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The Doctor doesn't always travel with the best, as this lot sufficiently proved.
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00:00It's been said that the Doctor only travels with the best. However, as Riversong was so fond of
00:05reminding everyone, the Doctor lies. So, with that in mind then, I'm Ellie with Who Culture,
00:09here with the 10 most useless Doctor Who characters.
00:14Number 10. Susan Foreman
00:15Now, this might be a controversial choice, but in retrospect, the Doctor's granddaughter is a bit
00:20useless. When Doctor Who was first conceived by Sidney Newman in the early 60s, he envisioned a
00:26740-year-old senile alien time traveller who whisked two schoolteachers and a teenage girl across all
00:32of time and space. In essence, this is what happens in the very first episode, but with one key
00:37difference. Susan. In the finished version of Doctor Who's pilot episode, Susan isn't a contemporary
00:42teenage girl. She's the Doctor's granddaughter and therefore also an alien time traveller with
00:47superior knowledge. The problem is that many of the people who wrote for Susan mostly forget this
00:52key detail and wrote her as an ineffectual teenage girl. Therefore, rather than continuing to dazzle
00:58and intrigue her schoolteachers Ian and Barbara with her advanced knowledge of science, history and
01:03technology, Susan instead rolls her ankle at regular intervals. She also frequently loses her head in the
01:08face of various intergalactic terrors, as if she hasn't been travelling to alien worlds with her
01:13grandfather for ages prior to the show starting. It's hardly surprising that Carol Ann Ford left the role
01:18at the start of Doctor Who's second season. She was replaced by Vicky, an orphan from the future who
01:23was generally written as a far more savvy character, one who essentially became the Doctor's surrogate
01:28granddaughter. Number 9. Mickey Smith. Mickey Smith, or Mickey the Idiot, is a character so useless that
01:34he lost a fight with a wheelie bin. Originally written by Russell T Davies as mundane, ordinary and
01:40cowardly, Mickey represented everything that Rose Tyler wanted to leave behind. In Doctor Who's 2005 pilot episode
01:46Rose, Mickey is so useless that he can be convincingly replaced by a plastic replica who
01:51can barely string a coherent sentence together. Seeing what Clark brought to the character as a
01:56performer, Russell T Davies gave Mickey more depth as Doctor Who continued into its second series.
02:01However, he's still pretty pointless. He risks detection by screaming at a cupboard full of rats
02:05in a school reunion, and while the Ninth Doctor is impressed by Mickey in World War III, he's only really
02:10been following the Doctor's orders the whole time, rather than thinking for himself. It's only when he's
02:15presented with a parallel universe doppelganger that Mickey decides to stand up for himself,
02:19becoming an action hero and resistance fighter against John Loomix's Cybermen. It's this more
02:24heroic version of Mickey that appears in the Series 2 and Series 4 finales, where he fights again
02:30against the Daleks and the Cybermen. However, it doesn't change the fact that for the first few
02:34years of his time on Doctor Who, he was pretty darn useless. Number 8. Victoria Waterfield.
02:40After Fraser Hines's historical companion Jamie McCrimmon became a big success, the Doctor Who
02:45production team attempted to repeat the feat by introducing another historical companion,
02:50Victoria Waterfield. The only problem was that she didn't have any notable skills beyond screaming
02:55and just having a terrible time of it. The original plan was to make Pauline Collins'
03:00Samantha a full-time companion, but she turned down the role. Investigating her brother's disappearance
03:05in The Faceless One, Samantha proved herself to be a much more independent and forthright
03:09companion than Victoria. When she's introduced in Evil of the Daleks, Victoria is literally a
03:14damsel in distress. This comes to define the character throughout her time with the second
03:18Doctor and Jamie. While Deborah Watling is an incredibly likeable actor, she's rarely given
03:23any substantial material to sink her teeth into, and whenever she does take some initiative,
03:28she ends up in deadly danger and needs to be rescued by the Doctor or Jamie.
03:32Victoria's screaming became such a key part of her character that it played a crucial role in her
03:36final story. Attempting to defeat an outbreak of deadly sentient seaweed, the Doctor realizes that
03:41sound is the perfect weapon, and so he weaponizes the screams of his companion. It's an ending that's
03:47either a celebration of or an insult to Victoria, depending on your outlook.
