Board 8 > Inviso Ranks the Doctors of Doctor Who

(+) Yeah! (+)

I'm gonna TRY to keep this short, but you all know me...I'll wind up doing write-ups that span multiple posts. I figured it's October and the Doctor Who special is coming out sometime this movie (I think) where we'll see Jodie Whittaker regenerate into Ncuti Gatwa, so why not do a ranking of every Doctor? Of course, this won't be EVERY every Doctor, since I'm not ranking any of the children who've played the pre-Doctor Doctor, but I'm ranking more characters than you would expect. Sixteen, in fact! So with all that being said, let's get this party started.

Hint for #16: Didn't serve a full season as The Doctor.

Tag

16. Metacrisis Doctor (David Tennant)

There have been some questionable decisions with regards to the Doctor's regeneration cycle over the years...particularly under Moffat/Chibnall's tenures as showrunner. But at least some of those weird, one-off choices are given a genuine chance to shine in their single-episode (or few-episode) runs. This one, however, is inexcusable. First off, I feel like this was a retroactive choice by Steven Moffat, on top of his casting of the War Doctor, in order to make a big, flashy spectacle when Matt Smith regenerated into Peter Capaldi. The established lore was that a Time Lord only gets 12 regenerations, so in theory, the Doctor should have had two more after Matt Smith...but then the War Doctor happened, so there was only one more. But THEN this one-off plot point from the series 4 finale came back and it was the DUMBEST thing.

Don't get me wrong...making a weird, regenerated human/Time Lord hybrid was interesting, and David Tennant got to be a bit quirkier than usual opposite Donna...but this was just pointless. It made Tennant's Doctor feel extremely vain, and it felt like a cop-out so Rose could get a happy ending. I never cared much for the romantic plotline between Rose and the Doctor, so her getting her own Doctor replacement (with a mortal lifespan) was SO cheap and cheesy (and it makes Donna's ending sting THAT much more, since she got fucked harder than ANYONE else). But yeah, the Metacrisis Doctor didn't really do anything other than genociding a fuckton of Daleks and taking heat for it (oh right, that's another thing: the real Doctor doesn't have to have that PARTICULAR genocide on his conscience), and then he left to be with Rose. Whatever.

Hint for #15: Another Doctor from the reboot.

15. Fugitive Doctor (Jo Martin)

As a distinctive character, I think the Fugitive Doctor was always going to rank low on my list, but I could see her potentially outlasting a few others if not for how egregiously bad her very existence is. Steven Moffat made some QUESTIONABLE choices with regards to the Doctor's regeneration timeline...but at least he still kept within the show's boundaries of logic. Chris Chibnall just didn't give a fuck. He destroyed entire universes and made the Doctor so monumentally important that she was actually the basis for all Time Lords and their ability to regenerate.

The Fugitive Doctor is the amalgamation of all of the Doctor's pre-William Hartnell time, having apparently served on a spec ops team and imprisoned bad guys and all that good stuff. But eventually, she fled and disguised herself via a fob watch, and the end result was a storyline that COULD have been interesting...but instead was just pointless and way too full of itself. Jo Martin carried herself with the gravitas and flair necessary to portray the Doctor, but ultimately, she just felt so pointless and tacked onto the season in an unnecessary fashion. It would've been really cool is the Doctor was crossing paths with her next regeneration of something, like a sneak peak for the fans...but instead, this wound up being an awful plot twist.

Hint for #14: Interacted with the Master.

14. 8th Doctor (Paul McGann)

Note, I'm not including any Big Finish audio recordings in my assessment of the Doctor, so Paul McGann only has that three-minute short, and the made-for-TV movie as references for me to judge him on. As such, I can't reasonably rank him with the rest of the numbered Doctors. He's certainly better than the pointlessness of Metacrisis and Fugitive, but there's just not enough content to really judge him properly...and most of his content comes from American television writers who cater to the lowest common denominator. I'm fairly certain that, while the Doctor had romantic inclinations during the classic series, Paul McGann's reasonably-attractive appearance, and co-star Grace Holloway, led to the franchise's first big kiss, and the melodrama thereafter. There's unfortunately not a lot to say, because I don't think Paul McGann is a bad actor in and of himself (as evidenced by how he carried himself during the regeneration short), but he just lacks the proper content for a solid ranking.

