The Greatest Show In The Galaxy

4 hours ago, M j M said:

So then, favourite Doctors?

I probably haven't watched enough Who of all eras to do this properly but what's the internet for if not uninformed but very strongly held opinions.

Here's mine ranked. I've excluded non-series long Doctors such as the War Doctor and yes the 8th Doctor.

1. Tom Baker - Still the greatest

2. Peter Capaldi - I loved him, perhaps especially because I'd stopped watching during the Smith era and he drew me back in

3. Jon Pertwee - Legendary

4. Peter Davison - My Doctor

5. Christopher Eccleston - Lots of planets have a north

6. Sylvester McCoy - McCoy + Bonnie Langford - worst of Who. McCoy + Sophie Aldred - some of the best of Who

7. David Tennant  - Not as good as Eccleston

8. Patrick Troughton - A bit meh I thought but I know others think different

9. William Hartnell - The original but not the best

10. Jodie Whittaker - I don't hate her but weak scripts aren't helping

11. Colin Baker - Hard to separate actor from role but making the Doctor a complete d**k didn't work

12. Matt Smith - Lacking gravitas, annoying on so many levels

 

1. Tom Baker- the definitive Doctor

2. John Pertwee- agree , a legend

3. Patrick Troughton-  good stories,  really defined who the Doctor should be. Every Doctor since has had some Troughton-ness about him, bar Whittaker. 

4. Peter Capaldi- a good Doctor let down by poor stories,  best of NuWho. 

5.Peter Davison - very engaging and an interesting portrayal. 

6. Sylvester McCoy- loved his dark and mysterious mode in seasons 25 and 26. Not the best of acting but he sold the audience the role .

7.Paul McGann - heard a lot of his Big Finish audio stuff, and he could have been another Tom Baker given the chance. I recommend the audiobooks,  he plays The Doc very well,  he has a real presence and that's difficult in audio. 

8. William Hartnell  - the original,  so kudos to him,  difficult to judge as his stories haven't aged well. 

9.David Tennant - not a fan, too human,  and so oh so touchy feely 

10. Chris Eccleston- I just have trouble seeing any Doctor qualities in his character. Damaged by the Time War,  but he just didn't gel for me.

11. Colin Baker - like no.8 I've listened to a lot of his audio stories and really liked them, but his tv material was pretty dire. Too bullying and just suffocates the life out of Peri's character. 

12. Matt Smith, - this is really where NuWho lost me. Meandering rubbish,  arcs of no sense at all, and Smith like a whirlwind just playing it like a teenage Doctor. 

13. Jodie Whittaker- well, actually her stories are at least coherent if dull, and preachy,  and she is scatter brained in true Doctor fashion,  but I just can't buy the Doctor being female.  She'd make a good Romana, with her own series,  I'd watch that.

The ratings don't lie.

as if the casting on this show is not bad enough, john bishop is now entering the tardis by all accounts!

11 minutes ago, graveyard johnny said:

as if the casting on this show is not bad enough, john bishop is now entering the tardis by all accounts!

Got your attention.

Job already done.

On 20/11/2020 at 19:28, HawkMan said:

The ratings don't lie.

Ratings can be spun to fit any required narrative.

Doctor Who just beat Coronation Street and Eastenders in the New Year's Day ratings.

https://www.digitalspy.com/soaps/emmerdale/a30378020/new-years-day-2020-ratings-emmerdale-coronation-street-eastenders-doctor-who/

Is that good, bad or irrelevant?

All three, depending on who you listen to.

16 minutes ago, Johnoco said:

As I understand it, the ratings for Xmas TV were pretty terrible all round.

Ordinarily I’d say it’s not a surprise due to changing viewing methods but with lockdown I thought they might have been pretty big. 

yep we are all stuck in and people still dont want to watch dr woke and be told how to think by the bbc 

38 minutes ago, Johnoco said:

As I understand it, the ratings for Xmas TV were pretty terrible all round.

Ordinarily I’d say it’s not a surprise due to changing viewing methods but with lockdown I thought they might have been pretty big. 

Changing viewing methods are still a thing during lockdown.

Audiences are still watching stuff, just not all at the same time, on the same platform, so the 'headline' figures which are the only ones most of us see, can look a lot worse than they actually are.