03:527. Katerina
03:54When futuristic space orphan Vicky left Doctor Who, the production team decided to go in the opposite
03:59direction for her replacement. Enter Katerina, a handmaid from ancient Greece who joined the TARDIS
04:05to tend to Stephen's wounds. However, either the limitations of a historical companion or the
04:10writer's imaginations led to her being swiftly, brutally written out of the show. In some ways,
04:16Katerina was one of the most realistic Doctor Who companions. Her complete inability to wrap her
04:20head around the fantastical worlds she travelled to with the Doctor and Stephen is reflective of how
04:25contemporary audiences may lose their own minds when confronted by the far future. The problem is
04:30that it doesn't make for particularly good drama. The far future is one thing, but wouldn't Katerina
04:35respond in a similar fashion if the TARDIS landed in the present day? This propensity to be dazzled
04:40by the future made her a fairly useless travelling companion. She may have healed Stephen's wounds from
04:45the previous story, but the rest of her scenes find her dazzled by futuristic technology, leaning on
04:50the fantastical myths of ancient Greece to make sense of everything. Poor Katerina is so unfamiliar with
04:56the future that when held hostage, she opens an airlock door, ejecting herself and her captor into
05:01the vast emptiness of space.
05:03Number 6. The Justice Department
05:05Tasked with punishing history's greatest monsters with their Tesselector, the Justice Department is
05:10actually pretty bad at its job. The Doctor Amy and Rory meet them when Melody Pond, or River Song,
05:15takes them back to Berlin to kill Hitler. However, the Tesselector has arrived at the wrong point in
05:20time and could have easily changed the whole course of history. The Justice Department shows the failings
05:25in Stephen Moffat's rather glib take on the killing Hitler dilemma. While the Doctor smartly orders
05:30Rory to put Hitler in a cupboard so that Doctor Who doesn't have to deal with him, the presence of
05:34the Justice Department does highlight the impotence of the Doctor and others in stopping Hitler's
05:39crimes. While it appears that Hitler will be punished later on, the Justice Department is moments away
05:44from killing him before they realise they have the wrong date, which is hardly the level of due
05:49diligence you'd expect from law enforcement. It's a good job that Hitler's guilty of the deaths of
05:53millions, but with such a glaring oversight, it doesn't give much hope for them as time's judge,
05:58jury, and executioner. They did prove to be of some use, however, when their Tesselector aided the
06:0311th Doctor in faking his own death, so they're not completely useless.
06:085. Krasko
06:09Rosa is one of Doctor Who's best historical stories. It shows that recent history can be just as dangerous
06:15to the TARDIS team as medieval times or hostile alien planets. It also has one of the show's absolute
06:21worst villains in the form of Krasko, a racist time traveller who's dressed for an amateur dramatics
06:27production of Grease. Krasko represents the problem with modern Doctor Who's need for a
06:31villain. The racism of the time is a dangerous antagonist as it is, without hammering the point
06:36home via Krasko. While the idea of commercial time travel being used to spread racist rhetoric
06:41is a strong one, especially given the trajectory of how humans have used the internet, Krasko is such an
06:46ineffective presence that the character loses his thematic heft. While it's certainly a huge
06:51powerful moment in history and provides strong character work for the TARDIS team, Krasko is a
06:56Doctor Who villain who's essentially beaten by some people sitting on a bus. Krasko's uselessness and
07:01small-scale messing with the local bus timetables could be seen as a takedown of the petty small-mindedness
07:06of racists, but it fundamentally doesn't work in terms of Doctor Who villainy.
07:114. Turlo
07:12Anyone who says that Adric is the fifth Doctor's worst companion is willfully ignoring Turlo.