Hint for #13: It's exactly who you'd expect, based on these first three rankings.

Tag

My ranking would be controversial at the start, but then would be pretty standard. Let's see how this one goes.

Tag

I still need to catch up on the latest series.

13. War Doctor (John Hurt)

I feel bad ranking the four lesser entries at the bottom, but with the sheer breadth of content the other twelve Doctors have, it's hard not to find SOME level of quality to their character. For what it's worth though, in his one episode, John Hurt's War Doctor does an amazing job of setting the stage for what would eventually become Christopher Eccleston's PTSD 9th Doctor. I very much enjoy the grumpy versions of the Doctor as well, so having a War Doctor--who's all grim and serious--suddenly having to put up with David Tennant and Matt Smith's shenanigans...it makes for a fun dynamic. Plus, just seeing the Doctor as a man who has to make that extremely difficult choice with the Time War...it's extremely interesting, and it makes sense that they'd cast an academy award nominee in John Hurt to do it. Honestly? The War Doctor could reasonably rank three or four spots higher than this, but I just felt like putting him here for simplicity's sake.

Hint for #12: Okay, with the chaff out of the way, it's time to start making some tough cuts, starting with an odd-numbered Doctor.

12. 5th Doctor (Peter Davison)

Best Serial: Mawdryn Undead (Season 20, Serial 3)
Worst Serial: Kinda (Season 19, Serial 3)

During the pandemic, with so much free time stuck around my apartment, it finally inspired me to go back and watch through all of the classic Doctors, giving me the full knowledge needed to make this ranking in the first place. Now, going into this watchthrough, all I really knew about Peter Davison was the following: a. he was David Tennant's favorite Doctor, b. my mom loves him because he played Tristan on All Creatures Great and Small, and c. Caves of Androzani is rated VERY highly among Doctor Who fans. After the watchthrough...that's largely the exact same information I have regarding Peter Davison's tenure.

Here's the thing...there are Doctors whose time in the role has been marred by poor writing or poor acting, but even those low-tier performances at least were capable of rising from the mud to demonstrate what got them the role in the first place. Peter Davison is very...nice. He is a perfectly passable actor to fill the role on a show that needs to have a main character. His biggest problem is that he, more than ANYONE else to have taken on the role (including the four Doctors I've already ranked) feels like he's just some guy. He's a handsome, normal guy. None of the quirks and traits that make the Doctor stand out as a character are really there with Davison. As a result, I came out of every episode not really feeling like the Doctor had a strong impact on any of the events therein.

Seriously, the episodes I enjoyed the most in Davison's era tend to be the ones where other characters take prominent roles, and I genuinely cannot remember any instances where I felt like Davison himself stepped up and took charge and made his mark as THE DOCTOR. The three seasons under his watch aren't TERRIBLE or anything like that, but he just doesn't really contribute a whole lot to show itself that couldn't have been perhaps done better by any of the other major actors to assume the role for a lengthier duration of time.

Hint for #11: From the reboot era.

I know virtually nothing about the classic series, but I've always enjoyed the 5th Doctor's outfit. I love the red accents.

Pleasantly surprised the 6th Doctor isn't ranked last of the older Doctors!

But yeah I like thr 5th Doctor but like you said he's...just kind of there. I think it goes back to the 5th being the most human of the Doctors to that point which makes him kind of dull at times but also prone to emotion like we see in his Dalek episodes. Caves of Androzani also absolutely deserves all the praise it gets and I think really shows what kind of Doctor the 5th was but it's his last story.

11. 11th Doctor (Matt Smith)

Best Episode: The Girl Who Waited (Season 6, Episode 10)
Worst Episode: Night Terrors (Season 6, Episode 9)

Matt Smith's Doctor almost has the exact opposite problem that Peter Davison's did. Davison played the Doctor very normal and average and human, whereas Smith took the Doctor's personality to its extremes, going the route of turning the Doctor into a manic pixie dream boy with slight sexual tension towards all of his female companions. However, while I don't think Davison's interpretation of the Doctor would ever translate to a different era, I feel like Matt Smith would have been better-suited for the classic era. Classic was a lot more episodic, and it would've played to Smith's strengths in playing the Doctor as this childlike, wacky, alien presence.

