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Double gut punches of bad news today. Just sort of numb right now. Maybe the universe is telling me something.

Ranking the Doctors (Also: Why I Did It)

Let's start with something obvious. After 14 months of watching Doctor Who, which Doctor is my favorite? Who's at the bottom of the pile?  Gentle reader, wait no more:

• Smith
• Hartnell
• Tom Baker
• Davison
• Eccleston
• McGann*
• McCoy
• Troughton
• Tennant
• Pertwee
• Colin Baker 

 
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     The major reason for me doing this viewing marathon was the chance to reevaluate Doctor Who as a whole. I began watching the show in 1992 when I was 15 years old; I’m 37 now and I knew that some of my perceptions on it had changed, though if you pressed me at the time I probably wouldn’t be able to express how, exactly. For instance, on some level Peter Davison will always be "my" Doctor, but I suspected that in recent years he was no longer stacking up as well as against the others. Still, it was impossible to tell why, when I would first watch a Pertwee from Season 7, and then an Eccleston, and then something from the Troughton years. Often the order depended on my mood and the weather.

I suspect this is how most fans view the show these days, but it wasn’t how I first experienced it. I first saw the stories on Maryland Public Television, which would run omnibus editions of the stories on Saturday nights, cycling through the series in order. (Frustratingly, at least a twice they reached Survival, only to cycle ‘round to Robot the next week. My hopes of seeing the complete Pertwee years were dashed repeatedly, and were only completely fulfilled this last spring during this marathon). I missed experiencing the show like that, and realize one of the negative results of cherry picking my way through my DVD’s and VHS tapes was I wasn’t seeing how it all fit together.  Only when seeing the show evolve within context and as a whole could I begin to compare era’s fairly, and evaluate them with fresh eyes.

                  Taking a look at this list, the important thing to stress in that this is a game of inches, especially in the middle. The top two Doctors are more or less where they should be, as are the bottom three. The rest of the list is somewhat subjective. Eccleston seems rather high, Troughton seems absurdly low. Are we talking of the Season 13 Fourth Doctor, or one of the Season 17?  But except for the top two Doctors on the list, I suspect that if I did this again (gasp!) the order would be different. McGann is placed squarely in the middle on purpose; we’ll just never know how he would have stacked up against the others if given a season or two on his own. Based on the strength of Night of the Doctor alone, I suspect I’d bump him a little higher, perhaps as high as fourth. But it’s all speculation, so he gets a walk.

                  I feel I should also mention Colin Baker and the Sixth Doctor. Yes, I know he becomes amazing in the Big Finish stories, comics, Virgin MA’s, etc. But I’m only judging from the television episodes here, and in that context his era is clearly the weakest. With the possible addition Season 11, the Sixth Doctor era is the only time the show just flounders creatively. The scripts from that time don’t give Colin Baker a lot to work with. (Really, they don’t. One thing I found really refreshing about The Mark of the Rani is that the Doctor and Peri are actively involved in the plot within ten minutes of the opening credits, which is a record for the period). Also, it’s violent, needlessly so. Season 22 was the only time during the entire marathon I wouldn’t let my 5-year old daughter watch with me because I simply didn’t think the show was appropriate for her, which I think is a hugely important thing because we must never forget that Doctor Who is a kids show.

 The way I went about ranking the Doctor’s was fairly simple: when a new Doctor came up, I judged him against the others who had come previous and ranked him accordingly. In the early months it was easy. I ranked Doctors 1-3 in exactly that order. Then Tom came up and I preferred him to Troughton and Pertwee. Davison was a bit harder, but it was clear by the time I got to Season 20 I still wasn’t liking his Doctor as much as Tom’s. (The Season 19 Fifth Doctor is especially grating, being rather peevish and aimless. I got the sense he’d liked to be locked up in a room somewhere in the TARDIS with a book, and hope that all these silly children would just stop talking to him).

                 

                  Perhaps the biggest single surprise of this marathon was how much I liked William Hartnell’s Doctor. Really, he’s amazing. One thing I learned is I like subtlety in my Doctors, and no one does it better than Hartnell. All the stuff about flubbing his lines is a bit overblown. On the whole, Hartnell has maybe one line flub per story, well within my means of tolerance. Surprisingly, I learned Hartnell’s Doctor is one of the most compassionate Doctor’s, probably the most compassionate, When his era is viewed as a whole, one thing that leaps out is that the only thing that truly upsets Hartnell’s Doctor is the possibility that one of his friends is hurt or in danger. This fact struck me during The Invasion, when Jaime is shot for chrissake, and Troughton’s Doctor barely acknowledges it. If Ian had ever been shot, the First Doctor would be having kittens. 

