So, at then end of the day, it's Pertwee then, rather than the third Doctor that I appear to have a problem with?

Maybe it's because I read all of those books and got my own image of him, before seeing him all over UK Gold (Ah... I miss those Sunday mornings...)

Who is talking about 'statements the BBC puts out'? I'm talking about the firsthand testimony of people who were involved at the time, who've said repeatedly that the BBC was on a mission to axe Doctor Who bac then because neither the show itself or the traditional format fitted their overall strategy. Anybody who's actually bothered to research this stuff knows that-as opposed to drawing inaccurate conclusions based on personal prejudice and no actual knowledge.

Tingra, you are basically saying that just because some of the people who worked on the show between 1987-1989 claimed there was a BBC management vendetta we should all accept that as being the case.

I was born in 1970 and watched the show throughout the next 20 years - but even I had given up by 1989. The acting, the stories and the scripts were not good. And, yes, the 7th Doctor wasn't believeable for me.

Nobody forced John Nathan-Turner to commission those scripts or hire those actors. It was nothing to do with budgets or scheduling - indeed, the show looked great.

I just felt it was a shadow of its former self. If a lifelong Who fan like me gave up on the show, then I am not surprised millions of others did too.

You really must stop telling Forum members their opinions are not valid because there are documented facts supporting your opinion. What you have presented here is not fact it is - again - just your opinion.

People only gave up on the show after it was deliberately switched to a time slot that placed it in direct competition with Coronation street, where it could not hope to retain viewers-that is fact. Until that move, the ratings were as strong as ever, that is also fact. Numerous people who worked on the show at that time and had insider knowledge, including JNT, Andrew Cartmel, and Gary Downie, have stated that this was part of a deliberate attempt by the BBC to cancel the show for reasons that had nothing to do with the actual creative content and everything to do with a general disdain for science fiction and the fact that 25 minute serials were no longer what the Corporation wanted, and a need to free up money for other projects. That, you may say, is anecdotal evidence-but it's the same anecdotal evidence coming from numerous sources, which to me indicates that it's probably true. You didn't like McCoy's era. Others did. But either way, that had no bearing on the cancellation.

Sorry mate, your'e the one talking crap. McCoy was an awfull Doctor by far the worst of the lot. Half the time I couldn't even understand what he was saying and as for overacting ! At the end of the day we all have our own preferences as to who was and who wasn't a good Doctor but the only bit of McCoys Doctor I realy enjoyed was in the TV Movie. In that he toned down his performance and it was for once and enjoyable performance to watch.
Pertwee was great in the role, played in perfectly straight with only the odd touch of eccentricity coming through.

I'm talking crap? McCoy was one of the best as far as I'm concerned-he had some crap scripts to deal with but his performance saved pretty much every story from his second season on, and there isn't a single story in season 26 that isn't brilliant.
That's your proble, I had no problem with his accent.
When, exactly?
Pertwee was basically boring in the role because he played it too straight. There is no warmth to his Doctor , most of the time.

Tony, I agree with you word for word what I've highlighted but I wouldn't go quite so far to say Pertwee had no warmth. Maybe so in Season 7 but some of the later stories I think he had that.

Must be me, I fthought Pertwee had genuine warmth and charisma! Oh well. I thought McCoy started poorly his first scenes where overacted, but can you blame him he had to wear a wig! I do think by the final series he had really improved and I love his accent. They cancelled it as it started improving. I'm with Ting on this the BBC lost its way and threw away a great show.

Actually I agree with you there. I thought particularly with Jo and Liz Shaw, he had real warmth. He was a bit of an action doctor, but maybe that was needed at the time? I don't know I wasn't around then. I still like him though.

Actually, it lost a significant chunk of its audience whilst still on Saturday evenings - a traditional and previously successful slot. That is a fact.

The violence of Colin Baker's first season caused a lot of viewers/parents to voice concern about the show's content. When it returned in 1986 for 'Trial of a Timelord', I think it is fair to say many viewers - and fans - actually found it quite stale.

The switch to a much more light hearted show with McCoy's first year was not universally welcomed by fans either (Delta and the Bannermen, for instance, was not particularly popular).

And although we did have the occasional gem, the stories from the 7th Doctor's era didn't hit the right note with the viewing public. As I said previously, I considered myself a die hard fan. The show being up against Coronation Street made no difference to me. If it had been worth watching, I would have watched.

By the time the show was cancelled, in all honesty, it pretty much deserved to go. Whilst it is a shame it was off air for so long afterwards, I think we are certainly reaping the benefits now.

But, in my honest opinion, blaming the scheduling for the demise of the show in the 1980s is to really ignore some very fundamental problems with the show itself during its final years.

I'm not really a fan of Third Doctor either, mainly for the reasons that others have already given, i.e. too many Earthbound UNIT stories etc.

However, prior to the show's reboot in 2005, whenever "Favourite Doctor" polls were conducted, Jon Pertwee was (in terms of percentage of votes) almost invariably a very close second to Tom Baker and was also streets ahead of everyone else.

I've always had the impression that among non-fanatical casual viewers the Third Doctor has tended to be very popular, whereas among out-and-out Doctor Who fanatics he's tended to be somewhat disliked.

In your opinion, it deserved to go. I disagree.

I agree with every word of that.....

I disagree with every word of that......

