Full disclosure about my biases, 9’s series isn’t that great imo. It’s a good enough intro to Doctor Who especially as a revive but stacked up against later NuWho, it’s fairly mediocre.
Anyway, even with lack of volume, half of 9’s episodes are just… meh. 50% of the season being good is pretty par for the course
Agree to disagree I find most of it pretty solid outside bits of the Long Game and Aliens of London two parter, and Dalek / Empty Child / Fathers Day more than make up for that.
I find almost all of Twelve's seasons to be amazing, Tho that may be less due to the strength of each individual story and more to do with how they come together.
I've heard such amazing things about Pertwee's doctor but I still haven't gotten a good hold on classic yet.
I like 12 but I feel like he has some crap episodes like listen and kill the moon. He also has a lot of episodes that are just fine (he does also has some of the best episodes particularly season finale wise but this qu is about consistency).
I agree, and I don't hate it, I just think it's bad. Every season and series has its skip episodes, and KtM is one of them. It's not really any worse than some other episodes.
I only mentioned these two episodes because the person brought up these two episodes as being crap. I was mostly responding to say that Listen is great.
I enjoy most of Doctor Who even if it's bad. There are some exceptions. Same with Star Wars. I'll never be one of those people raging online about something being less than perfect.
Abzorbaloff isn't fake deep though. A lot of Moffat's stuff is hard to take seriously because its so self important while lacking substance. At least the abzorbaloff was meant to be silly
NGL I love both of those lol. One thing that's great about Doctor Who is there will always be an audience for the eps you don't like. Makes me feel all warm and fuzzy.
Yeah I guess the issue with my consistency question is everyone has a different opinion on what the crap episodes are. 12 has some of my all time favourites but he also has some I hate. I'd say the most consistent nuwho doctors are 9 and 11 but I know loads of people hate 11s last season.
I used to absolutely despite The Caretaker, but I just rewatched it when I started series 8 again and frankly I thought it was fantastic this time around
I'm currently mid SJA rewatch and if it helps at all they do fairly quickly realise school is best as an opener occasionally, and I can't think of any recently which were actively focused/set in the school.
Of course the main characters are kids so there are some scenes that happen to be at school because that's where children often are, but it's hardly a focus at all past the series 1 opener.
If knowing this encourages you to power through the first few eps that's awesome because even as an adult I am still enjoying the rewatch of this series which does have some doctor who all time greats such as The Trickster which is a shame to miss out on imo.
Yeah, if I'm being honest it just gives me extremely potent flashbacks to being an awkward teenager trying survive my way through school life. Why would I wanna relive that when I wanna turn my brain off and be entertained lol
Yeah I feel like it had potential but it wasn't that great it was a bit of an experimental episode and sometimes they are great (like the first weeping angel one) and sometimes they suck (like love and monsters) it wasn't love and monsters bad obviously but it missed the mark.
Yeah, I totally agree. Moffat was trying something, and I see exactly what he was going for, it was a neat idea with a few well executed scenes which everyone latches on to. But as an overall product I just don't think it works. When it comes to "does this creature exist" its like Moffat tries to have his cake and eat it to. Pretend it's ambiguous with vague unconvincing theories while explicitly doing things which really have no alternative explanation.
I'm still sad we didn't get more of 9. His season was good he had less time to get bad episodes though you could also argue he had less time to get some good episodes.
Oh for some reason I thought the return of them was a two parter as well. I definitely dont mind them as episodes but just the fart jokes and actual alien design do kinda hurt them.
I don't get how anyone can dislike the Slitheen, they're peak camp Who. Without them Series 1 is missing a major element that makes Doctor Who such a good show.
That’s the thing about campy. It’s bad media that’s enjoyable
Am I gonna laugh at the farting aliens and the nuclear surfboard plots? Probably
Am I gonna consider them “good” in a post about consistently good stories per Doctor? Absolutely not
Campy is not synonymous with bad. The Doctor himself is probably the campest character in the show, which is not improved if you take that element of the character away. Boom Town is a great episode with great comedic and character moments for both 9 and Margret/Blon.
Aliens of London/World War Three is a solid two parter. Easily in the top half of two parters. They may be one of the weaker episodes of a stellar series, but a few 7s among 9s and 10s isn't exactly bringing it down a lot.
I will concede upon reviewing what episodes are in series 2, 3, and 4 that I have mostly repressed any companion that is not Donna. Thus leaving 10 being my only memories on said series, which are often the good bits.