On 20/11/2020 at 19:26, HawkMan said:

Paul McGann - heard a lot of his Big Finish audio stuff, and he could have been another Tom Baker given the chance. I recommend the audiobooks,  he plays The Doc very well,  he has a real presence and that's difficult in audio. 

Paul McGann only had a one-off chance to play the role, and it was a badly-written mess.

Peter Cushing had a couple more opportunities, but if he'd been a TV Doctor Who instead of a movie one, might have established himself in a Hartnell-style portrayal.

32 minutes ago, graveyard johnny said:

yep we are all stuck in and people still dont want to watch dr woke and be told how to think by the bbc 

This is precisely the sort of opinion that is usually written all in a single case and without punctuation. Well done for not using caps lock.

1 minute ago, Futtocks said:

This is precisely the sort of opinion that is usually written all in a single case and without punctuation. Well done for not using caps lock.

no problem - thanks

15 minutes ago, Futtocks said:

Paul McGann only had a one-off chance to play the role, and it was a badly-written mess.

Peter Cushing had a couple more opportunities, but if he'd been a TV Doctor Who instead of a movie one, might have established himself in a Hartnell-style portrayal.

Paul McGann did get another go, albeit very briefly, to show us all what we missed out on.

Just now, John Drake said:

Paul McGann did get another go, albeit very briefly, to show us all what we missed out on.

 

I didn't know about that one. 

5 minutes ago, Futtocks said:

I didn't know about that one. 

It's a hidden gem.

Never actually shown on TV, just made available on iPlayer and YouTube in 2013, to explain how John Hurt was suddenly about to pop up as the Doctor in the 50th anniversary special that year.

It's barely 7 minutes long, but McGann doesn't waste a second of it to show what might have been.

4 minutes ago, graveyard johnny said:

yep we are all stuck in and people still dont want to watch dr woke and be told how to think by the bbc 

It must be so hard constantly being made so uncomfortable by the facts of the modern world.

As for John Bishop it's depressing news. He's one of the people I reach for the remote to switch over every time he comes on. That's mostly his attempts at comedy and presenting so I'll give him a chance in an acting role but I don't hold out much hope. Last time they did something similar I found Catherine Tate's acting frankly awful to watch.

Why can't they go for actual professional actors? They've just cleared out a pair of moderate acting talents and I was hoping things would look up for this Doctor after a weak start. 

13 minutes ago, M j M said:

 

Why can't they go for actual professional actors? 

its called "agents" getting their client as many gigs as possible by various methods- it has nothing to do with talent

On 20/11/2020 at 18:14, M j M said:

So then, favourite Doctors?

I've thought about this a lot - as you might be able to tell from the length of the response below, composed on a quiet Saturday afternoon with nothing else to do except take down the Christmas decorations. 

I refuse to list them in any order of preference, as then someone would have to be bottom of the list and classed as 'worst' and I happen to like them all, for many different reasons, so I've put them in alphabetical order instead, and only included the ones who got a proper go at it on TV, so no Paul McGann, John Hurt, Peter Cushing, etc.

Colin Baker - Given the role at the worst possible time, when the BBC just weren't interested in making the show anymore, and always too harshly judged because of that, in my view. He wanted to start out grumpy and mellow the character as he settled into the part, but never got the opportunity. For me, his era is one of the most interesting to rewatch, especially after listenting to how he did get to properly develop his character in the later audio adventures by Big Finish, and with all the behind the scenes dramas of the time now out in the open, allowing more context to what appears on screen.
 
Tom Baker - Loved him from his first episode to his last. Definitely 'my' Doctor. The hat, the scarf, the teeth. Iconic. Bona fide national treasure. I could wax lyrical for pages about Tom, so I'll cut it short and say for me, those 25 minutes on a Saturday night when he was on the telly in Doctor Who were some of the best, most memorable moments of my childhood. The scene where he debates whether he has the right to commit genocide against the race that would become the Daleks, or discusses the ethics of absolute power with Davros, utterly spellbinding stuff.

