Tuesday 20 December 2016

BOOK OF LISTS: DOCTORS - FROM WORST TO BEST - PART FOUR

Moving into the Upper Mid-Rangers. Again, we'll only tackle two more....

UPPER MID-RANGERS:

Once more, I'll stress that there is very little difference in my levels of appreciation, here. I do think the mid-rangers - upper or lower - are all excellent Doctors. Their eras were all very solid and I don't have a whole lot of problems with them. They don't quite appeal to me as much as they do my Final Top Three but I'm still very impressed with them.



5. THE SECOND DOCTOR

In my last post, I spoke of how difficult it must have been for Peter Davison to take over from Tom Baker. Well, Davison had nothin' on poor Patrick Troughton. Even McGann and Eccleston - who had the weight of the show's revival resting on their shoulders - didn't feel the sort of pressure Troughton must've been under.

The Second Doctor had to introduce the concept of regeneration to the audience for the first time. Up until that fateful moment at the end of Tenth Planet, no one knew that the Doctor could suddenly be played by a new lead. It was an idea the production team had only come up with themselves' in the few months before it was introduced on the show. So, suddenly, a new performer had to be accepted by the fans. If he wasn't, the show would die out by the end of the season.

Just as with Davison, the more marketable move would've been to make the transition as smooth as possible. Have the Second Doctor perform in a similar manner to the First. Perhaps even have him imitate him. So that the audience sees him as the same man with just a different face.

Once more, the production team decides to be artists. The Second Doctor is nothing like his predecessor. He's his own unique character who even goes so far as to play on the doubts of his two companions who are wondering if he's the same person as the man they just saw collapse before them on the TARDIS floor. Truthfully, the show could not have taken a bolder route in the change of its core format. And, once more, I fall in love with Doctor Who all the more for doing this.

Much like the other Upper Mid-Ranger that I will be listing after him, Troughton is off to a rough start. He pushes the comedy a little too hard and has to reign it in a bit before really settling into the role properly. But we are still so glad that he's allowed to play the role in his own way. The interpretation that he gives to the character is wonderful. Hartnell made sure to give layers to his Doctor, but Doctor Two goes even further. Every moment that he's on camera, we can see our new Doctor giving his One-Hundred-and-Ten Percent. Trying to make every line count as a contribution to the overall character he's brought to life. It's quite amazing to watch, really. Not just in those moments where he must appear larger-than-life. But also in those more subtle moments.

The scene where he speaks to Victoria about his family in Tomb of the Cybermen is often cited as an excellent insight into the character's "softer side". And I have to agree with Fandom on this point (a rare occasion, I'll admit). We've seen the Second Doctor running around like a mad lark. We've also seen him command authority, be mysterious and even show a hint of danger now and again. But, suddenly, he becomes delicate. But he does it in a way that is unique to his own character. It's done quite masterfully. And, by the end of the scene, we really do see that the portrayal is as three-dimensional as his predecessor or any other performer who will follow him. Fandom does love to go on about the sheer brilliance of Tom Baker - but they should really be talking about Troughton more (not to say that they don't talk about him at all - just that he should get more attention than he does).

Perhaps my favorite trait of Doctor Two is the way he loves to wrong-foot his enemy. His Cosmic Hobo image causes him to appear very unassuming or even a bit incompetent. In several stories, his foes brush him aside - thinking him completely harmless. Only to be defeated by him a short while later because he was purposely appearing meek so that they would underestimate him. We see, perhaps, one of the best examples of this when he makes his return appearance in The Three Doctors. The whole time the Second Doctor is confronting Omega, he plays the mad Time Lord like a fiddle. Pushing his buttons by babbling on about pipes and other such nonsense. Even his own third incarnation isn't entirely sure what he's up to, sometimes. Only in a brief aside between Two and Three do we see that he's completely in control of the entire situation. He's toying with the stellar engineer to see if there's a weakness to exploit. I love the approach that he uses when combating evil. It's a great image for the character: an impish bumbler who suddenly turns dangerous when you least expect it.

The Second Doctor not only passed the greatest challenge a new Doctor has ever faced. But he brought a radical change to the direction of the character. And he did it amazingly!



4. THE SEVENTH DOCTOR

Another actor who faced a lot of challenges as he first stepped into the role. The Sixth Doctor's final season ended in a behind-the-scenes nightmare which had a tremendous effect on how Doctor Seven entered the world. So much so, that many site Sylvester McCoy's first season as being the worst in the show's history (aside from the abysmal Dragonfire, I don't think it's actually that bad. In fact, I'd take it over Season 17 any day!). This created a very shaky start for what would be the last Doctor of the Classic Series.