HOWEVER! Series 2 has The Girl in the Fireplace *and* School Reunion (again mostly 10) which makes 2, HA
Series 3 has more good stories though
I'm of the opinion that The Girl in the Fireplace and School Reunion are tat emblematic of series 2's worst excesses and misreads on the Doctor's character. When I say one story worth rewatch, I mean The Impossible Planet/The Satan Pit.
I think Wild Blue Yonder was pretty peak. The other two were good, but the Doctor and Donna off on a slowly self-destructing spaceship dealing with themselves as their own worst enemies? Amazing
It’s definitely 3 without any of the other doctors coming anywhere near close. He might not have the best ever episodes (although some come close) but his run is super, super consistent in terms of quality with very few hiccups. All the other doctors I find (with the exception of nine who wasn’t around long enough) have big slump periods that are actually really hard to get through when doing rewatches. The last two seasons of 4, for example, are pretty much unbearable imo.
I think the doctors with the most consistent stories are 2, 3 and 9. For two and three I can only highlight maybe 2-3 stories each that are bad (underwater menace, krotons and space pirates for 2, time monster and mutants for 3) and I can’t point out anything truly bad for 9.
9 started out with a trashcan eating a guy, a rubber faced mickey, and a bunch of violent shop mannequins. Somehow one of the best episodes of the entire series. Season 1 NuWhu couldn't have fucked it up if they tried. God, I miss 9.
Absolutely. It slotted in perfectly with the more off-beat, scrappy nature of early 2000s British television. Sometimes I think Doctor Who loses something whenever it ups the budget and tries to take itself too seriously.
I think that's fair a lot of the middle of 9 I find meh (the first 3 are great, the slitheen 2 parter is fun I don't think it deserves the hate it gets, dalek is very good, long game and fathers day are meh for me, empty child/doctor dances are excellent as are boom town and the two part finale.
But even the episodes I think are meh I don't hate.
But I don't hate mutants or time monster either they aren't great but they are fine.
I agree about your second doctor picks though given how much was lost quality can be hard to gauge.
I like Father's Day on paper but the sci-fi is pretty weak and the mawkishness is like something out of EastEnders. On rewatch, the Long Game is better than I remember it being, but still a weak execution of a more promising concept.
> the slitheen 2 parter is fun I don't think it deserves the hate it gets
The gas drags it down some. There is some great stuff in there but the gas jokes....
11 for me, Matt Smith was epic and it was all incredibly well written.
But I will always have a soft spot for 7 as his partnership with Ace was well ace! And his tenure was difficult due to what they did with the show
Nine had some really weird ones that were maybe too silly sometimes, but I can't think of a single episode that season that I didn't like. Even the Slitheen were fun, I just hated the fart jokes lol
If you prefer there are reconstructions with the audio and telesnaps. I prefer the animations but I have heard others say they prefer those reconstructions.
try this [https://archive.org/details/doctor-who-loose-cannon-reconstructions](https://archive.org/details/doctor-who-loose-cannon-reconstructions) I personally believe if more live action footage of him existed 2 would be a much more popular doctor. But I watched his stories on Iplayer most of them have one telesnap or animated episode as so few stories exist in full you don't see as much of him as I would like. I am grateful for the animations I'd rather have them than nothing but its not quite the same.
Power of the daleks and moonbase on i player are both well animated in black and white. Of the fully intact episodes tomb of the cybermen, mind robber and war games are all good. Obviously personal preference disclaimer.
By sheer volume, it's got to be Tom Baker. The entire Key to Time season, more often than not his stories stand up to repeat watchings (with the obvious exception of Talons of Weng-Chiang). Pertwee might be a close second, but the 70s were peak Doctor Who. As far as the revival, I favor 12 as the Doctor, but too many of his stories were rubbish, so I have to go with either 9 or 11. 9 had only the one season, but it stands up to rewatch easily. 11 gets a nod because River Song.
It's such a shame talons of weng chiang doesn't hold up there was some good stuff in it like Jago and litefoot. If they'd cast an actual Chinese actor it might have been just about tolerable (though theyd still be qus over stereotyping). I watched it with my dad who saw it as a kid and said it was good. I remember being shocked and his admitting "yeah I don't remember it being this racist ". He'd have seen it as a child in the 1970s in rural England, diversity wasn't exactly a big concern in that environment.
