David Tennant named 'best Dr Who'

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Or, it's the fact that Dt is the current and latest doctor, and many of the fans now are young and stupid and vote for the latest one. Or because he's 'cute' or because they don't even know anyother doctors...

Well, DT definitely has the "cute" and "energetic" thing going. I wonder about the lack of exposure to other Doctors -- I'd be interested to find out how much of the voting audience had either seen the classic series or watched the DVDs, which are coming out in a torrent in the US and the UK. Still, many (like Zeke) have only seen the new series. The poll is from Doctor Who magazine, and its subscribers are likely to be more hard-core fans -- but the magazine itself breathlessly hypes the current series at every turn, so there's a little bit of programming involved.

One thing's for sure, though: Tom Baker was "the" Doctor for ages because ... he was "the" Doctor for ages. It was self-perpetuating. If that spell is broken, the Fourth Doctor episodes are going to start to look dated. I think that's one reason that Pertwee did so well -- turning away from Tom for new fans meant looking at David Tennant, but for classic fans meant looking at Tom's predecessor. (Before anyone gets up in arms, I'm not ranking on Tom -- I think he turned in some brilliant stuff. It's just all a long time ago now.)

By the way, "Three Doctors" is fun, but -- wow. Not only are the effects bad, but the set design is really nasty, and some of the plot is very dumb. But the Pertwee-Troughton-Brigadier dynamic is a hoot.

Originally Posted by Infinite Improbability

Uh, I'm not so sure about that longest-running thing anymore. I think in terms of sheer number of seasons, yeah, but continuous...Stargate owns that title, and I get the feeling it's gonna hold it for awhile.

I have a problem with this statistic. Stargate deserves credit for 203 continuous episodes without a break, which is what got it the Guiness record. That means Stargate achieved "the longest run of continous science fiction series episodes," which is impressive.

DW, however, delivered 695 episodes in consecutive seasons from 1963 to 1989. I'm not saying that's Better, or More Impressive. I'm saying that means DW is still the "longest running science fiction television series."

Can anyone really tell me what the big deal is with Doctor Who?

The nice thing about DW is that you don't have to watch all the episodes to get it or enjoy it, any more than you have to with TOS. Sure, seeing earlier episodes will give you context, just like watching "The Corbomite Maneuver" gives you background for "The Deadly Years." But each serial of DW is self-contained. Even in theme seasons, you can watch "The Ribos Operation" and enjoy it completely without caring a bit about the Key to Time or what happens to it later.

Yes, there are obsessive fans of DW, and they get just as obsessive and stubborn and exclusively cliquey as B5 fans or anyone else. Ignore them. The joy of DW is that it centers without fail on how one outsider and his friends submerge themselves in someone else's crisis and use ingenuity, not violence, to resolve it -- though not without an emotion toll on themselves. The Doctor compelling because he made himself into this sort of wandering god, and after doing it for so long, with all else fallen away, with his home world destroyed and his whole people gone, there is no other way of being for him.

And in that respect Zeke is right -- no one portrayed that tragic aspect of the Doctor's character as well as Chris Eccleston. CE "got" it -- the Doctor is lonely and damaged and he keeps going on to new worlds and other people's disasters because that's all there is for him. David Tennant (deliberately, I'm sure) lightened that aspect of his character, but it shows through occasionally. In "School Reunion," he says to his adversary, "I'm so old now. I used to be so full of mercy. You get one warning from me -- that was it." Only the Tenth Doctor could have a line like that and convey what it really meant -- but partly because we'd seen its rawer form as revealed by Chris Eccleston. But getting back to what I said before, "School Reunion" is a delight even if you never saw Chris Eccleston's Doctor, and even if you have no idea who this woman is who claims to have once traveled with the Doctor long ago. It stands on its own just as well as it fits into the larger puzzle.

One thing has stayed constant over the whole 43 years of TV, radio, film, plays, and books. Even the most ham-handed hack episode writer has a job messing up this core concept, though many have tried. Ultimately, DW is about the trade-offs of having the power to do good, and how it changes you as a person and affects the people you care about.