The Waters of Mars is the 3rd episode to air since season 4 concluded.  With only a 2-part episode left for the tenth doctor the tension rises.  In this very dark episode, the doctor finds himself on mars.  The doctor realizes that he has come across Earth’s first colonists of Mars, who are doomed to die that very day.

The doctor is brought to the base by the singular weakness of this episode, a “funny robot”.  The robot says “gadget, gadget” and is supremely annoying.  It’s only function in the plot is to enable the doctor several quick get-aways.  First, while fleeing a couple of infected crewmen, and second, the escape at the climax of the episode.  It would have been really easy to write this robot out, but I’m guessing because of how dark this episode was Russell T. Davies and Phil Ford wanted something to pin a couple light hearted scenes to.

There the doctor meets Captain Adelaide Brooke and her crew of Bowie Base One.  Although nobody in history ever knew what happened on Mars (the captain ordered “Action 5″ which set off a nuclear bomb destroying the base), the doctor and the colonists find themselves up against a versatile bad guy – water.  Not just water really, but the waters of mars ability to infect their bodies with a new martian host.  The look of the person after being infected is pretty scary.  Face make-up, contact lenses, and some water effects make up a pretty unsettling costume.  With a couple of exceptions when the water effects are clearly CGI.

 Once the doctor realizes that he is at a “fixed point in time” and there is nothing he can do, he tries to leave.  But he is detained by the captain, who is suspicious that he could be involved.  The doctor hangs around long enough to see what is happening to her crew.  He tries to communicate with one of them speaking in ancient north martian.  But with Earth at stake, the captain and doctor have to make sure that everyone isn’t already infected. 

The doctor spills way to much information with the captain, as time brings her closer to her death.  The doctor tells her about her lineage following her out into space and creating history.  Thinking that she and her crew will get away, she lets the doctor leave (looking very good in his blue suit).

But she stops him in the air lock on his way out, demanding the truth.  The doctor reveals all to her, and we find out that more than just the time lords code is keeping him from intervening.  After The Fires of Pompeii, the doctor has felt that even if he does try to save them, he may only end up causing death.  Torn by the decision the doctor trudges back to the TARDIS, all the way hearing the screams and terror through the head set in his space suit.  He listens to them struggle to escape and one by one are taken over by the “water”.

While he’s walking, the doctor thinks about how he is the last time lord, and realizes that there is nobody who can stop him from doing what he wants.  The episode gets intense as the doctor goes slightly mad with power in his desperation to save the three remaining people.  He knows that his death is coming soon and that “he will knock 4 times”.

His own impending doom seems to only fuel the need he has to save Captain Adelaide.  But she starts Action 5, knowing that it is what is supposed to happen.  With the help of “gadget, gadget” flying the TARDIS into the base (boo robot), the doctor safely delivers the three to earth.  But Adelaide has resigned herself to her death knowing what her family will be inspired to do because of it. 

She tells the doctor that what he’s done is wrong.  But there is nobody to stop him.  She goes into her house and shoots herself.  The doctor is horrified.  Like I said, very dark episode.

“I’ve gone too far.”  The doctor sees an Ood and he says “my death? is it time?”  But it disappears.  The doctor scrambles back into his TARDIS where the cloister bell is tolling.  Defiantly he says ”No!” and begins to take off in the TARDIS.

Very dark and very ominous, this episode has great intensity.  Now, having the broken the laws of time, the doctor seems to be running scared, for the moment.  It will be very exciting to see what happens next in The End of Time – Part 1.  Thankfully, this episode airs only one(!!!) day after it airs on the BBC.  So catch it, the day after Christmas on BBC America 9/8c.

According to an article in The Hollywood Reporter, Tennant will be starring in a pilot titled “Rex Is Not Your Lawyer.” The plot focuses on “Rex Alexander (Tennant), a top Chicago litigator who begins suffering panic attacks and takes up coaching clients to represent themselves in court.”

The casting is reminiscient of Hugh Laurie’s nailing of the part of House on FOX, in that it’s like “the tapping of another established British TV actor with virtually no American TV experience.”

I, like many of our readers, would hope that this show is exactly what Tennant needs to get into mainstream audiences that way that he should and deserves. I hate to see him leave Doctor Who, but I am now thoroughly excited to see him start the next chapter of his career.

Thing is, all of the original shows in those equations were plenty dark in their own right.  If you know the names Donnie Pfaster or Jenny Calendar, then you know this is true … and the scariness of the monsters on Doctor Who has long been one of its major selling points.