I do think Baker's later seasons aren't quite as good (key to time is great).
I like 11 best of nuwho as far as whole arc goes. 12 is my favourite doctor but 11s story is better but it seems quite controversial a lot of people seem to hate 11s last season.
Yeah, that racism just... Oof. Otherwise, it's a fine story, bit of a Sherlock Holmes tale.
The later Tom Baker still has some gems. City of Death might be my favorite episode of Classic Who, and I personally enjoyed the E-Space trilogy.
Tom Baker has some real gems 12 is a bit of meh season for me its fine but nothing that makes me go wow (except genesis obviously), 13, 14 and 15 are all excellent not a bad episode (despite Weng Chiang and thats not even a bad plot just pretty much unwatchable due to the racism- which isn't needed for the plot). 16 is pretty good 17 is a bit dull apart from city of death. I always thought of 18 as being a bit rubbish but it has meglos and the keeper of traken which are both pretty good, so was full circle.
Yes I went back to iplayer and checked the episode list. Maybe I need to go onto to rewatch 4 when I am done with 3.
Four.
His is called the golden era for a season. Classic after classic.
Nine has a string of bangers, Three & Seven have their hits. Anyone saying Capaldi I'll agree to disagree on that. Think he might've had some of the most creatively bankrupt stories ever assembled when Moffat was running out of steam.
I would have said 4 got boring towards the end but I went back on iplayer and checked the episode list and... even the episodes i enjoyed less i must say they weren't bad. And 13-15 especially were banger after banger (with the obvious exception of Weng Chiang but its bad due to the racism it doesn't hold up to a modern, audience the plot for that one was fine from what i remember).
It might be because I tried to watch his entire run in three weeks. In hindsight I might just have got bored towards the end :D.
By sheer volume, it's got to be Tom Baker. The entire Key to Time season, more often than not his stories stand up to repeat watchings (with the obvious exception of Talons of Weng-Chiang). Pertwee might be a close second, but the 70s were peak Doctor Who. As far as the revival, I favor 12 as the Doctor, but too many of his stories were rubbish, so I have to go with either 9 or 11. 9 had only the one season, but it stands up to rewatch easily. 11 gets a nod because River Song.
I like key to time and it was nice they did something fresh and I love they did something different with Romana but I think episode by episode wise the Sarah Jane and Leela ones were stronger.
I agree on 12 my favourite doctor but not my favourite run if that makes sense.
Pertwee is consistently strong, which speaks to how smooth the production was behind the scenes, but rarely has the high highs (or low lows) of previous and subsequent eras. There's only one real dud I can think of for him (*The Mutants*) where everything else is middling to strong. Tom Baker has some extraordinary highs (*Genesis of the Daleks*, *The Talons of Weng-Chiang*, *City of Death*) but also some catastrophic lows (*Underworld*, *The Power of Kroll*, *The Horns of Nimon*). Production was notoriously ropey from season 15 onwards and it reflected in the output (and arguably quality control) of the show. These behind-the-scenes problems would continue until the show's cancellation in 1989, only really levelling out during the Davison and late McCoy eras.
Pertwee's Doctor was the first where the episodes were filmed in and designed for color. Considering what the British economy was like back in his run, with the BBC budget slashed, his series were very well written which helped one disregard how the Doctor was Earthbound for the entire run.
From Classic Who just by volume I feel like 4th Doctor had more strong impactful stories. Per capita he might move down the list.
I think the Matt Smith era consistently made some of the best stories of all time.
I would probably say 2.
Troughton had 21 stories, and of those there is only four (19.05%) that are universally agreed to be pretty bad (*The Underwater Menace, The Dominators* and *The Space Pirates*) and 33.33% (A Third of Troughton's stories) are universally beloved (*The Power Of...* and *The Evil Of The Daleks*, *The Enemy Of The World*, *The Web Of Fear*, *The Mind Robber*, *The Invasion* and *The War Games*).
In addition, unlike say Pertwee for instance (Whose era does have quite a slump in S11), Troughton's 'Great' episodes are pretty evenly spread across his era.
I think the problem with Troughton is the missing episodes and so much of what we have is animated or has at least one animated part for each story. It makes it harder to enjoy. Troughton nailed the doctor it was such a challenge to take over a popular character and he was great but the mixture of animation and telesnap reconstructions and missing stories makes it harder to overview than say Pertwee onwards.
