I stopped watching a few years ago. Might have to start again if this is legit.
TV Series Doctor Who
- Thread starter rfjeff9
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This aired last week…
Ok so legit then.
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Hands down the best Whitaker episode. And it was still full of a shit-ton of holes (they just randomly ran in to Graham in the bowels of an active volcano??). But that just adds to the fact that Whittaker was the clear worst Doctor ever.
I stopped watching when Whitaker showed up, maybe worth watching now - hopefully I am good to pretend Capaldi to Tennant is a seamless transition and forget the last 3 years? Nothing grates on my nerves more than writers injecting wokeism, so I know each of her episodes will just piss me off, and I would rather not bother.
The problem wasn't Whitaker herself, Steven Moffat left as the main writer/showrunner, and the writing/plot holes got really bad.
Russell T Davies, original main righter/showrunner/executive producer, and mentor to Moffat is returning for 2023.
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Oh, I know. Chibnall is the main culprit for the Whitaker run, but I always got the feel that Whittaker was fully on board with what Chibs was doing, and probably influencing it, so I don’t give her a pass.
Conversely, I give McCoy almost a full pass on his Doctor. The concept of his goofyness was an interesting idea that just wasn’t written well on an episode by episode basis. Still the second worst Doctor, but I don’t hang that on him.
I don't give her a full pass, I don't think she's that great an actress. She was basically an unknown when announced, even a lot of people in the UK didn't know of her. I think she was just happy to be there and went along with whatever they wanted. She was pretty much universally panned through her whole run, so no wonder she left. I had no issue with a female Doctor, I just think the combo of Chibnall's bad writing, and her bad acting made it a really bad experiment, no doubt Davies or Moffat would've pulled it off brilliantly, and with a better actress.
Chibnall's run was bad and everyone knew/knows it. It probably why they convinced Davies to come back, they knew they were losing the fans.
I love David Tennant in pretty much everything he's in (he was great in Broadchurch, and Good Omens), I'll be interested to see how they write it as to why 10 came back.
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Ftr, my list of doctors…
Pay more attention to the tiers than the actual rankings, btw…
1) T. Baker (while I would rate him, emotionally, probably at #4, you gotta bend the knee to the king)
2) Smith (my personal fave)
3) Tennant (probably the best actor to take the role, and really established nu-who as a real thing)
4) Davisson (the Doctor when I found the show)
5) Eccleston
6) Hartnell
7) McGann (Night of the Doctor saved his legacy)
8) Pertwee (only seen a few of his episodes, but there were real probs with his run)
9) Troughton (never seen a single ep of his. Based entirely on reputation, and being the one to establish the recasting nature of the show)
10) Capaldi (his take is growing on me with time, but I just have a hard time “getting” him. Sonic sunglasses? Really?)
11) C. Baker (just bad, but I was still a kid when he had his run, so he still kinda has the air of being the Doctor)
12) McCoy (good idea of a take, but bad writing and slashed budget doomed him to failure)
13) Whittaker (I liked the idea of making the Doctor a woman, but my god, was it executed badly)
“Others”
1) Hurt (masterful take)
2) Martin (as much as I hated the story arc, I rather liked her as a past Doctor)
3) Bradley (I like HIM, but they wrote him as WAY too much of a “get off my lawn”, old white male in today’s eyes)
4) Atkinson (a number of actors played the Doctor in the skit, but Atkinson was the “main” Doctor)
5) Cushing (I never saw his movie)
Pay more attention to the tiers than the actual rankings, btw…
1) T. Baker (while I would rate him, emotionally, probably at #4, you gotta bend the knee to the king)
2) Smith (my personal fave)
3) Tennant (probably the best actor to take the role, and really established nu-who as a real thing)
4) Davisson (the Doctor when I found the show)
5) Eccleston
6) Hartnell
7) McGann (Night of the Doctor saved his legacy)
8) Pertwee (only seen a few of his episodes, but there were real probs with his run)
9) Troughton (never seen a single ep of his. Based entirely on reputation, and being the one to establish the recasting nature of the show)
10) Capaldi (his take is growing on me with time, but I just have a hard time “getting” him. Sonic sunglasses? Really?)