With that in mind, I would say that not only is “Children of Earth,” the new micro-season of Torchwood, perfectly in keeping with Torchwood, it’s also perfectly in keeping with its grandpappy Doctor Who.

I mean that in both a good and a bad way.

Let’s face it, Doctor Who can be a bit cheesy from time to time.  It’s part of the appeal.  I mean, war machines with plungers and various toilet parts glued to them … robots whose shiny metal bodies are clearly people wrapped in aluminum foil … this is not a show for you if you don’t have a fairly high tolerance for goofiness.

And if you take a look at the poster I posted (ever so kindly and with great forethought) above, you might get a little whiff of cheese rolling off of it, too.  Everyone looks so serious, and there’s Gwen, holding two guns criss-crossed over his chest like she’s some sort of deceased postal worker buried in hororarium by her own homicidal kind.  Nobody holds guns like that; there’s no reason too.

Except that it does, admittedly, look kinda cool.

I’m making it sound like I hate Torchwood and Doctor Who, and nothing could be further from the truth.  Well, I’m sure something could be — if I said, “I’m a chocolate-covered Australian wearing gas cans for shoes and hosting a Patrick Swayze benefit concert,” or “I prefer Pepsi,” or “Damn you and your buffalo wings,” that’d be further from the truth — but there is a good distance between the truth and the implication that I hate those shows.  I don’t.  Kinda love ‘em, actually.

But, yes, there is more than a bit of cheese, even in the ultra-serious “Children of Earth.”

The story, for those of you who aren’t familiar, involves an alien threat to Earth in the form of the 4-5-6 (they’re named after the radio frequency they were first detected on), who have threatened to release a devastating plague into the atmosphere and destroy the entire species if the government(s) don’t give them what they want: 10% of the children on the planet.  If this reminds you a bit of Stephen King’s Storm of the Century, well, it does me too, a bit.

As with Storm of the Century (which I highly recommend), much of the best drama in the story is to be had in the conversations held between the people in charge, whose unfortunate task it is to now figure out how to cope with an unthinkable situation.  The British government has to figure out whether it is better to sacrifice the entire planet or a mere portion of its population, and once they’ve decided that there’s no decision at all, they have to decide who the children they take are going be.

That’s where it gets tricky, of course.  Do you make the decision to be impartial and “fair” and conduct some sort of random drawing, or do you try and separate the chaff from the wheat in the hopes of rendering the social impact as negligible as possible?

I’ve got my own philosophical thoughts on all that, but they’re tiresome and you don’t care, so let’s move on.

One of the ways in which “Children of Earth” truly shines is that the themes of family in general and children specifically is woven throughout the entire five-episode arc.  Let’s start at the top: for one thing, Torchwood itself is a sort of family, comprised of people who work in very close proximity and form exceptionally tight (if not always pleasant) bonds.  As you might recall, Torchwood suffered some terrible losses at the end of season two, so it’s already a wounded and scarred family.

Within that group, though, “Children of Earth” finds each of the remaining three members dealing with separate issues.  Jack, we learn, has a daughter and a grandson, both of whom age like normal humans.  Jack has been playing the role of uncle for the boy; neither Jack nor his daughter know how to explain the truth to Stephen.

Ianto, we discover, also has a family we didn’t know about: a sister, a brother-in-law, a niece, and a nephew.  Ianto is obviously a good uncle, and this is a nice little bit of characterization for him.

Then there’s Gwen, who during the course of the story discovers she’s pregnant; her husband, Rhys, is thrilled, but as the story progresses and things get darker and darker, Gwen seems to begin questioning whether or not she even wants to bring a child into such a world.

Gwen is wrestling with some mildly (if mostly academic) difficult decisions, but the entire story culminates in a scene in which Jack has to make a truly monstrous choice.  I’m not going to give it away here, in case someone is reading who hasn’t seen it yet; and if you have seen it, you surely know what I’m talking about.  This scene is a Battlestar Galactica-worthy moment of pitch black darkness, and it shares with that show a sense of there being no other way to resolve things.  It’s one of the most powerful moments in the history of the Whoniverse, that’s for damn sure.

There are numerous other such moments, many of them in the last episode, and it’s these scenes which makes me give a thumbs-up to these episodes.

