Keeping Who Alive

My Favorite Doctor

...used to be Tom Baker. That has changed.

When Doctor Who arrived in Maine it came in the form of those 90-minute movie versions that collect four to six weeks worth of the show all in one ugly lump. We got all of Tom Baker's tenure in little more than a year; and when it ended I wasn't ready to move on. I could not enjoy anything that followed. John Nathan-Turner was an idiot! By the time Sylvester McCoy had entered the scene I had given up. It wasn't until many years later, when the American movie aired and whetted my appetite for Doctor Who in any form, that I went out and bought some of the Sylvester McCoy episodes on video, just to get a shot of totally new (to me) WHO.

And it was like a door opening. I forgot all about Tom Baker. McCoy was authoritative in the part, and there was a deep anarchistic element to his characterization that thrilled me. By making me forget Tom Baker, the McCoy shows allowed me to look at ALL of the post-Baker shows with new appreciation. John Nathan-Turner wasn't an idiot after all -- just about a decade ahead of me! For these reasons, and some others, Mr. McCoy is now my favorite Doctor ever.

In order, favorite to least so:

Sylvester McCoy. Subtle. Smart. Devious -- but also deeply curious and compassionate. And one more thing: he's angry, and he's angry at all the right things. You'd be mad not to admire him. You'd be foolish to underestimate him. He's all the previous Doctors combined: and more than the sum of the parts. And he's utterly disarming.

Tom Baker. Without whom Doctor Who would not have gained the fan base that it has and holds to this day. This one man was the instrument of the show's greatest triumph: and although the role has cost him dearly, it is doubtful that Baker would ever have found any other role that gave him so much. His Doctor is a permanant part of my psyche: one of the great fictional heroes of any time period, any medium.

William Hartnell. The original model. We love his crustiness and his compassion: and his physical frailty is a great asset to the writers on about ten different levels. An old man who got mad as hell at the system and said "Blast them all. I have had enough. I am out of here." The most spirited Doctor ever -- and many of his stories (particularly those of Verity Lambert's time) hold up quite well.

Jon Pertwee. His Doctor was more of a smug "Know-it-all" than any of the others (yes, even including McCoy's!) and over the years that element of his characterization has grated on me more and more, as though Perwtee's undeniable charm was a cover for an over-the-top ego. Still, the charm was so much in evidence that it smoothes over a lot: and the scripts Perwtee got were notably better than those of his immediate predecessor.

Pat Troughton. It's hard sometimes to separate the actor from the era: but in Pat Troughton we have a fine actor and a brilliant portayal lumbered with some of the worst scripts ever to grace the show's history. The exceptions to that -- "Tomb of the Cybermen" and "The Mind Robber" -- show us what might have been.

Peter Davison. Likeable, deep, charming and dramatic, Peter Davison simply had too many seasons of Tom Baker working against him. I could not enjoy his tenure on the show at first -- but now I'm looking at it with new eyes, and I see much to enjoy and appreciate. If only he could have changed clothes once in a while!

Colin Baker. It wasn't his fault: In the Big Finish audio series and in selected episodes of his era, Baker has proven that he can play the Doctor when he is given the Doctor to play. But by making a deliberate decision to make the Doctor unlikeable, John Nathan-Turner effectively undermined the entire show -- and Baker took the blame. Although he ranks low, we like Baker and we like his Doctor: it's his "era" that rates low with us.

Paul McGann. An under-rated actor doing a swell job as The Doctor in a really awful movie. We'll see -- Big Finish is doing an entire "season" of audio dramas featuring McGann in what we fully expect will be a traditional style of story... which ligitimizes the movie and might allow McGann to climb in my rankings.