Doctor Ranking

[omorka]

Not exactly a meme, but redneckgaijin did a post in which he ranked his preferred Doctors, and I thought I'd do something similar, albeit somewhat less linear.

Dishonorable Mention: The "extra Nines," Rowan Atkinson and Richard Grant. The second for presumably obvious reasons, and the first because I hate Atkinson with the fire of a thousand sentient and wounded suns.

Insufficient Data: One and Two. I simply haven't seen enough of their runs to judge them accurately. The impressions from what I have seen are that I rather like One but am frustrated by the limits of the medium at that point, and that I simply don't care for Two at all - but it's possible that watching more (and better) Troughton could win me over.

Doctors I actively dislike: None. The only one even close to this category is Two, and as I said above, that's probably because I've only seen a few episodes and they weren't very good ones.

Doctors for whom I love the performance and hate the writing: Six, Eight, and Eleven. The glimpses we got of Colin Baker when the script he was given wasn't complete shite were compelling. Paul McGann never got to show us what he could do outside of a poorly-paced regeneration episode. I think if I were watching Matt Smith acting in Moffatt stories edited and arced by RTD, I'd be enjoying him a lot. The problem here is really more that they're forced into crap plots with bad dialogue and (in the first and third cases) companions I periodically would like to set on fire.

Doctors I feel kind of "meh" about: Seven. I never really got into him, although again, the problem isn't McCoy's performance (or Aldred's, either). There's a lot of Seven in Eleven, and I'm not fond of those character traits in that incarnation, either.

Doctors I like but don't love: Five. Not his fault; he came after Four. I wasn't going to settle for the pretty blond guy from All Creatures Great And Small after that. The writing was also uneven, even on the Doctor Who scale of things. I really liked having a non-pair Team Tardis, though.

Doctors I love dearly but would like to give a nice hard kick in the ass much of the time: Three and Ten. Three was - well, on the upside, he's the one who caught Sarah Jane. But I do wonder if one of the reasons Nine was doing the working-class bloke thing was if the aristocrat's impulses Three manifested so thoroughly were so disgusted with himself after the Time War, they de-classed that incarnation. Three had entirely too much tendency to disappear up his own alien ass. And Ten was similarly self-absorbed, although possibly with much better reasons.

Doctors I love with few reservations: Four and Nine. Four probably got this without earning it, both by being my first Doctor and for being the core of my favorite Team Tardis, Doctor/Sarah/Harry. He's an egocentric dick, yes, but he's a kind egocentric dick, and tends to rub your face in his *experience* rather than his *cleverness*. Nine, on the other hand, pushes all my hurt/comfort buttons beautifully, and Doctor/Jack/Rose(/Mickey on the home team) make a great Team Tardis, too. I doubt it's accidental that they're on opposite sides of a "pick your regeneration companion carefully" incident. And I suppose Nine is a first doctor, too, in a way, after so very long. It was when he shouted "Everybody lives!" that I saw Four in him, and fell in love again.

Comments

[kamiki-seto.livejournal.com]

I'm a little surprised you love T.Baker so much but not McCoy; they are very much the same sort of Doctor characterization and attitude. (It was widely commented during McCoy's run how much he was riffing off of #4 - he actually got criticized for it, for not doing something 'different'.)

I don't like any of the nuWho Doctors or companions. I think the show lost a lot of what made it good when it got a budget and expensive special effects. Yeah, I'm one of THOSE fans, LOL. But I started watching the show in 1983, so I've seen a lot of doctors and companions come and go. For every Doctor or companion out there, there's a group of fans and it's all good.

[redneckgaijin.livejournal.com]

There's a marked difference IMHO between McCoy's Mel eps and his Ace eps. I think Omorka's complaining about Seven's "chessmaster/God" personality and tactics, which are the main things I see carrying over to Eleven.

[omorka.livejournal.com]

Not the god-complex, because I actually see that stretching as far back as Three (although the loss of the rest of the Time Lords in NuWho certainly dials it up to eleven, you'll pardon the phrase), but - the chessmaster bit, yes. Four didn't do Xanatos Gambits, and Seven and Eleven both do.

[ghostdogmeta.livejournal.com]

Somewhere on the interwebs, someone used the phrase "God walking among lesser beings" to describe 7, the sense of 7 knowing everything what's going on and being an agent of punishment or vengeance, rather than 4's Trickster/Odinic Wanderer or the Bombastic 6.

Something I don't see touched on very much is that 8 who "won" the Time War, effectively committing genocide on an unprecedented scale as his own third front. He did the deed and along the way regenerated. Nine and 10 are picking up the pieces, and 11 is really showing signs of "oh my gosh, I'm the only one left"

Eleven's cleverness and adventures (some of which are pretty preposterous) are similar to the Superman writing problem: here's a guy who's done incredible things. What's still a challenge?

I suppose it's a bit like "who's your favorite Bond" or the different flavors of Batman.

[ghostdogmeta.livejournal.com]

Oh, and I started with late 3 and 4.

[omorka.livejournal.com]

There is a sloppy generosity and gregariousness to Four that Seven has replaced with a sort of precisely calculated grace. The similarity in the performances sells it for me - it's the same Time Lord, just another facet of him - but I don't particularly like that aspect of him.

I've been watching as long as you have, BTW. ;-)

[redneckgaijin.livejournal.com]

Have you watched "Tomb of the Cybermen"? It's only four episodes (as opposed to 8 for "The Invasion" and 10 for "The War Games"), and it's as good IMHO as either of those two. You get a decent feel of how Troughton's Doctor is in it, like or hate.

[omorka.livejournal.com]

No, and in fact I probably haven't seen any Two stories straight through, although I'm not sure how much of that is because of the missing episodes problem (and its having been even worse prior to the NuWho revival).

[pinesandmaples]

I'm really fond of Two, although I can't really pin down why.

[redneckgaijin.livejournal.com]

Two is whimsical and, at least as much if not more than any other Doctor, openly enjoys discovery.

Two is nothing like as godlike as his later incarnations; he doesn't have as many tricks at his disposal, his knowledge of (human) history and culture is less extensive. He's much less omnipotent and omniscient.

Two lacks the overbearing arrogance of most of his other incarnations.

Two is portrayed by a superior character actor who could make sudden mood swings, and swings from fawning ingratiation to serious challenge believable.

There are more reasons I could give for my own preference, but it's late and I'm tired.

[omorka.livejournal.com]

See, the Doctor-as-wandering-god is part of what I like about Who in general and NuWho in particular. I should perhaps point out that as of "Last of the Time Lords," the Doctor (or possibly the combination of the Doctor and the TARDIS) completely meets my definition of a god; if he were real, I would have no reservations about adding him to my pantheon. I imagine it's more irksome for monotheists and those recovering from monotheism.

[ghostdogmeta.livejournal.com]

Hm. Would the Valeyard be a Satan stand-in or some other Divine Adversary that ultimately existed by the permission of another deity?

Or some sort of ambulatory guilt complex over the Last Time War thing (which I acknowledge would be a retcon)?