Unfortunately, Matt Smith came during an era where the show was dealing with the Doctor as this traumatized demi-God who survived the Time War after (allegedly) killing his entire race. And he's hundreds of years old. Neither of these really worked well with just how impish Smith acts through most of the series. He's almost TOO quirky, and TOO wacky. For a guy who spends as much time on Earth as he does, there are just these bizarre scenes where, to demonstrate how strange he is, he acts as though he's never visited Earth or done normal things in his life. On NUMEROUS occasions, the plot of a given episode requires the Doctor to take on the role of a normal person...and he's incapable of doing so.

This all becomes really problematic, because the Moffat Era of the show, well before Chibnall took it to an unpleasant extreme, really tried pushing these heavy-handed, season-long narratives. This wasn't the subtlety of Davies' era, after all. But when you have these long plotlines about the Doctor's alleged death, or about the loss off the Ponds' child, or the countless times the writers try to flip a switch from goofy, wacky Matt Smith to "I'm a super serious badass" Matt Smith...it just doesn't work. It feels like Matt Smith was almost too young to do the role how the writers wanted. After watching him in House of the Dragon, I think he absolutely could nail the role now, with a little more maturity and nuance to his acting.

Hint for #10: A prime-numbered Doctor.

Yay someone else who doesn't love Matt Smith's doctor.

Though my issues with his seasons are more with not caring about Amy Pond when the show really wanted me to. And not loving the big season long stories.

10. 13th Doctor (Jodie Whittaker)

Best Episode: Eve of the Daleks (Series 13, Episode 7)
Worst Episode: The Vanquishers (Series 13, Episode 6)

It's tough ranking Jodie and Matt, because I feel like Smith has the better overall run as the Doctor, but Jodie does a better job of PLAYING the Doctor, and it comes down to the fact that Jodie tries her best with shit writing, while Smith doesn't do the best job with OKAY writing. They're both pretty low-tier regardless. It's hard to properly judge Jodie's time as the Doctor, because she spent the back 2/3 of her run dealing with the fact that the writers and showrunner wanted to make some stupid, serialized plotline about the Doctor being the most important person in the history of the universe. Even more than all the times the Doctor was the most important person in the history of the universe when he was Matt Smith instead of Jodie Whittaker.

That being said, when I did my season ranking a while back, I was much higher on series 11 than most people, because I thought it was overall a good season. Certainly not the BEST season ever, but a solid season of Doctor Who. And it's during series 11 that I feel Jodie got to be the Doctor the most, rather than just a character who happens to have a major role in events of an overarching plot. Very early on, Jodie felt like the "scientist" Doctor, curious and inquisitive and building things and creating things and really planning and plotting in a way the reboot hadn't done AS MUCH up to that point in the series. It gave her a solid and interesting character for sure.

Honestly? It's funny that Jodie and Tennant both acted in Broadchurch, because they both carry their times as the Doctor very similarly. Jodie is certainly capable of being quirky and fun, but she's able to toe that line between fun and serious in a way that Smith just never managed to do. But she still winds up towards the bottom of my list, because ultimately, series 12 and 13 happened. Even though I can't really blame HER, the fact is that the Doctor becomes annoying in those series, with her intense desire to hide things about her past, or the zero-chemistry romance building between her and Yas. There are still moments where the quality of Jodie's portrayal shines through, but it just gets overshadowed by a stifling, overarching plotline.

Hint for #9: After we've eliminated three odd-numbered Doctors in a row, time for an even-numbered one.

Probably 6 but given Smith based a lot of his Doctor on Troughton let's say 2.

Smith too low I say
But that may be 'first doctor bias' talking.

I dont know which part of the 13th doctor i liked least, her love of super-Amazon to the point of not caring they killed an innocent person, or her weaponizing racism against the Master. I feel so bad for Jodie, she does the best she can with what shes given

Smith too low, and Jodie too high. I'm sorry, but all your criticisms of Davison apply perfectly to Jodie. 13 is nice. That's really all you can say about her. At no point does she embody the being of the Doctor. Easily the least memorable Doctor to me, a wasted opportunity from A to Z.

