Am more a david tennant fan lol, although i did catch the final christopher eccleston episode

Was a brave choice, he is pretty unknown i think. i love mr tennant, am sure he will get some great film roles, i miss catherine tate in it too though.

For UK television, this series was way ahead of its time. Just a personal opinion, the best enemies are the Daleks, Cybermen, Ice Warriors and the Sea Devils, while the Best Doctors were Patrick Troughton, Tom Baker and David Tennant.

The new series has been brilliant generally, with only a few progammes falling under that standard. Best dialogue in the new series was between the Cybermen and the Daleks, a slanging match which ended with the Daleks kicking Cyberman butt.

Shame it was off TV for so long, but it's a huge welcome back, on my part. I hope the new Doctor brings even more to the character.

I practically grew up watching Doctor Who. It first showed up when I was about 7, with a local TV station carrying Jon Pertwee reruns. But they only showed him for a short time and the show disappeared. When I was 11, they started showing Doctor Who again, but this time with Tom Baker. I was a little confused at first since I remembered the Doctor having white hair, a frilly shirt, and a cape. This was before I learned about the concept of regeneration. I fanatically watched it for over a decade.

The reruns lasted through Leela's last story, and then started over again with the first Tom Baker story, which is when I connected Jon Pertwee and learned about regeneration. The show ran this way for several years. Later they added the rest of Baker's stories and when he regenerated in "Logopolis", I was like, "Noooo!!!!". Then the reruns went back to Baker's beginning again. It was couple of years before they added the Peter Davison years and I found out what happened. Then they would loop the entire Baker-Davison years again. When I was in high school they added the Colin Baker episodes and after I graduated they showed everything from Pertwee through Colin Baker.

Then when I was in college, the TV station went back to the very beginning with the First Doctor. I have to admit that I didn't see many of his episodes. I was less than impressed with him and his stories. I even thought to myself that it was amazing that people liked this guy enough to keep the show running long enough to get better Doctors. Another reason I didn't see much of William Hartnell's stories was that the BBC had managed to either lose or deliberately throw out some of his and Patrick Troughton's stories. (Idiots.) Since I wasn't watching regularly, I missed the early Patrick Troughton episodes because I thought they were still running Hartnell. And then there was again the problem of the lost stories. So while I liked Troughton a lot, I'm not as familiar with his stories compared to other Doctors'. After that they ran Pertwee/Tom Baker again, and I thought they would start looping all the reruns from the very beginning through Colin Baker.

Didn't happen.

At the end of one story, about halfway through this run of Tom Baker, the S.O.B. TV station announced it was proud to have brought you Doctor Who for many years, but they would no longer going to air it. As of that night. There was no pre-warning; I think they wanted to avoid a possible backlash if the fans knew ahead of time.

Bastards. 

(And I only had that one chance to see some of Troughton's stories.  )

I felt bad for Colin Baker, who got shafted and let go from the show just because the head of BBC's programming didn't like him personally (not because of his portrayal of the Doctor). I only saw two stories of Sylvester McCoy's. My friend bought them on video tape several years later. What little I saw of McCoy himself was OK; he might have been a good Doctor for all I know. But the two stories weren't all that great. Over the years there had been, of course, many turnovers of the writing staff. I think the last staff, from Colin Baker's last season through McCoy's, wasn't very good and I wouldn't be surprised if it was poor stories that ended the original series.

As sara777 said, it might have been a good thing that the original series ended when it did. If the show continued, it was about to launch something called the "Cartmel Masterplan". Named after the show's script editor, the idea was that there were three original Time Lords: the already familiar Rassilon and Omega, and a third mysterious figure whose name was lost to even Time Lord history and was know only as "The Other". There was some nonsense about Time Lords being sterile, so that they had to reproduce new Time Lords from "looms", which contained recombined Time Lord DNA. Miraculously, one of the these spawned Time Lords was an exact reincarnation (not regeneration) of The Other's DNA, and that person, of course, would turn out to be the Doctor. Sounds like a stupid idea to me.

