Big Finish is the producer, and sells subscriptions as well as individual titles. Amazon has some of them sometimes, but a better source for the US and Canada is Who North America.
I don’t know anything about the new series. The Doctors I’ve seen in action (courtesy of US public television) have been Troughton, Pertwee, Baker (T), Davison, Baker (?) and McCoy. I must say that the Third Doctor remains my favorite incarnation. I mean, god damn! He had two cars, one of which could fly. He was a master of Venusian Aikido. When he wasn’t detonating landmines with his sonic screwdriver, he was mesmerizing opponents with his Metebilis 3 hypno-crystal. In a pinch, he had UNIT to back him up. Plus he had an impressively creepy rogue’s gallery, including Roger Delgado’s Master, the Autons, the Silurians, and those glowing green maggot-things, whatever they were.
Pertwee’s Doctor was a dashing, stylish Edwardian-era pulp hero. He’s the one Doctor that I’d really trust to defend the planet against alien death from above.
My first Doctor was Jon Pertwee, but I never really liked his incarnation much. Tom Baker was certainly fun, and I’ve always been a fan of Peter Davison as an actor, but my favourite is Sylvester McCoy. There was something about his quirky portrayal that appealed to me a lot.
I have enjoyed both David Tennant and Christopher Eccleston a whole lot, but it’s hard to separate them from the overall increased quality of the show, so I will cast no judgement upon them.
I haven’t watched the new series and I stopped watching the old one after Colin Baker became the Doctor because I frankly couldn’t stand him.
Tom Baker was the Doctor for me, although Peter Davidson turned in a strong performance as well and was very well written.
I have a soft spot in my heart for Tom Baker, via his companion Romana (2). She was the first woman that made me feel a vague pleasant feeling in the primitive sections of my 10 year-old brain–I knew I wanted to do something important and fun with her, I just didn’t quite know what exactly. I suspected if Emma Peel could then help us discover what that was, that it would greatly increase the fun and importance.
What a stressful time.
I get mine from here. Every month I get a lovely shipment of books, audios, and magazines! There are around 200 audios now, all with the original Doctors and companions, stretching back to even the First Doctor’s companions. There was even one that used part of interview with Jon Pertwee as a special Third Doctor guest appearance. They had a Tom Baker impersonator do a fourth Doctor appearance once, but I don’t think that went over very well…Tom Baker currently refuses to do them. David Tennant played in a couple audios several years ago…it’s a trip seeing him in the cast photos with Sylvester McCoy! They don’t have rights to anything done in the new series, but there are a couple sly references…one had the 9th Doctor and Rose in the background.
There was one where the Brigadier met the 8th Doctor, a Gallifrey series in which Romana was president (and met up with her previous incarnation!), a special Sarah Jane series, a special UNIT series, a whole bunch of Dalek and Cyberman audios, a Davros series…just about everything under the sun!
The best thing to do is go here and just kind of absorb it all.
The Tennant. Tyler and Harkness combo was the most fun and offered the most possibilities.
He had this gloriously louche arrogance, too: you just know if it hadn’t been a kids’ show he would have been sipping a brandy, puffing on a cheroot and tossing off bons mots whilst nonchalantly defeating evil:
{Liz Shaw, sceptically} What are you a doctor of, exactly?
{The Doctor, magniloquently} Practically everything, my dear. Hand me that screwdriver, would you?
I’ve been watching Doctor Who since the Jon Pertwee years and have seen many of the earlier episodes on dvd/video, I have to say that Tom Baker is my favourite Doctor, although Tennant is very close.
Of the original Doctors McCoy is my second favourite, although I feel that he was let down (as was Colin Baker) by bad scripts and poor storylines.
I have to recommend the Big Finish Audio adventures to anyone who hasn’t heard them, mostly pretty good. They also did an excellent Davros series detailing his life before he created the Daleks, well worth listening to and in general well scripted and plotted.
Tom Baker Tom Baker Tom Baker!!!
All I have to say.
Tom Baker is my Doctor Who if you like, in that his is the incarnation* that I grew up with. I have seen some John Pertwee episodes but could never get past his apparent age (silver hair.) I vaguelly remember Colin Baker and was quite shocked to see the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colin_Bakerwikipedia photo. Having said all of that, I think David Tennant is great and they’re doing a good job at the new series’ with some good ol’ groan worthy humour and keeping the tradition going by not appearing to spend too much on effects.
*How excellent (for the producers) to have a TV show where the lead role can be swapped for someone completely different without batting an eye.
Tennant, with Eccleston just a little behind.
Tom Baker - for exactly the same reasons as this:
[quote= Balance
Tough call. Like you, I first encountered the Doctor in his Baker incarnation, and that went a long way toward setting my notion of what the Doctor should be. None of the other old-series Doctors comes close, in my opinion.[/quote]
I don’t personally like the new series and spin-offs all that much. I think they’re a great idea, fairly well-executed and written, etc, I just don’t feel much desire to watch.
The very first Pertwee episode is the very first Dr Who show I watched and I still remember the cliffhanger scene (he was shot while escaping, with duct tape over his mouth so he couldn’t explain or ask for help - he survived because of the extra heart), so he was very much ‘my’ doctor. I never forgave Tom Baker for not being Pertwee and for thirty odd years, he has held that special place in my heart.
But David Tennant has stolen that heart away - as others have said, it’s a combination of both his darkness and chaotic delight that make him so very *right *for the role. It’s not just the writing, though I agree that it’s improved by several orders or magnitude, Tennant was a fan long before he got the role (in interviews he’s said that it’s the role that convinced him at four years old that he wanted to act), that enthusiasm shows.
Tennant is also my nine-year-old daughter’s first proper ‘crush’ - that makes me feel all warm and fuzzy just by itself.
Well, Tom Baker was the first I saw when the show started running over here, then Davison, T Baker, etc. When the show was widely released to video in the early-90s, I started watching them and Patrick Troughton became , far and away, my favorite Doctor. Just loved his style and most of his stories. Having seen Troughton in other roles, I truly think he is (along with Peter Davison) the best all-around actor to have played the role.
MHO
Sir Rhosis
Tom Baker, by a country mile. As well as being great fun to watch in himself he got the lions share of the good companions. Sarah-Jane. Leela (“Talk is for the wise or the helpless. I am neither”). K9. (Though admittedly Jon Pertwee got the UNIT gang, who are hard to beat)
At the other end of the scale, no Doctor got so royally screwed in the companions department as Peter Davison. Adric (whiny, teenage, misogynistic). Nyssa (wooden to the core). Teagan (whiny and … well, whiny. And has a silly name.) Turlough (histrionic). Kameleon (permanently out of action). What a list! Just as well he’s had the best post-Doctor career of any of them or I’d have to feel deeply sorry for him.
My Doctor is Tom Baker but I’ll tell ya what, Messr. Tennant is right up there too.
Since I had a minor crush on Tegan, I can’t complain about her. 
Tom Baker was my favorite, but i did like a lot Davison’s stuff. I saw the Pertwee stuff later and I think he was a good doctor.
I loved that Sherlock Holmes-like, assumed air of universal competence. Pertwee’s Doctor had a quality of gravitas that the others seemed to lack. He came across as a genuinely formidable intellect, a suitable arch-nemesis for the Master.
I believe he also qualifies as the patron saint of bogus science, as he was the first TV character to ever solve a problem by “reversing the polarity.”
I suppose it’s too much to hope for that his son Sean might ever take over the role.
magniloquently?
Magniloquently!