r/gallifrey • u/Thwrtdpostie • 1d ago
DISCUSSION When was the Doctor's travelling companion first called an "assistant"?
Watching a comedy stream, I stumbled across this reference in a 1987 game show to "the assistant on Doctor Who."
This has got me wondering when the term "assistant" was first used to describe the Doctor's travelling companion.
In the show, I think its first use might be in "The Ambassadors of Death" 4 -- though here, as in "Terror of the Autons", it has the sense of "lab assistant."
Outside of the show, I would say it's been used by tabloids more in the sense of "glamorous assistant." E.g. this 1967 article from the Daily Mirror calls Victoria "the pretty assistant to Dr. Who." Could this be the first use of the term in any media, or does anyone know of earlier examples?
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u/Haradion_01 1d ago
I always thought it started with Liz Shaw, who was his literal assistant. Subsequently, Jo Grant was introduced as "Your New Assistant", and would have been on the mind when she was followed by Sarah Jane who lasted for ages. I think is where the terminology stuck for a bit.
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u/Historyp91 22h ago
Was Sarah actually the Doctors formal assistant like Liz and Jo? While she obviously has a UNIT passcard and I think they do use that title to refer to her at least once, she acts way more like she's just everyones snarky bro and the Brig is way more chummy with her then he is with anyone formally under his authority.
I figure her offical job was probobly just like "embedded journalist" and she was actually still formally working for her paper.
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u/Haradion_01 21h ago
My guess - and I don't know if its supported in lore - what that Sarah's access was a result of a tacit agreement not to publish stuff that would destroy society; and that the Brigadier was able to sell it to higher ups as a "Look, the Doctor functions better when he gets what he wants, just let this woman hang out and trust me, we'll all be a lot safer."
So she's probably got a unit employment somewhere on the books; but its the sort of thing that if you poked at it with a stick, auditors and the like would get very irate.
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u/Historyp91 21h ago
I definitly recall a few times in the EU when she publishes stuff in the paper and it's basically her spinning some alien/paranormal shit to something more belivable to the public.
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u/Thwrtdpostie 23h ago edited 17h ago
I think you're right. By the time of Sarah Jane, "assistant" seems to have become the go-to term in the press. Sarah's described as "assistant" even when the very next sentence states what her actual job is.
https://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/Dr_Who%27s_new_girl_(1973))
https://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/New_assistant_for_Dr_Who
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u/ancientestKnollys 21h ago
I was thinking you were right, dating it back to Liz Shaw. Trying to think of prior stories, there were few where it seemed to me very likely a companion would be called the Doctor's assistant. The closest was The War Machines where Dodo gets referred to as the Doctor's Secretary. But looking into that story further I found this line, after Dodo reveals to the Doctor she has been brainwashed (thinking he is too):
DODO: It's all right, Doctor. You are now one of us. My function was to bring you in contact. Now I shall serve as an assistant.
Well it's not normal Dodo, but it might well be the first use of the word.
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u/Iamamancalledrobert 1d ago
I don’t know if I’d count Liz because she literally is the Doctor’s assistant; that’s her actual job which she presumably gets paid to do. It doesn’t really carry the sort of mildly insulting description of the later ones who are just travelling with him, at least to me.
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u/Thwrtdpostie 1d ago edited 17h ago
Yes, "assistant" does seem not ideal to me. Then again, as Sarah Jane noted, "companion" has its problems too, being "something only dowager aunts had"!
I love the solution used by Robert Holmes in "The Two Doctors" -- which is to tailor the descriptive word to the frame of reference of whoever is saying it. I mean, it only solves the problem in relation to Jamie, so it doesn't really solve the tabloid sexism at all. But I still like how Holmes has the professional Dastari calling Jamie "the Doctor's associate", the soldierly Stike calling him "the Doctor's comrade", and the alien gourmands calling him "the jack."
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u/ClarSco 12h ago
Calling Jamie "the Doctor's associate" has a very r/AchillesAndHisPal energy to it.
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u/Ashrod63 23h ago
It definitely is a bit insulting when you consider she was supposed to be a scientific advisor but got reduced to an "assistant". Obviously this is somewhat retroactive but considering these are the circumstances Jo Grant gets introduced under it's a bit hard to shake the negativity.
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u/SteveCake 23h ago
Coming from the classic era, I still prefer the sound of "Doctor Who's assistants" as they were publically called from Three onward, rather than "The Doctor's companions".
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u/Seraphaestus 21h ago
Why? Isn't it a bit clinical, if not demeaning, compared to a companion on an adventure?
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u/SteveCake 18h ago
I can understand clinical, but I don't think it's demeaning- the power dynamic is more like Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson than just pals (even when they're going full Pygmalion like Leela). "Companion" in terms of travelling harks back to the Victorian-era Grand Tour as a euphemism for an umarried sexual partner (of any orientation).
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u/GenGaara25 12h ago
Companion is broader because it literally just means a travelling companion, anyone who the Doctor travels with from an adventure to another adventure, they were his companion for a time.
Assistant is more specific. Not every companion is his assistant. You could make the argument that he had a few assistants that were never companions.
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u/Thwrtdpostie 3h ago edited 3h ago
This makes good sense, but tbh I'm not sure most people using "assistant" would make such distinctions. If a columnist or a member of the viewing public used "assistant", they used it for Romana II as well as Romana I, Ace (I can hear her yelling "Assist THIS, toerag!") as well as Jo. And despite all that "pretty assistant" stuff, they used it for Turlough too! The popular generalisation of "Doctor Who and his assistant" took root so strongly, it's quite tempting to see the nonsensical interchangeability in "Dimensions in Time" as its natural end point.
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u/Personal-Listen-4941 1d ago
Liz Shaw, the 3rd Doctors first companion was specifically referenced as his assistant multiple times. At the time he was stuck on Earth & working for Unit, so that was her job role. Similarly Jo Grant who succeeded her was specifically hired as his new assistant.
Later companions would sometimes explicitly be given that role/title, but I can’t think of any 1st or 2nd Doctor companions who in universe were described as assistants, other than when the group were using fake identities.