Doctor Who original series ballot poll RESULTS THREAD

http://ak-hdl.buzzfed.com/static/2013-11/enhanced/webdr02/25/12/anigif_enhanced-buzz-27341-1385399708-24.gif

11 ballots received in total

the 'favourite villan' and 'favourite companion' side polls didn't really work because the votes were spread too thinly, but I'll get those out of the way now for the sake of completeness

Favourite Villan

one vote each for:

The Cybermen

Salamander

Tobias Vaughn

The Autons

Nyder

Sil

The Chief Clown

winner with 4 votes:

https://burrunjorsramblesandbabbles.files.wordpress.com/2014/11/d3a3e-doctorwho50e28093terroroftheautonsthemaster.jpg?w=490&h=376

The Master (NB: two people specified the Delgado version)

Favourite Companion

one vote each for:

Ian

Jamie

Romana I

Romana II

Ace

and two votes each for

http://www.thiel-a-vision.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/sarah.jpg

Sarah Jane Smith

http://33.media.tumblr.com/55666bab8a3ee3c71e29784617698f11/tumblr_inline_nbnlbtPpLy1qzdq3h.png

Leela

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/ea/1d/05/ea1d0593947e200ad9b4bc60a00dc7ef.jpg

Adric

favourite doctors next:

http://i.ytimg.com/vi/iG8VZmFep40/hqdefault.jpg

7th place, 13 points: Colin Baker

http://images.radiotimes.com/namedimage/First_Doctor_William_Hartnell__the_Daleks_were_a_distraction.jpg?quality=85&mode=crop&width=620&height=374&404=tv&url=/uploads/images/original/37825.jpg

joint 5th place, 25 points, 1 first place vote: William Hartnell

http://watchplayread.com/files/2013/10/tumblr_llrctjmBj71qf0ksdo1_500.jpg

joint 5th place, 25 points, 1 first place vote: Sylvester McCoy

http://www.needcoffee.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/jon-pertwee-doctor-who.jpg

4th place, 27 points, 1 first place vote: Jon Pertwee

http://olddoctorwho.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/wpid-patrick-troughton-cosmic-hobo-doctor-who.jpg

3rd place, 39 points, 2 first place votes: Patrick Troughton

wow even with the missing episodes, I did not expect 5 to beat 2 given how people talk about that era of the show

http://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/tardis/images/1/19/FiveHoldsOnPOF.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20121118031927

2nd place, 40 points, 3 first place votes: Peter Davison

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CVA2dE3WUAAiDFX.jpg

1st place, 48 points, 2 first place votes: Tom Baker

top 5 worst stories next, followed by the top 25 favourite

http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/timelash_7806.jpg

Timelash (1985) written by Glen McCoy, directed by Pennant Roberts. 8 points, 1 first place vote

aw, poor Timelash

http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/01208/7th-mccoy_1208525i.jpg

4th place Time and the Rani (1987) Written by Pip and Jane Baker, directed by Andrew Morgan. 9 points, 1 first place vote

otoh eff this story, one hilarious pisstake scene mocking Mel does not make up for the rest of it

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_2D8MZ1HL__Y/S9wEThBO3NI/AAAAAAAABts/w8OKQWyBBBs/s320/MICHAEL+KILGARRIFF+(1).jpg

3rd place Attack of the Cybermen (1985) written by Paula Moore, directed by Matthew Robinson. 11 points, 1 first place vote

I am assuming nothing can keep the Twin Dilemma from the top here.

this is the only context under which I will ever root for Delta and the Bannermen

not that Twin Dilemma is any good either, mind you

https://doctorwhofromthestart.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/the-twin-dilemma1.jpg

2nd place- The Twin Dilemma (1984) written by Anthony Steven, directed by Peter Moffatt. 12 points, 2 first place votes

RONGEST result of the whole poll coming up now, imo

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-9qoQZRCcCjc/U5YTw6Ng7WI/AAAAAAAABEc/LMAvc5_4tC8/s1600/image.jpg

1st place - Delta and the Bannermen (1987) written by Malcolm Kohll, directed by Chris Clough. 14 points, 2 first place votes

written by "Paula Moore"

pffft, Delta is enormously better than the other four

I have not watched Delta since the first time I saw it, largely because I hated it so much that I swore I wold never watch it again.

