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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.