been travelling with the Doctor for years and she has gotten older and wiser. 
• Romana I travelled with the Fourth Doctor as part of the Fourth Doctor Adventures. Romana II will be making her Fourth Doctor Adventures debut next year. Romana II also features in several novel adaptations with the Fourth Doctor and she is one of the central characters (along with Leela) of the spin-off series Gallifrey. Romana is another of my favourite companions, and it would be great to hear more of her. 

Companions have been created specifically for Big Finish as well. A lot of these companions were made for the Eighth Doctor, but the Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh Doctors all get new companions as well. One of the best things about the Big Finish companions is that very few of them are twenty-something girls from present-day Earth, which gives some different life views to the people in the TARDIS.

• Charley Pollard: Played by India Fisher. Charlotte Pollard, Charley to her friends, is a self-styled "Edwardian adventuress." The Eighth Doctor rescued her from a crashing airship that she had stowed away on to go on adventures. Her rescue has some unforeseen consequences regarding the web of time, which is a continuing theme throughout her first story arc, which begins with Storm Warning and is mostly resolved by Neverland, with the final resolution of the web of time coming in the mind boggling story that is Zagreus. Charley and the Doctor are the very best of friends, and they've been through a lot together. Her final story with the Eighth Doctor (The Girl Who Never Was) is a wonderful story that does not have a happy ending. Charley's story picks up again when she meets the Sixth Doctor in The Condemned, and she needs to do her very best not to let him know who she is. 
• C'rizz: Played by Conrad Westmaas. C'rizz is a chameleon-like alien with colour changing skin from a Divergent Universe where time does not exist. The Eighth Doctor exiles himself to the Divergent Universe after the end of the events of Zagreus. C'rizz is the Doctor's companion in this universe, along with Charley. After the Doctor escapes the Divergent Universe in The Next Life, C'rizz goes with him. C'rizz is a very angry person with a lot of emotional baggage, but he is difficult to like. He comes into his own in his final story, Absolution. 
• Elizabeth Klein: Played by Tracey Childs. Klein is a unique companion because she is deliberately trying to thwart the Doctor at every turn. She is a Nazi from an alternate timeline where the Germans won World War II (explained in detail in the Seventh Doctor story Colditz). The Doctor meets her again years later and brings her along in the TARDIS. She is manipulative and sneaky and more than a match for the Doctor in a lot of ways.  
• Erimem: Played by Caroline Morris. Erimem is from Ancient Egypt, and she was named Pharaoh when her father died (The Eye of the Scorpion). There is some debate to the succession, however, so the Fifth Doctor and Peri help her, and she decides to travel with them. A lot of Erimem's stories are purely historical, and it is nice to have the Doctor and his companions deal with events and try not to change the course of history just by being there. 
• Evelyn Smythe: Played by Maggie Stables. Evelyn is a history professor in her late fifties who jumps at the chance to travel with the Sixth Doctor to visit different points in history. She essentially acts as everyone's grandmother, handing out hot cocoa and good advice to everyone she meets, and she gives some humanity to the Doctor and is deeply affected every time they are not able to save everyone. Project:Lazarus is an excellent example of how Evelyn is affected by the Doctor's decisions. She is one of my favourite companions created for Big Finish. 
• Flip: Played by Lisa Greenwood. Philippa "Flip" Jackson has a chance encounter with the Sixth Doctor on one of his adventures with Evelyn. A year later, the Doctor basically crash lands in her backyard. She's fiesty and courageous and she invites herself to continue travelling with the Doctor (and she is a twenty-something year old girl from present-day Earth). 
• Hex: Played by Philip Olivier. Thomas Hector "Hex" Schofield travels with the Seventh Doctor and Ace. He is my favourite Big Finish companion, and he and Ace work extremely well together. Hex learns the Doctor knows more about him than he ever lets on, and after that he is much less trusting of the Doctor. It becomes a different dynamic in the TARDIS after that because Ace has been travelling with the Doctor for years and trusts everything he does even if he does not explain himself. Hex is much less sure of the Doctor's motives, and he is getting tired of hearing "I'll explain later" and never getting any explanations. 
• Liv Chenka: Played by Nicola Walker. I don't find Liv to be very memorable. She's a medic from the far future, and that is pretty much the extent of her character. She makes her debut in Dark Eyes 2. 
• Lucie Miller: Played by Sheridan Smith. Another companion from present-day Earth, Lucie is forced on the Eighth Doctor by the Time Lords for her own protection. Initially, all she wants to do is go home, and all the Doctor wants to do is take her there, but the Time Lords have made it so the TARDIS can't travel unless Lucie is in it, and the TARDIS can't land in 2008 Blackpool, which is the only place Lucie really wants to go. However, they both grow on each other, and eventually Lucie and the Doctor become very good friends. Lucie's story has a clear beginning, middle, and end, and it is worth listening to almost every minute of it.
• Mary Shelley: Played by Julie Cox. Apparently Frankenstein was inspired by the Eighth Doctor when he stumbled into Lord Byron's house in Switzerland in 1816. Mary Shelley travels with the Doctor with the promise that she will drop him off at the same time she was picked up. She is only around for three stories, so there isn't much opportunity to get to know her. 
• Molly O'Sullivan: Played by Ruth Bradley. An Irish nursing assistant during World War I, Molly is not so much a companion as a walking, talk plot device. She features strongly in the Dark Eyes stories. I haven't been able to get all the way through Dark Eyes (I'm stuck partway through Dark Eyes 3), so I can't tell you how her story ends. 
• Tamsin Drew: Played by Niky Wardley. Tamsin is one of the only companions (the other being Mel) that I actively dislike. She manipulates her way onto the TARDIS and leaves when she isn't happy with the way the Doctor can't save everyone. 

That's about it for companions. There's something for everyone and Big Finish's Doctor Who range is a wonderful way to get into audio.