Peter Capaldi - Possibly the best actor to ever play the role. The only one (I think) to ever get to play an entire episode as a single-hander, which shows how good he was. He got to do what Colin Baker had attempted, and start out grumpy before mellowing and ultimately going out in the end imploring everyone to just 'be kind'. Some of the writing was a bit patchy during his tenure, which might have made it difficult for him to keep the mass audiences on board. I thought his final series was the strongest, with Bill Potts his best companion, and Missy was hilariously wicked. The final episode was fantastic.

Peter Davison - He followed Tom Baker, and survived! Not only that, but he pulled in some huge viewing figures for the time. For me, I think some of the episodes could be a little dull, and his character wasn't strong enough for that not to matter, but I had just spent seven years idolising his scenery-eating predecessor, so my judgement may not be the fairest in that regard.

Christopher Eccleston - The Comeback King! He was part of bringing my favourite show back from the dead, and making it massively popular into the bargain. And he made the Doctor a northerner. What's not to love? To get the show back at all was one thing, but to get such a renowned and respected actor doing it, that sealed the deal for the long run, even though he bolted after just one series.

William Hartnell - The original. If he'd blown it, we'd have got 13 episodes and no more. He was part of creating a legend that's still going strong. The first ever episode is still magical, 57 years on, and he is actually quite scary in it, not the endearing old uncle he became. Who cares if he occasionally forgot a line. They were turnning out over 40 episodes a year back then. It was a great team, that first TARDIS crew.
 
Sylvester McCoy - Way, way better than he is ever given credit for. The show had turned into panto when he arrived, and his first season is mostly cringeworthy, but he is the best thing in every episode of it. With the help of better scripts later on, he was able to play the character much darker and more mysterious, and it worked. Had a great cameo in the McGann TV movie too.
 
Jon Pertwee - My first Doctor. The one who hooked me into this show. Then, just as my Saturday teatimes were sorted, they killed him off in the one with the spiders! I was mortified! It was many years before I got to see any of those episodes again, or the ones I'd missed first time round before I started watching regularly. I love them. Nothing better than seeing Jon Pertwee playing it straight down the line serious while confronted by a wobbly dinosaur or whatever. He makes you believe. And then he went on to play Worzel Gummidge, which just shows how good an actor he was.

Matt Smith - I'm surprised by some of the negative comments in here about Matt Smith. I thought he was great. For me, he had that ability to switch effortlessly from youthful exuberance to ancient wisdom in a heart(s)beat. He was the most 'alien' Doctor since Tom Baker, and also the most fun. My favourite Matt Smith scenes are in one of the Christmas specials where he is showing two kids round a bedroom he has designed for them, it's brilliantly playful, and the one where he has to pretend to be human, playing off against guest star James Corden. Fair to say he wasn't best served by some of the continuity-laden, timey-wimey, audience-confounding scripts he was given. They do hang together if you rewatch them, but most viewers won't do that and will just be left wondering what the hell was that all about.

David Tennant - He turned Doctor Who into a genuine mainstream mega hit show with consistently huge audiences, how can you argue with that? He was blessed with the solid-yet-soapy writing of the genius Russell T Davies, who packed the show with so many memorable characters, so it wasn't all his own doing, but he stood out amongst them. I preferred the earlier happy-go-lucky version of Ten to the later angst-ridden one, if I'm honest, but as an actor Tennant could play anything he was given with the necessary conviction to make it work. 

Patrick Troughton - He was the first person charged with the responsibility of recreating the already established character of the Doctor, when no one knew if that would work at all. It worked because of him. He was completely different to William Hartnell, but convinced the audience it was still the same person. An exceptional actor, a great Doctor, underrated because so few of his episodes still exist to watch in their original form. Seriously, if I had a time machine, the first thing I'd do is go back to the BBC Archive and smuggle out all the master tapes of Doctor Who before they could get around to recklessly erasing so many of them. 

Jodie Whittaker - They said it couldn't (or shouldn't) be done, but she's done it. The Doctor is a woman. And why not. Honestly, I don't get the criticisms at all. Her character is recognisably the Doctor, and she plays it with lots of verve and fun. Just enjoy it for what it is, a daft concept TV show that has been entertaining kids and adults for nearly 60 years now. Jodie Whittaker is a terrific actor. I thought the most recent episode on New Year's Day was genuinely great. The initial reaction on Twitter (not the most positive of platforms on any topic) seemed to largely agree too, so it must have been pretty decent. Other standout episodes for me have been Rosa, Demons of the Punjab and Prisoner of the Judoon, plus, the reveal of Sacha Dawan as the new Master was brilliantly done.

