All New Who

{{{ I see no reason he wouldn't do BF- I expect him to take a break for a bit- but one of the joys of the role of the Doctor for an actor I suspect is if you want it to, it can be with you for life. And I suspect Capaldi will be quite happy to remain the Doctor on BF.

I find it increasingly hard to list my favourite Doctors! Think Ive a lot of joint positions now as I cant pick between them- 4 and 12 are up for top slot- 11, 2 probably in second place. And 8 and 7 in third. 1st Doctor and 6th are fourth in my list and 3 and 5 at the bottom end.

so thats -

1. T Baker/Capaldi
2. Smith/Troughton
3. McCann/McCoy
4. Hartnell/C Baker (thanks to BF carrying his Doctor on)
5. Pertwee/Davidson
6. Eccelston (would be higher if he did more or had done BF to flesh his take on the Doctor out more), nothing wrong with his performance but only 1 series and I dont enjoy the stories for more than half of that!)
7. Tennant (the least Doctory of the Doctors in my view)

Thats my current thinking anyhow }}}

Favourite Doctors
1 Tennant
2 Eccleston
3 McGann
4 Baker


for the rest either I cant remember them or I don't like them.

least favourite


1 Capaldi
2 Smith
3 Davidson

I don't understand the Smith dislike, I mean, not really. but the Tennant dislike...!!!

Utterly alien to my thoughts.

{{My issue with 10 is he is basically just a human who lives a long time, not a Time lord. There is nothing alien about how he interacts or seems to see the universe most of the time its all just human. He falls for Rose like a stupid human, he acts like a stupid human, he whines like a stupid emo human and when he is being fun and upbeat he is like your excellent older brother, the cool one that takes you to excellent gigs- but still just human.
Of all the actors who have played the part Tennant's take on it is the least alien and most human. I like my Doctor with a larger bit of 'who?' in him. He should be always partly inscrutable, his motivations sometimes dubious, or unclear as they come from a non-human perspective. I get none of that from 10.

Heres' the 6th Doctors take on it - skip to 2.00



Also compare how 10 introduces himself ina dangerous situation in order to persuade scared folk to trust him to 12.

10- "I'm the Doctor. I'm a Time Lord. I'm from the planet Gallifrey in the constellation of Kasterberous. I'm 900 years old and I'm the man whose going to save your lives and all 6 billion people on the planet below. You got a problem with that?"

12- "You don't know it yet, but in a short time you will trust me with your life. And when I save you and everyone on your ship, one day you will look back and wonder who I was and why I did it."

There is no mystery with 10- he states exactly who and what he is to them right out- probably for the benefit of the casual viewer who otherwise would have little reason to think he was an alien unless he told you.
12 on the other-hand is basically saying I'll save you, then every one else then piss off and that's all you'll ever know about me. That's my favourite sort of Doctor story- he arrives somewhere, shits going down, he gets involved and when its over he leaves, often before anyone has really worked out whats happened or exactly wht part the Doctor even played in it. You have to keep the who in the Doctor or it just isn't Doctor Who.
'Doctor who?' should not just be a question people ask who want to know his name- its also what entire planets are left asking after he leaves.}}}

{{{ Interesting insight into the tight-arsedness of the BBC when it comes to Who's budget, from Talalays blog-

'All episodes, except Xmas, are budgeted for the same time and money, so all my 50-60 minute eps have been done for what should be exactly the same as the 45 minute ones....That’s 25% more material in maybe 10% more time. That goes from production to editing (same amount of time to edit 60 as to edit 45, with that much more material!) Same with number of Visual Effects, time in the grade, amount to compose for, to design sound for, etc, etc.'

Kind of figures the only way the BBC would let Moffat do 60 minute episodes was if he basically found a way to do the extra 15 minutes for free.
One thing I hope happens when Chibnal starts is that the BBC finally put the budget back up again. But they probably won't. }}}

Forest Shepherd wrote:I don't understand the Smith dislike, I mean, not really. but the Tennant dislike...!!!

Utterly alien to my thoughts.

