Classic Doctor Who (1963-89/96)

I love how Peter Davison (the fifth Doctor) pointed out (he also points out a plot hole in “Timelash” for Behind the Sofa) that the Doctor and Co. waste valuable time having a nice chat with the shrunken Master on Sarn in "Planet of Fire" - whereas as if they’d just grabbed him and quickly disposed of him, his menace might have been ended forever! Sharp lad, that Number 5...
 
My favorites are Jon Pertwee and Tom Baker; but in a sense, Baker NEEDED to be preceded by Pertwee.

If I remember correctly, Pertwee in a magazine interview said something like this: "If children watching our show imagine themselves IN the story, they need to be able to feel that the Doctor would protect them from the monsters." Pertwee's Doctor always took care of business, making sure that the monsters COULDN'T kill or possess his companions.

When Baker stepped into the role, he inherited the rescuing-hero aura which Pertwee had built up. Thus, he was free to act goofy, but viewers could still be confident that the Doctor would deliver the goods when a crisis arose.
 
@Copperfox many actors who have played the Doctor have said that the Doctor - not unlike Sherlock Holmes - is a difficult character to get inside of and that extended time in the role takes its toll. Tom Baker should have left in Season 15 or 16 , about Pertwee's length.
 
@Copperfox

I haven't listened myself but apparently this podcast

podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/doctor-who-42-to-doomsday/id687051777

Believes an episode or 2 of Doctor Who has been found in Australia. They don't say which, very much rumour. Don't get excited but it's always fun when this stuff comes up

The reality is that some people *did* have early domestic video machines and *will* have recorded missing programs - and not just missing DW, either. Unfortunately, this has often unfairly been dismissed out of hand - which has likely meant material was destroyed after the offerer was insulted or ridiculed away by geek gatekeepers.
 
Tom Baker's Doctor was the most FUN; but I think Jon Pertwee embodied what the Doctor SHOULD BE. Pertwee's Doctor was not without a sense of humor, but this never eclipsed his moral integrity, and his determination to protect and help the people he cared about.
 
I was never able to give Hartnell and Troughton a fair chance, because they weren't available in America during their first-run eras.

As for cartoons, Tom Baker's Doctor probably would work best as a caricature.
 
Copperfox said:
I was never able to give Hartnell and Troughton a fair chance, because they weren't available in America during their first-run eras.

As for cartoons, Tom Baker's Doctor probably would work best as a caricature.
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I never saw Hartnell and Troughton when they were first broadcast; I started watching the program with Pertwee. It's pretty hard to assess the first two Doctors now because so many of their episodes are lost.
My favourite classic Doctor is Davison, mainly because I liked his stories so much.
After several years of Tom Baker stories being produced by Graham Williams I was starting to get pretty tired of the series. Producer John Nathan Turner is a controversial figure among 'Who' fans but I think he brought a breath of fresh air to the series, making it more serious and exploring way out scientific and philosophical concepts. To me the last Tom Baker season and the three Davison ones were the peak of classic Doctor Who. Sadly it was a pinnacle of achievement that couldn't be maintained and within a few years the show was in a state of continual crisis that would ultimately result in cancellation.
 
Williams got a raw deal from fandom. Hinchliffe and Holmes may have been successful but in the long term they hobbled the show. Fans couldn't move on either. Sladen was born three years before my mother and the extreme fandom about Lis irritates me as well.
 
Troughton does actually fluff his lines more often than you realize - on *many* occasions what he says bears little relation to the script. Troughton forgot his lines but was a better ad-libber to cover it.

However - examine a Season One Hartnell - 'The Aztecs' which had very few or no recording breaks. Hartnell is word perfect. Similarly, 'The Ark' - the one major Hartnell story with a lot of recording breaks - Hartnell is spot on. Even as late as 'The Smugglers' and 'The Tenth Planet' he stuck very close to the script. He had his off-days admittedly, and arteriosclerosis must have played a large part at times, but his 'dotty' characterization makes it seem that he is forgetting more than he seems, but a fair amount of this aspect *was* a scripted trait.

In fact, Hartnell has quite a few witty ad-libs during his last season that shows his mind was still working - 'The Feast of Steven' is full of them from most of the cast. And, unlike certain other Doctors, his ad-libs are funny.

Hartnell was a far better actor than he is credited for.
 
Ace from the McCoy era (1987-89) - the street-wise juvenile delinquent... but who sounded like the Grange Hill pisstake in The Young Ones ("C'mon, Mister Liberal! We're the only kids in the country who never say fu-")
 
Princess Frances
As promised, here is the rant in response to your disgusting slur against the memory of the late Robert Holmes.

I am actually going to approach this from a slightly oblique angle. I recently watched a YouTube video about current and returning Dr Who showrunner Russel Davies decision to change the way Dalek creator Davros is depicted. Apparently he thinks it's problematic to show Davros in a 'wheelchair' because it associates disabled people with evil. I am not even going to comment on the mind numbing idiocy of this but someone made a comment I found very insightful. He said that to the 'woke' all is 'allegory.'

Now 'woke' is a controversial term but I think we all know what it means. 'Allegory' is more problematic; it doesn't mean allegory in the strict sense that Lewis would have approved of but rather any story than can be interpreted as a metaphor for some real life issue. That being understood the comment is worth repeating; to the 'woke' all is 'allegory' at least when it touches on any of the supposedly oppressed and marginalised groups these hypocrites pretend to care about.

Robert Holmes wrote many stories with many villains. The fact that he had Chinese gang members as (secondary) villains in ONE particular story does NOT mean he thought the Chinese are more criminally inclined or morally degenerate than anyone else. It's just ONE story. You might say he was being insensitive (although I would respond that those taking exception are being hypersensitive) but to castigate him as a racist on the strength of that one story is unjustified and outrageous.

We have exactly the same thing happening with Narnia. Lewis wrote several different villains. The fact that he sometimes had the dark skinned Calormenes as antagonists does NOT mean he thought dark skinned people are lesser that light skinned ones. The Calormenes DO NOT represent any real life group; they are a fictional people living in a fictional country in a fictional world and THAT'S ALL!

The same with the much discussed 'Problem of Susan.' Susan is criticised in TLB for being (among many other things) obsessively taken up with trivial things like lipstick and nylons and invitations. But this CANNOT be taken as a criticism of any young woman with any degree of interest in stereotypical 'feminine' things. What happens to Susan is not an 'allegory' of how young women lose faith but a particular fictional example of how ONE young woman does lose faith. It simply cannot be assumed that what happens to Susan would be typical of many other girls or indeed of any. Her problems could well be unique to her.

It's noticeable that to makes these 'allegories' work you have to cherrypick the details that fit your narrative and ignore the ones that don't. I have come to the conclusion that 'allegory' -in the loose and inaccurate way the word is commonly used- is the most pernicious concept in literature. It has been weaponised by so-called progressives to attack any work of fiction espousing a world view they take exception to.

To conclude, your egregious insult towards one of the classic series best writers is indefensible and totally disgraceful. If you have a shred of decency you'll apologise
 
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