Best 70s Doctor

The 70s are the most acclaimed period of Classic Who, but which of the 70s Doctors has the superior incarnation and/or era? I lean towards Tom Baker, though love Pertwee as well, and often change my preference from time to time.

Tom Baker. At the time he was tarnished by the Williams era but now, in retrospect and after 14 years of New Who, I even like that period.

Pertwee was good aswell.

Tom Baker. I just sensed he was the superior and more alien intellect, and could really be counted on to take the universe's problems by the horns.

I might need to think about this one. The Pertwee and earlier Tom Baker era is my favourite era by far, but for me Tom gradually starts getting too OTT as time goes on.
Pertwee is more consistent, but it's hard to beat Tom in his first 3 or 4 seasons.

Having thought about it for all of 30 seconds, I decided to go with Jon, if only because he's going to struggle to get any votes against the mighty Tom.

Ronnie wrote:it's hard to beat Tom in his first 3 or 4 seasons.

Given the choice, which story or point in the show do you think would've been a better one for Tom to go out on whilst still at his prime?

That's a tough question....
I really didn't like Douglas Adams influence on his era, so I'd probably go with Image of the Fendahl.


oops wrong thread

Fair enough.
I'm okay with much of the Williams/Adams era myself. Certainly I prefer it to what followed.

But if there was an earlier great potential story for Tom to bow out in, I think it was probably Horror of Fang Rock.

THE ONLY SO CALED """ DOCTERS"" WORSE THEN PERTHWHEE IS PATPRICK GOUTON AND WILLY HARDKNOB

tom backer is crap and an white male and his skarf doesnot have LGBTQQIAAP flag like my girl Jodies but he included her in scrach man so is better then FUCKING WORTHLES PATHETIC PERRTHWHIE

Well, it's a tough one!
I reckon Pertwee and Baker (T) gave us the two greatest Doctors of all time - probably because they were just so flamboyantly stylish and charismatic actors who really defined the role. That's no disrespect to any other actors playing the Doctor (in the classic series at least), especially Hartnell and Troughton who were also excellent too. Due to so many episodes of the sixties era Docs being missing though, it's harder to evaluate them in the same way. To be fair, I'm personally very happy watching any of the first four Docs playing the role, such is their quality.
I agree with Ronnie above that Pertwee's era feels more consistent than Tom's. I suspect too that a great deal of Tom's early success came because his era had such strong foundations to build upon, thanks in large part to the achievements of his immediate predecessor. Of course Tom was more than up to the task anyway as he picked up the baton in such a spectacularly magnificent way - indeed, at his best, he could be unsurpassable! Many of Tom's best stories I think have never been bettered before or since. Now I sometimes feel the zenith of Tom's era (Talons?) seemed like a time when the show could only get better and better as the quality of the show appeared to be on a constant upwards progression. Sadly this turned out not to be the case. I don't think the worst of the Pertwee era ever got quite as bad as the worst of Tom's era. Some of the juvenile silliness that crept in during the second half of Tom's reign, I mean after the horror mood was largely jettisoned, became a real turning point here. Since Tom was always so captivating and eccentric, he could still make even stuff like Underworld seem entertaining when he wanted to but even so. For this reason, although I think there's very little to prefer when comparing two such Who heavyweights, I'll give the edge to Pertwee - if only by a (nose) hair's breadth.

BillPatJonTom wrote:Now I sometimes feel the zenith of Tom's era (Talons?) seemed like a time when the show could only get better and better as the quality of the show appeared to be on a constant upwards progression. Sadly this turned out not to be the case. I don't think the worst of the Pertwee era ever got quite as bad as the worst of Tom's era. Some of the juvenile silliness that crept in during the second half of Tom's reign, I mean after the horror mood was largely jettisoned, became a real turning point here.

I think the reasons things went astray after the success of Talons (aside from the fact a miffed Hinchcliffe he did a scorched earth with the budget on it) are two-fold.

Firstly that Mary Whitehouse made enough noise (and apparently had enough BBC insider connections) to get Hinchcliffe shitcanned for overstepping certain guidelines she knew about.

Secondly, it seemed like the BBC were having trouble selling the Tom Baker episodes to Europe as most countries considered their content too frightening for children. This might've coincided with the controversy sewn by Whitehouse enough to make the BBC think that installing a new producer (and thus new broom) under stricter guidelines to keep the show tame, might result in a more sellable show that still retained Tom Baker's star power.

Of course as a result of a diminished kitty fund, much of Season 15 ended up falling through, with Underworld and The Invasion of Time being seemingly made just to salvage something from limited sets.

If I have any real issues with the Williams period, it's that Underworld, Invasion of Time and Armageddon Factor are so depressingly dull and drawn out enough to sour the end of an otherwise promising season, and that Season 17 does get a bit samey and repetitious in its latter half.

As for Season 18, Leisure Hive is just an incomprehensible headache to me, the E-space trilogy was pretty solid but after that I really wasn't keen on bringing back the Master, and I really don't feel right about Logopolis as an end to Tom's era (as it seems to end his run as the Doctor by explicitly undoing so much of his heroic work).

No offence to Pertwee, but it's Tom by country miles.

I love Jon pertwee but I had to go with tom.

Patrick Troughton.

Tom. Jon's great and one of the best Doctors but Tom's era was the better of the two.

Indrid Mercury wrote:Tom's era was the better of the two.

Only after Williams had cleaned up the mess that Hinchcliffe had made.

Out of the two, Tom reaches the highest peaks of excellence with Season 13, but Pertwee is more consistently good.

It's a hard choice, they both rule. If I were to rank the Doctors, I'd put one or the other in the top position. In the end, I think I like Pertwee's version of the Doctor better, but I prefer Tom's later era (seasons 16-18) over Pertwee's.