They are, however, far from being free of problems.  Here are a few:

*     I hate the vocal effects they used for the sound of all the children simultaneously saying the same things.  It sounds nothing like hordes of children speaking simultaneously.  Now, granted, I don’t actually know what hordes of children simultaneously saying the same thing sounds like, but I bet this ain’t it, and if it doesn’t feel right, it feels wrong.  This feels wrong.  I’d have preferred to actually hear all of those kids speaking; that might’ve been creepy.  Although I’m sure the production logistics of accomplishing that sort of thing would be considerable, so maybe crappy vocal effects was the best they could do.

*     As a plot device, Clem — the old man who was almost a viction of the 4-5-6 — is a bit clunky.  He feels pretty significant during the first few episodes, but his story comes to a weak conclusion, in my opinion.

*    I’m not a big fan of the way the 4-5-6 are depicted.  Which is to say, how they aren’t depicted, because basically, they are never shown.  My first inclination was to think it was cool, because that way, they didn’t have to go through hours of buildup to show goofy rubber-masked aliens.  But then I began to feel like that was a bit of a cop-out, and also not in keeping with Doctor Who tradition.  It was an even worse decision to havee the aliens be some sort of weirdly vomitous creatures who were constantly spewing some sort of pea-soup-looking flith against the windows.  I suspect that this would have been okay if they’d shown it only once or twice, but it seems like it must’ve happened at least ninety-three times.  And did you notice that every time, those windows looked spotless, as if the 4-5-6 hadn’t just yarked on ‘em ten seconds earlier?  Methinks some shots were recycled.  Bad execution of a decent idea.

*     I’ve got a boner for Gwen, don’t get me wrong, but I think they tried to play her up as too big of a bad-ass at times.

*     Can America please hire a different newscaster?  Apparently, we’ve only got the one, and she looks a bit too much like Skeletor for my tastes.

*     I don’t believe for one second that if all the children of the world began chanting “We Are Coming,” and then stopped, society would continue to operate just like normal.  I get that this is a convention of storytelling, but I’m just saying, that’s silly.

*     The Prime Minister is obviously even a bigger douche than Saxon was, but it feels totally unbelievable that he would order Frobisher to sacrifice his own children to the 4-5-6.  This scene plays because the two actors are pretty great, but it seems patently false on a storytelling level, and custom designed only to give us the scene which follows.  Which, again, is a great scene; but it feels a bit like it came out of a factory that customizes in stock scenes of Darkness and Despair.

*     Ianto and Jack’s big scene was a failure on the part of the director.  Here is a very emotional scene, played in too close-up a shot from a too-awkward angle.  Back the hell up and give us a better look at these two good-looking gentlemen; otherwise, you ruin it.

Mostly, though, this was a gripping, excellent series of episodes.  I’ve seen some complaints that it’s too dark, and that that darkness makes it feel too separate from the Doctor Who canon of which it is technically a part.  I disagree.  At one point, Gwen basically asks where the Doctor is, and it’s a valid concern.  To me, though, this strengthens the Doctor as a character.  After all, he’s always finding himself stuck in nasty situations, trying to find the right metaphorical medicine to fix the problem at hand; his absence here just makes him seem like that much more of a savior all the other times.

I got the photo from the BBC site, here.

I’m intrigued by the Doctor’s look; for some reason, he reminds me of Indiana Jones during the scenes at college in Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Since this is sure to be controversial for any Whovian not named Honk Mahfah, let’s start off with something I’d hope we can all agree on.

That’s right, coming in in last place is the Doctor who ain’t a Doctor, but a Dr.  I’m referring to Peter Cushing, who portrayed a radically different version of the character in a couple of ’60s theatrical films, Dr. Who and the Daleks and Daleks: Invasion Earth 2150 A.D. Now, I’ve only seen the first of those, but based on it, I have no hesitation whatsoever in labelling Cushing’s THE worst Doctor.  Intent on (poorly) playing Dr. Who — yes, that is his actual name — as a feeble old man, Cushing is obviously going for some weird brand of eccentricity that not only isn’t the Doctor we know from the series, but isn’t a satisfying or interesting character in its own right.

But enough of that.  Let’s get to the real Doctors.

#10 — Eighth Doctor, Paul McGann

Obviously, there’s not an awful lot to go on with the Eighth Doctor, because he only had one two-hour movie for his entire run … and he wasn’t even in the entirety of that!

