DB7

Who's the best Dr Who?


Last Updated: 12:01am BST 02/04/2008
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With a new series poised to start, Dominic Cavendish and Sarah Crompton argue the case for their favourite Time Lord

TOM BAKER
A couple of months ago I happened to tune into Radio 2 at almost the exact moment Steve Wright was telling his studio sidekicks they should never make the mistake of watching old Dr Who episodes. The special effects look terrible, he said, just lots of egg-boxes glued together - or words to that effect. And they all had a good laugh.
Who's the best? Tom Baker vs David TennantIt was enough to make me want to summon alien forces to disassemble them atom-by-atom and blast them into orbit.
I'm not pathologically protective of the golden age of the original Dr Who series - almost universally taken to be the Tom Baker years of 1974-81. I don't spend every spare hour trying to recapture my childhood, which exactly coincided with his tousled tenure in the Tardis, by watching re-runs. Even as a kid, I was just as aware of the series' shortcomings as I was apt to hide behind a sofa.
Yet, if you bother to revisit those Seventies episodes - bringing all the added sophistication and cynicism of age as your companion - I think you have to confront the awkward truth that the earlier incarnation remains in many ways unequalled.
Yes, I'm pronouncing the new sacrilege that David Tennant, recently voted the most popular Doctor in Dr Who Magazine, is, bless him, no match for old, avuncular Tom.
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Special effects-wise, I concede that there's no contest. Today's CGI technology leaves the attempts of yesteryear, however noble and occasionally successful, looking decidedly kindergarten by comparison. But they just don't make Doctors like Baker any more; in fact, they only ever made one, and I doubt very much whether, if he hadn't filled Jon Pertwee's shoes, we'd be watching Dr Who today.
Russell T Davies, who spearheaded the Time Lord's prime-time revival, has himself called Baker's performance as the fourth Doctor "just extraordinary", and I think he's got that about right.
Tennant is - no question - the finer actor. He's no ham, he's a Hamlet. But, like the remodelled series itself (so glossy, hectic and artful), he throws almost everything he's got at the part. There's eagerness, youthful energy and a lot of eye-brow action. And it's too much.
Tennant woos his audience like a young man standing in a downpour proffering a bouquet - the gesture, however well meant, is more about him than its intended recipient.
You can't easily fault the performance because it's designed to be faultless. Even the nonchalance with which he imbues the role doesn't have a chink in its insistent charisma.
Baker, by contrast, could never in a million light years take the lead at the RSC. He had such a naturally archaic, boomy timbre to his voice that, in acting terms, his greatest strength was as an anachronism.
Even if he hadn't had the flowing scarf, the pockets full of jelly beans and knick-knacks, his eccentricity would have grabbed the attention. The eye-boggling wasn't put on; that's the way he was.
For a considerable period he was - like his wraith-like appearance during the opening sequence - singularly capable of haunting your imagination. And that is what Dr Who is about: the brooding enigma is central and crucial. And that's why Baker is Who for all time. DC

DAVID TENNANT
I was furious with the BBC when they killed off Christopher Eccleston, profoundly convinced that the fire, anger and passion with which he had remoulded a children's TV series could not be rekindled.
And I was far from sure about his successor. I didn't like the joke about "good teeth" or that silly spiky hair. But, as David Tennant has played Dr Who over 39 episodes, I have come to rate him not just as a good doctor but possibly the best of all time.


