As per BBC, 17 years ago the greatest show ever was resurrected when Christopher Eccleston was announced as the Ninth Doctor in Doctor Who’s return to the TV screens. I am a big fan of the show and I remember being super excited when the first episode ‘Rose’ was leaked on the web and then watching the full season. It was disappointing when they regenerated to the 10th Doctor but then again Matt Smith was brilliant in the role so there’s that. This was the first time I watched Dr Who as the older Doctor Who episodes were not available widely. I had however, read every single Target adaptation multiple times along with most of the other novelizations.
I recently did a re-watch of the entire series starting with the 9th Doctor as I was feeling nostalgic and I got all the way up to the 11th Doctor’s second season before stopping. I loved the 9th & 10th Doctor but didn’t really like the 11th (Matt Smith) & 12th (Peter Capaldi) at all. Matt was too hyper and Peter was too dour and grumpy all the time for my liking. Though they did have some great companions: Clara Oswald, Amy Pond and Rory Williams and some of the stories were nice. I didn’t like River Song much though, her character was a bit annoying at first and then they made it too meta and confusing.
After I got tired of the 11th Doctor, I stopped the re-watch but then saw a clip about Sarah Jane’s Smith’s introduction to the show. That made me realize that I had never watched all the episodes of the first three doctors. So I started watching the show from the 1st doctor onwards. Though, to be honest I didn’t like the 1st Doctor much as he was too arrogant and rude. Couldn’t watch the 2nd Doctor because most of his episodes were lost when BBC decided to discard/overwrite the tapes with the episode’s. (Thankfully a majority of episodes starting with the 3rd Doctor onwards survived.) So for the past few months I have been watching the 3rd Doctor’s episodes and I really like them. I mean the special effects and the costumes are hilariously bad but the stories are fun to watch.
I still like the 4th Doctor the best from the original series and the 10th from the new one. Overall I would rank them as follows: 10th Doctor (David Tennant), 4th Doctor (Tom Baker), 13th Doctor (Jodie Whittaker), 9th Doctor (Christopher Eccleston) and the 3rd Doctor (Jon Pertwee). The others are ok, but not my favorites. I know a lot of folks don’t like the 13th Doctor because it is played by Jodie but the stories in her arc have been some of the most interesting ones since the 10th Doctor and their acting has been superb. For a lot of the 12th Doctor stories I fast forwarded through them but the stories from the 13th Doctor were so interesting I hardly had to forward through any of them.
Waiting for the next season of the show to be released but till then I have a lot of old Who episodes to finish watching.
Well, this is all for now. Will post more later.
– Suramya