The Eigth Doctor has at least two qualities not apparently possessed by any of the other incarnations: he’s half human, and he’s entirely cool with the idea of snogging his companion.  Both of these are hotly contested issues within the kinds of social circles concerned with things such as the canonicity of McGann’s tv movie.  Me, I tend to be of two minds about them: on the one hand, these were probably intentional alterations to the character to try and make the (proposed) relaunch of the series both more relatable and sexier; on the other hand, I can easily reconcile them with existing Who canon by simply chalking both (the lie about being half-human and the slip-up of kissing Grace) up to quirks of the regeration process.

For the truly hardcore Whovian, there is an entire series of Eighth Doctor audio dramas (starring McGann and produced by Big Finish Productions in conjunction with the BBC) that help make the tenure of this briefest Doctor a bit more expansive.  I look forward to hearing those one of these days, but for the time being, all I’ve got to go on is the ’96 movie.

I’m going to find it useful to provide some quotations from the various Doctors’ Wikipedia pages, and here is one on the Eighth Doctor: “The Eighth Doctor, a Byronesque figure who is arguably the most human and romantic of all of his incarnations, encouraged those around him to seize life instead of withdrawing from it.  He also seemed to enjoy giving people hints of their own futures, probably to prod them into making the right decisions.  It is unclear if the Eighth Doctor’s knowledge of people’s futures comes from historical expertise, psychic power or precognitive ability.”  (Full article here.)

#9 — Fifth Doctor, Peter Davison

I can practically smell the gasoline on the torches of the Whovian villagers as they come to smoke me out and lynch me.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t dislike the guy; I just don’t find myself at all engaged by his incarnation of the Doctor.  Maybe it’s that celery on his jacket; maybe it’s his abysmal taste in companions.  I dunno, I’m just not a big fan.

From Wikipedia: “The Fifth Doctor was far more vulnerable, sensitive and reserved than his previous incarnations, and would often react to situations rather than initiate them.  Unlike his more authoritative predecessors, he would treat his young companions as parts of a team, and would often willingly participate in situations under the leadership of someone else who had the strong command presence that he apparently lacked.  However, the Fifth Doctor’s boyish appearance, nervous energy and charm all hid the fact that he was a Time Lord of great age, compassion and experience.  This Doctor greatly abhorred violence and would often hesitate about taking matters into his own hands.  For the first time indecision weighed seriously on the character, and it had its consequences – yet this Doctor was also one of the most courageous of his incarnations.”  (Full article here.)

Maybe it’s that reservedness and timidity that don’t sit well with me in comparison to other Doctors.  But one of the great things about this character is that he doesn’t have to be — and shouldn’t be — played the same way by each actor who takes on the role.  As such, it seems likely that almost all of them will have a group of fans who whom he is THE Doctor.  Davison isn’t mine, but that’s okay; he needn’t be.

#8 — Seventh Doctor, Sylvester McCoy

I’ve only seen a handful of the Seventh Doctor’s stories, all from the show’s final season … and I hated them all.  In fact, not only did I hate the stories, I hated the Doctor in them, and I hated the way McCoy played him.

Why, then, isn’t he at the bottom of my list?

Two words: Big Finish.

I’ve become a definite Seventh Doctor fan through the few Big Finish audio dramas I’ve heard, some of which (The Sirens of Time, The Fearmonger, The Genocide Machine, and especially The Fires of Vulcan and The Shadow of the Scourge) star McCoy.

I don’t know if the television episodes of McCoy’s I’ve seen are a poor representation, or if his seasons of the show were a disaster in general, or if the Big Finish productions are simply that good, but somehow, while having the Seventh Doctor’s deceptively sad tones piped directly into my ears, I feel as if I’ve gotten a handle on the mixture of charm and callousness and, yes, alienness that I was probably supposed to be getting in, say, Ghost Light and The Curse of Fenric.

From Wikipedia: “The Seventh Doctor displayed perhaps the most profound change in attitude of any of the Time Lord’s personae, beginning as perhaps the most outwardly amiable and bumbling (to the extent of putting himself in danger but not at the cost of his overall great intelligence and benevolent intentions) and progressing into a driven, dark gamemaster whose plans to defeat his adversaries, both old and new, would play out across space and time.  He generally displayed an affable, curious, knowledgeable, easygoing, excitable and charming air.  However, as he began to choose his battles and keep a tighter grip on his secrets – from his plans to his very identity – he also presented more serious, contemplative, secretive, wistful and manipulative sides with undercurrents of mischief and authority, constantly giving the impression that there was more to him than met the eye. Concerned with the bigger picture, he would sometimes overlook the finer details and his planning, both pre-prepared and improvised, would sometimes have fatal results and consequences.  When he acted to end threats, it was usually a ruthless, destructive and final maneuver.  He was also not above hiding the truth from his friends and allies and using them in order to complete his schemes and gambits.”  (Full article here.)