Well I'm bored and grumpy today, so rambling rant follows

Speaking personally I found The 10th Doctor to be far too human but in a bad way, less of a 900 year old alien, more a generic hero written by committee, Eccleston's Doctor had a dangerous hard edge to his character, Smith could flip between humour and darkness instantly and really sold the old man in a young man's body thing, Capaldi nails the haunted pragmatist hiding his pain with detachment and has the most dramatic character development of the four gradually mellowing into a kooky professor striving to help the common man, Tennant's Doctor arrives fully formed and has hardly any character development, veering between the two moods of brooding git and cheesy ladies man, it's not an accident his three top stories-The Waters Of Mars, Human Nature/The Family Of Blood and Midnight take the 10th Doctor of his comfort zone and call the character out on his flawed personality, I really missed the depth and burning rage than Eccleston's Doctor had, Tennant is a fantastic actor but he was always working to a generic template and his Doctor had little depth beyond his surface personality, but his surface personality was one that often grated on me, he's a instantly watchable and charismatic leading man but it wasn't until Series 4 that I really felt Tennant was little more than a belated replacement for Eccleston.

Tennant with his theatrical background has an annoying tendency to over act as times, and this was transferred to the 10th Doctor who I felt was kinda full of himself, arrogant, blustery and frankly rather obnoxious when partnered with Rose (which was a pretty creepy and unnecessary romance storyline, what exactly could a 900 year old alien want with, or offer a normal 19 year old girl who had caused the death of his previous incarnation? Even worse when it transferred to his attitude to Martha and Rose's return in Series 4 hanging over the finale like a bad smell) especially in his earlier stories he often seemed to veer between acting like a mopey spoilt teenager with an out of place eye for the ladies, and a hipster with his head up his own arse running away from his past and responsibilities...which was perhaps the point RTD was trying to make in part, but the show had (and still does to a smaller degree) a tendency to treat the Doctor as a god like figure and ignore the bad character traits, the Tennant episodes practically beat you over the head with the imagery, metaphors and cheesy hero angle (i.e the first minute of this scene https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E33vAhs4bNs) and looking back in them are packed with so much cheese, deux ex machina, pop culture references and contrivances that I'm not sure I'd enjoy them anywhere near as much as I once did.

The 10th Doctor whether intentionally or not was a mess of contradictions and a deeply flawed character, which would have made for a rather interesting route to take, but RTD rarely explored this side of the character and gradually wrote him more and more into a corner as a mere crux for the stories and a generic human in slightly odd clothes (personally I prefer the alien to act alien), there is precious little alien about his outlook or actions i.m.o...frankly I find it all kinda boring/annoying in retrospect, it's a shame as Tennant as such a good and likeable actor and most of his storylines were at least watchable and character driven (though far from being at a consistent, good level he had a lot of stinkers...)

Ironically Tennant's Doctor WAS my favourite Doctor growing up as a kid, he was the most accessible of the New Who Doctors with simple straight forward storylines packed with action and pop culture references I could latch onto, but in the years since Tennant's episodes first aired I've watched more and more of the classic series and started reading the books/listening to audios I rather soured on his Doctor and have grown more and more critical of an era that lacks the scope of the Classic Series and the substextual depth and experimental storylines of the Moffat era, it all just seems a bit obnoxious and simplistic in retrospect.

As such the 10th Doctor feels out of place with the usual character of the Doctor-paradoxically it was the more accessible, human 10th Doctor that got me interested in Who, and it was the wider series that made me loose interest in this Doctor, I'm not going to speak for anyone else but I do often think some who profess to love the RTD era and Tennant do so at least partly down to nostaglia and haven't recently rewatched some of these episodes...

Tennant is a great actor, he plays the part very well, I can (partly) understand why RTD wrote him like that (Whilst I;m not overly fond of the 10th Dr, I do really like most of Tennant's storylines) and I'd probably quite happily sit down and watch most of his stories to kill a bit of time (I do still love Series 4 for the most part, due in no small part to Donna who dramatically changed how the 10th Doctor was written), but the 10th Doctor just doesn't strike me as a very interesting performance, I think RTD went too far pandering to casual viewers with his character arc and storylines to the detriment of the series, you only have to look at how useless and thin the 10th Doctor was in the 50th Anniversary to see what I mean...

I will say that I haven't seen some of Tennant's episodes in more than five years so perhaps I am misrembering some of this.

If you want to see a haunted romantic Doctor written properly check out the 8th Doctor audio dramas...

