Classic Who and new Who, by and large, take different tacks with the Doctor’s
companions. Other than Amy and Rory, the
TARDIS is never home more than than one companion for very long these
days. Expanded teams like Rose and Jack
or Rose and Mickey are short-lived, as are occasional returns/team-ups, a la
the companion-apalooza at the end of series 4 or the periodic appearances by
River or the Paternoster gang. For the
most part, the Doctor has one central focal point at a time; everyone else
comes second (some spoilers, mostly for new Who
companions.)
Not so in
the original series. There are stretches
in the middle and toward the end where the Doctor flies with solo companions
(Three’s run, although the presence of UNIT makes matters less clear-cut, parts
of Sarah Jane and Leela’s tenures with Four, and most of the Six and Seven
eras.) However, for many of its seasons,
the Doctor travels with a group of two or three. From Susan, Ian, and Barbara to Nyssa and
Tegan, it’s never suggested that the Doctor only has room in his hearts for one
person at a time.
I’m not
trying to knock solo companions, because they can be great. I love me some Rose, Martha, and Donna (and,
for that matter, Liz, Sarah Jane, and Leela.)
I enjoy that “us against the world” vibe, wherein both the Doctor and
his companion look like there’s nothing they’d rather be doing than running
down corridors together being chased by monsters. All these companions are awesome, and I like
how each brings their own sensibility to the table.
So, no,
nothing against having just one companion, but I do think a good team TARDIS is
a bit of a lost and underappreciated art.
There are great benefits to be had bringing in two or three companions
for a good stretch. Obviously, a major part
of the show’s appeal is the Doctor-companion interaction, and having multiple
companions offers up more potential for variety there. Not interested with Five with Adric? There’s still Five and Nyssa, and Five and
Tegan, to have fun with. I like seeing
how different people react to the Doctor and how he interacts with them, plus
the side benefit of how the companions in turn interact with each other. Ian and Barbara are unstoppable together, who
doesn’t love Jamie and Zoe’s polar-opposites dynamic, and even a duo like Leela
and K9 adds a new element to the show. This
is especially fun when, as with many in the classic era, the companions come
from different places and times. We can
see the meeting of past and future, human and alien, human and robot, and
rather than start completely from scratch each time a companion exits, we can
see the more seasoned travelers helping the newcomers wrap their heads around
the new life they’ve just signed up for.
Similarly,
it opens up a lot more possibilities in terms of just basic plot movement. The more people you have to work with, the
more you can play with pairings and team-ups over the course of the
adventure. When it’s just, say, the
Doctor and Ace, your only options in the action are keep them together or split
them up, and they can never be in more than two places at any given time. But if you have One, Ian, Barbara, and Vicki,
there’s so much more you can do. You can
keep them together or separate them all, of course, but you could also split
them into any number of pairs or have just one cut off from the rest of the
group and trying to get back. You can
maneuver companions into positions where they’re poised to use their strengths,
like having Leela fight bad guys while K9 accesses a super-computer, or you can
force them out of their comfort zones, like having Tegan stare at a piece of
unfathomable alien tech and wish any one of her friends were the one trying to
figure it out.
One final
asset is that it helps keep a little perspective on the proceedings. With solo companions, especially in the new
series, there’s a tendency for the companion to be a little too be-all
end-all. That’s how you end up with situations
like the Doctor temporarily “quitting” companions” after Donna or nearly
breaking the universe after Clara (even Amy and Rory’s exit, for the Doctor, is
far more about Amy than it is about Rory.)
It can be too much to put on any one person. One person can’t be everything the Doctor
needs because it destroys him too much to find himself without them. With a duo or a trio, though, there’s love to
go around and it softens the blow. As
sad as it is to say goodbye to Romana, Adric and K9 are still there; the Doctor
isn’t alone.
You can
still get companions who are especially dear to the Doctor, more so than the
others, but that doesn’t mean they’re the only one he cares about. Two and Jamie, for instance, are a classic
team and I love their interactions to death.
But he’s also great with Victoria.
And Zoe. And Ben. And Polly.
That is, I think, a shortcoming of the new series. Companions like Jack and Mickey, and even
Rory a bit, don’t feel like they’re quite as real to the Doctor as someone like Rose or Amy is. He likes them, maybe even loves them, but he
doesn’t need them like he needs the “main” companion. More often than not, they feel more like a
companion to the companion than to
the Doctor, and I’m not a fan of that.
Not every TARDIS crew has to be a full one, but when they do come along,
I want them to feel like a true team, not a hierarchy of importance. Just as there’s value in showing a truly
lovely “you’re my person, and I’m yours” relationship, there’s value too in
giving us a delightfully cobbled-together “family of our own choosing.”
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