11) C. Baker (just bad, but I was still a kid when he had his run, so he still kinda has the air of being the Doctor)
12) McCoy (good idea of a take, but bad writing and slashed budget doomed him to failure)
13) Whittaker (I liked the idea of making the Doctor a woman, but my god, was it executed badly)
“Others”
1) Hurt (masterful take)
2) Martin (as much as I hated the story arc, I rather liked her as a past Doctor)
3) Bradley (I like HIM, but they wrote him as WAY too much of a “get off my lawn”, old white male in today’s eyes)
4) Atkinson (a number of actors played the Doctor in the skit, but Atkinson was the “main” Doctor)
5) Cushing (I never saw his movie)
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I don’t think I agree that she was a complete unknown when she was named. She had a pretty big part in Broadchurch, for example. There were other pretty big parts she had in the UK. As a Yank, I was aware of her when she was named.
As for RTD coming back, I posted on the “other” site that I thought they brought in DT as a buffer between Whittaker and Gatwa. A kind of pallet-cleanser, of sorts. I think RTD has a plan for Gatwa (I would hope, duh), and he needed a kind of “converter” between Whittaker and himself to be able to tell the story properly. I have no idea what that story is, of course, but not linking him to Whittaker right off the bat is probably a good idea.
I'd probably have Tennant and Smith 2A and 2B, they were both great, the rest of my list would be about the same as yours.
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Cant argue with this. DT was also amazing.
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I've been watching the classic series lately, which is just the original BBC run from 66-87. This is on the Roku channel so they're just playing episodes on a loop all the time, and I come in to a different Doctor almost every time I tune in.
My favorite of the first run Doctors has to be TB, partly because he was the Doctor when I first discovered the show on PBS as a youth, but also because of his mannerisms and quirkiness. Loved the iconic scarf and how it was used as a prop/aid/weapon in so many episodes, as well.
Next level, I like the character as played by Troughton and Pertwee. Both had great voices and a good mix of seriousness and whimsy.
Next is Colin Baker, who I thought did a decent job, followed distantly by Davison, McCoy, and Hartnell. The show was just a completely different vehicle when it started with Hartnell and when it ended with McCoy; the seasons with both of those actors are just awful acting, awful writing, awful production values. Davison was okay but just seemed too young and lacking in gravitas.
I have not gotten in to any of the reboots yet so I can't rate any of those guys. Not even sure I would like the newer shows. Are they still campy and "melo," or have they upped the production with CGI?
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Nu-Who definitely updated the CGI to modern levels, but there is still a head-nod to the campiness of the original. The structure of the show is different, though. It is more episodic than the original, which was structured more as multi-episode arcs (a pre-cursor to today’s serial structure for most shows).
The original was not produced with the intention of re-watching. Heck, most of Troughton’s run was lost because BBC didn’t save the prints. Nu-Who started in the modern age, where re-watches were a known thing, so the episodes were produced with that in mind. Lots of Easter eggs in Nu-Who.
I have the same order on top 3 but would move Eccleston up higher a few - he had this crazy lunatic aspect to him that I liked and went well with the Doctor's personality. I wish he could have played the role longer.
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And in retrospect, after learning about the War Doctor, and how the Doctor felt about the decisions he had to make during that incarnation, the Eccleston, Tennant and Smith incarnations make SOOOOO much more sense. And the Capaldi incarnation after the events of the 50th fit into that narrative perfectly.
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I enjoyed season 1 of the series. Dr. Who was an excellent character and the stories were fun to watch. Then some chick took over and ruined the continuity for me. Never watched another episode.
Same.
I particularly liked that episode with the angel statues where the story followed some girl named after a bird and the Doctor and Martha only appeared in recording or some such. I think they won an award for that episode IIRC. This was good Doctor Who writing.
I particularly liked that episode with the angel statues where the story followed some girl named after a bird and the Doctor and Martha only appeared in recording or some such. I think they won an award for that episode IIRC. This was good Doctor Who writing.
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The “chick” took over about 12 seasons in, so your timeline doesn’t exactly track.
That said, making her the Doctor did really hurt the show.
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