Paul McGann was great as the Doctor, but his one appearance was a terrible story. The new Doctors have been good and most of the stories have been, too (although I miss cliffhangers at the end of most episodes ), but what I don't understand is why they don't sign these Doctors to longer contracts. Christopher Eccleston was only in one season and David Tennant was only in three (plus some 2009 specials)? The man only has two regenerations left! (Yes, I know... if the show goes on for that long, I'm sure they'll find some way around it. Or maybe the show will finally end with the 13th Doctor. Not the kind of thing you'd usually see on American TV, but I've noticed that BBC programs have no problem making surprising moves like killing off characters in shows like Blake's 7, Hex, Torchwood, and Robin Hood.)

As for the new Doctor... well, we'll have to wait and see. I thought Peter Davison and David Tennant were young enough Doctors, but hiring a guy who's only in his 20's? I read somewher they were actually looking for an older actor, but came across Matt Smith and thought he was right for the part. So instead of making him older, I think they're making him "a grumpy old man trapped in a young man's body". We Americans won't get to see the new season until sometime in the spring.

If I had to rank them:

Tom Baker
Patrick Troughton
David Tennant
Paul McGann
Colin Baker
Peter Davison
Jon Pertwee
Christopher Eccleston
Sylvester McCoy
William Hartnell


Best,

  - The MoonShadow

Howling wrote:

---

Firstly, he changed the TARDIS. I mean, where's the rest of it? Where's the second console room? 

Stage right, I guess. There's a door or something off to the right. The Doctor waved Rose off that way and said something like "The wardrobe is through there." That was the in "The Unquiet Dead", I think. I'm assuming that's where the rest of the TARDIS is, just like it used to be (in the old days there was a white door with a circular window).

As far as the console room goes, it has changed over the years, although very gradually. The Fifth Doctor in particular gave it a face-lift. At the start of "The Five Doctors", I believe; less switches and levers and more buttons so it looked more modern. It even had a computer screen and keyboard.

I think the look was supposed to reflect the fact that the TARDIS is some how sort of alive, so they gave it an organic look. But, yeah, it is ugly.

Secondly, making the Doctor 'romantically' involved with his companions... NO!

I guess he had to fall in love eventually. There was sort of some romance in the Paul McGann movie, but that was a screwed up story anyway. But it does seem strange. That's why with Mickey aboard the TARDIS and Madame De Pompadour in "The Girl in the Fireplace", it was kind of a relief to have the Doctor-Rose relationship put on hold, at least for one episode. And then there was that odd mood in "School Reunion" when it seemed like Sarah Jane was implying she had been in love with the Doctor, which seems even weirder. Never seemed like a romantic relationship to me on either of their parts, and Tom Baker didn't exactly scream "leading romantic man".

Thirdy, how come the TARDIS seems to be working again now? A major part of all the stories has been that the Doctor had no idea where in the universe or at what point in time the TARDIS was going to land....

Umm... the 7th, 8th, or 9th Doctor parked it somewhere and fixed the navigation system off-screen? Or maybe the Time Lords helped him fix in return for some kind of service he is sometimes called on to perform for them. But I don't think that's a major problem; he seems to be able to set it for random, throw a switch, and end up in some place he isn't expecting. The chameleon circuit still seems to be broken, though.

...which leads me to number four: since Christopher Eccleston took over it seems like 99% of the time, all the storylines have been set on earth. Or more to the point... England!

Budgetary reasons would be my guess. Not wanting to spend too much money on a show that they weren't sure would work or not. Cheaper to use pre-exisiting shooting locations, sets, and props. (Much like how the Enterprise often ended up finding cultures amazingly similar to those of Earth on the original Star Trek.

And last but not least... he killed off all the other Timelords!

I think that was for dramatic purposes, making the Doctor extra-special as "the last of the Time Lords". But I agree, a mistake.

(And that's not to mention that fact that Freema Agyeman never appeared barefoot! )

David Tennant's third season, when she was a guest star. "The Poison Sky" ("part 2" of the "The Sontaran Strategem"). She was clad in only a hospital gown and the Doctor's coat. But it was all bad angles or you only saw her feet at a distance, like running across a lawn. Nothing to see really. But for that matter, we never saw Billie Piper barefoot either.

Sorry Russell. Thanks for bringing Doctor Who back to our screens but goodbye and good riddance. Hopefully someone will take over who will right all your wrongs!

I'm a little concerned. Except for the Daleks, the new producer Steven Moffat has said that he won't be using other classic enemies. I think that's a big mistake. His vision is apparently a new Doctor Who for the new generation of viewers.

Best,

 - The MoonShadow