#7 — Second Doctor, Patrick Troughton

From here on out, we’re talking about Doctors whom I do truly, fully like.  Of those, I suppose I like the Second Doctor the least.

Troughton was, however, magnificent in the role, and in some ways, I think he had the hardest job of any of the ten so far.  After all, he was the first one to not the be the First; he had to be his own character without managing to lose the audience the show had built up over its first several seasons.  He did so by retaining the air of distractedness William Hartnell often manifested in the role, and also occasionally summoned up Hartnell’s imperiousness … but otherwise, he made the role his own, and in so doing, freed the character to be interpreted in any number of ways.  Troughton is a bit like Roger Moore’s James Bond in that way, and like Moore, if he hadn’t been popular in the role, it would likely have killed the series.

From Wikipedia: “He has been nicknamed the ‘Cosmic Hobo^‘ as the impish Second Doctor appeared to be far more scruffy and child-like than his first incarnation.  Mercurial, clever, and always a few steps ahead of his enemies, at times he could be a calculating schemer who would not only manipulate people for the greater good but act like a bumbling fool in order to have others underestimate his true abilities .  But despite the bluster and tendency to panic when events got out of control, the Second Doctor always acted heroically and morally in his desire to help the oppressed.  More than any other perhaps, this incarnation of the Time Lord was a wolf in sheep’s clothing.”  (Full article here.)

#6 — Sixth Doctor, Colin Baker

I’m a bit surprised by how much I like Colin Baker’s Sixth Doctor.  His wardrobe alone was enough to convince me that I was going to hate him, but in actuality, I took to him from the first of his stories I saw, “Vengeance on Varos.”  Those episodes are dreadful, as are most of the other Sixth Doctor stories I’ve seen (“The Two Doctors” is a mild exception).  However, the Sixth Doctor’s bluster was amusing, and the rage that seemed always to be just under the surface was interesting.

As with the Seventh Doctor, I’ve become a bigger fan of Colin Baker’s incarnation through several Big Finish dramas.  The Sixth Doctor is especially good in The Marian Conspiracy and The Holy Terror, both of which are excellent.  I’ve heard only the first dozen-plus-a-few of the Big Finish line, and I look forward to hearing more.

From Wikipedia: “The Sixth Doctor was an unpredictable and somewhat petulant egoist, whose garish, multicoloured attire reflected his volatile personality.  He was both portentous and eloquent — even for any Doctor, of whom he saw himself as the finest incarnation yet — and his unpredictability was made even wilder by his mood swings, manic behaviour, bombastic outbursts and glib, unflappable wit.  His personality also displayed occasionally fatalistic overtones.  The Sixth Doctor was almost supremely confident in his abilities and did not suffer fools gladly; he sometimes seemed to endure Peri’s presence far more than he actually appreciated it, and his superiority complex applied to almost everyone he encountered.  His intellect could support his ego — for instance, the Sixth Doctor was the only one who was able to repair and operate the chameleon circuit within the TARDIS, allowing it to change shape to suit its surroundings rather than looking constantly like a police box (although the appropriateness of the TARDIS’s appearance to its environment was more-or-less nil) in Attack of the Cybermen.  However, not only did his melodramatic arrogance and caustic wit eventually subside, it actually hid the fact that he had a strong moral sense and a heart of gold (glimpsed in Revelation of the Daleks, in which he showed great compassion to a dying mutant).  Underneath his blustering exterior, he was more determined than ever in his universal battles against evil, possessed of a tenacity and a thirst to do what was right that was far more visible than ever before.  Despite his often unstable demeanour, he was always ready to act when necessary, and very little — even his companions — could hope to stand in his way.”  (Full article here.)

#5 — Ninth Doctor, Christopher Eccleston

In some ways, Christopher Eccleston will always be my favorite Doctor, because he’s My Doctor.  “My Doctor” is a Whovian way of saying that he’s the actor who, while in the role, made me a Doctor Who fan.  I’d seen the ’96 movie years earlier, but Eccleston earns the distinction of being My Doctor because it was his one season in the role that won me over.  When the revamped series began airing on the Sci-Fi Channel, I watched it only out of what I felt was an obligation to the genre; I try, generally, to at least give a chance to any new sci-fi series.