13th Doctor was really let down by the writing, and I can safely say that without having seen season 13 yet.

11th Doctor can be divisive but I would put him 2nd lowest out of the reboot Doctors. He never really clicked with me, and I also disliked the big season-long plots from his run.

I like thirteen. She got a raw deal, but I still really like her.

I agree with Five not being that great. His best appearance imo is in the Children in Need Special.

The problems with the meta-crisis Doctor is a double-edged sword. It's kinda a wank to have it count as a regeneration for the purposes of Time of the Doctor, but... it's also a wank to have it NOT count as a regeneration when that makes the whole thing have no weight if the Doctor can just do that.

I don't like 11th that much, but I still like him enough to have him higher on my lists.

It's really hard to separate the quality of 13th's character and performance from the TERRIBLE writing in her seasons, but it feels like no one could save that.

9. 2nd Doctor (Patrick Troughton)

Best Serial: Enemy of the World (Season 5, Serial 4)
Worst Serial: The Invasion (Season 6, Serial 3)

Troughton has a similar problem to Davison, in that he rarely feels like he's the STAR of the show that the Doctor really SHOULD be. UNLIKE Davison though, Troughton at least feels LIKE the Doctor in his quirkiness. He plays the recorder, he runs around like a maniac, and he just generally acts otherworldly. Stan mentioned that Smith took Troughton as his inspiration behind how he played the 11th Doctor, but Smith ramped that persona up to 11, ironically enough. Troughton was good at demonstrating subtlety in how he showed his alien side.

I think Troughton winds up ranking this low though for three real reasons. One, he had to follow-up William Hartnell, who was the originator of the role, and I imagine it's really hard to differentiate yourself while staying true to the character. Two, a lot of his episodes are missing; a lot of Hartnell's are too, but they're missing at a point where Hartnell was already able to establish himself as a character, whereas Troughton had the issue mentioned in point one. And three, Troughton had several companions that were able to overshadow him with complexity and unique personalities, while most Doctors maybe have one truly great companion (if that).

Still, Troughton is a solid enough follow-up to Hartnell, and he's not outright awful. He's definitely in my "don't particularly care for them" tier with Whittaker/Smith/Davison though. There's a solid line between Troughton and the top half of the list, and I feel the fact that I don't have any real substantial commentary on him as indicative of his overall quality.

Hint for #8: A multiple of three.

I've only watched Troughton's fully complete serials so it's tough to argue with this ranking even though I disagree with some of the things said. Like other than Jamie, not sure what other 2nd companions are all that great (granted Jamie is one of the best companions ever so even by himself I could buy the argument haha). I had the 2nd Doctor rated pretty highly but I'm also realizing I watched classic Who almost 10 years ago now so that's depressing but also maybe my feelings would change on a rewatch if I ever did one.

But anyway, I'm in the minority but I never cared for the 3rd Doctor so hopefully he's next.

Wow, I cannot put into words how much I disagree with this list. Troughton is easily top three; he's the originator of Sylvester McCoy's schemer. Troughton isn't the star, but that's the point. He lurks behind the scenes, making himself look like a cosmic silly imp, figuring out everything that's going on in the meantime while nobody thinks anything of him but taking down the bad guys at the end.

And Hartnell might have originated the role, but Troughton is the actual first Doctor, in the way the character of the Doctor is defined; "There are some corners of the universe which have bred the most terrible things. Things which act against everything that we believe in. They must be fought!" Hartnell was an explorer who just wanted to look around the universe. Troughton is the first to take up the mantle of a hero.

It's hard to argue with your reasoning for putting Eight so low, but I have to say that he's always been my favourite Doctor even with only the TV Movie to judge him by. Everything about the way McGann played him is, to me, a perfect encapsulation of what makes the Doctor the Doctor.

Well, except the line about being half-human, but gods know that's been lampshaded and retconned a dozen or more times since.

