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Classic Who


jester1470

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As theres a thread on new Who I felt there should be one with Classic Who. What's everyone's favourite Dr and reasons why :p

Best Doctor - a highly controversial choice - Sylvester McCoy - had he some decent scripts he would have been generally seen to be the best imo, when he is good (such as Remembrance of the Daleks, Ghost Light, etc), he is amazing. He was a slightly dark, manipulating Dr with a real edge. Met him oncer in a pub in Edinburgh during the Festival, he chatted to us for a bit and it was suddenly a double take moment when I recognised the voice...

2nd best Dr - maybe also controversial but Patrick Troughton, had some stunning stories, sadly very few exist now, but his appearances with the cybermen are all brilliant.

3rd - Tom Baker - always good value, had some amazing stories but also some very poor ones, is generally seen as the best because he had so many stories, the longest serving Dr but sadly also refuses to have much to do with it now.

4th - Paul McGann, not for the awfull film but for the audio adventures which are sup[erb, a really great Dr with a sense of humour.

Trivia Alert: I just discovered his companion in the film was the same woman who played Ryan's Mother in the OC - Wow she aged in the 6 or 7 years in between...

Anyway for any fans I recommend hearing some of the Big Finish audio's with McGann they're amazing, some of the Big Finish stuff also includes a young Scot's actor who was such a big Dr Who fan he snuck into the studio and begged the director for a part in one of them as he was recording something else next door, the young actor's name was David Tennant...

Cheers

Stuart

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Best Doctor - a highly controversial choice - Sylvester McCoy - had he some decent scripts he would have been generally seen to be the best imo, when he is good (such as Remembrance of the Daleks, Ghost Light, etc), he is amazing. He was a slightly dark, manipulating Dr with a real edge. Met him oncer in a pub in Edinburgh during the Festival, he chatted to us for a bit and it was suddenly a double take moment when I recognised the voice...

He's not my favourite, but he'd be in my top three classic Doctors. He had some great stories (Happiness Patrol, Greatest Show in The Galaxy, the one's you mention).

My top boy would be Pertwee, because I liked the Doctor being trapped on Earth and all the UNIT stuff. The Brigadier, Benton, Yates and Jo Grant (cracking legs) were all great characters.

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i'd go along with pertwee cos my first memory on this earth is of invasion of the dinosaurs! but i've recently warmed to patrick troughton - shame only 6 of his 21 stories survive in the archives. mccoy was good but was a victim of poor scripts but he had some good stories most notably the dalek one set in 1963, ghost light and battlefield. tom baker still a legend in the role an all.

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I am in a good position to comment on the early Doctors, having watched the series from the very start, but losing touch after Jon Pertwee until the newer lot.

I thought McCoy was grim, as were Colin Baker and Peter Davison!

My favourite was Tom Baker, closely followed by Troughton and Hartnell, but my real heroes were the Daleks, and I still have my dalek badge which my late granny gave me c.1965:up:

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Guest bluesxman

I only really watched it as a kid when Tom Baker was in it, so he is usually the actor I most associate with the role. Lost what interest I had when Peter Davidson took over the role. I've seen some of the old Jon Pertwee ones, he seemed OK. Peter Cushing was good in the movies.

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Colin Baker and McCoy were complete prats as far as I was concerned. Awful actors, awful stories, awful directing. Watch The Seeds of Doom or The Deadly Assassin or The Talons of Weng Chiang. That's Dr Who without the camp hammy bits!

I'll agree that Colin Baker was my least favourite, but he had some good stories: Trial of The Timelord, Terror of the Vervoids...

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The Talons of Weng Chiang! Yas!

I was rocking back and forth trying to remember that name. I've sadly not seen a lot of the original Who but would certainly like to see more - and ones along this sort of line would be ideal :)

You know Chrtistopher Eccleshite said in an interview he had dismissed old Dr Who as rubbish then RTD made him sit down and watch Talons of Weng Chiang and he was amazed at how good it was.

They are ALL on you tube now, go see! Seeds of Doom is very good, unbelieveably violent and sadistic in places! Ex-mercenaries, petrol bombs, the Doctor twisting people's necks, having his head rammed on a dustbin lid...jeez!

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Interesting episode and the Face of Boe making his statement which was very cryptic and contradictory saying: "I am the last of my people as you are the last of yours" first, saying the Dr isnt alone doesnt specifically say that there's other timelords (though we all know there is), it just means he's not alone, and he isnt, he has Martha to help him through etc, I actually thought they'd designed that to be deliberately misleading. Anyway I liked the episode, but did wonder why the Dr just left the de-evolved Macra there, to wonder around go into the higher levels to where there must be factories etc and pollution and raise havoc...

The script was VERT shaky at times and disjointed, they made a big deal of the Dr and the emotion sellers at the beginning and he'd forgotten them by the end despite his warning of coming to shut them down. As i said I liked it, but plotholes big enough to fly the tardis through and with regards to next weeks:

Russell, we know you only have a 3 year lease on using the daleks but dont you think that 6 epsiodes featuring them in 2 and a half series might be too much? I like the daleks but Enough !!!

Cheers

Stuart

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The script was VERT shaky at times and disjointed, they made a big deal of the Dr and the emotion sellers at the beginning and he'd forgotten them by the end despite his warning of coming to shut them down.

Agreed. The story concept was great, and the Face of Bo is cool, as was Ardal O'Hanlon; but the script was very clunky and it's starting to irritate me that Russel T Davies has to shoe-horn in some element of homosexuality into every episode he writes. I'm no homophobe, but it's Dr Who, not Queer As Folk.

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i agree, i think it was the weakest of the new series. some good ideas but as has been said above the script was really clunky - then some of that awful sentimental tosh near the end that ruined a lot of the last series (though martha is not nearly as girlie and soppy as rose!!!) good to see the macra making a return mind and in a quite fucked up form!

and yes jester as we've discussed on msn, they're using the daleks too heavily - in fact its becoming somewhat boring now - i think the appearance of a dalek at the end of the little teaser spoiled what looks like an interesting story. maybe davies is under pressure from above to produce 2 dalek stories per episodes? wouldn't suprise me if clueless executives insisted on their inclusion!

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