However, I wasn’t committed to it.  I’d DVRed the first episode and when I got home from work on the Friday night it had aired, I turned on the television, pressed play, and immediately went to the computer to check email, feeling that it would probably be good enough to just let this one play in the background.

However, when Eccleston started in on his first meaty dialogue scene, I stopped reading whatever I was reading and turned ’round, interested.  After a few minutes, I’d made the migration from the computer desk to my recliner, and that was that.

Eccleston is certainly one of the better actors to ever take on the role, and he’s one of only a few whose work I know a bit outside of Doctor Who.  Despite that, he’ll probably now forever be the Doctor to me.  He’s tough, haunted, funny, goofy, needy, and entirely capable (if not always immediately).  As much as I like David Tennant, I regret that Eccleston stuck around for such a short amount of time.

From Wikipedia: “The Doctor’s ninth incarnation was perhaps the most gritty, and informal, masking a lonely, guilt-ridden and melancholic personality with a jovial, witty, forthright and almost manic exterior.  Similar to the Fourth Doctor, he would often make jokes in the face of danger, but then become grim and serious when on his own.  Like the Sixth Doctor, he also tended to be fatalistic at times, to the point of near-panic when he and Rose were cornered in “The Unquiet Dead” and he realised that he was going to die (this despite the knowledge that he would probably just regenerate).  Despite being impatient with humans, whom he often referred to as ‘stupid apes’ — and Mickey receiving particular scorn and being dubbed ‘Mickey the Idiot’ — the Ninth Doctor was far more tactile with, and reliant upon, his human companions than previous incarnations.”  (Full article here.)

#4 — First Doctor, William Hartnell

I was tempted to nudge the First Doctor even farther up the list, quite frankly.  He is unquestionably one of my favorites.  His episodes have a sort of tone — mostly, but not entirely, due to the nonexistent budgets and the resultant ambitiousness/garishness — that none of the other Doctors’ episodes possess.

Hartnell, who was prone to line fluffing (the BBC apparently couldn’t afford retakes, or at least couldn’t always afford them), has a true imperiousness in the role that simultaneously makes him the most alien and the most aristocratic of the Doctors.  The only incarnation who could genuinely be called elderly, he also — unsurprisingly — gives off a genuine sense of a centuries-long life, and the wisdom, arrogance, distractedness, and disdain that would go with it.  He could be entirely sympathetic one moment, and entirely disinterested the next.

After getting hooked on the show through first Christopher Eccleston and then David Tennant, I decided to buy the DVDs of “An Unearthly Child” and “The Daleks” to see how the show had begun.  When I’d gotten a few minutes into “An Unearthly Child,” I was almost appalled by how stagey and cheap the show seemed.  But as soon as Hartnell showed up, I knew I was going to enjoy it, and I did.  He was undoubtedly an enormous part of the reason why the show is still around today; after all, if it had never caught on, it couldn’t very well have survived, now could, it, hm?

From Wikipedia:  “From the beginning, the First Doctor was a mysterious figure.  He appeared to be a frail old man, despite the eventual revelation that he was actually the youngest of the Doctor’s incarnations, and yet was possessed of unexpected reserves of strength and will.  (An early writers’ guide by script editor David Whitaker describes ‘Doctor Who’ [sic] as ‘frail-looking but wiry and tough as an old turkey’.)  He obviously held tremendous knowledge of scientific matters, and yet was unable to pilot his TARDIS time ship reliably; his granddaughter Susan explained this by saying that her grandfather was ‘a bit forgetful’.  He was abrasive, patronising, and cantankerous towards his human travelling companions, yet shared a deep emotional bond with his granddaughter Susan.  He also harboured a streak of ruthlessness, being willing to lie — and in one case attempt to kill — to achieve his goals. I nitially, he distrusted his first two human companions, Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright, who were forced on him.  Over time, however, as they shared adventures together, he grew closer to them, and the TARDIS crew came to share almost a family bond.”  (Full article here.)

An Honorable Mention goes to Richard Hurndall, who played the First Doctor in the mega-crossover event “The Five Doctors.”  He did so quite well in place of the decased Hartnell, and deserves credit for it.

#3 — Tenth Doctor, David Tennant

I’m a bit surprised to find myself ranking Tennant this low, but there you have it.