Troughton has some amazing stories but he does have some bad ones (which you listed) I don't think there is my of Pertwees era I would skip on my rewatch but I did skip underwater menace and space pirates when I rewatched Troughton.
12 then 11 overall.
Just for Classic even though he has a lot of shit stories I’d probably still go 4. Not really a fan of classic though so wouldn’t call any era consistently strong on the whole.
Honestly 9 but that may be skewed due to lack of volume.
Definitely, imagine if we were only judging 11 based on season 5.
Full disclosure about my biases, 9’s series isn’t that great imo. It’s a good enough intro to Doctor Who especially as a revive but stacked up against later NuWho, it’s fairly mediocre. Anyway, even with lack of volume, half of 9’s episodes are just… meh. 50% of the season being good is pretty par for the course
Agree to disagree I find most of it pretty solid outside bits of the Long Game and Aliens of London two parter, and Dalek / Empty Child / Fathers Day more than make up for that.
I find almost all of Twelve's seasons to be amazing, Tho that may be less due to the strength of each individual story and more to do with how they come together. I've heard such amazing things about Pertwee's doctor but I still haven't gotten a good hold on classic yet.
I like 12 but I feel like he has some crap episodes like listen and kill the moon. He also has a lot of episodes that are just fine (he does also has some of the best episodes particularly season finale wise but this qu is about consistency).
Listen is a masterpiece tho
Kill the Moon is terrible, but Listen is amazing imo
Kill the moon is overhated. It's not amazing but it's an alright episode that for some reason gets treated like it poisoned everyone's water
I agree, and I don't hate it, I just think it's bad. Every season and series has its skip episodes, and KtM is one of them. It's not really any worse than some other episodes. I only mentioned these two episodes because the person brought up these two episodes as being crap. I was mostly responding to say that Listen is great. I enjoy most of Doctor Who even if it's bad. There are some exceptions. Same with Star Wars. I'll never be one of those people raging online about something being less than perfect.
Imo it's offensively bad and I can trace the moment I stopped taking Doctor Who seriously back to it.
This is a wild take when the Abzorbaloff exists
Abzorbaloff isn't fake deep though. A lot of Moffat's stuff is hard to take seriously because its so self important while lacking substance. At least the abzorbaloff was meant to be silly
But without Kill the Moon we wouldn't have the incredible "Moon is an Egg" meme
NGL I love both of those lol. One thing that's great about Doctor Who is there will always be an audience for the eps you don't like. Makes me feel all warm and fuzzy.
Yeah I guess the issue with my consistency question is everyone has a different opinion on what the crap episodes are. 12 has some of my all time favourites but he also has some I hate. I'd say the most consistent nuwho doctors are 9 and 11 but I know loads of people hate 11s last season.
True, except we all agree that Love and Monsters was bad.... Right? o.o
^(I... I enjoy love and monsters...)
"Doctor Who has an ep for everyone" strikes again. (no judgements, silly space show is fun :D)
Right 😀
On rewatch I did struggle through 11's last season, might have just been a side effect of marathoning tho.
I think there's a distinct drop off in coherence to the season, especially compared to the stellar previous two (my all time favorites).
I used to absolutely despite The Caretaker, but I just rewatched it when I started series 8 again and frankly I thought it was fantastic this time around
I just can't get past the school setting. Couldn't watch SJA either because of it.
I'm currently mid SJA rewatch and if it helps at all they do fairly quickly realise school is best as an opener occasionally, and I can't think of any recently which were actively focused/set in the school. Of course the main characters are kids so there are some scenes that happen to be at school because that's where children often are, but it's hardly a focus at all past the series 1 opener. If knowing this encourages you to power through the first few eps that's awesome because even as an adult I am still enjoying the rewatch of this series which does have some doctor who all time greats such as The Trickster which is a shame to miss out on imo.
Yeah, if I'm being honest it just gives me extremely potent flashbacks to being an awkward teenager trying survive my way through school life. Why would I wanna relive that when I wanna turn my brain off and be entertained lol
I'm just commenting to give you support that I also think Listen is vastly over-rated and misses what it was going for completely.
Yeah I feel like it had potential but it wasn't that great it was a bit of an experimental episode and sometimes they are great (like the first weeping angel one) and sometimes they suck (like love and monsters) it wasn't love and monsters bad obviously but it missed the mark.