I disagree with your disagreement of every word of that....

I disagree with your disagreement of.......let's just agree to disagree

I remember the third Doctor flinging the tardis doors open in The Ultimate Adventure (wimbledon theatre) and me bursting into wild applause. I am not usually given to making a spectacle of myself like that (in real world). Truly spontaneous. I have a deep fondness for the chap and think everyone else should too.

Unless Pertwee bedded your wife or daughter. In which case you are allowed to simply have a grudging respect.

Hope that's ok with everyone.

I think the "hatred" towards Doctor Who was largely due to the fact that due to technological advances within film, media and TV, low production budgets meant the show looked cheap and tacky and therefore looked embarrassing and dated. There was no way a higher budget was going to be given to it, so the show had to be rested! McCoy was OK as the Doctor but no matter how enthused he was at playing the role, the series became tired, uninspired and a little ridiculous.

I so totally agree. There are plenty of shows BBC executives notoriously 'don't like' - New Tricks being a prime example of that - but they don't drop them for that reason alone. DW may have lacked support at a senior level, but the show had lost the plot. It no longer knew how to connect with the wider audience. I clocked a recent interview with Sylvester McCoy where he said he'd never received any direction as to how he was expected to play the part of the Doctor - which just goes to show how much the producer was concentrating on his job. Add to that hiring a script editor who'd never held down a job in television before and you have a recipe for disaster.

I'm sure there are fans who may have liked elements of the McCoy years, but there was precious little there to appeal to a mainstream audience - some of the story-telling is diabolical - and that also contributed to why the general public lost interest. Other shows survived against Coronation Street - so scheduling DW against it was far from the death sentence some like to pretend it was.

That talent of engaging mainstream audiences was exactly what Barry Letts/Terrance Dicks then later Phillip Hinchcliffe/Robert Holmes understood so brilliantly and that is why viewing figures rose steadily across those periods of the show's history. They knew how to draw casual viewers in - that is what the show needs to survive, then and now - and the casting of the lead actor was very much part of that. Whether a few hardcore fans like him or not, Jon Pertwee was a huge success as the Doctor - look at the ratings. And that, at the end of the day, is all that matters.

Whatever my gripes with Pertwee's Doctor, there's no taking away the fact he helped secure the show's future at a time when it could have kicked off the air after Season 7 had finished. For that he should be commended, but it still doesn't change my opinion of his Doctor.


Like Colin Baker, it would have been interesting to see how he would have fared under a different producer and script editor. With good scripts and better sets the potential for his Doctor would have been better realised.

Can I just ask why you didn't understand a word he said? Was it because of his accent or did you think he mumbled?


I obviously disagree


I agree.


I disagree


Oh I don't know anymore. Sorry your exchange made me laugh.

I don't see that the idea that Doctor Who was wholly responsible for its own 1989 demise is tenable given the transformation of the BBC drama department during the relevant period, even before the effects of the Broadcasting Act 1990. Doctor Who ended exactly with the end of in-house drama production, at a time when all other episodic dramas were being limited to 6 to 8 episodes a series and the BBC were systematically killing off everything else drama related and overtly studio bound.

In addition, Who was doing better in its slot (ie, opposite Coronation Street) than any other BBC TV programme was able to at that time and increased its audience by 50% over the course of its final series.

I know this sounds quite negative, but the problem I had with McCoy is that don't think he is a particularly good actor. Not in the way that I feel Colin Baker was a good actor and (potentially) an excellent Doctor but with bad scripts.

As for Pertwee, I thought he was a good Doctor but - again - perhaps not the best time for scripts. I think the show was taking itself far too seriously during his years. I felt it was lots of male writers indulging their desires to write army/war stories rather than Who stories. And some of the stories were long and quite dull.

It's hard to judge McCoy as an actor overall as I've rarely seen him in anything else but seperate productions like The Airzone Solution etc, but I think he played The Doctor well enough.

I agree about the Pertwee Stories. You made me think of the other reason I don't like the Pertwee Era so much, in addition to your comments I thought they moralised far too much about things like war and ecology etc, and Pertwee's Doctor himself was as guilty of this as anyone, especially in Planet Of The Daleks, a story that sums up everything I don't like about the 3rd Doctor. That doesn't mean they shouldn't have done it, just that it went a little OTT for a sci-fi show.

for me, the Third Doctor was ok-ish but to smug without the humour of, say, the First Doctor. The story style with his exile on Earth might have added to the impression for me, because it appears to me like they didn't really know where they wanted to go with the Doctor - more Avenger style "save the world" or what?

Never mind, either way, Three wasn't one of my favourites (but tbh, neither was Tom Baker's Doctor despite his wide popularity ).

However, I loved Seven, even though I have to agree with regard to some really bad scripting and an overall extremely tacky set of production. I mean, the mid 80s had seen the likes of Star Wars, Aliens, and ST TNG was on the horizon, setting some Sci-Fi standards that BBC wasn't even remotely close. The charme of the Seventh Doctor definitely didn't lie in the production, much more in the later ideas/storylines and - for me at least - in the portrayal of the Doctor by Sylvester McCoy which I enjoyed despite the production shortcomings.

Overall, this is where New Who has really caught up well enough imo and helped to rebuild Doctor Who to a more visually sophisticated audience, so I am not complaining atm .