30. Adric
Let’s begin this list of greatest Doctor Who companions of all-time with Adric, one of the first long companions of The Doctor during the Classic era.
How Adric ended up coming to travel with The Doctor is actually a funny story. Stowing away as a refugee aboard the TARDIS, Adric gave The Doctor a bit of a shock as he found someone stowing away aboard his ship. It was also a major shock for Adric when he had come to realize what he had stowed away on.
Companion to both Doctors four and five, Adric was, and I’m putting it kindly, a bit of a smug git. However, he was much more than that. He was equipped with some serious math skills that were so good that The Master went out of his way to kidnap him.
With a habit of telling people they where wrong and that only he had all the answers, Adric would regularly rile people the wrong by doing this. He wasn’t always right, however, and when he got things wrong, he would slink away and hide, which understandably annoyed Doctor Who fans, who already didn’t like this kid.
Despite everything he did to annoy Doctor Who fans, and annoying everyone he came into contact with on the show, when Adric was killed off in the series, it was a huge blow to Whovians everywhere.
He became the first companion to be killed off in the series. Nobody saw it coming, and it sent a ripple of sadness through the fandom. Due to his death, The Doctor changed his ways in how he choose his companions from then on and how he treated them.