3. Tom Baker
While I love all the doctors, my two favorites are Colin Baker and Paul McGann (both hugely underrated by everyone not in the Whoniverse), but it’s another Baker, Tom Baker, that is the most well-recognized of all the original Doctors. Yes, everyone can have their say about Hartnell and Troughton, even David Tennant for the new era of fans, but Tom Baker is “The Doctor”. He embodied the character for seven years, a whole generation of children growing up between 1974 to 1981. Verity Lambert, one of the original producers of Doctor Who, said that the reason Tom Baker worked so well as The Doctor was because he never let you forget that he was an alien and it worked. He represented all the Doctors that came before him, the genius of Hartnell, the playfulness of Troughton, the toughness of Pertwee, but still managed to be his own man. Though many actors have played the Doctor since, and will do in the future no one has come so close to having the total package that Tom Baker had as The Doctor.
This is just a cheap plug also, due to me having a quick interview with him at this year’s ComicCon in London- what a lovely man, he offered me a jelly baby.
2. Genesis of The Daleks
“Genesis of the Daleks” is the most complete Doctor Who serial of all time; it’s six parts of television gold. Written by legendary Who writer Terry Nation, the story takes us back to the very beginning of the Daleks creation. Terry Nation used inspiration from stories of Nazi Germany in terms of creating the ultimate race. But it is also famous for introducing us to in my opinion The Doctor’s greatest singular villain: Davros. Oh, golly gosh, Davros was one nasty piece of work. He is the opposite of everything The Doctor stood for. The Doctor embraced life and believed in free speech, whilst Davros wanted to eliminate everything that was less than perfect compared to his Daleks. Though he has appeared in many Doctor Who stories since, “Genesis of The Daleks” is where he shines as a threatening villain and thus made the Daleks a threat again in the mind of Doctor who viewers.
1. Regeneration
The regeneration is undoubtedly the key recurring moment in all of Doctor Who. Back in 1966, despite the fact that the show was still a ratings hit, the producers wanted a change, something fresh, and William Hartnell wasn’t getting any younger. Not wanting to cancel the show, they came up with the idea of regeneration. The Doctor would die… sort of. As an alien, instead of dying he simply changed into someone else a new man. A new actor playing the same character would take over and a lot of credit has to be given to Patrick Troughton, being able to convince the public that The Doctor didn’t just mean William Hartnell, and since then every Doctor has had this experience. Its the most anticipated event in the show’s history, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the ratings for the episode go through the roof at Christmas when Matt Smith‘s Eleventh says his goodbyes and turns into Peter Capaldi‘s Twelfth.
So there we have it my top 10 list of what I consider to be the greatest Doctor Who moments of all time. What are your favourite Who moments from past and present? Are you a lover of the old tin dog? Scared of the Weeping Angels? Or do you, like me, miss poor Peri Brown?
So from all the Whovians around the world, heres to 50 years of Time Lord magic and heres to 50 more years of bumbling around in time and space.