2 hours ago, Johnoco said:

Yep I appreciate all that but still thought with so many people stuck in the numbers would be bigger.

Maybe not 'Morecambe and Wise in the 70's big' but bigger than they were. 

Loads of other distractions these days ... I've just spent a whole afternoon on here when I could have been watching the telly! 

2 hours ago, M j M said:

As for John Bishop it's depressing news. He's one of the people I reach for the remote to switch over every time he comes on. That's mostly his attempts at comedy and presenting so I'll give him a chance in an acting role but I don't hold out much hope. Last time they did something similar I found Catherine Tate's acting frankly awful to watch.

Why can't they go for actual professional actors? They've just cleared out a pair of moderate acting talents and I was hoping things would look up for this Doctor after a weak start. 

One of those 'moderate acting talents' was Bradley Walsh, who was dismissed as just a game show host when he got the part. Now you're lamenting his departure. Just shows what's possible if you give 'em a chance.

I remember Billie Piper being slated as a failed pop singer when she was first cast as Rose. Yet she created one of the most popular and iconic companions and went on to a very successful acting career afterwards.

As for Catherine Tate, I have to firmly disagree. I thought she was outstanding as Donna. Granted, the first one she appeared in, the Runaway Bride, she was annoying because the part was a one-off and written to play off her already known comedy characteristics. But when they brought her back as a full-time companion, she was great, and got better and better as the series went on.

Who knows what kind of character John Bishop will turn out to be or how he will play it. Wait and see before writing him off, I'd say.

1 hour ago, John Drake said:

Loads of other distractions these days ... I've just spent a whole afternoon on here when I could have been watching the telly! 

Seriously ? , Absolutely nothing on 

2 hours ago, John Drake said:

Loads of other distractions these days ... 

what tier are you in??????????????

2 hours ago, John Drake said:

One of those 'moderate acting talents' was Bradley Walsh, who was dismissed as just a game show host when he got the part. Now you're lamenting his departure. Just shows what's possible if you give 'em a chance.

<>

Who knows what kind of character John Bishop will turn out to be or how he will play it. Wait and see before writing him off, I'd say.

I have to say I don't think I've lamented the departure of Bradley Walsh - he was given a decent role and made an ok fist of it but was never a great acting talent I would say.

As for John Bishop - I claim dislike of him as a pre-existing condition.

I started this thread and I.love the show. Classic Who is my thing and I've probably seen every episode a dozen times. As for the new series started 2005, well I've watched every episode and have the dvd box sets,  and enjoyed the first four to five years,  but it has increasingly become a slog to get through it all. I'm halfway through Whittaker's second season so haven't watched the recent special,  but am not expecting much. A good gauge is the Planet Mondas forum,  like TRL forum,  run by diehards,  committed fans of the show. The most popular score that the recent special got on their poll was 0 yes 0 out of 10. The ratings compared to other shows on at the same time are not bad, but this is still the lowest rated Dr Who festive story to date ,half of even Capaldi's last one which wasn't so long ago. I'll reserve judgement till I see it, but the show is slowly dying IMO.The xmas special is certainly no longer a must see family event. 

The Christmas special was fine I think, by the standards of these things.

I do wish, for all the stories of recent series, they sometimes had more time to breathe. Yes there are season-long story arcs but squeezing an entire storyline into 50 minutes or whatever it is often fails to do justice.

2 hours ago, HawkMan said:

I started this thread and I.love the show. Classic Who is my thing and I've probably seen every episode a dozen times. As for the new series started 2005, well I've watched every episode and have the dvd box sets,  and enjoyed the first four to five years,  but it has increasingly become a slog to get through it all. I'm halfway through Whittaker's second season so haven't watched the recent special,  but am not expecting much. A good gauge is the Planet Mondas forum,  like TRL forum,  run by diehards,  committed fans of the show. The most popular score that the recent special got on their poll was 0 yes 0 out of 10. The ratings compared to other shows on at the same time are not bad, but this is still the lowest rated Dr Who festive story to date ,half of even Capaldi's last one which wasn't so long ago. I'll reserve judgement till I see it, but the show is slowly dying IMO.The xmas special is certainly no longer a must see family event. 

