Ever since he stole a blue box and ran away, he’s been in the nation’s living rooms – even when fighting monsters on far-flung planets. And now the man known only as ‘the Doctor’ has won our showdown and is named the greatest sci-fi character of all time.
Since August, you’ve been voting in your thousands. In terms of overall votes the Timelord triumphed, but when it came down to a battle of the sexes – madman in a box versus Ellen Ripley’s tortured lone warrior – it was very, very close. But for all her bravery, the Nostromo’s warrant-officer-turned-warrior could not beat Gallifrey’s greatest hero, who pipped her to the post by just 110 votes. Ripley emerges, however, as your favourite character from sci-fi cinema by some margin.
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You were overwhelmingly fonder of characters from television than cinema, with characters originating on the small screen taking 61% of the vote. This may tie in with the date statistics, which are heavily weighted in favour of a halcyon period: 22% of votes went for characters from the 1980s, 28% from the 1990s and 20% from the 2000s. This means our most popular decade was when our winner, the Doctor, was not on air, save for a divisive TV movie in 1996.
Sci-Fi still looks like having some way to go when it comes to gender equality. 60% of votes were for male characters, with 33% for female, non-specific entities chalking up 6% and one character qualifying as both – following Michelle Gomez’ casting as the Master/Missy in this year’s series of Doctor Who.
Humanity as whole came out well though, with 67% of you polling for your own species. Aliens took 19%, while robots and computers trailed behind at 14%. Some 82% of the vote went to characters that can broadly be described as heroes, with just 15% for villains and 3% for characters in that ambiguous grey area. Anti-heroes certainly played their part: that most iconic of villains, Darth Vader, makes an impressive stab for domination at number three, closely followed by Avon from Blake’s 7 at four, and Captain Malcolm Reynolds from Firefly one place behind.

The top 100
- The Doctor, Doctor Who
- Ellen Ripley, Alien saga
- Darth Vader, Star Wars saga
- Kerr Avon, Blake’s 7
- Captain Malcolm Reynolds, Firefly / Serenity
- G’Kar, Babylon 5
- HAL-9000, 2001: A Space Odyssey
- Rick Deckard, Blade Runner
- Han Solo, Star Wars saga
- Spock, Star Trek saga
- John Crichton, Farscape
- Roy Batty, Blade Runner
- Captain Jack Harkness, Torchwood
- Captain James T Kirk, Star Trek saga
- Captain Jean-Luc Picard, Star Trek: The Next Generation
- Londo Mollari, Babylon 5
- The Alien, Alien
- Dana Scully, The X Files
- Ianto Jones, Torchwood
- Yoda, Star Wars saga
- Aeryn Sun, Farscape
- Kara ‘Starbuck’ Thrace, Battlestar Galactica
- Sarah Connor, The Terminator saga
- Doctor Emmet Brown, Back to the Future trilogy
- Fox Mulder, The X Files
- Professor Bernard Quatermass, Quatermass and the Pit
- The Terminator, The Terminator saga
- Susan Ivanova, Babylon 5
- Captain John Sheridan, Babylon 5
- Delenn, Babylon 5
- Jack O’Neill, Stargate SG-1
- Daleks, Doctor Who
- Data, Star Trek: The Next Generation
- Luke Skywalker, Star Wars saga
- Gort / Klaatu, The Day the Earth Stood Still
- Maria the Robot, Metropolis
- Judge Dredd, Judge Dredd
- E.T., E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial
- Ben ‘Obi-Wan’ Kenobi, Star Wars saga
- Neo, The Matrix trilogy
- Robbie the Robot, Forbidden Planet
- Marvin the Paranoid Android, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
- Marty McFly, Back to the Future trilogy
- Rose Tyler, Doctor Who
- Samantha Carter, Stargate SG-1
- Donna Noble, Doctor Who
- Walter Bishop, Fringe
- Admiral William Adama, Battlestar Galactica
- River Tam, Firefly / Serenity
- Arthur Dent, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
- Wall-E, Wall-E
- R2-D2, Star Wars
- Boba Fett, Star Wars
- Arnold J Rimmer, Red Dwarf
- Sam Bell, Moon
- Leeloo, The Fifth Element
- Roj Blake, Blake’s 7
- Elim Garak, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
- Scorpius, Farscape
- Thomas Jerome Newton, The Man Who Fell to Earth
- Captain Kathryn Janeway, Star Trek Voyager
- Gaius Baltar, Battlestar Galactica
- Chiana, Farscape
- Kaylee, Firefly / Serenity
- Sarah-Jane Smith, Doctor Who
- David, Prometheus
- Q, Star Trek saga
- Dave Lister, Red Dwarf
- Amy Pond, Doctor Who
- Flash Gordon, Flash Gordon
- Princess Leia Organa, Star Wars saga
- RoboCop, RoboCop
- River Song / Melody Pond, Doctor Who
- Snake Plissken, Escape from New York
- Alfred Bester, Babylon 5
- Barbarella, Barbarella
- John Sheppard, Stargate Atlantis
- Seven of Nine, Star Trek: Voyager
- Daniel Jackson, Stargate SG-1
- R.J. MacReady, The Thing
- Dave Bowman, 2001: A Space Odyssey
- Commander Jeffrey Sinclair, Babylon 5
- Lyta Alexander, Babylon 5
- Tetsuo Shima, Akira
- The Predator, Predator
- Benjamin Sisko, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
- Gwen Cooper, Torchwood
- Kryten, Red Dwarf
- Servalan, Blake’s 7
- The Master, Doctor Who
- Vala Mal Doran, Stargate SG-1
- Bo Dennis, Lost Girl
- Michael Garibaldi, Babylon 5
- Number Six, Battlestar Galactica
- Hoban ‘Wash’ Washburn, Firefly / Serenity
- C3PO, Star Wars
- Riddick, The Chronicles of Riddick
- Motoko Kusanagi, Ghost in the Shell
- Laura Roslin, Battlestar Galactica
- Doctor Ellie Arroway, Contact
Please note: this page was updated on 19 December to reflect the fact Ambassador Delenn at 73 and Delenn at 35 were the same character. As a result she has moved to position 30, allowing for a new entry at number 100.

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Try for freeOriginally published: 17 December 2014