http://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-uEXlT1cZ_pc/VVD1LTE2zsI/AAAAAAAAC-k/orlVjeRDWOQ/s640/blogger-image-1655993549.jpg

25th place - The Deadly Assassin (1976) written by Robert Holmes, directed by David Maloney. 33 points, 3 votes

sorry, 4 people votes for The Deadly Assassin, not 3

https://gillatt.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/doctor-who-snakedance-20110426012552382_640w.jpg

24 - Snakedance (1983) written by Christopher Bailey, directed by Fiona Cumming. 35 points, 3 votes

This top 25 is already off to a strong start

http://images.radiotimes.com/uploads/images/original/19049.jpg?quality=85&mode=crop&width=620&height=413&404=tv

23 - Ghost Light written by Marc Platt, directed by Alan Wareing. 38 points, 3 votes

Ghost Light is a much better book than television episode

https://corleonesandlannisters.files.wordpress.com/2015/06/p00v29yw.jpg

22 - The Aztecs (1964) written by John Lucarotti, directed by John Crockett. 4 votes, 39 points

http://41.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m1g1zrZUud1r6jyp7o1_540.jpg

(TIE) 20 - The Five Doctors (1983)[b] written by Terrance Dicks, directed by Peter Moffatt. 3 votes, 40 points

http://images.radiotimes.com/namedimage/The_Brain_of_Morbius______.jpg?quality=85&mode=crop&width=580&height=350&404=tv&url=/uploads/images/original/145.jpg

[b](TIE) 20 - The Brain of Morbius (1976) written by 'Robin Bland', directed by Christopher Barry. 3 votes, 40 points

http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/images/ic/640x360/p00v8v4q.jpg

19 -Inferno (1970) written by Don Houghton, directed by Douglas Camfield & Barry Letts. 4 votes, 1 first place vote, 40 points

I enjoy The Five Doctors but, as a story, it's an incoherent mess. I'm somewhat surprised that people rate it so highly, particularly next to a story like The Brain of Morbius (and OVER The Aztecs)

thus continues DJP's poll rollout monologue as he avoids doing actual work

this scene single handedly justifies the existence of The Five Doctors imo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrvh_jB6c70

I think I mentioned on my ballot that The Five Doctors doesn't waste a second of it's 90 minutes. There's a lot going on, so I guess it's downside is that it jumps around a lot. But when it was first broadcast in 1983, the BBC had just finished showing a whole load of Hartnell/Troughton/Pertwee stories, and the Baker era was still reasonably fresh in everyone's minds. So as a 9 year old Who nut I really enjoyed it.

I will admit that The Five Doctors was the first time I realized that Sarah Jane knew more than one incarnation of the Doctor and that the Doctor and Brigadier had known each other FOREVER, plus it was my first exposure to Susan, Jamie and Zoe, so in terms of enticing me to fully leap into the show's history, it was very successful.

I still think it's a mess of a story, though.

I watched The Brain of Morbius again recently and was kind of surprised by how grisly the whole thing is, not just the onscreen violence but the way it revels in its own unpleasentness, it's not really surprising they were ordered to tone things down. The Two Doctors is the only other thing from the original series I can think of that comes close (particularly Holmes' novelisation where he makes more explicit some of the stuff that is hinted at onscreen)

https://doctorwhomindrobber.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/the-mind-robber-the-doctor-and-gulliver.jpg?w=652

18 - The Mind Robber (1968) written by Derrick Sherwin & Peter Ling, directed by David Maloney. 6 votes, 44 points

I love this story to bits and not just because of the scene where the TARDIS explodes and everyone is clinging to the floating console

the bit at the end of this one where Troughton and the Charles Hamilton character battle against each other by each adding new sentences to the story that Zoe + Jamie are trapped in is maybe my favourite scene from the whole series

also includes the best in-story explanation for why a central character is suddenly being played by a completely different person

As a serial it's an example of a clever idea that's also cleverly told. Something that's unfortunately not the norm for Who and also rare elsewhere in TV sci-fi.

