As I've written these posts on Doctor Who, I've never been quite sure what I was doing. Am I writing reviews of them? The people most likely to read them are way more up on Who then I'll ever be. But that's what I did, because that's what I thought I should do. I did try and go a bit deeper, with my own take on it, coming from a person who jumped onto Classic Who because of New Who (as I guess most new fans that look further back than Christopher Eccleston) but the niggling sensation of 'am I doing this right?' stayed there.
Yet with this current position I'm in – that of being pretty sick and tired of Pertwee, jumping around Big Finish output but not what I really want (even if the two Six serials have helped restore my faith), and just generally trying to improve my continuity knowledge – that question has gotten louder and louder. And I realised that I'm not.
No what I should be doing is charting my own journey through space and time. There's been a slide towards that with my vocal – is it vocal if I write it? - disinterest with the UNIT era. It's a nice place to visit, but I'm not keen on staying there.
Right now I'm at the start of Pertwee's second season, and only one more serial to watch from the recommendations and important moments list I created before this all started. My main objective with Big Finish and the Eight audios is on hold because I have to watch a certain Tom Baker episode first. My back up of Six and Evelyn is scuppered due to a Davison serial. I'm wallowing in not really being able to watch what I want, and that talking to I received from a rather attractive Whovian about watching it all in order still crops into my mind every now and again.
So from this point onwards – and to be honest, it might have already happened a bit because my writing is weeks, if not months, ahead of posting. Most obviously that the entire Capaldi season happened between me writing and posting this – I'm going to try and give a bit more of how I see the Doctor and his companions because I love looking at the characters. Or maybe the story telling because I like to think of myself as a writer.
Like I've got this weird thinking that the Second Doctor is so cheeky and out for adventure because as the First came to an end – as we joined him – he found this lust for life and adventure he'd lost or forgotten and his regeneration brought that to the fore. Likewise when Two was forcefully regenerated into Three he resented it all. The Time Lords for shackling him. Earth, the planet he used to love, for being his 'prison'. Even Earthlings because now he's living with them he can't just revel in their ways, but has to accept us as we truly are.
Things get a little shakey after that because my knowledge of Four and Five is still seriously lacking. But I'd say for Four he gets a little excitable now that he's allowed to do what he feels like again.
I'm not changing my plan though. I am ready to go back to Hartnell and pick up from where I left off, but I need those Baker and Davison stories to push on. In fact as I write this I imagine I'm going to go once more all the way to Seven - in small chunks – and then jump back again to the First Doctor now he's left Susan. Or maybe I won't. The fact I still have three regenerations to get round to is a big bugbear, and they are the relatively early ones as well.
Hopefully it's an enjoyable ride, and once I get my forced detours out the way things get a lot more fun around here.
Oh and since I did this post-50th I figured this might be a good place to drop how my ranking looks like:
Troughton
McGann
Smith
Colin Baker
Eccleston
Tennant
Hartnell
Davison
Tom Baker
McCoy
Pertwee
That top half is almost impossible to sort. I could move any one from Tennant up and barely notice. McCoy has only slipped because I've added one extra serial to my knowledge of him, and it didn't do him justice. Davison's slippage is again down to just not being sure. Out of the three I can't make my mind up on he's the one I've watched the most of. Colin Baker has leaped up, and it was only as I looked at the old article that I decided to put this in, because I needed to correct that horrendous act against me. It's probably the last time I do this, because I do genuinely enjoy them all. Well, almost. Pertwee most definitely goes last now.
The Ultimate Supper by Ray Friesen
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