In late-night conversations, Tom Baker is always touted as the champion. But, searching through the video vault, it isn't just the special effects that look naff and artificial in his Seventies heyday.
Baker's performance itself, though vivid, is so mannered and eccentric that it is hard to care about him or his companions. And that voice! So rich it sounds false, heightening the essential unreality of the entire concept.
If I was looking for a Dr Who from the past to rival Tennant, then it might just be Patrick Troughton, who, in faded glimpses, creates a rounded, troubled character, not just a booming façade. It's no coincidence, I think, that Troughton was probably the most talented actor to play the part before Eccleston and Tennant.
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The fact that Tennant really can act, that he continues to take other work while still playing the Doctor, is crucial to his success. He is, when you see him on stage, properly charismatic, capable of holding an audience in the palm of his hand. On television, he recently impressed as an accident victim in Recovery.
As the special effects on Dr Who have improved, it is that kind of powerful talent that is required on the part of its leading man. If the Doctor were merely an attractive eccentric, he would be wiped off the screen by all the CGI.
But Tennant brings real intelligence to his portrayal. As the plot lines extend all over the place, he is capable of expressing everything from love (when he becomes a man in The Family of Blood) to awe (faced with the sight of other planets) to the chill of fear at planetary extinction.
As Tennant battled it out with John Simm's malign Master in the trilogy that concluded the last series, these two compelling actors actually managed to convince a teatime audience that something was at stake.
Tennant's energy is his other defining characteristic, and it sweeps all before it. His out-of-show appearances on all the chat-show shenanigans that surround the modern Doctor reveal a man who is enjoying himself; he is aware of the pitfalls of modern celebrity, but willing to play the game with good-natured charm.
On screen, this appears as a winning vitality. As he runs, jumps and pulls his mobile face with shock, surprise and enjoyment, you begin to believe that, if you were stranded on another planet surrounded by unfriendly aliens, this lanky Time Lord might just be the man to have by your side.
The programme-makers play on all these qualities, making the most of Tennant's comic timing - likely to come to the fore as he takes on Catherine Tate as his travelling companion - and the edge of sexiness that touches his relationship with all the women with whom he comes into contact, most notably Billie Piper's Rose, who makes her much-anticipated return this series.
That very humanity, his attractiveness as a man, is part of what makes Tennant the best Doctor ever. For, underneath all the charm, all the flamboyance, all the humour, he is fantastically good at always suggesting that this is not a man but an alien - one lost in space and alone. He may love humanity and adore Rose, but he can never find human happiness.
That hint of existential alienation, never too insistent but always there, is what sets Tennant's Doctor apart. SC

Fletchy

Patrick Troughton number 1.

Nobody else has come close, but Tennant is good.

retroman

I agree: Patrick Troughton. I'm only just about old enough to remember him as the doctor but to me he had that perfect combination of eccentricity, comic and dramatic intensity. My formative years of Who viewing were really in the Pertwee era, which I loved and which possibly had some of the best stories. But I can see that opinion on Pertwee is likely to be divided, whereas I suspect views on Troughton, regardless of whether one considers him to be the best doctor, are more likey to uniformly favourable.

"I've agreed with you from the first about the danger. But now I think you are utterly mistaken".

Grey Wyler

Pertwee in his first season as The Doctor was just perfect, it all changed though from Terror of the Autons onwards, and that is the more flamboyant Pertwee that is best remembered.

Troughton, although not my fave certainly has "Doctorness" about him in a big way, and it is hard to say anything negative at all about his performance.

Wicked Lady

If you'd asked me pre-David Tennent, I would have said Tom Baker. But Davey-boy has breathed such energy and life into the part he's hard not to put top of the list these days.

Grey Wyler

Yeah, Tennant is great. I think from Human Nature in the last series he quite simply nailed it. It will be a sad day when he leaves, and whoever follows him in the role in a few years time will have their work cut out for them.

Santonix

Well I saw every Doctor and my vote goes to David Tennant. He was made for the role, brilliant stuff.

harryfielder

I'm old enough to have seen them all (and worked with many) and I still think Tom Baker got it right.. but WHO knows....

Aitch,

http://www.turnipnet.com/aitch/aitch/gallery.htm

johng

Because of the advanced technology now available it is a little difficult to compare the classic series with the present.

For me, there was a gradual build up to Tom Baker and after he left it started to fall away. Don't know that this was the fault of the actors who followed Baker but maybe the series was getting tired at the time and the stories were not so good.

AS someone has just said - WHO knows?

batman

#1 Jon Pertwee
#2 Patrick Troughton
#3 Tom Baker
#4 William Hartnell
#5 Peter Davison
#6 Colin Baker
#7 Peter Cushing
#8 Paul McGann
#9 Sylvester McCoy

I haven't seen enough of the Ecclestone or Tennant series to be able to really compare them to the others.

"Do you know why fattries are called fattries .... it's because they are big and people make things in them."

MB

Tom Baker was 'my' Doctor Who and I remember be very sad and getting incredibly excited when he changed in to the fella from 'All creatures Great and Small' and then lost interest.

Paul McGann was the most captivating, for me.

I've watched a few with my daughter - but this kind of thing doesn't do it for me any more I'm afraid..I'm too busy grappling with reality to be caught up with the what if's..which is either sad or hopeful, depending on how you look at it, I suppose.

hankoler

My favourite was Jon Pertwee.

dremble wedge

Tom Baker will always be the Doctor for me as he's the one I grew up with.
I liked them all of them, they've all brought something to the part.

HIPPIEDAVE

Loved Jon Pertwee but I think Patrick Troughton was /is my fav.

Steve Crook

I think that's what it'll be for a lot of people, their favourite will be the one they grew up with

Steve