The Five Doctors is a complete shambles

It's a shame that individual episode titles were a thing of the past by then, so we don't ever separate the amazing "episode one" of The Mind Robber from the amazing four-parter that Ling wrote

http://i.imgur.com/f0YJAD0.jpg

17 - The Robots of Death (1977) written by Chris Boucher, directed by Michael E. Briant. 3 votes, 1 first place vote, 44 points

If it wasn't for directors being assigned against production codes and the inability to credit a writer, one imagines Sherwin may have run it as a one-parter, like the last time an earlier serial was cut.

(xpost)

if we'd done a side poll for 'best costume and set design in doctor who' I probably would have gone for Robots of Death

I only learnt last week (after rewatching) that Robots Of Death is so well-designed because the director thought the script was pissweak and needed all the help it could get. Imagine if this attitude had been applied to actually-terrible scripts.

have to take a break now, but i'll be back to do the last 5 in about an hour or so

Dan are you remembering that these votes are only for An Unearthly Child by Webber &al., not for the three-part story The Tribe Of Gum by Anthony Coburn?

Yes, I am.

another tie for 4th place

http://olddoctorwho.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/wpid-remembrance-daleks-mccoy-hand-omega.jpg

(TIE) 4 - Remembrance of the Daleks (1988) written by Ben Aaronovitch, directed by Andrew Morgan. 7 votes 87 points

https://johnkennethmuir.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/ark4.jpg

(TIE) 4 - The Ark in Space (1975) [i]written by Robert Holmes (from a story by John Lucarotti), directed by Rodney Bennett. 8 votes, 87 points

Ark > Remembrance but both are good; for years The Ark In Space was my favorite Doctor Who story over The Robots of Death (and Kinda) but the pendulum has swung Robots' way for me in the past 10 years

https://doctorwhofromthestart.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/genesis-of-the-daleks4.jpg

3 - Genesis of the Daleks (1975) written by Terry Nation, directed by David Maloney. 6 votes, 1 first place vote, 91 points

http://www.doctorwhoreviews.altervista.org/6R_files/The%20Caves%20of%20Androzani%20(1).jpg

2 - The Caves of Androzani (1984) written by Robert Holmes, directed by Graeme Harper. 8 votes, 1 first place vote, 92 points

http://redrocketrising.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/City-of-Death.jpeg

1 - City of Death (1979) written by "David Agnew" (pseudonym for David Fisher, Douglas Adams and Graham Williams), directed by Michael Hayes. 9 votes, 131 points

That's a worthy top 3 (although I'm kind of shocked Androzani isn't on my ballot, how did that happen)

also pour one out for Enlightenment, seemingly the most underrated 5th Doctor story of them all

my ballot (I can post anyone else's ballot as well if they no longer have a copy)

best:
carnival of monsters
the time warrior
ghost light
city of death
the ribos operation
snakedance
the androids of tara
the happiness patrol
an unearthly child
kinda
inferno
terror of the autons
paradise towers
mindwarp
the aztecs
the mind robber
the two doctors
the pirate planet
the invasion of time
the ark in space

worst:
timelash
attack of the cybermen
arc of infinity
the five doctors
logopolis

doctors ranked:
7th
2nd
4th
5th
1st
6th
3rd

favourite companion: Romana mk 1
favourite villain: Sil

Stories:

The Robots of Death
Kinda
The Ark In Space
The Pyramids of Mars
The Mind Robber
Tomb of the Cyberman
Snakedance
Earthshock
Seeds of Doom
The Aztecs
Genesis of the Daleks
City of Death
Enlightenment
The Ribos Operation
The Pirate Planet
Vengeance on Varos
The Talons of Weng-Chiang
Horror of Fang Rock
Resurrection of the Daleks
Paradise Towers

Worst stories:

Delta and the Bannermen
The Greatest Show in the Galaxy
Terror of the Vervoids
The Twin Dilemma
Dragonfire

Doctors ranked:
5
4
2
3
1
6
7

Favorite companion:
Leela (honorable mention to Tegan, Turlough, Sarah Jane, Zoe, Jamie)

Best villain:
The Master

No "The Three Doctors" waht I am no longer going to watch any of these on the Netflixes.

"Ark in Space" is a lot of fun IIRC, a lot more quickly paced than similarly themed stories from the era, no?

Logopolis as worst? It doesn't make an awful lot of sense but its got a hell of an atmosphere. I kept meaning to send in a ballot and totally spaced this weekend, so much for Warrior's Gate shooting to the top.