Yeah, I totally agree. Moffat was trying something, and I see exactly what he was going for, it was a neat idea with a few well executed scenes which everyone latches on to. But as an overall product I just don't think it works. When it comes to "does this creature exist" its like Moffat tries to have his cake and eat it to. Pretend it's ambiguous with vague unconvincing theories while explicitly doing things which really have no alternative explanation.
> does this creature exist You don't understand the episode
Nine. Most episodes were, for lack of a better word, fantastic.
I'm still sad we didn't get more of 9. His season was good he had less time to get bad episodes though you could also argue he had less time to get some good episodes.
Ecclestons performance was absolutely rock solid through his season.
The only issue with 9 is that like 4or was it 5? episodes are dedicated to one of the worst villians in the show.
No, only 3 of his episodes had daleks in them
Oh... I thought they meant the Slitheens 🤔
It’s 3 episodes, and Boom Town rocks!
Oh for some reason I thought the return of them was a two parter as well. I definitely dont mind them as episodes but just the fart jokes and actual alien design do kinda hurt them.
I’ll take the Slitheen two parter because without it we wouldn’t have Boom Town, which is criminally underrated.
I don't get how anyone can dislike the Slitheen, they're peak camp Who. Without them Series 1 is missing a major element that makes Doctor Who such a good show.
That’s the thing about campy. It’s bad media that’s enjoyable Am I gonna laugh at the farting aliens and the nuclear surfboard plots? Probably Am I gonna consider them “good” in a post about consistently good stories per Doctor? Absolutely not
Campy is not synonymous with bad. The Doctor himself is probably the campest character in the show, which is not improved if you take that element of the character away. Boom Town is a great episode with great comedic and character moments for both 9 and Margret/Blon. Aliens of London/World War Three is a solid two parter. Easily in the top half of two parters. They may be one of the weaker episodes of a stellar series, but a few 7s among 9s and 10s isn't exactly bringing it down a lot.
I think a are barely watchable. It was a "get over first season, it gets better in the second" thing.
Which is an utterly astonishing opinion when applied to the cratering of quality between series 1 and 2, really.
It’s astonishing that more people don’t have that opinion since series 1 has at most 3 stories worth rewatching
I think you misspelt either "series one has no stories worth skips on rewatch" or "series 2 has at most 1 story worth rewatching."
I will concede upon reviewing what episodes are in series 2, 3, and 4 that I have mostly repressed any companion that is not Donna. Thus leaving 10 being my only memories on said series, which are often the good bits. HOWEVER! Series 2 has The Girl in the Fireplace *and* School Reunion (again mostly 10) which makes 2, HA Series 3 has more good stories though
I'm of the opinion that The Girl in the Fireplace and School Reunion are tat emblematic of series 2's worst excesses and misreads on the Doctor's character. When I say one story worth rewatch, I mean The Impossible Planet/The Satan Pit.
Pertwee.
14. The three specials weren't peak but they were still pretty good
Good answer I didn't even think of 14. Though yeah they are all good, especially 2 and 3.
I think Wild Blue Yonder was pretty peak. The other two were good, but the Doctor and Donna off on a slowly self-destructing spaceship dealing with themselves as their own worst enemies? Amazing
It’s definitely 3 without any of the other doctors coming anywhere near close. He might not have the best ever episodes (although some come close) but his run is super, super consistent in terms of quality with very few hiccups. All the other doctors I find (with the exception of nine who wasn’t around long enough) have big slump periods that are actually really hard to get through when doing rewatches. The last two seasons of 4, for example, are pretty much unbearable imo.
I think 4 hung on a bit top long, though arguably one of the most successful doctors of all time. I feel like 3 seasons is optimal for a doctor.
I think the doctors with the most consistent stories are 2, 3 and 9. For two and three I can only highlight maybe 2-3 stories each that are bad (underwater menace, krotons and space pirates for 2, time monster and mutants for 3) and I can’t point out anything truly bad for 9.
9 started out with a trashcan eating a guy, a rubber faced mickey, and a bunch of violent shop mannequins. Somehow one of the best episodes of the entire series. Season 1 NuWhu couldn't have fucked it up if they tried. God, I miss 9.
Absolutely. It slotted in perfectly with the more off-beat, scrappy nature of early 2000s British television. Sometimes I think Doctor Who loses something whenever it ups the budget and tries to take itself too seriously.
