Who’s your favorite 8th Doctor companion from TV, Comics and Novels? Feel free to comment explanations for your choices, but you don’t have to. You can choose as many as you want.(I wanted to add audio companions to this, but apparently Polls have a limit of 20 options. Dang you, Eighth Doctor for having so many companions!)
I haven’t read very many Eighth Doctor novels or comics. I like Sam and am not surprised she’s at the top. Mainly, because she’s rather prominant in the novels. Otherwise, it’s kinda interesting to see how this breaks down.
Having read only two EDAs and zero Eighth Doctor comics, I don’t quite feel qualified to vote here, but I do love Chang Lee and I really liked Fitz & especially Anji in The City of the Dead, so I’m voting for them lol
My guess is that she becomes a companion so late and is so little known that very few people are even aware she exists, let alone have read a book featuring her
Sam is really fun, even if she can be hit-and-miss depending on which EDA you read.
Fitz MY BELOVED. He’s great, I love him, the definitive EDA Companion basically.
Grace is lovely, I really enjoyed her on the TV Movie and I would have liked to see what they could have done with her at Big Finish, but oh well… as a one-off Companion, she’s great.
I love Anji! I don’t know how to properly articulate it, but she is GREAT. Her, Fitz and 8 are such a superb Tardis Team!
Chang Lee is okay, I like the Actor, the Character was nice as a one-off but don’t have any strong feelings about him really.
Izzy is enjoyable from what I read, even if I really DON’T like her BF Audio, it just makes her very inconsistent, but yeah enjoying her, even if I need to read more of her Comics.
Only encountered Compassion in one EDA Book so no proper Opinion on her so far, but I really like them.
Cass is enjoyable in both night, and the BF Audios, from which I only listen to her first Boxset so far at least. I like her, didn’t needed more of her, but I like her.
Destrii, I am still split on her. Love the concept behind her, but I am not sure she just doesn’t really work for me all that much, sadly(?)
Josie is fun. I like her, but she ranks fairly low for me.
Ssard and Stacy are okay. Not much to add with those two.
(Left a few out since my exposure to them is non-existing or too little to have any kind of Opinion.)
I also have love for the EDA companions I’ve encountered so far, though the quality with how they’re written can vary wildly. Sam is for sure my favourite plus her stories are some of the best in my opinion, but Compassion, Anji, and Fitz are also good
Voted for Fitz and Anji. Fitz is now one of my all time favourite companions, I love him so much, and I really liked Anji in the one book I’ve read with her (The Year of Intelligent Tigers)
I am very surprised to see Sam Jones winning this poll. If I was only going off of Seeing I and Vampire Science, then I would vote for her, but in the other books I’ve read, I haven’t liked her or she’s had practically zero presence in the story.
Fitz is the very clear winner for me from this group - just a really fantastic and unique companion even 25ish years later. I’m not familiar with all the ins and outs of his Faction Paradox cloning and resurrection , but I love that he’s an outsider in his own time, that he’s a bit of a cowardly loser (but he’s also quite heroic), and that he’s bisexual and implied to be in love with the Eighth Doctor. I also like that he sort of knows more about what’s going on than the Doctor does for a few of the books. I’m glad Benny gets a lot of love and continues to appear frequently in audios and so on, but I think we’re really overdue more appearances for Fitz, personally.
Besides him, Anji and Grace are the others who stand out to me - they’re both strong, capable people who compliment the Eighth Doctor really well, and like Fitz, they’re still very unique in the greater roster of Doctor Who companions even after all this time. I hope we see them both again too at some point (maybe next year for a certain anniversary, wink wink nudge nudge…)
I was a bit shocked by this too! Outside of Seeing I and Unnatural History, Sam is just kind of there in her other books, and she’s always felt like a slight knock-off of Ace to me…
I like her, but I suspect this is due to her being the first, so more people are only familliar with her because they just haven’t reached the others yet
