Tom Baker (4)
David Tennant (10)
Chris Eccleston (9)
Peter Davison (5)
Matt Smith (11)
Jon Pertwee (3)
William Hartnell (1)
Patrick Troughton (2)
Sylvester McCoy (7)
Peter Capaldi (12)
Colin Baker (6)
Not ranked: John Hurt (War) or Paul McGann (8), due to lack of screen time.
My top ten companions:
Elisabeth Sladen (Sarah Jane Smith)
Billie Piper (Rose Tyler)
Frazier Hines (Jamie McCrimmon)
Karen Gillan (Amy Pond)
Matthew Waterhouse (Adric)
Freema Agyeman (Martha Jones)
Catherine Tate (Donna Noble)
Clara Oswald (Jenna Coleman)
Sophie Aldred (Ace McShane)
Louise Jameson (Leela)
Honorable mention to John Barrowman (Captain Jack Harkness), who would have earned a spot on the list for sure with more episode time as a companion.
Another Tom Baker, here. I don’t remember when, but I’m glad that KVIE showed whole shows, together, rather than serializing. I’ve gotten fond of most of the nu-who Doctors, but Baker has The Voice.
William Hartnell. God, now I’m showing my age. I think it first aired in 1963 and I seem to recall the BBC then postponed the first episode because President Kennedy had been shot. I was 15 and when they did show it I was unimpressed. It was a show for children back then and it played exactly like all the other amateurish and unwatchable drama for children the BBC were making then. Never did take to the show.
My earliest memory of Who is “The Green Death”, so I suppose Pertwee is my first, but I was very young during his tenure. Baker, T. is really my first in practice.
My first exposure to Doctor Who was on late-night PBS broadcasts; I don’t recall exactly which were the first stories I saw, but Tom Baker was the first actor who I associated with the role.
Sounds like my experience too. I can just about remember Pertwee. I didnt really understand the show back then but must have been impressed enough with Pertwee because for years afterwards he was my Doctor.
My first was a comic book character followed by Peter Cushing in Dr. Who and the Daleks, but I was pretty young and it didn’t leave that much of an impression at the time so I usually go with Tom Baker.
David Tennant for me. Although… I first seriously watched the BBC’s 2005 series from the beginning, I think Eccleston must have been first. In any event, Tennant is the one I think of when you say Dr Who.
But I did see some a couple of random episodes as a kid. Tom Baker is the only other Dr Who who seems familiar, so that must be him as the actual first.
So here I am, the exception as usual, though I should admit that I’m not a big fan of Dr Who.
Tom Baker. I was completely obsessed (like, self-published fanfic journal level) with the show for much of high school, and even though it was into the Davison era, I was also at the mercy of my local PBS station, so I had seen all the Bakers twice and the Pertwees before seeing Davison. I drifted away right around when Colin Baker came in.
It’s really always been Baker for me, although there was a period when, in a fit of adolescent rebellion, I declared that Pertwee was better (I did have some less nerdy forms of adolescent rebellion as well). Have only seen some fragments of the new show…looks overall comfortingly familiar and maybe someday I will catch up.
Depending on how you look at it, either Matt Smith or David Tennant. I started following the show with “The Eleventh Hour,” but had seen the first episode with Ten and Martha – the one with the Judoon and the hospital on the moon --before that. It just hadn’t impressed me much. Which is odd, ad it is now one of my favorite episodes.
Even more odd: though Smith remains to my mind both the “real” Doctor and my favorite one, I must admit that Tennant actually is the better actor in the role.
Tennant was my first, though he isn’t necessarily my favorite. Actually, my favorite is debatable - Eccleston was the best acted, Hartnell had the best companions, McCoy had the best individual relationship with his companion, Tennant had the best writing. They’re all my favorite.
I’m a rarity among fans of old Who in that I’ve seen only two Tom Baker episodes, and none staring Pertwee (unless you count the Five Doctors). But I’m working on it.
First I remember was Pertwee, shown on WTTW at 5:30PM in 1977. With Sarah Jane, of course. I’ve gone back and yeah, he was pretty damned good. Like his kid, too.
Here’s where I go full-on geek: May I ask where you got that surname for Ace? So far as I know, the only “real” name she was ever given was a first name (which she hated), Dorothy. I’ve heard speculation that if her last name was ever revealed, it was going to be Gale. So that she would be Dorothy Gale. Get it?
I don’t think I’ve ever heard McShane offered as a surname for her.
Ah, that explains it. Occasionally I regret not listening to any of the Big Finish audios. I sometimes look at them lingeringly at Gen Con, but I’ve usually spent all my cash at the McFarland Publishing booth and don’t have any left for audios.
Note that I didn’t say “your first Doctor is your favorite”. It was “you never forget your first Doctor”.
Eccelston was my first, and he (along with Billie Piper) hooked me. Now, as I’m entering into Series 4 of the reboot, Tennant is really growing on me. Tennant is making it clear that the show (at least in the reboot) is a morality play.
I don’t remember if it was episode 2 or 3 from Series 4, but I almost cried at the scene where The Doctor brought Donna Noble along as his next Companion, and Donna told … Rose (! 5-second Billie Piper cameo!) where her mom’s car keys were hidden. That look of grief on Rose’s face as she turned to face the camera … /feels
Oh my, John Barrowman has become one of my favorite actors. I loved him as Captain Jack Harkness, and I love him even more as Malcolm Merlyn on Arrow. Sad, but amusing story about Barrowman — he is a gay man, and he once auditioned for the role of a gay character on a TV show. The role went to a straight actor, because Barrowman wasn’t “gay enough”. :rolleyes:
Some of the “classic” episodes are also available on Netflix, and I watched the first storyline they had. In black & white! It was a story set in the midst of the Aztecs. My god, it was slow-moving. I read up on Wikipedia about the series, and it seems that the original intent of the show was to teach history (which I’m all for, as a student of history in my middle age), but eventually the sci-fi elements of the show proved to be more popular.
Also, JFK died 2-1/2 years before I was born.
As mentioned above, Tennant is growing on me.
I have not seen any Tom Baker episodes. I suppose I will see them if I get back to watching the “classic” episodes on Netflix.
And, yes, Ecceleston is a great actor.
As far as companions, I’ve so far only seen the three in the reboot - Rose, Martha, and Donna. Rose, yeah, instant boner. Martha was … one of the most beautiful women I have ever seen, and I loved the way she got into the Doctor’s head and made him tell his story and be honest with himself. Donna … I found her a bit off -putting at the beginning, but she’s growing on me.
But speaking of Companions, there was this great article on Cracked.com, back in January:
