Doctor Who: Ranking the Doctors 1-12

I've been putting this off for a long time okay I waited long enough it is time for me to revisit my ranking of the doctor the actual performers and the characterization of the doctor from Doctor Who going from the beginning right up to the present day now part of me wanted to push this off even further wait for Jodie Whittaker but I've waited long enough and we've got a clean break and I feel like I can firmly make my opinion on Capaldi at this point so I am going to rank my own personal ranking for the performances and characterizations of the doctor starting with number one all the way up through Capaldi now a couple of things I've done this before was actually the very first Doctor Who list I did years ago but there's two new doctors to add since then and some of the rankings have changed in the meantime as I have sort of gotten a little more distance from some of my choices and also as I have come to absorb more classic who than I had previously now as far as these rankings go I am not factoring in Big Finish comic books novels and it's only the show and I am fully aware that there are some doctors who have had either much better representation in terms of the quality of their work in and things like Big Finish or have simply had a lot more and I am starting to get into that but I am nowhere near steeped enough in that for it to have it be weighed fairly so I'm I just have to take it off the table so with that established and the last thing I'm also gonna say cuz and I'm gonna bring this up again with the exception of the very bottom slot which we'll get to in a second I don't think there is a bad version of the doctor all of these are good and whoever is your doctor even if it is my bottom pick that is fine and you are not wrong because one of the beautiful things about Doctor Who is everyone gets to have their doctor your pick does not have to be anyone else's you do not have to write them the way anyone else does this is just the way I'm gonna write them so starting at the bottom um Colin Baker the sixth doctor I can't imagine anybody's really all that surprised by this cuz he just they they had a sort of a confluence of character trace for him that all fit the doctor and they all work on paper but something didn't click so you know he's kind of grumpy lots of doctors are grumpy he is arrogant lots of versions of the doctor are arrogant he has a certain disdain for humans a lot of them are like that but I think there's a couple of things where you can guess that what is honestly just the look you can't look at him and take him seriously and the look is so at odds with the way he's behaving that it's not like oh isn't that cool and quirky it's like it just makes no sense like you can't wrap your head around that and then in addition to that at the time he was playing it I just ending whether this is a fault in him as a performer or just the way he was being directed to play the part I just think Colin Baker lacked the underlying charm that you needed to to not have those more grating aspects of the doctor actually be grading pretty much every other performer who's played the doctor had some level of underlying inherent charm that made some of the less desirable qualities of the doctor as a character either you know much easier to swallow or and sometimes oddly endearing Kyle Baker was just missing that little bit of charm and at least in his time on the TV show I get I've heard he was great and Big Finish not counting it so that's the bottom moving up one spot the war Doctor John Hurt he's got what technically he's got two because he showed up a name of the doctor but effectively he's only got one appearance and there's nothing wrong with John Hurt's performance as the doctor there's just really nothing memorable about it either there's not a lot that makes him distinct there's not a lot about him that you can go oh that's the defining trait of that doctor I mean even the Colin Baker doctor had those they weren't positive defining traits but he had them this is just very nondescript and that's doubly odd given that his setup that we get in with his not his introduction but his sort of Webber you see his regeneration is like warrior make me a warrior and you don't get that from the performance and I and I do understand that by the time we see him in day of the doctor in whatever warrior Miss he had going his burnt out he's had enough yo he starts shooting no more into a wall he's obviously done but it's again it's just a matter of what you're telling us about this character and what we're seeing about them aren't gelling you tell us warrior nothing we see about him is reading as warrior I mean former warrior maybe but then all that tells us was we're missing a huge bunch of information and if I limit it to the TV show yeah he's fine he's inoffensive he's not particularly memorable next up on the list William Hartnell the first doctor and this is actually part of the reason that I wanted to get this list in now before the Christmas special comes up because if and when I tackle this list again I may need to figure out if I'm if I count David Bradley towards William Hartnell's doctor does he actually need to be ranked separately as he distinct enough I'd I don't want to have to address that question and then when that Christmas episode airs I may have to so setting that aside looking exclusively at William Hartnell as the doctor he took a little bit of time to kind of get to where I did really enjoy him because he does start out basically in grumpy grandpa mode well I mean which is what he was he did have a little bit of that twinkle in the eye but it came more to the forefront as his time as the doctor went on so that by the time he finished I think he really was as good as he was gonna get and it's and he is lacking some of the qualities I like in the doctor and in a way that's unfair because he was the first so you know people had to distinguish their versions from his of course more stuff got at it later but if we're talking personal preferences he's just a little too crotchety for my taste but he's he's still very good I mean you you watch something like the Dalek invasion of Earth and he's wonderful he is really good it's just a lot of his earlier stuff he just he is that that overly crotchety character next up on the list one that I is actually the personal favorite of a lot of friends of mine and I'm just gonna shrug and say they see something I don't and I don't get it Peter Davison again he's not bad I mean we're only my bottom pick was bad so Peter Davison is good and again he has a lot of the qualities that I like to see in the doctor he's a bit emotionally detached from things but he still it seems to really go for a sense of adventure which is nice to see and it's it's not a bad balance of that but there's there's a quality that's really hard for me to define in terms of his performance that just makes it not quite click for me and the best way that I can think to put it is it feels like an act where you know everything he's doing it makes sense and the way he reacts the things I understand but it's it's more like he isn't really feeling these emotions but he knows what the correct emotional response is and he's just sort of doing that because he knows that's what's expected but he's not actually feeling it there's something about Peter Davison that's slightly detached and that's different from sort of a sense of being alien which is something that a lot of the versions of the doctor that that I love have and some of them have it in spades but for some reason with Davison for me that quality doesn't read as a leonis it just reads as detached like in a in a way that doesn't read as separate from human just in a in something's not quite fully clicking way and I think that largely might have just been equality of the age he was when he started because there's no hint of what I'm talking about in something like time crash where you know he was older I just he seems more comfortable maybe that's the thing there's only a couple of his stories that I've seen work he seemed really at peace with the part he seemed III have to wonder if the weight of the responsibility of playing this part and how young he was certainly compared to most of the other actors who played the doctor if that just weighed on him a little bit and affected his performance and and maybe that's the vibe that I'm getting but there is something about that vibe that just throws me off a little he's still good though next up Jon Pertwee now I mentioned charm before you want to talk charm this man's got charm to spare oh when he's on he's great especially when he's playing against Roger Delgado who in my opinion is the best version of the master I've done that list before but he's just wonderful and charming and he's he's pompous and arrogant but in a way that like you can't help but just find him kind of lovable really the only reason that he doesn't rank way higher on the list is this was the era where the doctor was action hero and he was doing I forget exactly what they got like some form of interstellar judo and I just don't like I don't like the doctor just getting stuck in in a fight and flipping guys and all that and that honestly that one specific aspect it does a bit to bring it down for me and and that's a shame because otherwise he's really great in this part so it is it does bum me out that it is just one aspect of it of his characterization that doesn't quite work for me but it's what happens next up on the list moving our way up Sylvester McCoy the Seventh Doctor he was another one that I think his first season is a bit wonky and because I feel like the writers didn't quite know what to do with him yet but once you start to see the Machiavellian nature of him and sort of that that Chessmaster sensibility that he's moving all the pieces and he knows exactly what he's doing and that sort of hint of darkness in his advance planning that you get and stuff like remembrance of the Dalek or curse of Fenric and things like that it's it works really well and McCoy plays it one and he cuz he can do the light affable you know oh you wouldn't take this guy seriously but then he'll he'll get quieter I'll just get this look on his face that you're like oh okay it's about to get real now and I enjoy that contrast I think the fact that it did take basically season for him to really start getting into that mode is part of the reason he's not higher up but I do still like that quality in him moving up to a spot to number 7 we are hit the middle of these third team rankings and it is time for christopher eccleston he really did grab me pretty much as soon as he showed up on screen like right from that moment where he asks rose her name is it nice to meet you rose run for your life and I I was immediately hooked on this guy I think he is wonderful he's sweet he's charming but you peel it back to slightly and you get a sense of just how damaged he is and you really do get that sense of just having been through absolute hell but trying to move on from it and there's so many great little moments I love with with Eccleston I mean that everybody lives is one of my favorite things in all of Doctor Who I love that I love when he's there just throwing information at him about the city he's just going narrows it down narrows it down we only have one series out of him and I feel like as much as I enjoy and appreciate and identify that sort of damage that's in him and I absolutely respect it as a choice for how to play the character it's not as much fun for me to revisit as others so that's sort of why he falls in the middle I get remember this is all relative I still love the ones I even ranked below him I love but it we're really getting into personal preference territory now where there are just certain things about the way that they're being played that just isn't exactly what I want to spend with my doctor at least not for their whole run which in the case of Eccleston was unfortunately very brief you still good and now for the one that had the biggest move from the last time I did this list to now that's what I'm probably gonna have to spend the most time Explo why and I am dead certain that there was a lot of people who were just gonna switch this thing off the minute I say this but number 6 David Tennant if you have stuck through and are actually letting me talk and I aren't just screaming and banging your response as to why I'm wrong allow me to explain first off Tennant last time I did this list was my number two and Tennant in many ways is my doctor he is the first doctor I ever really paid attention to because first time I ever saw this show I was on my honeymoon in London I was scrolling through channels when we had nothing else to do and I came across the Satan pit and I saw him and I was immediately engaged by him I think he is great he has that sense of adventure he has terrific chemistry with most of his cast the smile is awesome when he goes dark he sells it but when I am comparing him to the other doctors and what I'm identifying the things that I really love about the other doctors there's there's one specific thing about Tennant that just I wish it wasn't the case and that is basically he's too human and I mean that in terms of his responses his reactions he reacts to things too much like I would expect a human to do as opposed to someone from a different culture different society different planet different species to do there's not a lot of sense of the alien about him and when it works I love that sense of alienness in the doctor and Tenant has that the least I think it's possibly arguable he doesn't have it at all now again I'm not saying that is a bad way to play the doctor I it's perfectly fine if he is your favorite he's many people's favorite doctor but for me and what I like about this character it's a really key component to most of the versions of this character that I really love and he just doesn't have it and I had to really look in my heart of hearts when readjusting this list and this is where he landed number five tricked Rosen oh that mischievous cowardly little imp I really ease so much of the staples of what we think of Doctor Who originated with traveling running as a first response just bumbling into the situation so that the people he's around will think he's an idiot not take him seriously which frees him up to just you know explore it they're not paying attention to him because they don't think him seriously if he can get all the information that he needs I love his little pipe I love his interactions with his companions his relationship with Jamie especially is wonderful and he also can can turn that switch when he gets serious there is uh there is an intensity in his eyes when he makes the decision that he is going to stop what's going on you can there's something about his face that gets that but at the same time he never quite loses that very jovial like he's like your favorite uncle I agreed for lack of a better comparison and he just strikes such a wonderful balance between the bumbling the fun the the cowardice and yet still managing to be the hero of the story moving up to number four and this is a rather impressive leap considering I I I am serious that is literally a short that moved him from his previous placement on this listen that's Paul McGann last time I did this list night of the doctor had not come out so I could judge him only on the movie and while he was the best thing about that movie it was not good and then I saw night of the doctor and immediately I'm like I gotta find more of this guy's stuff and I actually have I have heard some of his Big Finish about I'm still really trying to I it may have seeped him but I'm really trying to not count that towards this ranking because I do think just based off night of the doctor you watch the the heroic sense and like you get like tells you so much about his version of the doctor in those what is it seven minutes with the way he shows up the way he interacts with this one with the way he's willing to die trying to save a woman he just met who hates him the way he responds to the The Sisterhood where he's just they bring him back to life and he's completely dismissive of the whole thing and yet you can tell that as dismissive of he is and as much as he's trying to maintain fun that he knows how serious everything is and he knows the situation he just wishes that it was fun and he remembers when it was and he wishes it was that again that's the vibe I get off just in those seven minutes and I think he's worth the bump up into the top five into the number four spot just based off that along he's really good okay top three we get to my previous number one pick Matt Smith I still love me some Matt Smith very much you want to talk about the alien he brought the sense of alien back after ten it's much more human doctor and you know that sense and I know for some people it just it just reads as overly quirky I get that but for me it's it's it's wonderful and it's fun and it's endearing and just watching him bounce around with the PO tie or the Fez or the Stetson and that he's able to any he brings in a lot of elements from a lot of different doctors and that he will do sort of the the bumbling in but he does have that darkness and he has these wonderful interactions and he manages like I said that sense of alienness in the way he responds to things that is not exactly how a human would respond but but manages to avoid that sort of just detachment that I felt with Davison and I mention it before I'm probably partially biased because Matt Smith is my age so I think for that reason I probably on a personal level connected with him probably better than anybody else especially during his run I just I had an absolute ball with him but we are getting up into the top two and you know if you've been keeping track you've got a checklist you know who's left so when I tell you number two you number one is but let me just get through it anyway so number two to my surprise Peter Capaldi and surprise for two reasons one he is the most recent doctor and given that last time I did this list was when Matt Smith was still the doctor and he made my number one I am open to the possibility that I might be prisoner of the moment and I just fall in love with whoever the doctor is at the time that's a possibility I guess I'll know that for certain next time I rewrite these but the other reason this is a surprise for me is that he didn't completely start to click with me until his second season and actually his the way he played the doctor shifts over all three series that he's in and some could say that's inconsistency for me worked and it felt like a journey for his character because you've got that first series where he is he's very grumpy that this is the start of a whole new regeneration cycle he shouldn't even have this life and he's grouchy and crotchety and he doesn't quite heat he's losing his connection with the companion that he had already been with for a while and you sense him like he's he knows what the doctor should be these trying maybe a little too hard the second series that he's then is when we get the sunglasses and the hoodie and the guitar playing and I know for some people some people I heard people say it's like it's like he's going through a midlife crisis and I would say yes but I enjoyed watching that because first of all I think Peter Capaldi can just sell that and he did and it made the doctor more fun but he also went so far into it that it did lead a little bit like a midlife crisis like between his first and second series he found the fun again and then was like oh yeah this and he went a little too hard into and then in his final series he got that happy medium between the two and I could I liked him better every series that he showed up and by the time he was done I it's almost tragic to me that he's leaving he has come to embody so much and so much aspects of what I love about the doctor in different amounts depending on when he was playing the part and again some people can read that as inconsistency in the characterization or the writing but this the sequence in which the different sort of aspects of the characterization happened to me felt like a proper and believable journey for the doctor as a character and we don't see the doctor changing grow all that often it happens a little bit in a couple for a couple of the doctors but I feel it is most pronounced here and for me that works so that does mean the number one spot Tom Baker and this was a move that came with my I'm getting more immersed into classic whoo and uh-huh I talked about that sense of alienness you know I brought up with Matt Smith you this guy from another planet no question when this man tells you he's not from Earth you believe it in a heartbeat he is so perfect to play an alien in the same way that like David Bowie was when he did the man who fell to earth is just you just look at the guy and you listen to him darling like oh yeah no he's he's not from around here so he has that wonderful sense of alienness and he has a wonderful sense of childishness but not in an immature way just in a not having become too jaded way and I think that might be one of the things about new who that I think gets overplayed is how jaded the doctor is and just this sweet spot of the Fourth Doctor and the fact that he has lines like what's the point of being a grown-up if you can't be child you sometimes the things the fact that he even has things like that to say just immediately speaks to me it's like this yes yes this guy I want I want to travel with you I want to be right by your side I want to see everything you do I want to just feed off your vibe and your your mellow and just everything about Tom Baker I cannot fault a single aspect too the only thing I can possibly say is he played the part for just a little too long and during his last series there's a couple of episodes where you like you you kind of get that you look a little tired but like that's it he did it for maybe a series too many but other than that for me I can find no fault with Tom Baker's doctor just simply phenomenal and in my estimation at this point in my life until I rank them again at some point down the line inevitably but right now my favorite choice for an actor to play the role of the doctor on Doctor Who if you stuck with me this far that means that I didn't tick you off too much I hope with my ranking whatever your thoughts are and your own ranking please by all means share try and keep things polite be respectful of people's thoughts and rankings and everything else but whatever your thoughts are drop something down in the comments let's talk about it don't forget to Like subscribe check me out on Twitter at council of geeks give a listen to the council of geeks podcast available on iTunes and stitcher I am also one half of the punch like a girl podcast which will be on the fire and water Network starting in October and until next time this council is adjourned [Applause] [Applause]

Channel: Council of Geeks

Views: 110,141

Rating: 4.6142859 out of 5

Keywords: doctor who, ranking, list, william hartnell, patrick troughton, jon pertwee, tom baker, peter davison, colin baker, sylvester mccoy, paul macgann, john hurt, war doctor, doctor, christopher eccleston, david tennant, matt smith, peter capaldi

Id: -o2cWQXqxnw

Length: 25min 40sec (1540 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 17 2017