Favourite Story:

1 - Genesis of the Daleks.
2 - Silver Nemesis. Lots of different plot threads running in parallel, but it never gets confusing. Lady Peinfort and Richard are by turns amusing and menacing. The MacGuffin ending is a bit weak but on the other hand we get the sense that the Doctor is more like Bruce Wayne, ie, someone who actually plans things in advance, an idea that continued throughout McCoy's run.
3 - Caves of Androzani.
4 - Castrovalva. Not having the Doctor around for large portions of the story really gives the other regular characters room, especially Nyssa and Tegan.
5 - Battlefield
6 - Remembrance of the Daleks.
7 - The Five Doctors.
8 - City of Death.
9 - Warrior's Gate. I remember seeing the last episode of this story and being oddly moved at the end where Romana II and K-9 head off into E-Space with the warrior dude.
10 - Destiny of the Daleks. Benefits a lot from the script rewrite by Douglas Adams.
11 - The Abominable Snowmen.
12 - The Mind Robber.
13 - Ghost Light.
14 - The Visitation.
15 - Earthshock.
16 - The Web of Fear.
17 - The Greatest Show in the Galaxy.
18 - An Unearthly Child
19 - The Daemons. A great Roger Delgado Master story, also UNIT are shown as actually competant and the Brigadier gets the classic line "Chap with wings, there. Five rounds rapid.".
20 - The Armageddon Factor. Worth it for the Doctor's pretend freak out once the Key is assembled.

Worst Story:

1 - The Ultimate Foe. Just a confusing mess of a story. I feel sorry for Michael Jayston, as a potentially interesting villian (The Valeyard) is completely wasted.
2 - Mindwarp. No wonder the BBC sacked Colin Baker at the end of this season. He vies with Brian Blessed and Nabil Shaban for worst performance.
3 - Planet of the Daleks. A mish-mash of a plot, with most of the worst cliches of Pertwee era Who: running down corridors, crap companions, sonic screwdriver nonsense, the Doctor sermonising, and the continued nerfing of the TARDIS - it's doors get stuck closed by some tree sap? Really?
4 - Paradise Towers. You're in a tower block full of killer robots, gangs, and elderly ladies who turn out to be cannibals. Why not just, erm, leave?
5 - Time Flight. Stupidly plotted Master stories are not just limited to nu-Who. This story makes no sense: the Master is supposedly stuck 140 million years in the past, but can make a time rift that can bring back not one but two Concordes?

Favourite Doctor:

1 - 4th.
2 - 5th.
3 - 2nd.
4 - 7th.
5 - 1st. A big risk to have such an unlikeable central character. A curmudgeonly old man that comes across as an outsider who doesn't seem to care about anyone? But Hartnell gives the Doctor so many layers it works. This guy is on the run from his people and he's not happy about it.
6 - 3rd.
7 - 6th.

Favourite Companion: Ace. For my money she just edges out Adric as the most capable companion. Her relationship with the Doctor is believable, and their skills complement each other.

Favourite Villian: The Master, as played by Roger Delgado. As much as I like Anthony Aisley's panto villian portrail of the character, Delgado's more muted take is much more in line with The Master being Moriarty to the Doctor's Holmes.

putting Logopolis in the top 5 worst is maybe a little harsh and it does have some good parts, but it suffers from the 'Peter Grimwade gets five people to stand in a row' staging aspect that sic mentioned above even more than Kinda,the dialogue is atrocious and Nyssa, Adric + Tegan are at their most insufferable

I personally think listing Ace and Adric as the Doctor's most capable companions is flat-out insanity

apparently I need to rewatch Logopolis because I remember it being amazing but I haven't seen it in decades

Capable? Yes. Likeable? No.
Also, Logopolis has more Trek-babble than an episode of Voyager.

Ace is pretty likeable! I just don't think swinging a bat at a Dalek makes her de facto "capable". I mean, yes she likes explosives but she doesn't really turn into what I would call a "capable" character until several books into the Virgin New Adventures.

Adric has the potential to be capable but in practice is... not, even down to his very last appearance

Oh, I missed this rollout but there are some fantastic results here! Let me track down my ballot...

