I spent this very rainy morning looking up some youtube videos of classic “Doctor Who” stories that I loved as a kid - “the Ark in Space”, “Image of the Fendahl” and “Genesis of the Daleks.” And I once again was reminded of how brilliant Tom Baker was.
True he did tend to phone in his performances in his last few years, and I know all about what a nasty drunk he was during a lot of his run. But in his first few seasons, the Doctor really was a magnificently bizarre, eccentric and genuinely alien personality. I know more than a few fans who like to sniff that "Baker is the most widely-known Doctor only because he happened to be the Doctor at the time that the show broke out of England and became a world-wide hit (albiet a cult one.) But that omits the very obvious question why the show’s popularity took such a quantum leap in the mid-70s - and the answer was Baker himself. The over-all quality of the productions didn’t change so much from the Pertwee era, but Pertwee was a more run-of-the-mill “swashbuckling action hero / British gent” in a mold already very well defined by James Bond, the Saint and John Steed of “the Avengers.” Baker was an oddity that hadn’t really occurred before. He had some similarities to Patrick Troughton’s Doctor, but was light years weirder, and as a result more interesting. Peter Davison, who unluckily followed Baker, couldn’t help but look bland in comparison to him.
Anyway, that’s my opinion. Who’s your favorite and why?
Missed the edit window, but anyway - I just wanted to add that I excluded the new series Doctors just because it is so different from the old series that it really should have it’s own thread (if someone else wants to start a “Fav Nu Who Doc” thread, be my guest.) I know it’s debatable whether McGann (#8) is more in more in tune with the “classic” or “new” series, but I thought I’d draw the line at old millenium / new millenium Doctors.
Tom Baker, although I have a soft spot for Peter Davidson as well.
This spring my wife knit me a replica of the scarf Tom Baker wore the first season he was the Doctor. (The scarf changed over the years.) I can’t wait until it gets cold enough for me to wear it.
Most Americans pick Tom Baker, since he was the first exported. Sylvester McCoy is my second choice. Grading them:
William Hartnell – B
Patrick Troughton – B (too few of his episodes have survived, alas)
Jon Pertwee – B+
Tom Baker – A+
Peter Davison – B+
Colin Baker – C
Sylvester McCoy – A-
Paul McGann – Incomplete.
Pertwee was my First Doctor, and as I watch the episodes I missed I see he’s great, but I unly became a fan under Baker.
But Troughton was also great. And I never got over Davison’s celery. Battling aliens over time and space? No problem, but wearing a vegetable was a dealbreaker.
FTR: I didn’t think the TV movie was that bad, though The Master didn’t have that rubbish beard.
Tom Baker was my first Doctor, but as I watched 4 and 5 roughly at the same time, he was only the first by about 24 hours. It’s actually hard for me to pick a favorite, since I found a way to love all of them nearly equally (yes, even Colin Baker.) I wish we had a visual history of Paul McGann’s Doctor beyond that movie, it just doesn’t seem fair as we never really saw his incarnation.
However, if I have to choose, I choose the second Doctor. He had that whimsy and amazing comic timing, but there also was this undercurrent of manipulation and darkness that always left me intrigued. But also, if I had to pick a Doctor to travel with, I’d have loved a romp around the universe with him and Jamie.
Four would be next, though. Tom Baker’s Doctor had a way with words and a way of going from goofy to angry in a heartbeat that screamed menace.
Sylvester McCoy is My Doctor, and will always be my favourite.
I have limited exposure to Troughton, Davison, or C Baker’s runs.
Severely dislike T Baker’s run.
Don’t consider McGann to be part of the ‘classic’ series, any more than Eccleston, Tennant, or Smith - the movie is it’s own entity separate from both the series. The ‘classic’ series ended in 1989 when McCoy’s run was cut short.
So, that leaves Hartnell and Pertwee as the only possible contenders to McCoy, and McCoy was the first serious exposure I had to the Doctor (with his very first episode, even - my first real Doctor Who exposure was a Regeneration!), so he holds the lion’s share.
Tom Baker was basically the only Doctor I ever knew prior to Nu Who. I’d seen snippets of other Doctors and understood the whole regeneration thing they were doing to replace actors, but the one who showed up on my TV, the one I automatically associated with the series (and still do) was and is Tom Baker.