But then we hit Season 25. Andrew Cartmel, the new script editor, is through with whatever teething problems he had during his first season and is now firing on all cylinders. He's bringing in great writers who are creating stories so sophisticated that TV still hasn't quite caught up with some of the conventions they used. This continues into Season 26 - causing the show to finish off on such a high note of creative brilliance that it's shameful we never got to see Season 27 (the story notes that have been shared indicated that it would've probably been a pretty awesome season. Still not sure how Ace was going to become a Time Lord but I'm confident it would've been handled well). As sad as it is that Doctor Who is over - it definitely went out with style. And we owe a lot of that to the awesomeness that is Doctor Seven.

His most predominant trait, of course, is his deviousness. In this body, the Doctor seems to be staring into the abyss - and the abyss, of course, is staring back into him. He's using a similar ruse to his second incarnation: a clownish exterior that can become formidable when it needs to. But he's taking the strategy so much further. And becoming so much darker because of it.

We actually see the first hints of this in Season 24. The Doctor seems to almost enjoy being deceptive. We see this, to some extent, in every story. He tricks the Rani into blowing up her own Brainiac. He uses a false rule from the Manual to escape from the guards of Paradise Towers. Gavrok and the Bannermen follow a whole series of false clues that lead them into a bee attack. He even lies to Mel about his real intentions for visiting Svartos. It's all there if you look for it.

But in his second season, all that becomes amplified. Doctor Seven becomes the Cosmic Chess Player and starts luring his greatest foes into massive acts of self-destruction. He is now pro-active. Rarely does he just stumble into misadventures like he used to. Now he's going to places where he knows there are problems and, already, has a plan in place to fix things. But the plan always involves deceit and manipulation. He's turning just a little bit into some of the villains he's berated over the years. He feels his ends are starting to justify his means. It's a great new "edge" to bring to the character that refreshes the whole way we look at our favorite hero.

There's also a lot to be said for some of the beautiful arcs that run through the Seventh Doctor's era. There's the Tutelage of Ace and Fenric's Sinister Plot. And the mysterious Cartmel Masterplan that, sadly, never sees its completion. All great little storylines that weave through the plots of Seasons 25 and 26. Adding extra dimension to some already well-layered adventures. This really is Doctor Who in one of its finest hours. Scenes like Fenric revealing that he's been interfering in the Doctor's journeys since Ace first dropped into his life just make things all the more magnificent. The sort of stuff fans just eat up.

In earlier drafts of the script for the 96 Telemovie, the Seventh Doctor was meant to make only the briefest of appearances. But as the polishing process progressed, the role was expanded. RTD was right in the opinion he expressed when Rose premiered. He had said starting the 96 Telemovie with a different lead in place may have created confusion for people approaching the show for the first time. Nonetheless, it was still nice to see Sylvester McCoy get a good amount of screentime before handing the baton over to McGann.

Doctor Seven, in his last appearance, seems to be a man more at peace with himself. Maybe, during those wilderness years, he has mended his ways and lost his desire to manipulate people and situations to achieve a greater good. He's just a straightforward adventurer, again. We can't say for sure, of course. But we do get that vaguest of impressions that this could be the case. The fact that he plays completely into the Master's plans rather than come up with some complex counterplot that indicates he knew, all along, what his enemy was up to tends to indicate that his scheming days are behind him.

I'd like to think that an arc was completed regarding the Seventh Doctor, himself. And we see but a glimpse of it just before he bows out to his successor.



Okay, if you've done the basic math, you know which three incarnations are still left. But what positions did they rank in? Tune in to find out....


Previous Installments: 

The Bottom:
http://robtymec.blogspot.ca/2016/11/book-of-lists-doctors-from-worst-to.html

Blink And You'll Miss Them:
http://robtymec.blogspot.ca/2016/11/book-of-lists-doctors-from-worst-to_28.html

Lower Mid-Rangers: 
http://robtymec.blogspot.ca/2016/12/book-of-lists-doctor-from-worst-to-best.html




2 comments:

  1. I've seen some Troughton, and I need to add more of it to my DVD collection. He did a very good job considering what had to deal with. As for Sylvester, I LOVED his Doctor! One thing I do need to correct you on though: Cartmel did NOT take over as Script editor until Season 25. JNT was doing both producer and Script Editor duties for McCoy's first season.

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  2. I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure Cartmel came in during Season 24. JNT had to double duties for parts of Trial of a Time Lord.

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