The Bidmeadian insanity of Logopolis is what makes it brilliant. As soon as you accept that he's the only person who knows what's going on and allow the whole episode to wash over you as a mathematic stream of consciousness, it gets a lot better.

Favourite Stories:
Kinda
Black Orchid
City of Death
Earthshock
Remembrance of the Daleks
Image of the Fendahl
The Tomb of the Cybermen
The Ark in Space
Ghost Light
Arc of Infinity
An Unearthly Child
Genesis of the Daleks
Caves of Androzani
Pyramids of Mars
Snakedance
The Curse of Fenric
The Talons of Weng-Chiang
The Masque of Mandragora
Castrovalva
Logopolis

Worst Story:
The Invasion (sorry)

Favourite Doctor:
5th <3
4th
7th
2nd
1st
6th
3rd

Favourite Companion:
ADRIC - Capable? It's Adric! Capability is last on the list of his endearing qualities. Ace was also a close second for me.

Favourite Villain:
Master

So happy to see Kinda and Black Orchid both placing highly - I didn't expect that at all. Both my favourites and totally demonstrative of the diversity of storytelling on show in that season. I have no idea where episodes usually place in these rankings, but I'm surprised to see The Ark in Space coming in at fourth too! It was the first original series story I ever saw (having started with the Russell T Davis era) and haunted me for weeks before I could face seeing another.

IIRC (it's been a long time since I've seen fan rankings) Kinda and The Ark in Space are both highly regarded across classic fandom

I watched a little of the commentary on Logopolis and Bidmead kept insisting "block transfer computation is real, this all makes sense!" and the other contributors were all "sure, whatever you say."

Great Poll! I can't find my ballot for some reason :/

MaresNest's ballot:

1. The Seeds Of Death
2. Terror Of The Autons
3. The Dæmons
4. The Ark In Space
5. The Brian Of Morbius
6. Pyramids Of Mars
7. The Tomb Of The Cybermen
8. The Tenth Planet
9. The Web Of Fear
10. The Talons Of Weng-Chiang
11. Image Of The Fendahl
12. Terror Of The Zygons
13. The Sea Devils
14. The Invasion
15. The War Machines
16. The Moonbase
17. The Mind Of Evil
18. The Mind Robber
19. Revenge Of The Cybermen
20. The Mutants

Worst Story:

Delta & The Bannermen

Fave Doctor:

Jon Pertwee

Fave Companion:

Sarah Jane Smith

Fave Villan:

The Cybermen

I was considering contacting MaresNest to confirm that he head meant to put The Seeds Of Death as his #1 and not The Seeds Of Doom... in the end it turned out that The Seeds Of Doom would just have missed out on the top 25 even if MaresNest had given it 20 points so it didn't matter (The Seeds Of Death is a good story as well, just not one I'd ever heard anyone else express much excitement about)

"Ark in Space" is a lot of fun IIRC, a lot more quickly paced than similarly themed stories from the era, no?

The entire first episode is just 4, Sarah & Harry wandering about a room or two of an abandoned spaceship.

DJP, you prefer Colin Baker to McCoy?!

Surprised by high rating for Black Orchid - I watched it after previous ILX recommendation and was unplussed. Admittedly Davison is lots of fun but the whole ep seemed kind of insubstantial.

I guess it's a good "hangout with 5" story tho'

I don't think McCoy works on television at all. The Virgin book series was astounding work in turning his character into what the show wanted him to be but never quite achieved.

he's obviously not the most accomplished/versatile actor to play the part, but McCoy has always been my favourite, he's really good at the sad melancholy bits, and giving an impression of being twinkly/charming but not completely trustworthy - on the downside, the scripts had an unfortunate tendency to give him big dramatic speeches which did not seem to be playing to his strengths and just ended up with him shouting lots.
I haven't read many of the New Adventures, I wasn't that keen on the interpretation of the 7th doctor in the ones I did read, they really doubled down on the dour, dark manipulator angle without McCoy's personal charm to balance it out, but maybe I just read the wrong ones.
I like some of the Big Finish plays with McCoy but I think his performance loses more than Davison or Colin Baker's do by moving to audio, a lot of it is visual, little smiles, indications that he is carefully observing everything that's taking place around him, as well as the little bits of schtick with umbrella and whatnot

v much enjoyed this poll. was a Who fanatic between the ages of 8-10 but flamed out after that, this gives me much to (re)visit. I actually really liked Attack Of The Cybermen at the time (is it the one with Alexei Sayle? Or was that a Dalek story?) though I daresay it has aged v poorly indeed. I think Revenge Of The Cybermen might be my favourite Who story, but again, that might be because my dad had taped it off TV at some point and so I had the VHS to rewatch to death in my youth.

