Trivia questions

[Anthony Williams]

Hello all,

This evening, myself and a group of friends went to a pub quiz thst was soley based around Doctor Who. Over the course of this, there were two questions that we contested, and i was hoping for your take on them. So, here they are:

• Which Doctor had the most companions?

• How many on-screen Doctors have there been?

Thanks, in advance!

[SiHart]

Question 1 depends on how you count, and whether you're strictly talking TV, if so it's probably Hartnell's 8 that wins it.

And question 2 is open to massive interpretation too...

[WhiteCrowNZ]

And question 2 is open to massive interpretation too...

Haven't there been 3-4 Hartnells?

The original, the guy who played his unconvincing duplicate in the Chase, Hurnell in 5 Doctors, and I had a friend who swore that some guy who stood in for Hartnell on a longshot also counted.

[Paul Monk]

The question says how many Doctors. As all of those played the same incarnation of the Doctor then thats one Doctor.

If you wanted to be pedantic you can say that there's only been 1 on screen Doctor because he's the same man regardless of who played him. But that would be the smart arse answer that would most likely get you a wedgie or chinese burn.

[SiHart]

Yeah, I noticed the absence of how mnay actors have played the Doctor too. So this comes down to whether you count Curse of Fatal Death and the Cushing films and the faces in Morbius or not, as on screen is terribly unhelpful.

[Jason Thompson]

Assuming we are talking strictly on TV and ignoring books, comic strips, Big Finish et al (which is a reasonable assumption for a pub quiz, I think), both are still somewhat nebulous.

To deal with question 2 first, the simple answer is of course 11. Peter Cushing doesn't count as he was a different character, albeit based on the TV one. The Valeyard throws a spanner into the works, since the Master did refer to him as the Doctor but also said he was not a true incarnation of the Doctor but some amalgamation of stuff between incarnations (thanks to JN-T for that one!). And then there's The Brain of Morbius, of course, which gives us all those other images supposedly of the Doctor. Numerous other stories state that the only incarnations he has had are the on-screen ones we all know, however, so we can ignore it. The TV Movie is most definitely canon, since the McGann Doctor has appeared at least twice in flashbacks on screen now. Richard Hurndall in The Five Doctors was clearly supposed to be the same Doctor as the Hartnell incarnation.

So, are we talking on-screen incarnations/regenerations? If so, 11. Are we including the Valeyard? I think there is good reason not to. Are we counting actors who have played the Doctor? In that case a few more than 11.


Question 1 is even harder.

The easiest on is McGann, who had one: Dr Grace Holloway.

Smith, Colin Baker and McCoy all had two apiece, while Eccleston managed three (as much as we'd like to forget Adam!).

Since the UNIT family have never been considered true companions, Pertwee had 3, and Troughton has 5.

Now we get into grey areas. Does Kamelion count? If so Davison had 6 companions.

Tennant had three main ones (Rose, Martha and Donna), then Mickey joined in for a bit. Captain Jack returned twice, as did Sarah Jane and K9, and then there were Astrid, Christina and Wilfrid, who were narratively presented as companions, even if for one story only. And what about Adelaide Brooke and Jackson Lake? Do they qualify? The actors' names were in the opening credits....

Hartnell had either 8 or 10 companions, depending on whether or not you count Katarina and Sara Kingdom as companions. I do (considering both of them had adventures that were unrelated to the one they met the Doctor in: yes, The Feast of Steven counts, as it has nothing whatever to do with the Daleks' plans!), but many still argue that point. So, Susan, Ian, Barbara, Vicki, Steven (Katarina, Sara), Dodo, Ben and Polly make up the numbers.

Tom Baker had up to ten depending on whether or not you count the two Romanas as separate, or the two K9s.

The the winner there could be:

Hartnell if you count Katarina and Sarah but consider the two K9s and Romanas as one each.

Baker if you count the two Romanas and K9s separately and ignore Katarina and Sara.

Hartnell if you don't consider Katarina or Sara and take Romana and K9 as one only.

Tennant if you work on who gets credited in the titles.

Out of interest, what were the answers given in the quiz?

[Llordllama]

More to the point, did you get beaten up when you contested the answers!

[Rob McCow]

1 - You could count HG Wells and Katarina. You could count the Inspiration of Genii at the end of Time and The Rani, which might even put McCoy in the lead! What about Evelyn? Does Fitz count? Is Charlie counted as a companion of the eighth Doctor or the sixth, or both? Should Sarah-Jane count as a companion of the 10th Doctor? What about Jackie Tyler and Wilfred Mott? That woman in 'Waters Of Mars'? James Cordon? River Song? Borusa? Castellan Spandrell??!?!?!!

