Which take on the Doctor do you prefer?

I thought I'd put this poll here because it was the 80's that saw these two diametrically opposed interpretations happen starkly one after the other.

So which of the two do you prefer?

The more vulnerable, fallible figure of the Saward approach (1982-86) who tends to get swept up by chaotic events, and can sometimes get it wrong (as seen most starkly in Earthshock, Resurrection of the Daleks, Caves of Androzani)....?

...Or Cartmel's cosmic chess-player (1987-89) who masters the chaos, and usually has an Ace up his sleeve (or a Gallifreyan super-weapon) (as seen in Remembrance of the Daleks, Silver Nemesis, Greatest Show in the Galaxy, Curse of Fenric, and various books and comics since)?

Cartmel's. Saward often made the Doctor too fallible and weak in his own show. While I have some issues with the Cartmel approach - though to be fair, most of them are the result of stuff that came after the era rather than actually in it on TV - it made the Doctor the hero of his own show again, someone you could again trust and really believe was going to stitch the bad guys up good and proper.

I went with the Cartmel chess-master approach.

Largely because it's the approach I grew up on.

I became a fan in 1993. The cosmic chess-master angle was in full range in the comics (I chiefly remember it in strips like Evening's Empire and Bringer of Darkness), so I took it for granted that the Doctor was just that kind of decisive crusader against expansive forces of evil that required cold patience to finally defeat.

Most of what I'd seen on video aligned with that view. I heavily rewatched The Five Doctors, Day of the Daleks, Planet of Evil, Daleks: Invasion Earth 2150AD and Remembrance of the Daleks at that age.

The Saward take I only really saw in full effect when I finally saw Resurrection of the Daleks at age 15, and I didn't like it. It just seemed like a lot of horrible things happening and the Doctor being unable to do much about it except protest. and it wasn't the last one from this era to jade me to that approach.

I don't think the Doctor should be super-powerful, but I think he should appear to know what he's doing enough to be worth our time. Saward's version at worst, wasn't even that.

Of course I did see Genesis of the Daleks at 11, which for me was a great example of the Saward approach done *right*. But was also compatible enough with the chess-master vision. Except here it's the Doctor leaving the story with the chess match unfinished, with probably the hope of coming up with a winning move later when he returns to it.

Overall though, I feel like the chess-master view is the version that I find fits my vision of the show and why I became a fan of it, and frankly I think it was the more durable approach.

Tanmann wrote:
...Or Cartmel's cosmic chess-player (1987-89) who masters the chaos, and usually has an Ace up his sleeve.

Nice pun.


That aside, both were pretty flawed but I'll settle on Cartmel for the same reasons highlighted earlier. Even if it did end up leading to some of Remake Who's major problems

I doubt McCoys Doctor could play fucking tiddlywinks let alone chess.

LOL.

Saward's tenure as the Doctor but only up to and including Revelation.

But i don't think i agree with the term "anti-hero" though. The Doctor was  always courageous, idealistic and morale. Saward just queried the infallibility part and, for me, to great dramatic effect. There is sthg potentially repetitive and tiresome if you know the Doctor is always going to win thru with his plan, especially if a producer like Williams takes all the dramatic tension out of the show.

Warriors is an excellent example. The Doctor was very idealistic and worked hard and courageously to get what he thought was the morale solution to the conflict situation he found himself in - i.e., preventing two great civilisations destroying each other. Its not Eric's fault JNT threw a pantomime horse, a poor director, overbright studio lights and hammy acting into the mix. And of-course Thatcher cut the production schedule in half, the ideological old sow.

I am not a big fan of the Cartmel years. A significant part of that was CBBC grade casting (not Andrew's fault) but also the direction in which Cartmel tried to take the show. Its great that others enjoy that period but its not for me.

stengos wrote:Saward's tenure as the Doctor but only up to and including Revelation.

But i don't think i agree with the term "anti-hero" though. The Doctor was  always courageous, idealistic and morale. Saward just queried the infallibility part and, for me, to great dramatic effect. There is sthg potentially repetitive and tiresome if you know the Doctor is always going to win thru with his plan, especially if a producer like Williams takes all the dramatic tension out of the show.

I think every classic era has had moments that queried the Doctor's infallibility. Inferno and Genesis of the Daleks particularly so.

It might be that Williams only managed to do it the once in Horror of Fang Rock and thenon the era seemed to forget that for the whole of its run.

But maybe that's actually the problem for me. After a string of successes like that, if the Doctor is going to start losing, I think it should've been for better reasons than the ones he often seemed to in the 80's. And this isn't just my issue with Saward. Frankly there's a lot of Logopolis where I find the Doctor's follies just bizarre.

Warriors is an excellent example. The Doctor was very idealistic and worked hard and courageously to get what he thought was the morale solution to the conflict situation he found himself in - i.e., preventing two great civilisations destroying each other.

