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"It feels different this time..." - The new Doctor Who Thread

Kazin

did i do all of that?
(he/him)
It's a weird poll all the way around. Hartnell is unusually high (not undeservedly, I just don't usually see him up there in these sorts of things), and I don't think I've seen one with Davison in last place. Eccleston is oddly low, as well. Strange!
 

Phantoon

I cuss you bad
I'm never going to say someone's favourite Doctor is wrong but it's not the order I was expecting. Also Jodie Whittaker and Capaldi over Smith. Although Capaldi is completely amazing I wouldn't expect that to be the popular choice.

McCoy not number 1 or two, disgraceful scenes OK I know I'm on my own here
 

Kazin

did i do all of that?
(he/him)
Alright let's do it, let's rank them, I know it's a TT cliche but fuck it. For me:

1. Peter Capaldi
2. Patrick Troughton
3. Sylvester McCoy
4. David Tennant
5. Matt Smith
6. Tom Baker
7. Christopher Eccleston
8. Peter Davison
9. Jodie Whittaker
10. William Hartnell
11. Paul McGann
12. Jon Pertwee
13. Colin Baker

The top 3 will probably never change, but the rest are pretty fluid for me.
 

Phantoon

I cuss you bad
oof, I haven't seen huge amounts of stuff older than Davison, so I'm going to end up being desperately unfair to good Doctors here

1. Matt Smith
2. Peter Capaldi
3. Sylvester McCoy
-> John Hurt
4. Tom Baker
5. Patrick Troughton
6. Jon Pertwee
7. David Tennant
8. Christopher Eccleston
-> Jo Martin
9. Peter Davison
10. William Hartnell
11. Paul McGann
12. Jodie Whittaker
13. Colin Baker
 

Johnny Unusual

(He/Him)
For me, off the dome....

1. Tom Baker (boring answer but he's the platonic ideal of the Doctor for me, though all Doctors are good Doctors)
2. Matt Smith
3. David Tennant
4. Patrick Troughton
5. Peter Davidson
6. Jodie Whittaker (might be higher on my list if the series was currently worthy of her)
7. Sylvester McCoy
8. Peter Capaldi
9. Jon Pertwee
10. Christopher Eccleston
11. Colin Baker
12. William Hartnell
13. Paul McGann
14. Grand Moff Tarkin
 

Phantoon

I cuss you bad
Yeah, that's where I'm at, too. I like Whittaker herself a lot - she just doesn't get the writing I'd like to see.

Yeah, I was tempted to stick a note by my rating. I think she could be a good Doctor if she had actual characterization and was allowed to take control of plots every so often.
 

Zef

Find Your Reason
(He/Him)
Of course Tennant is my #1, and I can probably put Eccleston at #2 but I have serious trouble ranking 11~13. They're all great actors, performers, and Doctors, but some of the stories and characterization they were given is eeeeeeeeeegh. Though I suppose Smith's first series is superior to Capaldi's and Whittaker's.

For Classic Who, of course it's Rowan Atkinson. Followed by Baker, then Pertwee and McGann. I've seen too little of the others to form an opinion.
 

Vaeran

(GRUNTING)
(he/him)
I have serious trouble ranking 11~13. They're all great actors, performers, and Doctors, but some of the stories and characterization they were given is eeeeeeeeeegh.

This is pretty much where I'm at. I love me some Peter Capaldi, for instance, but the Twelfth Doctor is forever tainted for me by his utterly gross creeping on/negging of Clara through season 8, which I complained about ad nauseum on the old forums. While it's easy enough to mentally separate acting from writing and to recognize when an actor is not being given the material to allow them to really shine, I don't know that I can evaluate the character of a Doctor separately from the scripting of their stories. As open-minded as I try to be about a new Doctor, it took me a long, long time to warm up to Twelve after his unpleasant early characterization, and by then his time in the role was just about up. A Doctor who makes me ACTIVELY UNCOMFORTABLE is going to place real low in the rankings, and that's a damn shame given the chops that Capaldi brought to the role.

I don't really feel like ranking them all at the moment, but put me down for Tennant as #1.
 

Kazin

did i do all of that?
(he/him)
Whatever season 8 merits - and I like it a lot, on the whole - you're not alone on finding it uncomfortable. For as much as I love the Capaldi era, it's viewership declined dramatically.
 

Kirin

Summon for hire
(he/him)
Well I guess I'll get to weigh in on that soon, since I just got to Time of the Doctor.

Not as much fun as Day, to be sure, and honestly the first half wasn't really gripping me, but it pulled it all home in the end. I was a little distracted by the fact that it never really explained why the Doctor was significantly aging over the centuries now while Smith had *already* gone walkabout for centuries during the whole Season 6 arc and not aged a day. It also feels kind of weird to think that with all this getting stuck here and there he's probably now spent almost as long as Smith as all his other lives put together.

Anyway seeing Amy again for a second was nice (and pulled off a bit less overwrought than Tennant's farewell tour) (also I thought her hair looked off - turns out she'd just come from playing Nebula in GotG so she was *also* in a wig!) but what really got me was the Doctor's final lines, "We all change, when you think about it, we're all different people; all through our lives, and that's okay, that's good, you've gotta keep moving, so long as you remember all the people that you used to be." That really hit home hard for me right now.