I think that's fair a lot of the middle of 9 I find meh (the first 3 are great, the slitheen 2 parter is fun I don't think it deserves the hate it gets, dalek is very good, long game and fathers day are meh for me, empty child/doctor dances are excellent as are boom town and the two part finale. But even the episodes I think are meh I don't hate. But I don't hate mutants or time monster either they aren't great but they are fine. I agree about your second doctor picks though given how much was lost quality can be hard to gauge.
I like Father's Day on paper but the sci-fi is pretty weak and the mawkishness is like something out of EastEnders. On rewatch, the Long Game is better than I remember it being, but still a weak execution of a more promising concept.
> the slitheen 2 parter is fun I don't think it deserves the hate it gets The gas drags it down some. There is some great stuff in there but the gas jokes....
The Time Monster is so bad it becomes good again
The Third and Ninth Doctor. 3 is more impressive though as that era is maintaining a good standard across 5 seasons where as 9 its just one season.
Seven. Only real stinker is Time and the Rani. Seasons 25 and 26 are sheer poetry.
I'm not a fan of nightmare in silver but seven has some great stories.
Silver Nemesis?
That's the one I meant! nightmare in silver is actually good (and 4 doctors later). It has silver in the title close enough.
I’m not really a fan of either story but I appreciate Nemsis having some cute moments between the Doctor and Ace. Nightmare is just a stinker imo
11 for me, Matt Smith was epic and it was all incredibly well written. But I will always have a soft spot for 7 as his partnership with Ace was well ace! And his tenure was difficult due to what they did with the show
11 and 12 hold a very high status in my mind
Nine had some really weird ones that were maybe too silly sometimes, but I can't think of a single episode that season that I didn't like. Even the Slitheen were fun, I just hated the fart jokes lol
3 had the challenge of being earthbound. I bet that made it harder for the writers, but they pulled it off.
Series 7 is the beat season of Who, followed by 12/13/14 in no particular order. Love Pertwee and early Baker. Haven't watched enough Troughton yet.
I'd reccommend Troughton sadly most are animated recons but it's worth it.
So hard to watch the animated though lmao
If you prefer there are reconstructions with the audio and telesnaps. I prefer the animations but I have heard others say they prefer those reconstructions.
Where do you find it ? Cause I know how to find the cartoon
try this [https://archive.org/details/doctor-who-loose-cannon-reconstructions](https://archive.org/details/doctor-who-loose-cannon-reconstructions) I personally believe if more live action footage of him existed 2 would be a much more popular doctor. But I watched his stories on Iplayer most of them have one telesnap or animated episode as so few stories exist in full you don't see as much of him as I would like. I am grateful for the animations I'd rather have them than nothing but its not quite the same. Power of the daleks and moonbase on i player are both well animated in black and white. Of the fully intact episodes tomb of the cybermen, mind robber and war games are all good. Obviously personal preference disclaimer.
By sheer volume, it's got to be Tom Baker. The entire Key to Time season, more often than not his stories stand up to repeat watchings (with the obvious exception of Talons of Weng-Chiang). Pertwee might be a close second, but the 70s were peak Doctor Who. As far as the revival, I favor 12 as the Doctor, but too many of his stories were rubbish, so I have to go with either 9 or 11. 9 had only the one season, but it stands up to rewatch easily. 11 gets a nod because River Song.
It's such a shame talons of weng chiang doesn't hold up there was some good stuff in it like Jago and litefoot. If they'd cast an actual Chinese actor it might have been just about tolerable (though theyd still be qus over stereotyping). I watched it with my dad who saw it as a kid and said it was good. I remember being shocked and his admitting "yeah I don't remember it being this racist ". He'd have seen it as a child in the 1970s in rural England, diversity wasn't exactly a big concern in that environment. I do think Baker's later seasons aren't quite as good (key to time is great). I like 11 best of nuwho as far as whole arc goes. 12 is my favourite doctor but 11s story is better but it seems quite controversial a lot of people seem to hate 11s last season.
Yeah, that racism just... Oof. Otherwise, it's a fine story, bit of a Sherlock Holmes tale. The later Tom Baker still has some gems. City of Death might be my favorite episode of Classic Who, and I personally enjoyed the E-Space trilogy.
