‘Grrrrr.’

Jo Grant

While she’s no scientist, she’s not stupid and we see her gradually grow more knowledgeable in scientific matters (in The Time Monster, for example, when she guesses exactly what the device the Doctor built does). She’s resourceful (remember that she does happen to be a fully qualified UNIT agent who has studied escapology) and frequently gets the Doctor out of tight jams. She doesn’t hang around waiting for someone to tell her what to do—she uses her own initiative many times, sometimes with good results (such as when she frees the Doctor in The Sea Devils) and sometimes with bad results (when she tracks down the Master on her own in Terror of the Autons—though note that she does succeed in finding him, and by Frontier in Space she’s become immune to his hypnotism). She has far more agency than she gets credit for. She knows what she wants and isn’t shy about getting it. In her first episode we learn she got her job with UNIT by asking her well-connected uncle for it, but she’s also immediately willing to do all the hard work involved. The first thing she does is try to put out a fire—no screaming involved, she just grabs the fire extinguisher and puts it out. It turns out she’s actually ruined one of the Doctor’s projects, but her eagerness and sweet personality win him over so quickly that he doesn’t have the heart to fire her. In The Mind of Evil, during a prison riot, she grabs the gun from the prisoner holding her hostage and turns the situation around, covering the prisoners with it and then casually handing them over to the governor. In The Curse of Peladon, King Peladon offers her a life of luxury as his queen, but she turns him down. She also turns down Latep in Planet of the Daleks—who asks her to stay with him on Skaro—because she’s more interested in her own life on Earth. When she accepts Cliff’s offer of marriage in The Green Death, it’s not on a whim but something she genuinely wants. She isn’t willing to settle for just anyone.

(continues) When she and the Doctor visit the sexist Draconians in Frontier in Space, one of them tells her to not to speak, and her response is simply to tell him to be quiet so she can carry on talking. Later she remarks, “I think it’s about time women’s lib was brought to Draconia.” Jo is passionate above all else, and it shows in everything she does. She throws herself into her work, she enjoys life very much, and she’s incredibly compassionate and driven to do good. In The Mind of Evil she takes care of the Doctor after his ordeal with the Keller Machine and treats the prisoner Barnham very kindly, showing more concern for him than anyone else does. She brings a captured Ogron a banana in Frontier in Space, showing kindness to a species even the Doctor treats with contempt. Her compassion is so strong that she tries to sacrifice her own life in The Daemons to save the Doctor, asking Azal to kill her in his place. This action is what ultimately saves them all, because Azal can’t comprehend her behaviour. And finally, she chooses to leave the Doctor because she wants to save the planet the old-fashioned way—not by going into space and fighting aliens, but through simple ground level activism. Perhaps the most profound example of her strong spirit and her bravery is The Time Monster, when the Master’s actions threaten to destroy the entire universe. She’s trapped aboard his TARDIS, and the only way to stop him is for the Doctor to time ram the two vessels, which will kill all three of them. The Doctor threatens to do it, but the Master calls his bluff, pointing out that the Doctor doesn’t have it in him to destroy Jo. Jo has no such qualms and time rams the TARDISes herself, even though she knows it’ll kill her and her best friend. She believes it’s worth it to save the rest of the universe. “Think of all those millions of people who’ll die,” she says. “Think of all those millions of people who’ll never be born!” The three of them do survive through the intervention of Kronos, but that doesn’t take anything away from Jo’s decision to destroy the two TARDISes—a decision the Doctor himself wasn’t able to make. Despite his strong desire to be free of his exile, the Doctor is clearly the most dependent one in their relationship. He worries that she might choose to stay with Peladon, and when he finally gets his freedom in The Three Doctors, Jo is sad but willing to accept that he probably wants to leave, but he instead chooses to remain with UNIT (which shows some great character development for Three, who lied to Liz to get her to give him the TARDIS key in his first serial and tried to abandon them all). In the end, it’s not the Doctor who leaves Jo but Jo who leaves the Doctor. She makes the decision to part ways, and he is clearly the one most affected by it, and can’t even stay for the rest of the party. It’s such a simple companion departure—no tragedy involved, just leaving to get married—and yet it remains one of the most heart-breaking moments in Classic Who. We rarely see the Doctor so upset over a companion’s exit.(anonymous)

She is the original nepo baby, got a job because of her uncle and it’s strongly implied she got put with the doctor so all the annoying people would be in one room and the brigadier wouldn’t have to deal with them too much. Every outfit is iconic, and she is part of the best era of Doctor Who: 3 and his gay and homosexual unit gang (anonymous)

Vislor Turlough

Turlough is an alien prince, a child soldier, a planetary exile, a would-be assassin, and a reluctant hero. He joined the TARDIS under orders to murder the Doctor, and instead was surprised to find himself caring for people other than himself for the first time in a long time. He’s sarcastic and superior and self-interested and a survivor. He pretends to be more of a coward than he really is. He’s an artist, he keeps up with the Doctor on technical subjects, and he only changes out of his fetish-bait school uniform to put on a pair of short shorts and a speedo. We don't learn his full name or what planet he's from until his final serial. He is my favourite companion <3 (anonymous)

My favourite ginger alien freak with no eyebrows who can't drive. Turlough has one of the best character transformations while travelling in the tardis. He goes from trying to kill the doctor so he can leave earth and go home, but ends up staying, and becoming more selfless and brave. Enlightenment is of the best doctor who stories of all time, and that is in no small part because of Turlough. A vote for Turlough is a vote for ginger weirdos everywhere <3 (@gothicacetheatrekid )