2 - Twelfty.

[Anthony Williams]

Out of interest, what were the answers given in the quiz?

The answers given were the 10th Docto and 24, respectively. Here's their explanations:

1. They apparently included every single sodding person who was credited with the Tenth Doctor as a companion. So: Rose Tyler, Mickey Smith, Donna Noble, Martha Jones, Captain Jack Harkness, Astrid Peth, Sarah Jane Smith, Jackson Lake, Rosita Farisi, Lady Christina de Souza, Adelaide Brooke and Wilfred Mott.

2. William Hartnell, Edmund Warwick, Peter Cushing, Patrick Troughton, Jon Pertwee, Tom Baker, Adrian Gibbs, Peter Davidson, Richard Hurndall, Colin Baker, Michael Jayston, Geoffery Hughes, Sylvester McCoy, Paul McGann, Rowan Atkinson, Richard E. Grant, Jim Broadbent, Hugh Grant, Joanna Lumley, Mark Gatiss, Eccleston, David Tennant, Matt Smith, Toby Jones

Yes, seriously.

[J.R. Southall]

Blimey - that's terrible! And there doesn't seem to be any logic to it, either; for instance, if you can count people who've played a version of the Doctor (ie. the Valeyard and Mr Popplewick, or the Watcher), then how come you don't count the stuntmen who've doubled the Doctor on screen over the years (and Warwick doesn't even play 'the Doctor', merely a robot)? My answer to that one would have been twelve (I'd have counted Cushing, as he's a different character and he's definitely an "on screen" Doctor), as it doesn't specify "actors" in the question ("How many actors have played the Doctor - or versions thereof - on screen?" would have been a different thing entirely.)

As for companions, I'd personally count only actors who've both travelled in the TARDIS (to 'alien' locations; no short hops mid-story) and taken part (a full part; no Katarina, then) in multiple consecutive adventures. So the Brigadier would be in; Sarah Jane Smith (as a Tenth Doctor companion) would be out. K9 counts once (the two actors were playing the same K9, effectively - the change in K9 retained the same actor), Romana twice (or else the question of how many Doctors would result in an answer of 2: Cushing, and all of the others).

[Anthony Williams]

Well, it was clear that the quizmaster (as in the chap who both set AND asked the questions) had no clue on Doctor Who - he kept mispronouncing names of the actors who played the Doctor.

On getting home and looking his somewhat bizarre answers up, it becomes apparent that he merely lifted them from Wikipedia. Ugh!

[SiHart]

I'd not count the Tenth Doctor list of companions. Most of them are only single story guest stars,. If you start counting them, then Tom would blatently win!

And the list of Doctor is supurious too! Does Toby Jones really count? Really?

[Anthony Williams]

I'd not count the Tenth Doctor list of companions. Most of them are only single story guest stars,. If you start counting them, then Tom would blatently win!

Well, we thought Hartnell (we were including Katarina and Sara Kingdom). According to the quizmaster, he had the second most, while Tom was in third.

And the list of Doctor is supurious too! Does Toby Jones really count? Really?

I KNOW! Again, we guessed 17 - we were including Cushing, Hurndall and the Curse of Fatal Death Doctors. Still, we were the closest to the "right" answer.

[Zbigniev Hamson]

The answers given were the 10th Docto and 24, respectively. Here's their explanations:

1. They apparently included every single sodding person who was credited with the Tenth Doctor as a companion. So: Rose Tyler, Mickey Smith, Donna Noble, Martha Jones, Captain Jack Harkness, Astrid Peth, Sarah Jane Smith, Jackson Lake, Rosita Farisi, Lady Christina de Souza, Adelaide Brooke and Wilfred Mott.

2. William Hartnell, Edmund Warwick, Peter Cushing, Patrick Troughton, Jon Pertwee, Tom Baker, Adrian Gibbs, Peter Davidson, Richard Hurndall, Colin Baker, Michael Jayston, Geoffery Hughes, Sylvester McCoy, Paul McGann, Rowan Atkinson, Richard E. Grant, Jim Broadbent, Hugh Grant, Joanna Lumley, Mark Gatiss, Eccleston, David Tennant, Matt Smith, Toby Jones

Yes, seriously.

I don't know who half the people are in either of those lists.