All I'll say on that is I don't think it works to emphasize the Doctor's fallibility by giving him an infallible plot-device weapon he's dramatically required to keep ignoring/protesting (hell, he could've probably just used the threat of the gas as a deterrent to force a cease-fire in episode two). I think that's less conveying fallibility and more just stubborn learned helplessness.

I am not a big fan of the Cartmel years. A significant part of that was CBBC grade casting (not Andrew's fault) but also the direction in which Cartmel tried to take the show. Its great that others enjoy that period but its not for me.

I'm curious did you ever read the 7th Doctor novels or comics which went with the Cartmel approach? I only ask because I wonder if maybe with the production and acting deficiencies removed, whether it made a difference for you.

Tanmann,

Sorry about the layout of this reply. If you want to, I hope you can follow it.

(A) TV McCoy didn't inspire me enough to read the NA novels and any McCoy comics. I couldn't get past his (and Bonnie's/Sophie's) on screen performance. I did read the first 3 NA's though but only liked one of them (by Terrance Dicks).

That said, I tried a handful of McCoy's BF plays and his acting seemed to have improved for them. I sometimes find actors improve with age, probably as they get more life experiences, and Sylv is one of those. Genocide Machine was excellent. But Colditz was mundane and Shadow of the Scourge just left me cold. There are others I still mean to try - e.g., Dust Breeding for instance - but I have yet to hear anything with Sophie in that I can listen to without rolling my eyes.

(B) I don't mean to imply that the infallibiity approach was unique to Eric. I just thought he used it well.

I love Logopolis but I think there are odd bits in it. For example, the idea to sink the Tardis and thereby flush the Master out of it seemed mental to me, even at the age of 15. I guess i was expecting sthg a bit more tech-savvy. I presume Bidmead preferred to take his kids to the zoo that afternoon rather than work on the script for that one. That said i am sure there are bigger holes in the plot than I am aware of.

(C) Re Warriors - i just wouldn't expect the Doctor to go for the extreme solution as soon as he saw the gas bottles. It was both species he wanted to save from the situation in Warriors, not just humans and he had enough faith in his capabilities and powers of persuasion to achieve it. There may even have been an element of guilt in there, the Doctor trying to make amends for his failure to get the ideal resolution he sought in The Silurians. Unfortunately, in Warriors he found himself facing an implacable leader of the Silurian / Sea Devil force that had set its face against compromise and was predisposed in favour of outright confrontation. The Doctor finally realised this and so grudgingly condoned the use of the gas. However, he wouldn't just walk in, see the Silurians and then use the gas to wipe them out. He didn't do anything like that in The Silurians. Rather JP's Doctor repeatedly sought compromise, even in the face of later Silurian hostility when they released the virus. Yet all the time he could have simply supported the idea to storm the caves with troops or seal the Silurians in them with high explosives. He didn't.

Contra the All-Powerful-McCoy who not only blew a planet up but plotted it well in advance using some WMD he found on Gallifrey (or wherever). I liked the story - the book of Remembrance is really well written - but the Doctor's actions at this point seemed out of character to me. More so than a bit of infallibility.

stengos wrote:Tanmann,

Sorry about the layout of this reply. If you want to, I hope you can follow it.

It's fine.  

(A) TV McCoy didn't inspire me enough to read the NA novels and any McCoy comics. I couldn't get past his (and Bonnie's/Sophie's) on screen performance. I did read the first 3 NA's though but only liked one of them (by Terrance Dicks).

Tbh, I struggled to get into the NA's myself, but I put that a little bit down to the age I was at during the time they were a thing.

I gave Transit a try when I was 11. Couldn't make head nor tail of it. And I think that put me off any hope of getting into any of the other chunky volumes.

(ironic that I told my teacher -a devout Christian- I was going to use the school book tokens to get some Doctor Who books, and she was so happy I'd taken such a moral, wholesome interest..... if only she knew what was in Transit).

I think I probably would've been more interested in the NA's at that age if they'd been about Romana's further adventures rather than Ace's.

Of the McCoy comics, I do remember Evening's Empire being very harrowing stuff. I also remember one in DWM where he encountered a group of immortals and completely overturned their way of life.

And whilst it wasn't a McCoy strip, I vividly remember the Second Doctor story Bringer of Darkness, which was really going for the Cartmel darker Doctor angle.

That said, I tried a handful of McCoy's BF plays and his acting seemed to have improved for them. I sometimes find actors improve with age, probably as they get more life experiences, and Sylv is one of those. Genocide Machine was excellent. But Colditz was mundane and Shadow of the Scourge just left me cold. There are others I still mean to try - e.g., Dust Breeding for instance - but I have yet to hear anything with Sophie in that I can listen to without rolling my eyes.

If you've listened to Colditz, it might be worth giving the Klein trilogy audios a go. A Thousand Tiny Wings, Survival of the Fittest and Architects of History.

