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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 here with
00:10the 10 most useless Doctor Who characters. Number 10, Susan Foreman. Now this might be a
00:17controversial choice, but in retrospect, the Doctor's granddaughter is a bit useless. When
00:21Doctor Who was first conceived by Sidney Newman in the early 60s, he envisioned a 740-year-old
00:27senile 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.
01:299. Mickey Smith. Mickey Smith, or Mickey the Idiot, is a character so useless that he lost a fight with
01:35a wheelie bin. Originally written by Russell T Davies as mundane, ordinary and cowardly, Mickey represented
01:41everything that Rose Tyler wanted to leave behind. In Doctor Who's 2005 pilot episode Rose, Mickey is so
01:48useless that he can be convincingly replaced by a plastic replica who can barely string a coherent
01:52sentence together. Seeing what Clark brought to the character as a performer, Russell T Davies gave
01:57Mickey more depth as Doctor Who continued into its second series. However, he's still pretty
02:02pointless. He risks detection by screaming at a cupboard full of rats in a school reunion, and while
02:06the Ninth Doctor is impressed by Mickey in World War III, he's only really been following the Doctor's
02:11orders the whole time, rather than thinking for himself. It's only when he's presented with a parallel
02:16universe doppelganger that Mickey decides to stand up for himself, becoming an action hero
02:21and resistance fighter against John Loomix's Cybermen. It's this more heroic version of Mickey
02:26that appears in the Series 2 and Series 4 finales, where he fights again against the Daleks and the
02:31Cybermen. However, it doesn't change the fact that for the first few years of his time on Doctor Who,
02:36he was pretty darn useless.
02:388. Victoria Waterfield.
02:40After Fraser Hines' 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
03:04disappearance in The Faceless One, Samantha proved herself to be a much more independent and
03:08forthright companion than Victoria. When she's introduced in Evil of the Daleks, Victoria is
03:13literally a damsel in distress. This comes to define the character throughout her time with
03:18the second Doctor 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,
03:40the Doctor realises that sound is the perfect weapon, and so he weaponises the screams of his
03:45companion. It's an ending that's either a celebration of or an insult to Victoria, depending on your
03:52outlook. Number 7. Katerina. When futuristic space orphan Vicky left Doctor Who, the production
03:57team decided to go in the opposite direction for her replacement. Enter Katerina, a handmaid from
04:03ancient Greece who joined the TARDIS to tend to Stephen's wounds. However, either the limitations of a
04:08historical companion or the writer's imaginations led to her being swiftly, brutally written out of
04:14the show. In some ways, Katerina was one of the most realistic Doctor Who companions. Her complete
04:19inability to wrap her head around the fantastical worlds she travelled to with the Doctor and Stephen
04:24is reflective of how contemporary audiences may lose their own minds when confronted by the far
04:29future. The problem is that it doesn't make for particularly good drama. The far future is one thing,
04:34but wouldn't Katerina respond in a similar fashion if the TARDIS landed in the present day? This
04:39propensity to be dazzled by the future made her a fairly useless travelling companion. She may have healed
04:44Stephen's wounds from the previous story, but the rest of her scenes find her dazzled by futuristic
04:49technology, leaning on the fantastical myths of ancient Greece to make sense of everything. Poor Katerina is so
04:55unfamiliar with the future that when held hostage, she opens an airlock door, ejecting herself and her
05:01captor into the vast emptiness of space. Number 6. The Justice Department
05:05Tasked with punishing history's greatest monsters with their test selector, 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 test selector 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 in
05:25Stephen Moffat's rather glib take on the killing Hitler dilemma. While the Doctor smartly orders Rory to put
05:30Hitler in a cupboard so that Doctor Who doesn't have to deal with him, the presence of the Justice
05:35Department does highlight the impotence of the Doctor and others in stopping Hitler's crimes.
05:40While 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 test selector aided
06:03the 11th 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
06:15dangerous to the TARDIS team as medieval times or hostile alien planets. It also has one of the
06:20show's absolute worst villains in the form of Krasko, a racist time traveller who's dressed for an
06:26amateur dramatics production of Grease. Krasko represents the problem with modern Doctor Who's
06:30need for a villain. The racism of the time is a dangerous antagonist as it is, without hammering
06:35the point home via Krasko. While the idea of commercial time travel being used to spread
06:40racist rhetoric is a strong one, especially given the trajectory of how humans have used the internet,
06:45Krasko is such an ineffective presence that the character loses his thematic heft. While it's
06:50certainly a huge, powerful moment in history and provides strong character work for the TARDIS team,
06:55Krasko is a Doctor Who villain who's essentially beaten by some people sitting on a bus.