Mrs Figg wrote:Favourite Doctors
1 Tennant
2 Eccleston
3 McGann
4 Baker


for the rest either I cant remember them or I don't like them.

least favourite


1 Capaldi
2 Smith
3 Davidson

1. McGann
2. Capaldi
3. Hartnell
4. Tom Baker
5. Troughton
6. Colin Baker (due to the audios, not actually seen of his TV stories)
7. Eccleston
8. Davison
9. Smith
11. Mcoy
11. Hurt
12. Tennant
13. Pertwee

I'm shocked that 2/3 of those reporting so far rank Tom Baker at #4.

halfwise wrote:I'm shocked that 2/3 of those reporting so far rank Tom Baker at #4.

Weirdly I think my (minor) problem with Tom Baker's doctor is that he's too iconic/suitable for the part he's just as eccentric and bonkers in real life judging by interviews, he was essentially playing himself and did it very well but I think he stayed too long and sorta left a shadow over his own stories, always leave them wanting more.

Capaldi's last day of filming was today apparently

Still no news of a 13th Doctor though, beginning to wonder if Chibnalls wants to keep it a secret till Xmas...

6. Colin Baker (due to the audios, not actually seen of his TV stories)- Malick

{{{ I have a soft spot for Vengenace on Varos- mainly for the brilliant despicable Sil and the very dark oppressive feel throughout that so riled the Mary Whitehouse brigade back in the day! }}

{{{{ 5 mins of magnificant 12!}}}

{{{National Orchestra of Wales performing 'A Good Man'}}

{{{Orbital plus members of the Radiophonic Workshop play the Doctor Who theme at a concert at Jodrell Bank }}}

{{Lovely 12 vid }}

This very biased and nostaglia goggle heavy critique of the Moffat years was linked to on reddit:



If you scroll down and look at the comments you might recognize the name of one of the people replying, you certainly get around Petty (nice analysis btw, I'm inclined to agree with most of what you said)  

The quality of the writing in the RTD era was vastly superior...

...In some respects yes, but as a whole...bollocks was it, that's opinion misconstrued as fact. Both eras have their own flaws and bad points, but the crucial point is both are trying to do very different things guided by very different showrunners, comparing the two approaches on a surface level and deriding the latter just for being different is a stupid argument. Although I enjoyed the RTD era growing up as a teenager (though the low points and cringey moments were obvious even then), and still enjoy many aspects of it, looking back I see how dated, cheesy, nonsensical and simplistic much of the writing was (purely my opinion) and have serious issues with some of RTD's character writing, I certainly have a preference for Capaldi Who over the other eras of New Who, on the other hand everyone has their own preferences and it seems a waste of time and effort (not to mention being rather childish and entitled) to deride others for having different opinions on what they like.

You should consider doing a counterpoint video Petty

{{One is but a servant of the crabbit Malick and must go where it leads And that vid was such a particualry poor piece of analysis it needed addressed.
As to a response vid- I am neither photogenic enough for such an endeavour Malick and of a generation who still consider having a camera pointed at them as bloody rude! Not something as natural as breathing as the current generation seem too. But maybe I will do a voice only one- but then no one will probably be able to understand a word of it! }}}}}}

I would greatly enjoy a voice-only version. Nothing like pure crabbit unadulterated by translation to understandable text!

" Literally everything you just said. You're a god among literary critic. I couldn't have said any of that better myself." -Kek Gaming (on Youtube)

Good Lord! At least Petty has us, by which I mean Mrs. Figg, to keep him humble!

{{{ Indeed there is nothing quite like a dose of Figg to keep your feet on the ground, or nailed to it at least Talking of which where has she got too- hope she has not melted away in Italiashire! }}}

A dose of figgs will blow your socks off  

but yeah, I am melting. 27 in, 37 out.

{{{ Good to see you haven't been reduced entirely to fluids Figg

News on the new Doctor-}}

'The identity of Doctor Who's 13th Time Lord will be revealed following the Wimbledon men's singles tennis final on Sunday, the BBC has announced.
A trailer featuring the number 13 in different locations was aired during the tennis on BBC One on Friday.
It finished with the caption: "Meet the 13th Doctor after the Wimbledon men's final, Sunday 16th July."- BBC news