I think they are some of the best McCoy audios, and it is refreshing to hear him with a different companion to Ace.

Master was quite a good one. McCoy's travelling solo there.

Live 34 I liked a lot too. Ace is in it, but not that much.

I love Logopolis but I think there are odd bits in it. For example, the idea to sink the Tardis and thereby flush the Master out of it seemed mental to me, even at the age of 15.

I think most fans had a problem with that bit.

(C) Re Warriors - i just wouldn't expect the Doctor to go for the extreme solution as soon as he saw the gas bottles.

I have a bit of a hard time actually seeing that as an extreme response to an invading genocidal militia. I think it's a perfectly rational one. They're simply going to kill you and/or everyone they can if you don't kill them first.

Furthermore, arguably most of the Silurians it would kill would be the die-hards who refused to give up or retreat. The majority of them that have the sense to withdraw their attack would survive. So I see even less of a moral dilemma there.

But....

You're right that we wouldn't expect the Doctor to resort to that.

Except that (a) it's a ruthlessness he demonstrably has resorted to in other stories, such as The Seeds of Death, Terror of the Zygons, Invasion of Time.

(b) I'd usually only expect him not to resort to that option in the context of him having a better idea. In this he doesn't. And I don't think a story can sustain itself entirely on the Doctor not doing the obvious thing just because he can't get past feeling right doing it, especially when there's plenty of historical evidence to the contrary.

It was both species he wanted to save from the situation in Warriors, not just humans and he had enough faith in his capabilities and powers of persuasion to achieve it.

Two problems I have with this.

Firstly, this is a Doctor who barely manages to mediate any lasting peace between his bickering companions on a good day, nevermind ideological warring enemies.

Secondly, in the Pertwee Silurian stories, I think it made sense that the Doctor was dealing with a situation brought about by culture shock between the two races only just discovering each others' existence. It was perhaps reasonable for the Doctor to assume he could talk that down earlier on.

In Warriors, it's a hundred years later, and the Silurians have clearly still not relinquished their genocidal stance against mankind in all that time * (the Doctor even says, long before he meets Ictar that their intentions are probably genocidal "To them you're an evolutionary error they obviously mean to correct"), therefore it seems gross arrogance on the Doctor's part to believe he can talk them out of that century-long stance in the window of five minutes.

At that point you might as well be trying to reason with Davros.

( * nor at all reflected on the possibility that their own aggression might've been to blame for the retaliation they faced, as the Thals did)

However, he wouldn't just walk in, see the Silurians and then use the gas to wipe them out. He didn't do anything like that in The Silurians. Rather JP's Doctor repeatedly sought compromise, even in the face of later Silurian hostility when they released the virus. Yet all the time he could have simply supported the idea to storm the caves with troops or seal the Silurians in them with high explosives. He didn't.

I would say in The Silurians, Pertwee hoped that their more reasonable older leader would bring his race back to order, and that helping him do so could wait whilst he focused his own mind on the cure. It's only after he's captured and forced to operate the disperser that he learns said leader is dead by his own kind.

Notably however, when the Doctor is ambushed in the caves by the younger genocidal hothead leader, and the Brigadier shoots him dead, the Doctor doesn't object at all, seems glad to have him out the way, and thanks the Brigadier for saving his life. Therefore I would argue Pertwee was not opposed to the idea of killing the more aggressive Silurians. I don't understand or buy why in Warriors he suddenly is. I just think the makers didn't understand the source material.

Contra the All-Powerful-McCoy who not only blew a planet up but plotted it well in advance using some WMD he found on Gallifrey (or wherever). I liked the story - the book of Remembrance is really well written - but the Doctor's actions at this point seemed out of character to me. More so than a bit of infallibility.

I can understand it coming across out of character, but I think the Doctor (with the exception of Genesis) has always been willing to be especially ruthless concerning the Daleks, and I would see his actions here as being spurred on by the fear that as the Time Lords predict, one day they might indeed destroy all life in the universe unless they're hit by a devastating defeat of their numbers.

Furthermore his final confrontation with Davros I think was meant to be his last offer of a way out and proving to his own peace of mind that Davros was too dangerous to be allowed any more chances.

As for being evidence of infallibility, I'd say for much of the story it's presented as a delicate gamble that eventually paid off, but easily mightn't have.

It's a rather ludicrous reading to portray Sylv as "infallible" at any time, let alone in Remembrance. The entire plot hinges on the fact that he's fucked up within 5 minutes of part 1 (not expecting two Dalek factions to turn up) and then has to improvise madly for the rest of the story!
Anyone who seriously claims he's infallible is full of shit, frankly. He's just more pro-active.

He's still banging on about his favourite story here I see - how unusual.

I imagine whilst participating in orchestras he's automatically given the triangle as contributing instrument of choice he's so fucking one-note.

I'm sure the REAL intent was merely a "a fun thread about getting creative" however...