I kept waiting for another Doctor to come along and bump Hartnell further down the list, and up until the very end, no one really did. Matt Smith eventually became the only Doctor to offer a serious challenge, and even in the late days of Series 7, I was hemming and hawing over who was better and nearly decided it by a coin flip. Ultimately it was the stories that were the tiebreaker. Looking at my favorite stories list, it becomes immediately clear that the Matt Smith era contains the biggest concentration of my favorites per capita, and that was the clincher.  

Expanded Thoughts on the Marathon

From January 28, 2013-March 24, 2014, I watched Doctor Who. All of it. Well, most of it. Everything that was available anyway. Until they discovered more of it halfway through; I haven't seen that yet. (Bloody hell, I can't even get through an introductory statement without three caveats).

Anyway, that's a long time to be watching anything, 420 days to be exact. I feel there ought to be something to show for it. And there will be lots of the obligatory lists on my twitter feed. However, as I've discovered while typing them out, lists by themselves are somewhat boring. Why is Troughton down so low on the favorite Doctors list? You mean, she's my favorite companion? Mindwarp, really? Etc, etc.

So, occasionally, I'll be using this space to expand on the dry and somewhat predictable entries that will be coming out in the next few weeks. Enjoy.

The End of the World

"You lot. You spend all your time thinking about dying. Like you're going to get killed by eggs, or beef, or global warming, or asteroids. But you never take the time to imagine the impossible. That maybe you survive.

This is the year 5.5/Apple/26. Five billion years in your future. And this is the day...hold on. This is the day the sun expands. Welcome to the end of the world."

--The Doctor
"The End of the World"

It's when I heard this speech the first time that I knew the rebooted Doctor Who was in good hands and I didn't have to worry. Still sends chills up my spine every time I hear Chris Eccleston deliver it. This story for me represents everything great Russell T Davis brought to the series, and will probably top my list for favorite Ninth Doctor stories (yes, even more than The Empty Child).

The War Games, Heroes, Torchwood CoE, and the way we watch television.

A couple of days ago I wondered if The War Games is as good as the reputation within fandom that it's built up for itself over the past decade or so. As you may has guessed from my previous post, my opinion is that it is. There's a lot of good things going for it. Barring maybe Evil of the Daleks (which I haven't seen), The War Games is the only time a Troughton story goes truly epic. It has a massive sense of scale, even before the last two episodes. It has some some great location filming, and strong direction by David Maloney. Mac Hulke is one of my favorite Who writers, and this serial showcases some of his strengths There's a large cast of strong characters, with no real weak link in chain. All get to share the screentime evenly (though Lady Jennifer mysteriously disappears in part 5). All in all, The War Games may not be strongest story of Season 6 (I still think that honor goes to The Invasion), but it's certainly right up there as one of Troughton's best.

But last night I was still pondering why its reputation has shot up in the way it has over the past 10-15 years, and it dawned on me that one reason could be the that over that timeframe there's been a shift in the way people consume television. During the VHS era, I think the tendancy (well, mine anyway) was to plonk a tape into the VCR and watch the whole thing in one sitting. I thought nothing of sitting down and watch a four-parter in one go, and even a six-parter wasn't unheard of. Once we got into Season 7 territory it becomes trickier, but I do distinctly remember watching all of Inferno one weekend night with a friend. But The War Games? Egad, even the sad teenager with no life that I was could manage that comfortably. I think the closest I ever came was to split the whole thing up into two viewings 5-and-5.

So, maybe this story had a poor reputation of being just far too long because people couldn't view it all at once. Stay with me here, this is going someplace.

In the DVD/BD era, it became far more regular for people to purchase an entire season of a show and watch it in a slow-but-steady way. For me, anyway, the practice began with Season 1 of Heroes. Instead of watching it over the course of 8 months, Tasha and I watched it 2-3 episodes at a time, over the course of two weeks or so. That was a great way to watch that specific show too, because you could actually see the plot move just fast enough to keep you hooked. (I know I'm not saying anything original here, but Heroes Season 1 holds up remakably well when viewed in this way. Characterization is very strong and the plot unfolds in a natural manner that never feels rushed or jerky).

Other things have changed too. Most specifically when Doctor Who was rebooted, the shift to a 45ish minute episode length changed my feelings on how the show should be watched. I've come to the point that I can no longer sit down and watch a 100-minute four parter in one go. Even before I decided to do this marathon, I was tending to watch the older stories two episodes at a time, which is roughly the length of one complete modern episode.  For me, it's just long enough to hold my interest before I start to lose focus and my attention drifts to other things. Our modern ADD culture? Maybe, but that how it's come to be with me.

So, with these two factors, The War Games almost becomes a mini-series within the larger confines of Season 6. Indeed, watched two episodes per day over the course of 5 days, it's almost the exact same length and viewing experience as Torchwood: Children of Earth. As I was thinking about this last night, it occurred to me that each two parts each makes up a "chapter" of the larger story:

• Parts 1 & 2- Laying out the groundwork. These are set almost entirely within the WWI Zone, focuses almost exclusively on those characters with only occasional hints about the larger story going on. It's not until the cliffhanger of Part 2 that we really start to see the big picture. 