On to Capaldi! Now I gotta find those spoilers I skipped a couple pages back...
 

Phantoon

I cuss you bad
"We all change, when you think about it, we're all different people; all through our lives, and that's okay, that's good, you've gotta keep moving, so long as you remember all the people that you used to be."

Yeah, it's a powerful quote. There's some amazing quotes from Doctor Who and Capaldi won't let you down for them either.
 

Kirin

Summon for hire
(he/him)
Fancy new intro! (Fancy new Doctor!)

Deep Breath - It feels like the show it trying to work really hard this time to help the audience through their feelings about switching Doctors, but it does work with these characters. Also happy to see our Victorian buds as always! Their presence also lends a nice bit of continuity as we settle in to probably the most jarring regeneration of the new series so far. The driving plot *other* than dealing with the regeneration was a perfectly serviceable iteration on "alien just trying to survive is killing lots of people in the process and that needs to stop"... poor dino, though. (Gotta admit it kept bugging me that that T-rex was way bigger than a T-rex should be. Tyranosaurus stumbling up the Victorian Themes was a great WTF opening shot though.)

Not making any judgements on what I think of Capaldi-Doctor yet as he's (in-character) clearly just getting his bearings. But Actor-Capaldi is obviously nailing the feeling they're going for right now.

Looks like we're getting a brand new villain arc too?
 

Kazin

did i do all of that?
(he/him)
I adore series 8. I'm not taking away anyone else's issues with the 12th Doctors characterization, especially early on in the series, but there's so many good episodes. I hope you end up enjoying it.
 

Phantoon

I cuss you bad
Yeah, there's some absolute stormers in season 8, and the arc the Doctor goes through with Clara is incredible. The last two episodes of series 8 in particular are brilliant.

In my opinion, the character arc that 12 goes through is 6 but done right. You realise that rather than being uncaring it's all deception to cover the fact he cares so much he can go beyond all reason.
 

Kazin

did i do all of that?
(he/him)
Yeah, there's some absolute stormers in season 8, and the arc the Doctor goes through with Clara is incredible. The last two episodes of series 8 in particular are brilliant.

In my opinion, the character arc that 12 goes through is 6 but done right. You realise that rather than being uncaring it's all deception to cover the fact he cares so much he can go beyond all reason.

I agree with this but I cannot dispute what Zef and Vaeran are referring to - 12 says some absolutely ridiculous shit to Clara, and you know, she's fucking Jenna Coleman. The "jokes" would be in bad taste even if she didn't look as good as her, but they're nonsensical and just dumb. It's an absolutely fair criticism of Moffat and indefensible (not that you were defending it, but I think I did on the old forum and I was wrong).

I do think that if you take that crap out of series 8, it would then be in a competition with series 9 for best series of the show (not to raise Kirin's expectations going in or anything lol). I really like what the show did in general during Capaldi's time but some of the lines he was given in the first half of series 8 were just stupid.
 

Phantoon

I cuss you bad
Yeah, I wish they hadn't gone for the negging angle, whatever intentions they had it left a bad taste in the mouth. I'm guessing if you want the Doctor to appear to be an apparent jerk but still the Doctor it doesn't leave much wiggle room for things to do but they made a bad choice.

REALLY DON'T BE READING THIS KIRIN

I think the ending of series where he says "you think I care so little about you that you betraying me makes any difference?" and the end of the relationship where one or the other of them was going to potentially end the universe to save the other is amazing and shows just how frightening the concept of the Doctor could be.
 

Kazin

did i do all of that?
(he/him)
REALLY DON'T BE READING THIS KIRIN

I think the ending of series where he says "you think I care so little about you that you betraying me makes any difference?" and the end of the relationship where one or the other of them was going to potentially end the universe to save the other is amazing and shows just how frightening the concept of the Doctor could be.

Agreed 100%. The first ten minutes or so of Dark Water are as good as Doctor Who gets imo.
 

Phantoon

I cuss you bad
She's the best version of that character and it's not even fucking close.

She makes sense. She's hilarious and chaotic and genuinely terrifying. If we ever see a version half as good again it'll be a shock and a delight.
 

Kazin

did i do all of that?
(he/him)
I should retitle this thread "Phantoon and Kazin post a lot about agreeing with each other about the show - the Doctor Who thread" lol
 

Kirin

Summon for hire
(he/him)
Lol, thank you for the NO REALLY, STOP there, as I *had* been peeking. I stopped, honest. 😅
 

Kazin

did i do all of that?
(he/him)
I should retitle this thread "Phantoon and Kazin post a lot about agreeing with each other about the show - the Doctor Who thread" lol

Lol, thank you for the NO REALLY, STOP there, as I *had* been peeking. I stopped, honest. 😅

subtitle "...while poor Kirin resists his urges to click the endless spoiler texts" lol
 

sfried

Fluffy Prince
Starting 3rd episode of the Whittaker season. The one with Rosa Parks.

I already like the Chris Chambal era more than Stephen Moffat era.
 

sfried

Fluffy Prince
I think it is, personally. I also like most of those asspulls though lol
I hated Moffats asspulls with prejudice! That stuff didn't make sense.
Doctor casually using a gun to shoot someone is the height of bullshit.
 
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