The mad man in his little blue box, always accompanied by his trusted companion…
It has been argued that 21st century Doctor Who isn’t actually about the Doctor at all and that it’s about the companion, but I’m going to delve even deeper. I’m going to suggest that the show isn’t about the Doctor, nor is it about his faithful companion.
No, Doctor Who is about the unsung heroes; the forgotten ones!
Those characters who hardly ever get any recognition, yet are deeply rooted into the very fabric of the show. The characters who rarely (if ever) get to actually travel with the Doctor and are instead left behind to reap the consequences of having such a character pass through their lives.
Cass
It’s no great stretch to suggest that Cass is perhaps one of the most important characters to ever appear in Doctor Who.
She appeared for just a matter of minutes in ‘The Night of the Doctor’, 2013’s online prequel to ‘The Day of the Doctor’, yet her impact was massive! Without her, we could possibly have had a very different end to the Time War.
It was her comment, that the lines between Dalek and Time Lord had become blurred, which forced the Doctor into action as the War Doctor. You could argue that her refusal to go with him set in motion everything we’ve witnessed since Doctor Who came back!
That’s why she qualifies for this list. She’s a character that will possibly be forgotten over time, which owes itself to the short time she spent on the show, but her importance goes far beyond that fact. As a side note, were things different and she’d come across the Doctor under different circumstances, what a companion she could’ve been?
Lorna Bucket
This likeable soldier killed at Demons Run, consoled by the Eleventh Doctor as she died, is a prime example of how important the Doctor can be in the universe.
As a child she was saved by the Doctor so she signed up to an army created with the sole purpose of destroying him, just so she could meet him again!
At a time when certain forces in the universe wanted the Doctor dead, Lorna is a symbol of what is good about him and the kind of effect he can have on someone’s life. Even if he’d forgotten that they’d ever met.
Harriet Jones, Prime Minister
Following the Slitheen invasion of Downing Street, the Ninth Doctor told rose that Harriet Jones would usher in a golden age when she became Prime Minister.
While this turned out to be quite far off the mark (unless the off-screen golden age was just rather brief), few can argue at Harriet Jones’ contribution to Doctor Who.
She prevented nuclear war by destroying Downing Street and (however much the Tenth Doctor might disagree) you can understand her motives in destroying the Sycorax ship at the end of ‘The Christmas Invasion’. She wanted to defend Earth and had a fair point when she argued that the Doctor wouldn’t be there all the time (presumably Ten was having a nap during Torchwood: Children of Earth).
However, Harriet Jones earned redemption in the Doctor’s eyes at the end of Season 4 in ‘The Stolen Earth’. By summoning the Doctor back, her position became visible and she faced extermination at the hands of the Daleks, thus sacrificing herself for the good of the human race! Is there a more noble cause than that?
Mickey Smith
Ah, trusty old Mickey; modern Doctor Who’s tin dog.
Many forget that Mickey was actually Rose’s long-term boyfriend when she promptly ditched him for a life in the TARDIS with the Doctor.
Up against a charismatic man with the whole of time and space at his fingertips, what chance did poor Mickey have? While Rose is quite rightly often seen as one of the show’s greatest companions, a role model even, her treatment of poor Mickey was undeniably pretty shoddy, wasn’t it?
Some could argue that he didn’t deserve Rose as his girlfriend, but still. Nevertheless, he went on to enjoy one of the bigger character arcs in Doctor Who, despite remaining largely Earth-bound; from Mickey the Idiot to Mickey the Alien Hunter!
Wilfred Mott
No list like this would be complete without good old Wilf.
Yes, he did inadvertently kill off the Tenth Doctor (damn you, Wilf!), thus ending David Tennant’s run in the title role, but he was everything that Doctor Who as a show should be.
Wilf was the star-gazing little boy (despite being an old man) who still believed in aliens. He was a man who’d no doubt seen many things during his life, but it was fairly obvious that he’d seen nothing so wondrous as the Doctor and his flying blue box.
Francine Jones
Now stay with me! The mother of Martha Jones has received a lot of flack for how she behaved towards the Doctor in 2007’s Season 3, but put yourself in her shoes.
A strange man comes into your daughter’s life, exposing her to dangers and whisking her off (not to mention completely destroying your other daughter’s work party). How would you react? For her many faults, you can’t say that she didn’t try to be a good mother!
Like any mum, Francine only wanted the best for her daughter. Although she can’t really be classed as an unsung hero, she has a place on this list simply for what she went through as a character. She spent a year serving the Master as his maid, was forced to watch as Japan burned and had to listen as the Master spoke about executing her daughter! And she had to go through all of this because her daughter met the Doctor. You can’t blame her for not being his biggest fan!
Sally Sparrow
‘Blink’ is regarded by many to be one of the best ever episodes of Doctor Who and that is hugely down to Sally Sparrow; the companion who got away!
She is quite rightly remembered by many Whovians as the best companion that never was, which is quite a bold statement, especially when you consider that she barely actually met the Doctor.
The fact remains though that not only would the Doctor and Martha still be trapped in the 1960s were it not for her, but she went up against the Weeping Angels, perhaps the scariest monsters in Doctor Who history! These are the creatures that outwitted the dream team of Doctor, River Song, Amy Pond and Rory Williams in ‘The Angels Take Manhattan’. And Sally Sparrow beat them pretty much singlehandedly. That alone earns her a place on this list.
> Buy Season 8 on DVD on Amazon.
> Buy Season 8 on Blu-ray on Amazon.
Which other forgotten heroes have we, er, forgotten? Let us know below…