•  Parts 3 & 4- The story broadens to multiple time zones, and it become about the Doctor figuring out exactly what is going on, with much of the plot dealing with finding the map that reveals all the time zones. The aliens are also introduced, though the TARDIS crew doesn't have much interaction with them until....

• Parts 5&6- ...When the story moves away from the times zones to the alien base. Much of the plot is about capturing the new Mind Control processing machine so that it can be used to back in the time zones to de-hypnotize more soldiers. There's a plot thread about the War Chief and the Security Chief one-uping each other, which also starts the plot concerning the Time Lords. 

• Parts 7&8 The focus shift back to the war zones, and the plot is concerned with organizing all the resistance troops into a cohesive force and then slowing taking over all the war zones from the baddies. 

•  Parts 9&10. The main plot gets resolved, and the focus moves to the Doctor and the Time Lords, the trial, and the forced regeneration.

 So there you go. Basically, I think one reason this story's reputation shot up is because people are now more willing to watch longer story in parts and experience the plot unfold than they were in the past. The War Games, when viewed in this manner, is not unlike watching more modern, shorter British series like Life on Mars, Sherlock, or indeed, modern Doctor Who.

It's been fun spending time with Troughton. Onward to the UNIT era!

The War Games episode 1 &2

The first big impression that I get from just the first two parts of The War Games is how dynamic and expansive it feels. It uses Time as a plot device in a way that hasn't been seen since Evil of the Daleks,  The Ark, and Dalek Masterplan. Since so much of Troughton's stories are tied down to one small base or area, this already has a larger sense of scope that lends it a nice, exciting energy. Episode 2 also benefits from some good location film work and a funny bit by Troughton as he impersonates a government inspector.

The War Games preview and Season 6 retrospective.

I've now been a Doctor Who fan for something like 21 years. I can't single out the exact point I became a fan, because the process was gradual, but it would've started around fall of 1992. It was definitely in the leadup to the 30th anniversary with that cool altered diamond logo.
 
In that time, I don't think any single story's reputation has improved in the collective eyes of fandom as much as The War Games. In the early nineties it was still more or less considered a bloated monstrosity; a 6-parter painfully stretched to 10 episodes only from sheer necessity. Now it's held in very high regard, and considered on of the finest epics Doctor Who ever produced. Somehow I think the truth lies somewhere in the middle.  I am on record as stating David Maloney is my favorite Who director, so it's got that going for it before I even begin.

It's been years since I've sat down and really watched The War Games, and never in context. Season 6 has been a nice surprise; it's much better than it's reputation as being somewhat dour in tone and creatively out of ideas. (Actually, that description neatly summarizes my opinion of Season 11, but let's not burn bridges before we get to them). The Mind Robber and The Invasion are two excellent back-to-back stories, and The Seeds of Death is just a level below them. There's nothing great about The Krotons but nothing wrong about it either; it's perfectly average Doctor Who. The Space Pirates has a bad reputation but since I've (mostly) only watching extant stories during this marathon, the only part I viewed was episode 2, and I've always rather liked Milo Clancey and his broken, newfangled solar toaster. That just leaves The Dominators, which admittedly is pretty dour and uncreative.

As I get ready to depart the Troughton era I will say that, despite Season 6 being better than it's reputation, I didn't like it has much as the Hartnell era. Patrick Troughton has gathered this reputation as being the first "real" Doctor off which all future Doctors are at least partially based, but the truth is that during this marathon I often found the Second Doctor lacking. Certainly he's nowhere near as compassionate as the First Doctor. For example at one point in The Invasion Jaime is actually shot, and the Doctor sort of shrugs it off once he learns he's going to live. If such a thing had happened to Ian, the First Doctor wound be shitting kittens worrying if his friend was okay. It's a moment that didn't sit well with me.

But, again, there's so much I didn't see, especially from the almost totally missing Season 4. Before this marathon, if you had asked me what were the Missing Stories I'd most want to see, I'd have answered with the great epics of Season 3, like The Dalek Masterplan or The Massacre of St Batholomew's Eve.  Now, I really want stuff from the early Troughton era, so we could see this mischievous character develop. Power of the Daleks, certainly, but also The Highlanders and, The Macra Terror and, God help us, The Underwater Menace. Thankfully, that last one does have another episode coming, and I have a gut feeling it's going to improve that story's reputation somewhat.

Which brings us full circle. Didn't mean to go on quite so long, but I think the caffeine kicked in and these are some thoughts that have been bouncing around my head of late. It's going to take me the better part of a week to watch The War Games. Will is be great? Will it be dull? Will it just be a really long but  otherwise unremarkable Doctor Who story? I look forward to finding out.