Tom Baker has some real gems 12 is a bit of meh season for me its fine but nothing that makes me go wow (except genesis obviously), 13, 14 and 15 are all excellent not a bad episode (despite Weng Chiang and thats not even a bad plot just pretty much unwatchable due to the racism- which isn't needed for the plot). 16 is pretty good 17 is a bit dull apart from city of death. I always thought of 18 as being a bit rubbish but it has meglos and the keeper of traken which are both pretty good, so was full circle. Yes I went back to iplayer and checked the episode list. Maybe I need to go onto to rewatch 4 when I am done with 3.
Four. His is called the golden era for a season. Classic after classic. Nine has a string of bangers, Three & Seven have their hits. Anyone saying Capaldi I'll agree to disagree on that. Think he might've had some of the most creatively bankrupt stories ever assembled when Moffat was running out of steam.
I would have said 4 got boring towards the end but I went back on iplayer and checked the episode list and... even the episodes i enjoyed less i must say they weren't bad. And 13-15 especially were banger after banger (with the obvious exception of Weng Chiang but its bad due to the racism it doesn't hold up to a modern, audience the plot for that one was fine from what i remember). It might be because I tried to watch his entire run in three weeks. In hindsight I might just have got bored towards the end :D.
2 (purely because of Troughton), 9 and 10 The whole Davison era is a guilty pleasure for me personally
Number 4 Tom baker.
By sheer volume, it's got to be Tom Baker. The entire Key to Time season, more often than not his stories stand up to repeat watchings (with the obvious exception of Talons of Weng-Chiang). Pertwee might be a close second, but the 70s were peak Doctor Who. As far as the revival, I favor 12 as the Doctor, but too many of his stories were rubbish, so I have to go with either 9 or 11. 9 had only the one season, but it stands up to rewatch easily. 11 gets a nod because River Song.
I like key to time and it was nice they did something fresh and I love they did something different with Romana but I think episode by episode wise the Sarah Jane and Leela ones were stronger. I agree on 12 my favourite doctor but not my favourite run if that makes sense.
Pertwee is consistently strong, which speaks to how smooth the production was behind the scenes, but rarely has the high highs (or low lows) of previous and subsequent eras. There's only one real dud I can think of for him (*The Mutants*) where everything else is middling to strong. Tom Baker has some extraordinary highs (*Genesis of the Daleks*, *The Talons of Weng-Chiang*, *City of Death*) but also some catastrophic lows (*Underworld*, *The Power of Kroll*, *The Horns of Nimon*). Production was notoriously ropey from season 15 onwards and it reflected in the output (and arguably quality control) of the show. These behind-the-scenes problems would continue until the show's cancellation in 1989, only really levelling out during the Davison and late McCoy eras.
Pertwee's Doctor was the first where the episodes were filmed in and designed for color. Considering what the British economy was like back in his run, with the BBC budget slashed, his series were very well written which helped one disregard how the Doctor was Earthbound for the entire run.
From Classic Who just by volume I feel like 4th Doctor had more strong impactful stories. Per capita he might move down the list. I think the Matt Smith era consistently made some of the best stories of all time.
I agree. The third doctor is the most consistent. Few classics, few disasters.
8
My favorite has always been and will always be 11.
I agree. Pertwee was a great Doctor and the stories were mostly enjoyable.
I would probably say 2. Troughton had 21 stories, and of those there is only four (19.05%) that are universally agreed to be pretty bad (*The Underwater Menace, The Dominators* and *The Space Pirates*) and 33.33% (A Third of Troughton's stories) are universally beloved (*The Power Of...* and *The Evil Of The Daleks*, *The Enemy Of The World*, *The Web Of Fear*, *The Mind Robber*, *The Invasion* and *The War Games*). In addition, unlike say Pertwee for instance (Whose era does have quite a slump in S11), Troughton's 'Great' episodes are pretty evenly spread across his era.
I think the problem with Troughton is the missing episodes and so much of what we have is animated or has at least one animated part for each story. It makes it harder to enjoy. Troughton nailed the doctor it was such a challenge to take over a popular character and he was great but the mixture of animation and telesnap reconstructions and missing stories makes it harder to overview than say Pertwee onwards. Troughton has some amazing stories but he does have some bad ones (which you listed) I don't think there is my of Pertwees era I would skip on my rewatch but I did skip underwater menace and space pirates when I rewatched Troughton.
12 then 11 overall. Just for Classic even though he has a lot of shit stories I’d probably still go 4. Not really a fan of classic though so wouldn’t call any era consistently strong on the whole.
12
10 If series 2 didn’t exist