“I bet if you go down that path there, you’ll come to the American bison and the Tea Bar.”
It’s harder than you might think to find six great Dodo moments. Not because Dodo isn’t great – let us be in no doubt, Dodo is great – but because she’s only in six stories, and only four of them properly. Her introduction in The Massacre of St Bartholomew’s Eve (1966) is kind of desultory, and the episode is missing, so her real introduction is in The Ark as she strides out of the TARDIS, blithely convinced that it has brought her to Whipsnade Zoo. And that’s the key thing about Dodo. After a run of the Doctor being accompanied by well-spoken people from the future, she’s the first working-class, down-to-Earth companion who refuses to take any nonsense. A bit mouthy, a bit headstrong, she’s basically the 1960s Donna Noble.