07:18Adric is a passable TARDIS pilot who's really good at maths, while Turlo is an overgrown schoolboy
07:23who starts his time in the TARDIS by trying to murder the Doctor on the instruction of the Black
07:27Guardian. And yet, despite the multiple opportunities presented to him throughout his first serial Mordrin
07:33Undead, he relents. Charitably, Turlo's reluctance to kill the Doctor in Mordrin Undead could be compared
07:38to Hamlet. But writer Peter Grimwaid is no William Shakespeare, and actor Mark Strickson is no
07:44Laurence Olivier. Once Turlo finally rejects the Black Guardian in Enlightenment, he goes from being
07:49a useless assassin to being a useless Doctor Who companion. He's more cowardly than Mickey, more prone
07:54to fright than Victoria, and generally spends most of his time smugly winding up Tegan. It's also not
08:00entirely certain that he's given up on his mission to kill the Doctor either. Memorably, in Warriors of
08:05the Deep, Turlo pronounces that the Doctor has drowned to death mere seconds after the unfortunate
08:10Time Lord hits the water. Speaking of drowning, Turlo does save Perry from a watery grave at the
08:15start of his final story, so he's not 100% useless. That being said, looking back across his time with
08:20the Doctor and Tegan, it's hard to discern exactly what Turlo brought to the TARDIS, aside from a nice
08:26sketch of the Eye of Orion. Number 3, Adam Mitchell. Adam Mitchell had one job, to be an expert on the
08:32alien technology held in Henry Van Staten's underground facility, and he wasn't very good at it. Then, once the
08:38Dalek gets loose in the facility, he even leaves Rose for dead. And yet, the Doctor still agrees to Rose's
08:43request to let him travel with them. Didn't the Doctor learn his lesson with Turlo? Adam doesn't improve when he
08:48takes his first trip in the TARDIS to Satellite 5, putting the Doctor and Rose's lives at risk. While those two
08:54investigate the strange goings-on at Satellite 5, Adam swans off and gets his brain upgraded in a craven attempt to
09:00profit from future knowledge. The guy's a total liability. Now, while this knowledge may have actually helped him
09:06in his role with Henry Van Staten, it actually informs the editor and the Jagrafess about the Doctor and Rose. As a
09:12result, Adam experiences the righteous fury of the Doctor, who throws him out of the TARDIS. Quite right, too. As a
09:18self-obsessed and cowardly figure, Adam is a fundamentally useless Doctor Who character, who only makes things worse for
09:24those around him. Number two, Chameleon. Chameleon is essentially the fifth Doctor equivalent of when
09:30the eleventh Doctor shaved his head out of boredom, or when the twelfth Doctor constructed a clockwork
09:35squirrel. The legend goes that the Chameleon prop caught the attention of 1980s Doctor Who producer
09:40John Nathan-Turner, who was focused on taking the show into the future with a properly robotic
09:45companion. The only problem was the automated prop's substantial limitations. K-9 may have struggled to
09:51traverse anything other than a smooth studio floor, but Chameleon struggled to achieve even that,
09:56and was regularly propped up against a wall. These limitations were further exacerbated when,
10:01tragically, the only person who knew how to operate Chameleon, Mike Power, was killed in a
10:05boating accident. This needn't have been a problem, however. Chameleon may have been a robot, but he also
10:10had the ability to assume any form. For notoriously publicity-hungry producer John Nathan-Turner,
10:16this could have been an ideal opportunity for a rolling cast list of special guest stars
10:21in the role of Chameleon. Instead, the robot was stuffed into a TARDIS cupboard and rarely seen
10:25again. He made one last appearance in Planet of Fire when he was taken over by his original owner,
10:31the Master. So that's yet another fifth Doctor companion who conspired against him.
10:35Come back, Adric! All is forgiven!
10:38Number 1. Sniperbots
10:40I mean, the clue's in the name. Sniperbots. Sniperbots.
10:44Robots whose whole purpose is to be exceptional snipers. Created by the Stenza, the Sniperbots appeared
10:50in both the Ghost Monument and the Battle of Ransgor Av Kolos, and were completely, utterly
10:55useless in both appearances. It's something of a sci-fi cliché that the villains can't
11:00shoot straight, but it's particularly galling in this case. These robot assassins are supposed
11:05to be the best snipers in the universe, but they can't even withstand a challenge from
11:08Ryan Sinclair. Despite Ryan's difficulties with coordination and riding a bike, he can gun
11:14down a whole army of specially designed snipers because he's played Call of Duty. Take that,
11:19Stenza weapon specialists. It's hardly surprising that the Sniperbots are useless, especially
11:23given that the Stenza also created the evil sentient bandages which warn the Doctor about
11:28their hidden past. When the Sniperbots return for the Battle of Ransgor Av Kolos, a Doctor
11:33Who story that writer Chris Chibnall doesn't even like, they are once more swiftly dispatched
11:37by Ryan and Graham with a well-timed duck. Of the Stenza's many crimes against the universe,
11:42their Sniperbots should get them hauled up in front of the courts for breaching the Trade
11:46Description Act. And that concludes our list. If you think we missed any, then do let us
11:51know in the comments below. And while you're there, don't forget to like and subscribe and
11:55tap that notification bell so you never miss a Who Culture video again. Also, head over
12:00to Twitter and follow us there, and I can be found across various social medias just by
12:03searching Ellie Littlechild. I've been Ellie with Who Culture, and in the words of Riversong
12:08herself goodbye, sweeties.
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