- 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.