8. 3rd Doctor (Jon Pertwee)

Best Serial: Inferno (Season 7, Serial 4)
Worst Serial: The Green Death (Season 10, Serial 5)

Jon Pertwee's Doctor is an interesting case, in that he's extremely well-defined in who he is and how he acts, but so much of his tenure is defined by being restricted to Earth by the Time Lords. As such, he's largely relegated to acting as a scientist...which works to his benefit. It allows Pertwee to really play up the "smartest man in the room" aspect of the Doctor's personality, while regularly putting him at odds with the Brigadier, who is more of a warrior/action man in his own right. I think having a central character who is regularly at odds with the Doctor's core philosophy gives the Doctor more of a chance to define himself...and that's even before we realize that Pertwee's era introduced the Master to the conversation as well.

However, Pertwee is a LITTLE bit stuffy, and I feel like he's very much the dividing line between my top seven (Doctors who I think completely work), and my bottom eight (Doctors who perhaps don't quite work). He's certainly got a few quirks here and there, but Pertwee very much feels like one of the more serious Doctors, and his comedic chops don't make as many appearances as some of the Doctors I've ranked above him. However, that does make him stand out, since his serious nature and his propensity to fight (when it's the obvious solution at times) makes him more willing to try alternate solutions. I appreciate that. He's a perfectly good Doctor, and he stands out more than the ones I've ranked already, but the Doctors above him have just stood out much more.

Hint for #7: Has appeared in a blockbuster fantasy and/or superhero film.

Hmm. I don't think Inviso likes 10 as much as most people but I'm actually going to say 7 here.

MysteriousStan posted...

I've only watched Troughton's fully complete serials so it's tough to argue with this ranking even though I disagree with some of the things said. Like other than Jamie, not sure what other 2nd companions are all that great (granted Jamie is one of the best companions ever so even by himself I could buy the argument haha). I had the 2nd Doctor rated pretty highly but I'm also realizing I watched classic Who almost 10 years ago now so that's depressing but also maybe my feelings would change on a rewatch if I ever did one.

Zoe is one of the best early companions tbh. And I've only seen Troughton's complete serials myself. I feel like Troughton is the true prototype of the modern doctor.

Oh I forgot about Zoe but yeah you're definitely right there!

I can't exactly comment on companions just yet, because I might want to rank them eventually, but Zoe is also pretty good.

Third Doctor I didn't like at the start (I've only seen classic who like a year ago. I actually have the full watchthrough topic on the Doctor Who board). But I warmed up to him as the series went on, and he has what is IMO the best classic doctor who story. But I'm also probably alone in that. But I loved Ambassadors of Death.

7. 7th Doctor (Sylvester McCoy)

Best Serial: Paradise Towers (Season 24, Serial 2)
Worst Serial: Time and the Rani (Season 24, Serial 1)

If you were to ask me what is needed as an absolute baseline for an actor to have done in performing as the Doctor, I would point to Sylvester McCoy's seven. He has all of the Doctor's best traits: he's the smartest man in the room, he's quirky, his fashion sense is on-point, he definitely seems out of touch with the common folk due to his alien nature, but he also is able to understand human nature and express a certain level of empathy for those around him. Now, do I think all of the Doctors I rank above him have all of these same traits? Not entirely; but they make up for it in different ways, and in fact, most of them go above and beyond, whereas McCoy's Doctor is, as I said, the baseline of my expectations.

I will say, Sylvester McCoy, is probably the safest Doctor to show to someone who wants to understand the character and the show in his entirety. I wouldn't suggest the reboot, due to how different the format is, and I wouldn't suggest either Baker due to how different the lengths of their reigns are. And Hartnell's black and white, so that's a whole thing. You COULD go Davison, but as I've stated, he's very human and doesn't exactly click as the Doctor. ANYWAY, McCoy does a great job following up from a 6th Doctor run that the producers didn't enjoy, and while he was a great return to form (following in the footsteps of an as-of-yet unranked Tom Baker), I feel like the producers were almost gunshy about giving him more meat to his role after they bit off more than they could chew with Colin Baker.

