| Sergeant Benton | |
| Series: | Doctor Who |
| First: | The Invasion (1968) |
| Last: | The Android Invasion (1975) |
| Portrayer: | John Levene Darren Plant (infant) |
| Lbl1: | Shared universe appearances |
| Data1: | Wartime (1988) |
| Lbl3: | Duration |
| Data3: | 1968, 1970–1975, 1988 |
| Species: | Human |
| Home: | Earth |
| Lbl21: | Home era |
| Data21: | 20th century |
Sergeant John Benton is a fictional character in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, played by John Levene. He was the senior NCO of the British contingent of UNIT, a fictional international organisation that defends Earth from alien threats, and is eventually promoted to the rank of Warrant Officer Class 1, holding the post of regimental sergeant major. He appeared semi-regularly on the programme from 1968 to 1975.
Benton first appeared in the Second Doctor serial The Invasion (1968), when he is a corporal in UNIT. By the time of his next appearance in The Ambassadors of Death (1970) he has been promoted to sergeant and quickly forms a close relationship with the Doctor, Captain Mike Yates, and Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart. Benton's tour in UNIT also coincides with the tenure of the Third and Fourth Doctors as UNIT's Scientific Advisor, and his promotion to WO1 occurs immediately prior to Robot (1974–75).
During his time with UNIT, Benton faces the Cybermen, the Daleks, the Nestene forces, and the Master. Benton is characterised as reliable, loyal, uncomplicated, and possessing good common sense. Aside from the regular companions and the Brigadier, Benton is the only recurring character in the classic series to travel in the TARDIS.
Benton is loyal to the people he works with and is willing to disobey orders to help them (in Invasion of the Dinosaurs, he encourages the Doctor to knock him out and escape after the Doctor is falsely accused). He offers himself as a test subject for the Doctor's psychic-scanner, remarking that he is expendable (Planet of the Spiders).
Very little is known of Benton outside of his UNIT duties, other than that he has a younger sister and is fond of ballroom dancing. His first name is never revealed in the television series. He flirts briefly with Jo Grant, the Third Doctor's assistant, as well as Sarah Jane Smith, but this does not get beyond good-natured banter.
Benton's last on-screen appearance in the series is in The Android Invasion. In Mawdryn Undead, set in 1983, Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart says he left the British Army in 1979 and became a used car salesman. In Battlefield set in the 1990s, Lethbridge-Stewart hypothesises on still having Benton to assist with a gardening project.
Benton is one of the most popular recurring supporting characters in the television series, is often listed as a companion of the Doctor,[1] including on the official BBC Doctor Who website.[2] Some sources, however, like John Nathan-Turner's book Doctor Who: The Companions, exclude Benton.
Benton is one of the few adult characters to have been portrayed by a child actor in pre-2005 Doctor Who: Darren Plant in The Time Monster and Steven Stanley in the direct-to-video Wartime.
The prologue of the Virgin Publishing novelisation of The Power of the Daleks by John Peel reveals that Benton returned to UNIT and became a commissioned officer with the rank of lieutenant (OF-1). In 1986, he leads a UNIT team to Antarctica to clear up the mess left by the Cybermen's failed attempt to drain Earth of its energy (The Tenth Planet).
John Levene reprised the role of Benton in the spin-off video Wartime, produced by Reeltime Pictures in 1987. This establishes a first name for Benton. Levene and Terrance Dicks determined this during the early 1970s, though it was not used in any official production before Wartime.[3] The name John Benton has subsequently been used in spin-off novels and other fiction.
In 2013, Levene reprised the role again for the Big Finish Companion Chronicle Council of War and in 2017 for "UNIT: Assembled".
Benton appears alongside the Sixth Doctor in the unlicensed fan fiction novel Time's Champion by Chris McKeon, based on notes by Craig Hinton.