 

I don't share your negativity, I'm afraid.

I still enjoy the show very much. I am genuinely in awe of the creativity that constantly surrounds it.

This year's special was the most watched programme on BBC One on New Year's Day and there was loads of positive reaction towards it on social media afterwards. How that can be interpreted that is it somehow 'dying' escapes me. 

It is constantly changing. That is its inbuilt appeal. If you don't like the actor currently playing the Doctor, you know there will be a different one coming along within 3-4 years, because that's how it works. If you don't like the current writers or production team, the same applies. None of them stay forever. So why waste energy slagging them off while they are passing through?

I'm sure there will have been fans of William Hartnell who absolutely loathed the thought of Patrick Troughton taking on the part back in the 1960s. Thank goodness no one listened to them.

The vitriol that is aimed at the lead actor, writers and production team from some quarters is appalling, in my view. Especially given that most of them are fans themselves, who know the show inside out and love it just as much as any of the keyboard warriors on forums whose default setting is to find fault rather than look for enjoyment. 

I've seen criticism that the current TARDIS team is 'too big' with three companions, but that was exactly how the show started out back in 1963!

Forums in general, including this one, tend towards the negative for some reason. 

Maybe that's what happens when groups of die-hard fans get together. They are too busy looking for perfection, and anything that falls short of it, however good it might be on its own merits, is dismissed as a failure to reach those unattainable heights.

The past can never be recreated, because you can never be the same person you were 10, 15, 20 or more years ago when those golden memories were created. 

A lot of 'classic' Who is actually quite ropey, if we're honest about it. But when you are a child, watching on a tiny black and white telly, you don't notice William Hartnell fluffing his lines or a microphone boom looming into shot. It doesn't matter, because your imagination is covering over those cracks. You don't care that entire episodes can go by without the plot moving forward at all, because you're just happy to be watching the Doctor faff about on an alien planet for a bit. You can forgive wobbly plastic dinosaurs because if Jon Pertwee is running away from them, you know they are definitely scary. One of my abiding memories of watching Doctor Who as a kid, is Tom Baker's first story with the Giant Robot. I was 8 years old. It blew my mind. I was utterly transfixed. It was only years later, rewatching it on DVD, that I even noticed the CSO effects in that epsiode are absolutely awful and the robot's legs keep disappearing into the background.

I guess what I'm trying to say, in this long winded ramble, is that even now, at 54, I still try to watch Doctor Who with the wide eyed wonderment I had back then, because it's just more fun that way. 

I think if the original show had been relentlessly scrutinised and pulled apart by adults at the time, in the same way the modern version is now, it wouldn't have lasted through 1964, let alone chalked up 57 years and counting.

.I understand your points John, maybe I'm just an old fogey, who BTW is a fan of 70's/80's tv generally,  but a lot of us older fans have a problem with the current version of the show. The imagination going into the stories are great, the fx terrific,  the preachiness is a tad OTT but of course the original show had this sort of political undercurrents in stories such as Green Death, Invasion of the Dinosaurs,  and Monster of Peladon,  but the story was the main thing, the message was not all consuming,  but this isn't the issue . The characterisation of The Doctor has altered drastically,  gone are the days of the mysterious and  unknown traveller turning up on various planets, helping out with companions in awe of the adventures they were having.  Now the Doctor is the saviour of the Universe,  a legend,  armies turn back at the mention of The Doctor.  Companions like the dreaded Clara , egocentric who fit in their travels with the Doctor in between their boring personal lives, that apparently the writers think we are all interested to know about. Also classic aliens have been revived and ruined IMO. Silurians, Ice Warriors,  and omg the Cybermen,  now devoid of any character,  just emotionless robots. The Cybermen of Earthshock might be a bit too emotional,  but you were reminded of the fact that remnants of people were inside the metallic casings. The Sontarans have now been turned into figures of fun. The Master a brilliant creation realized by Delgado is now a panto villain.  Has new Who brought back any classic element and improved it? Oh well, I'll watch it , because it is STILL better than most other rubbish on tv in science fiction genre, I just hope Blake's 7 my other love isn't revived, that would be too much.