One thing that definitely stands out about McCoy though, and this is perhaps his defining trait, is how easy he made being the Doctor look. I don't mean the acting; rather, McCoy's Doctor feels like the most competent Doctor somehow. He's not a "fly by the seat of your pants" kind of Doctor who has a last minute epiphany to save the day. No, I loved watching serials where he was just in-control and had a plan and executed it perfectly. There were times when he'd have saved the day by episode two in a four-episode serial, and the rest of the plot was just the other characters reaching the same conclusions he had long before. This sort of over-powered characterization COULD have been irritating, but it just made it fun to see this quirky little man running circles around everyone else.

Hint for #6: Alright, I've taken out three classic Doctors in a row, so time for a reboot Doctor.

Yeah the 7th Doctor is the schemer Doctor and always has plans and machinations in place that just makes him so competent. Think he'd rank around the same place for me, middle of the pack.

Hmm if I'm remembering right from your season ranking topic, you were pretty high on season 1 so now I'm going to go with 10.

6. 10th Doctor (David Tennant)

Best Episode: The Waters of Mars (Thanksgiving Special 2009)
Worst Episode: Fear Her (Season 2, Episode 11)

This top six is EXTREMELY strong, and I think all six of these Doctors did an amazing job of bringing the character to life in their own special ways. With David Tennant, he is an AMAZING actor, and at a point when the show really needed to stick the landing after its reboot, he came in and he stuck the HELL outta that landing. Hell, the 10th Doctor is the only Doctor I've COSplayed, and in my overall ranking of every Doctor Who story, FIVE of his episodes make my top ten (admittedly, I have a reboot bias, since the classic serial format sometimes falls flat for me...but I tried to be fair to those stories as well). He's quick-witted, clever, energetic, funny, and he carries himself with a level of maturity that I couldn't quite find when it came to his successor in Matt Smith.

So why does Tennant only rank sixth for me? Well, while all of these six Doctor offer copious amounts of QUALITY, this ranking comes down to quantity. Unfortunately for Tennant, while series four and the subsequent holiday specials are all largely amazing, he spends his first two series in this purgatory of romantic subplots with his companions that leads to some less-than-ideal writing and overall storylines. They're not AWFUL (well, aside from Fear Her, which is the worst story from An Unearthly Child all the way through Hell Bent...I have not folded series 10-13 into my overall ranking yet), but they are certainly subpar. And it's a problem, because David Tennant is a strong actor, but when you saddle him with this sort of will they/won't they tension, it leads to stories that don't play to his strengths, and makes the Doctor feel much less larger-than-life than he should.

All that being said, he's still a top six Doctor for me, and it's amazing how much that fourth series drags him back into the upper echelon. It turns out that when you remove the romantic angle and just give the Doctor a charming companion that serves as his emotional core (while allowing him to really embrace how supreme he is as a Time Lord), good things happen. But more than that, I feel like Eccleston set the stage for the PTSD Doctor, but Tennant is the one who really had to bear the burden of that trait, and you can see it on his face, every time he's forced to confront mortality and just how powerless he truly is in the face of death. I feel like his final farewell in The End of Time wouldn't resonate nearly as well if Tennant hadn't built up the character to be both devastated by his own mortality, and devastating to the audience who'd grown to know and love him over the lengthy period of his tenure.

Hint for #5: Played by a Baker.

4th Doctor for the swerve!

Seventh Doctor is my favorite classic Doctor. McCoy is just amazing. In fact all my top 3 are gone now.

Come on 9th doctor dominance

And totally not just saying that because I've only watched 2 seasons of the show

5. 4th Doctor (Tom Baker)

Best Serial: The Ark in Space (Season 12, Serial 2)
Worst Serial: The Image of the Fendahl (Season 15, Serial 3)

Yup, that's right; I've taken out the show's two biggest fan favorites in back-to-back rankings outside of even the top four. If I'm being honest, Tom Baker almost suffers from being the longest-tenured Doctor, because when you have more content, you inevitably reach a point where you're more susceptible to negative content bringing your ranking down. This is definitely the case with Baker, who feels like by the time his run was ending, he was just about completely checked out of the show. I don't think it helped that by season eighteen, the producers decided to completely overall everything for the transition into the eighties though. Baker's classic attire got swapped to something a bit more drab and dull, and the intro became more techno. I can understand Baker being burnt out at that point.