Sayle was in Revelation Of The Daleks, the second-least-terrible Colin story. Same writer as Attack Of The Cybermen though.

Nice thread, am hoping to slowly work my way through the stories I haven't seen before, so hope you all picked some good'uns. One question - I always thought Talons of Weng Chiang was very, very highly regarded, so curious to see it absent here - is it now just too racist to be palatable?

I'm assuming people either forgot it or it was low enough on ballots that it didn't amass enough points to break into the countdown because it is a great story.

I don't have the full results to hand at the moment but Talons of Weng Chiang would have been #26, it was only one point behind The Deadly Assassin. I think that the Hinchcliffe + Holmes era stuff maybe suffered a little from vote splitting?

This was my ballot, and honestly it's weighted much more towards "what do I remember fondly" than "what's actually good". Black Orchid stuck with me more strongly than any other story I saw as a child (and gave me nightmares for years), Android Invasion has some massive flaws but I love the pastoral feel of it, Brain of Morbius because it's virtually a miniature hammer horror film, Earthshock because Adric was a proper hero to a slightly awkward 7 year old who was good at maths, and so on.

Black Orchid
The Android Invasion
The Brain of Morbius
Earthshock
Genesis of the Daleks
The Five Doctors
City of Death
Logopolis
Spearhead from Space
The Dalek Invasion of Earth
Mawdryn Undead
The Tomb of the Cybermen
Horror of Fang Rock
The Curse of Fenric
Planet of the Spiders
The Ark in Space
The Edge of Destruction
The Deadly Assassin
The Caves of Androzani
Remembrance of the Daleks

Worst story - the only one I've ever disliked enough to switch it off without finishing it was Attack of the Cybermen, so I'm only voting for that one.

Favourite Doctor - Fourth.

Favourite companion - Adric I'm afraid.

And favourite villain - Autons, I think.

But oops, I mixed up Revelation of the Daleks and Attack of the Cybermen too! So my worst story vote went to the wrong one. Sorry for ruining everything.

Hey Soref, thank you for posting the ballot. Yeah, I freely admit that The Seeds Of Death is not a particularly ground breaking DW story, and I wasn't attempting to be challop-y honest, I 'm just absurdly fond of it.

I think it was a gateway story for me back when I was buying the videos, exploring old Dr Whos (I grew up in the late Baker/Davidson era) and finding it difficult to adjust to the Hartnell/Troughton era, the telerecordings made it worse also, like a veil had been drawn over the screen somehow. Seeds Of Doom was the first story that clicked with me, probably just a timing thing but after that I could learn to slow down to the meet the show (and lower my expectations in some cases) which made it possible to enjoy the shows, I still struggle with quite a few, like anybody does I guess, especially the Historical stories.

^ this goes very little distance towards clearing up for soref whether you meant Seeds Of Death or Seeds Of Doom tbf

- is it now just too racist to be palatable?

It's really, really racist, but it's not actively racist in a manner that gets in the way of enjoying everything great about it.

(it's clear what Mares meant, just funny he got the title wrong)

It's really, really racist, but it's not actively racist in a manner that gets in the way of enjoying everything great about it.

Not for me, that and its aesthetics put me off terribly.

There's a certain amount of awareness in the way that Chang is clearly performing a character for a racist audience, though it would be a lot more effective if the actor wasn't white.

Sorry Lee.

That all the actual Chinese actors are basically Ogrons underlines the awfulness of the main casting, and that casting only taints the smartness of his "onstage" vs private character.