06:59Krasko's uselessness and small-scale messing with the local bus timetables could be seen as a
07:04takedown of the petty small-mindedness of racists, but it fundamentally doesn't work in terms of Doctor
07:10Who 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
07:32first serial Mordrin Undead, he relents. Charitably, Turlo's reluctance to kill the Doctor in Mordrin
07:37Undead could be compared to Hamlet, but writer Peter Grimwaid is no William Shakespeare, and actor
07:42Mark Strickson is no Laurence Olivier. Once Turlo finally rejects the Black Guardian in Enlightenment,
07:48he goes from being a useless assassin to being a useless Doctor Who companion. He's more cowardly
07:53than Mickey, more prone to fright than Victoria, and generally spends most of his time smugly
07:58winding up Tegan. It's also not entirely certain that he's given up on his mission to kill the
08:03Doctor either. Memorably, in Warriors of the Deep, Turlo pronounces that the Doctor has drowned to
08:07death mere seconds after the unfortunate Time Lord hits the water. Speaking of drowning, Turlo does save
08:13Perry from a watery grave at the start of his final story, so he's not 100% useless. That being said,
08:19looking back across his time with the Doctor Antiguan, it's hard to discern exactly what Turlo
08:23brought to the TARDIS, aside from a nice sketch of the Eye of Orion.
08:27Number 3, Adam Mitchell. Adam Mitchell had one job, to be an expert on the alien technology held in
08:34Henry Van Staten's underground facility, and he wasn't very good at it. Then, once the Dalek gets loose in
08:39the facility, he even leaves Rose for dead. And yet, the Doctor still agrees to Rose's request to let
08:44him 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.
08:53While those two investigate the strange goings-on at Satellite 5, Adam swans off and gets his brain
08:58upgraded in a craven attempt to profit from future knowledge. The guy's a total liability.
09:03Now, while this knowledge may have actually helped him in his role with Henry Van Staten,
09:07it actually informs the editor and the Jagrafess about the Doctor and Rose. As a result,
09:12Adam experiences the righteous fury of the Doctor, who throws him out of the TARDIS.
09:17Quite right, too. As a self-obsessed and cowardly figure, Adam is a fundamentally useless Doctor Who
09:22character, who only makes things worse for those around him.
09:25Number 2, Chameleon. Chameleon is essentially the fifth Doctor equivalent of when the eleventh
09:30Doctor shaved his head out of boredom, or when the twelfth Doctor constructed a clockwork squirrel.
09:35The 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.
09:49K9 may have struggled to traverse anything other than a smooth studio floor, but Chameleon
09:54struggled to achieve even that, and was regularly propped up against a wall. These limitations were
09:59further exacerbated when, tragically, the only person who knew how to operate Chameleon,
10:04Mike Power, was killed in a boating accident. This needn't have been a problem, however.
10:08Chameleon may have been a robot, but he also had the ability to assume any form.
10:13For notoriously publicity-hungry producer John Nathan-Turner, this could have been an ideal
10:17opportunity for a rolling cast list of special guest stars in the role of Chameleon. Instead,
10:23the robot was stuffed into a TARDIS cupboard and rarely seen again. He made one last appearance
10:27in Planet of Fire when he was taken over by his original owner, the Master.
10:31So 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.
10:47Created by the Stenza, the Sniperbots appeared in both the Ghost Monument and the Battle of
10:52Ransgor Av Kolos, and were completely, utterly useless in both appearances.
10:57It's something of a sci-fi cliche that the villains can't shoot straight, but it's particularly
11:01galling in this case. These robot assassins are supposed to be the best snipers in the
11:06universe, but they can't even withstand a challenge from Ryan Sinclair. Despite Ryan's
11:10difficulties with coordination and riding a bike, he can gun down a whole army of specially
11:15designed snipers because he's played Call of Duty. Take that, Stenza weapon specialists.
11:20It's hardly surprising that the Sniperbots are useless, especially given that the Stenza also
11:25created the evil sentient bandages which warn the Doctor about their hidden past.
11:29When the Sniperbots return for the Battle of Ransgor Av Kolos, a Doctor Who story that
11:33writer Chris Chibnall doesn't even like, they are once more swiftly dispatched by Ryan
11:38and 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.
11:47And that concludes our list. If you think we missed any, then do let us know in the comments
11:52below. And while you're there, don't forget to like and subscribe and tap that notification
11:56bell so you never miss a Who Culture video again. Also, head over to Twitter and follow
12:00us there, and I can be found across various social medias just by searching Ellie Little
12:04Child. I've been Ellie with Who Culture, and in the words of Riversong herself, goodbye,
12:09sweeties.
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