All that being said, Tom Baker is THE quintessential Doctor. It's not even close. Everything I said about Sylvester McCoy? You can apply that to Tom Baker, only with a bit more energy and a bit more fun to it. I'll say this much: I may have ranked Hartnell higher, but Tom Baker is the first Doctor who really feels like he captured the "alien" essence of the character. He's able to be quirky and detached from humanity in a way that doesn't make him come across as a complete asshole. Don't get me wrong...I think there were moments when Baker himself became a bit of an asshole...and season 16 as a whole is one of those moments.

But overall, he just had this fun energy to him. His introductory episode has a moment where he just jumps into a military vehicle and kicks his feet up, because he's completely blase about the whole robot incursions he's faced with. But the second the shit truly hits the fan, he's more than willing to get up and get his hands dirty to save the day. That slacker aura, when combined with his general "smarter-than-thou" personality really made for a fun main character to the series as long as he was there. Plus, up until that last season, I think casting did a great job of pairing him with companions that complemented his personality in interesting ways.

The 4th Doctor is a very solid character and certainly deserves his status as face of the franchise. I just happen to prefer my top four more than him, perhaps because I'm a bit of a contrarion, or perhaps because it's easier to find nuance and intrigue in the traditionally "lower-tier" entries in a franchise. Baker and Tennant are still great thought, even if their own overall popularity might hurt them on my list.

Hint for #4: Has had at least one other actor play them on-screen.

Inviso posted...

Hint for #4: Has had at least one other actor play them on-screen.

I'm guessing it's Colin Baker. Sylvester McCoy played him during the regeneration scene.

Inviso posted...

No, I loved watching serials where he was just in-control and had a plan and executed it perfectly. There were times when he'd have saved the day by episode two in a four-episode serial, and the rest of the plot was just the other characters reaching the same conclusions he had long before. This sort of over-powered characterization COULD have been irritating, but it just made it fun to see this quirky little man running circles around everyone else

That actually makes me want to watch some of his run.

4. 1st Doctor (William Hartnell)

Best Serial: The Time Meddler (Season 2, Serial 9)
Worst Serial: Planet of the Giants (Season 2, Serial 1)

The Doctor. The original, you might say. Full disclosure, I initially went into my rewatch with a favorable view of Hartnell's Doctor because a girl I liked was obsessed with him and had him ranked as her favorite, and my response was "Oh yeah, he's great! I like him too!" However, William Hartnell does stand on his own two feet as a great character in his time as the Doctor. I'm a big fan of the Doctor in general being played like a grumpy old man who does not have time for the bullshit that he's forced to deal with. You can see that in that arguably all four of my top four fit this description in some capacity.

During Hartnell's run, he just had this delightful aura of being above it all. He's an old man (or at least looked the part), and he's largely not going to go around getting into fights, or running from bad guys...so he lets his companions handle those responsibilities while he wanders around and explores and investigates. Also, he killed a guy with a shovel one time, which is hilarious in and of itself. But yeah, just the level of irritated snark and wit Hartnell's Doctor displays made for a real fun watch with him at the helm. He was absolutely the STAR in the role, and while Tom Baker was able to portray the Doctor as traditionally alien, Hartnell definitely gives of that aura with a more subtle touch. He's very detached, and he's very knowledgeable (given that his role in those early seasons was to be a teacher on an educational program), but he does it in a way that goes behind just a wise old grandpa.

Ultimately though, he comes in fourth because I have to agree somewhat with what Ryo said. Hartnell's Doctor feels so completely different from everything that came after, because he wasn't just going around and saving the day. Hartnell's Doctor largely just traveled around and checked out things that interested him. Sometimes he'd face a major enemy like the Daleks, but other times he'd wander around Rome, or China, or the Aztec civilization, just having fun and exploring. Don't get me wrong; that attitude is very well-suited for a children's program, but he's not the kind of savior or hero that we got from later versions of the Doctor, and I think you kind of need that in order to really understand the Doctor as an overall character. It's funny that Hartnell is so old, because it feels like regeneration into younger actors is what gives the Doctor's character the wisdom needed to become the person they are today.

Hint for #3: One of only three numbered Doctors who didn't last three seasons in the role.