Oh jeez, shoot me with a gun, Seeds of *Death*

I like some of the Big Finish plays with McCoy but I think his performance loses more than Davison or Colin Baker's do by moving to audio, a lot of it is visual, little smiles, indications that he is carefully observing everything that's taking place around him, as well as the little bits of schtick with umbrella and whatnot

I love McCoy's TV performance too. His lack of gravitas is a huge strength of the era imo - contrast Tennant's angrysadfaceing with the breadth of tone that McCoy's quiet shifts, from rue or pensiveness to play or twinkling, imbue the texts with. Yes, he quite probably couldn't carry an all-serious performance, but it's a benefit to the stories and a pleasure to watch that he doesn't try. I straight up enjoy the physical gags with his hat or umbrella or whatnot, but it's that clown's instinct to find bits of business onstage all the time that makes his character so rich. He's not trying to draw attention, but he has a stage performer's sense that at any time, SOMEone in the audience could be watching him, so there's always thought given to what he's doing - which leads to, as soref notes, the small facial expressions, the appearance of thought and observation -- and when these are absent, it's therefore clear that he's putting on a mien of guilelessness to charm and deflect antagonists.

Troughton is the only other Doctor who really makes background acting a characteristic of their performance, and he's coming from a different perspective than McCoy - a better actor by a distance possibly immeasurable, but less rich implication of character.

McCoy is really not much good in Big Finish, though - of the ones I've heard with him, he is often audibly reading the script for the first time in the booth, even pausing if there's a line break requiring him to turn the page. I don't know if it's a result of this, or coincidence, that almost no stand-out scripts have gone to / been written for him there.

(His only two properly good ones aren't even close to the level of the real BF classics, either.)

I haven't read many of the New Adventures, I wasn't that keen on the interpretation of the 7th doctor in the ones I did read, they really doubled down on the dour, dark manipulator angle without McCoy's personal charm to balance it out, but maybe I just read the wrong ones.

Do you remember which ones you read? I love the way the better NA authors manage to write their own distinct interpretations of the darker, manipulative Doctor, rather than it being a house style. It is true that they rarely manage to get the whimsy or physical comedy of the TV version across, though.

(A thought: Heaven Sent by the end feels like a riff on the opening of Set Piece; but even after an hour's monologuing, Moffat's Doctor comes off as more one-note dour than Orman's completely silent throughout Seventh. [types more, deletes for spoilers])

Have just enjoyed reading this thread. I saw this vote was going on but couldn't get my head round the ENORMITY of what to vote for in all of the categories, so I sat it out. Would probably have gone for Aztecs, or Mind Robber, or Kinda, or, I dunno, EDGE OF DESTRUCTION as favourite. Nice surprise to see Black Orchid in there. The cast really have a go at it on the DVD audio commentary, iirc. But it was one that I really quite enjoyed when I was young.
Fave Doc: Tom or Jon. Fave companions: Jamie AND Zoe.
Anyway, I loved the images used on the thread. They're making me want to watch some classic Who.

Just watched Survival for the first time, and it's a ropey as fuck, even by the standards of Fenric and Ghost Light, but McCoy is a lot of fun in it (when he's not shouting).

There's a scene between Anthony Ainley and McCoy when the Master starts caterwauling to himself (he's been turned into a cat-man-hybrid thing) and McCoy's brief reaction shot - a sort of "fuck this bag of nonsense" - is priceless. It's about four mins in here.

Fenric and Ghost Light you can easily see being two of the best scripts the series ever had, even through the super-low-def video and tuppence + some gauze budget, but Survival is so smothered by production limitations that I remembered it as trash until rewatching about three years ago.

However, we're now so distant from the shoddy effects and everything-glowing-all-the-time look of the Eccleston series that the argument that Rose follows directly from Survival in style & tone now looks like an inescapable truism. Quantel skies on a quarry vs 'filmising' overlit night shoots. Dollying on people coming round the corner of London suburban buildings. Soft-toy cheetah people vs plastic Mickey. Burping bins vs robot cats. Noel Clarke camping it up so hard he passes Ainley coming in the other direction, playing serious for the first time. Unexplained mattress to land on vs "lots of planets have a north." Ace's fear of her history & nervous sexual awakening vs Rose's ennui at daily life & eagerness to abandon Mickey.

The Cartmel overdub is still one of the greatest Doctor speeches ever written, too. A poetic mission statement for the series, rushed out to paper over its possible ending and serving as an epitaph.

(Fifteen years between Survival and shooting Rose; we're 12 years from the latter now.)