(Least) Favourite Doctor
Xmas_Trenzalore
Posts: 550 Forum Member
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Everyone who's played the Doctor has been good. Some, like Tom Baker, are more iconic than others, but favourites always vary from person to person. So I was curious what the polar extremes were for people. Who's A Doctor, and who's The Doctor (the definite article).
Favourite: Paul McGann. For a while my favourite was just whoever was next in the role. But that changed during the 50th when I was introduced to the Eighth Doctor audio universe.
I really like the Edwardian Adventurer demeanour he has going on. He has boundless enthusiasm, but it's underlined by a sense of melancholy. He's really a great bridge between the classic and current era of the show.
Least Favourite: Peter Davison. I dunno what it is, but he just doesn't click with me like like the others do.
Favourite: Paul McGann. For a while my favourite was just whoever was next in the role. But that changed during the 50th when I was introduced to the Eighth Doctor audio universe.
I really like the Edwardian Adventurer demeanour he has going on. He has boundless enthusiasm, but it's underlined by a sense of melancholy. He's really a great bridge between the classic and current era of the show.
Least Favourite: Peter Davison. I dunno what it is, but he just doesn't click with me like like the others do.
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Comments
Lovely bloke, terrible Doctor. Not entirely his fault, the whole era was awful.
The BBC simply wanted an excuse to get rid of it!
Aside from that, my least favourite Doctor was Jon Pertwee I hate to say! Simply because of the Earth-bound stories and lack of the use of the Tardis for three years. It improved in the last two years though!
Matt Smith is absolutely my least favourite, nothing about his take on the Doctor worked for me at all. I just couldn't watch the show when he was in it, I found him so irritating.
took a litlittle while to warm to Peter Capaldi but I'm there now and I really like the relationship between his Doctor and Clara.
Least favourite the War Doctor (if he counts) the whole concept was nonsense and probably wouldn't have happened if they had got Chris on board.
The McCoy criticisms is a bit harsh though,especially saying he was the worst actor,in fact he was probably the most accomplished actor to take the role at that point,not his fault that the BBC had basically given up at that point and the scripts and more so the production was pathetic then,
His audio stuff is excellent
Still Matt top of the tree for me at present...
Fine with the concept and the portrayal (I mean, it's John Hurt), but it's still not an incarnation I particularly think about when I think of The Doctor... and as I'll often find the incumbent being a favorite (even including rewatches!), he really didn't get that chance - only appearing in a multi-Doctor story.
Would have made more of an impact if we saw anything of what we were told about him.
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Great actor, but Moffat has taken the whole "mad man in a box" theme way too far that it's just silly.
Matt Smith is the strongest I think. Again the MMIAB theme was sometimes too much, but he was definitely a delight to watch.
The First Doctor is my least favourite. Which isn't to say I think he's bad in the role, not at all. But for me, there's just no 'hook' with him, nothing that's ever made me want to watch any of his stories again (outside of the first episode). Indeed, Hartnell's Doctor is the one Doctor that's absent from my DVD collection, simply cos I know that they'd never get watched, even if I did own any of 'em.
Favourite is Jon Pertwee by an equally long chalk. My favourite era. Season 7 - his first - has never been bettered in my opinion.
Most favourite: William Hartnell currently, but that tends to change dependent on what I have been watching and how I am feeling.
The War Doctor, though well acted (John Hurt, who'd have guessed it'd be anything other than well-acted), was a load of contrived nonsense.
The Tenth Doctor was pure and simply dull. His companions were fascinating, his adventures were fascinating... but leave him alone without a consistent companion and everything went downhill. I feel that's partly why the Specials year that Tennant ended on didn't work out very well, why the Christmas specials were so heavily criticised (except The Christmas Invasion...which was both his debut and featured a regular companion, and The Runaway Bride has developed more fans since Donna came on long-term). There was just so little about him that made him "The Doctor" rather than a man who happened to have a TARDIS... he didn't seem remotely alien, but rather simply smarter than everyone else, more patronising quite often, and had a holier-than-thou attitude a little too much. This isn't a slight on Tennant necessarily, though it was always awkwardly embarassing whenever he was trying to play 'angry Doctor'... that just didn't work for me.
I was pretty much the same with McGann,I hadn't thought about him as the Doctor at all after Nu Who started,but after hearing one of his audios I was hooked,I even got into the comic strips and some of the novels.(Apparently he read some of them as well to see where his Doctor might have gone)
Just something right about him as the Doctor and it was great when Moff threw us 8 fans a bone for the 50th
The Curse of Fenric chess game and the manipulation of Ace over the course of that serial (same for Ghost Light)
When he said Ace meant nothing to him
The way he talked the Daleks into their own destruction
Causing the alien in Ghost Light to disintegrate when the Doctor convinces him that evolutionary change is inevitable
I also liked Ace as a companion, he idealism and gung-ho approach a total contrast from the seventh doctor. Of course, there were some absolute stinkers in McCoy's era but nothing I think that was his or the seventh Doctor's fault. Its clear that the character was far more suited to the stories on the later episodes than the slapstick earlier episodes. Plus his version of the Pandorica speech was better than Matt Smith's attempt. http://youtu.be/TqqRUh69L8A?t=4m57s
My least favourite doctor if I had to pick one would be Matt Smith. Too often swinging wildly from manic to sentimental - always trying too hard to be quirky (bow ties are cool!). While I appreciate the show has a broad audience, I thought the tone was just too childish and not for me but still there were some standout moments and overall and he still did a good job. There's no doctor I dislike. Preferring Capaldi as doctor a lot more.
For all of it's many flaws, Forest had some of Peter's enthused best bits