I was only being partially serious about my 4th Doctor guess! I didn't think anyone else liked the 6th Doctor as much as me so even though we severely disagree on 11 and 2, gotta give ya props there!

As for the guess...gonna go with the obvious 1st Doctor guess instead of 6 cause I'm personally not a fan of 1!

Oops too slow.

Hm. Let's say 9.

I would never introduce someone to DW with 7. His manipulations of Ace in the final series are so unlike the other series.

RyoCaliente posted...

I would never introduce someone to DW with 7. His manipulations of Ace in the final series are so unlike the other series.

He still has two seasons before that, though. The last season adds some complexity to his character.

3. 6th Doctor (Colin Baker)

Best Serial: Vengeance on Varos (Season 22, Serial 2)
Worst Serial: The Two Doctors (Season 22, Serial 4)

If you don't know anything about classic Doctor Who, and all you had to go off of was cursory information about the various Doctors...it's hard to imagine getting excited about Colin Baker's run. His design is over-the-top flamboyant in a way that makes him seem like someone TRYING to stand out as wacky and crazy, and his exodus was so bad that he got fired before the producers could even realize that "oh shit, we need to be able to film a regeneration sequence for his replacement". Yeah, I wouldn't have come back to help them out after that bullshit either. But those two stats, plus the fact that, during his introductory episode, he chokes his companion...not the best first impression.

However, I LOVE Colin Baker's two-season run on the show. Ultimately, his third place finish on this list comes down to the fact that I love all of my top three, but Colin Baker is hurt by the fact that I personally find the episodic format of the reboot more conducive to quality characterization than the serialized format of the classic series. Funnily enough though, I feel like the Colin Baker era, as short as it is, was the producers' attempt at the kind of long-form storytelling that would later become commonplace in the reboot era. As I mentioned, his first episode on the show has him freaking out due to his regeneration and strangling his companion at the time. This was meant to show that Colin Baker's Doctor was rough around the edges, and he would soften over time to show growth and character development.

Unfortunately, he was never given the chance to truly shine in that regard, since he only got one season before being shoved into the "Trial of a Time Lord" storyline that was going out of its way to paint the Doctor as reckless and impulsive and cavalier with regards to the lives of others. That being said, I still really liked Colin's portrayal, since it deconstructed the Doctor almost. He was still extremely intelligent, but with Colin, that intelligence reached the point of obnoxious arrogance. And he wasn't the kind of brave Doctor that faced down bad guys without breaking a sweat; no, instead he was somewhat cowardly and fallible, which was a nice change of pace, in my opinion. It made the stories feel like they had more weight to them, because wasn't guaranteed to win every time with this new persona.

The other thing about Colin's run is that, while other Doctors of the reboot were certainly stars, I feel like Colin was THE Doctor who, more than anyone else, was able to carry the series on his back. Other Doctors were still good, or had good moments, but they also had strong companions to fall back on. I can't count how many times I was watching Colin's serials, and I thought to myself "Thank GOD this guy is such a strong character, because this plot would be nowhere near as interesting with someone else in the role". I think that's why he's so polarizing, because if you DON'T like the more negative portrayal of the Doctor, then there's not really a lot to enjoy about the episodes themselves.

But I do enjoy that more complex portrayal, and I find Colin Baker's Doctor EXTREMELY interesting as a result, enough to not only rank top three (and my favorite classic Doctor), but he's also responsible for my favorite overall serial of the classic era in Vengeance on Varos. Honestly, I perhaps overrank the reboot episodes in my overall list (and again, I still need to fold series 10-13 into my story ranking), but Vengeance on Varos is one of only two serials to crack my top twenty-five stories overall. That's a shining beacon for a season absolutely carried by Colin Baker as the Doctor.

Hint for #2: Reboot era Doctor, and that's the only hint you'll get.

I'm going Capaldi

Love the 6th Doctor appreciation! Colin Baker more than anyone else LOVED playing the Doctor and you can tell how it comes across in his performances. Unfortunately, behind the scenes politics forced him out before he really had a chance to develop the character even more. It doesn't help that his costume is among the worst as well. Obviously outside the 8th Doctor, the 6th benefits the most from the Big Finish stories.

Going with 9 as I'm pretty sure Capaldi is your favorite.