Vampyros Adric
Global Moderator
Timelord
Favourite Doctor: 4/6/7
Favourite Companion: Jo Grant
Posts: 3174
He is also vain, ego-centric and quite mad
Badges: (View All)
|
|
« on: March 25, 2012, 09:57:03 am » |
|
The Fourth Doctor was "my" Doctor. He was the first I saw and he was the first regeneration I saw. You can't overstate what a huge star he was with the show, he was every bit as "big" as David Tennant and Matt Smith were in the role (arguably bigger given the three channel nature of TV in the UK in the Seventies). The actors who took on the role after him were always in his giant shadow. He was a true phenomenon and I loved him.
I don't think any Doctor has been as arrogantly intellectual as Tom Baker. He, too me, is the apotheosis of what the Doctor should be. Erratic, Brilliant, Compassionate, Passionate, Child-like, Other-Worldly. I guess the problem with him was the sheer length of his tenure. Given that he was in the job for 7 years (and don't forget the seasons were a lot longer then) there were bound to be some lemons in there. He was the Doctor through two distinct attempts to re-boot the show and there is no doubt that there was a lot of below-par stories in his tenure.
But at his best, he was as good as any Doctor and we shouldn't forget, he was the Doctor through the "gold" standard of the Hinchcliffe/Holmes period of the show. Robot was, in many ways, a bit of a false start for him - it was the introductory story written and conceived by the ancien regime of Letts/D1cks. To appreciate Baker, you have to look to stories such as Genesis of the Daleks, Brain of Morbius, Terror of the Zygons, Robots of Death, City of Death and countless others
Although my favourite Classic Doctor was Jon Pertwee (for the sheer consistency of his performance) when Baker was in a good story (and there were many) in my humble opinion, there was no one who could touch him.
|