A lot of the credit for Doctor Who becoming a bit of a phenomenon again must be attributed directly to Tennant, who is not only a great, charismatic actor, but is also a truly geeked-out fan of the show, one who has promoted it tirelessly and will undoubtedly continue to do so for years to come.  (I definitely smell some “The Two Doctors”-style crossover appearances in Tennant’s future.)

As probably THE most eccentric of the Doctors to date, the Tenth might easily have been seen as little more than a hyper buffoon if Tennant wasn’t so good at playing more than one emotion simultaneously: you can sometimes see that his exuberance is a mask over his anguish, and you can at other times see that he even though he’s frowning, he’s not actually in much distress.  It’s a complicated, intricate performance that Tennant builds upon episode by episode, making it not necessarily crucial to see every episode in order, but certainly rewarding and informative to do so.  In terms of pure acting skill, Tennant may well be the best the series has yet seen.

From Wikipedia:  “The Tenth Doctor generally displays a light-hearted, talkative, easy-going, witty and cheeky manner, but combines this with a somewhat egocentric sense of unstoppability when facing his enemies.  He is perhaps as ruthless and dangerous as his seventh incarnation ever was, although much less inclined to complex schemes and set goals.  Like his past selves, he is critical of weapons, going as far as to describe people with guns as “the enemy” in “The Sontaran Stratagem”.  His strong personal sense of justice makes him quick to anger when he feels it is violated, as in “New Earth” when he learned of the plague farm run by the Sisters of Plenitude, and after Prime Minister Harriet Jones had given the order to destroy the retreating Sycorax ship, the Doctor warned her that he could “bring down” her government with six words.  Like the Seventh and Ninth Doctor, the Tenth sometimes uses a cheerful, energetic façade to mask inner emotions.  He has a tendency to babble, mixing apparent nonsense with vital information, sometimes acting erratically to put his enemies off guard like some of his earlier incarnations.  He can also be rude on occasion, and is not always aware of it, being prone to making comments that to outsiders seem obtuse or rude, sometimes to his own embarrassment.  He has a tendency to use technobabble to describe scientific concepts before substituting it with a simpler, analogous explanation.  Further to this, he tends to infantilise names and concepts — his description of non-linear temporal physics as “a big ball of wibbly wobbly, timey wimey stuff” is perhaps the most well known example^. He is also able to rapidly switch between moods, from mania to anger to nonchalance and uses this as a form of reverse psychology on several occasions (“Fear Her”, “Love & Monsters” and “Army of Ghosts”).”  (Full article here.)

#2 — Third Doctor, Jon Pertwee

Man, I love me some Third Doctor.  Not like that, although I will say that he is the manliest of the Doctors, despite the cape and lisp.  You sense that if the Doctors all met up and had a boxing tournament, he’d probably be the champion.

He also drives a fine yellow car, has superior taste in companions (Liz Shaw, Jo Grant, and Sarah Jane Smith are all among the best of the entire series, to say nothing of the Brigadier), and is just sorta generally awesome.

The Doctor’s relationships with his female companions have varied greatly with each Doctor, of course, but I find Pertwee’s to be the most interesting.  Until (arguably) McGann, of course, it’s all in how you read it, but with the Third Doctor, he seems very much like a ladies’ man who is already several years past the point of realizing that he’s simply gotten too old to pursue the type of women to whom he is attracted.  If the First Doctor had a grandfatherly air with all of his companions, and the Second had an air of a favorite daffy uncle, the Third has what I would describe as an air of unstated and mostly repressed sexual desire.  That might be creepy, I guess, but I think it’s there, all right.

If you want proof, see the Doctor’s reaction to Jo’s departure in “The Green Death”; she decides to end her travels with the Doctor in favor of marrying a young professor, and if that’s not barely-stifled heartbreak on Pertwee’s face, then I don’t know what barely-stifled heartbreak looks like.

From Wikipedia: “The Third Doctor was a suave, authoritative man of action, who not only practiced Venusian Aikido, but enjoyed working on gadgets and riding all manner of vehicles, such as the Whomobile and his pride and joy, the canary-yellow vintage roadster nicknamed “Bessie” which featured such modifications as a remote control, dramatically increased speed capabilities and even inertial dampeners.  While this incarnation spent most of his time exiled on Earth, where he grudgingly worked as UNIT’s scientific advisor, he would occasionally be sent on covert missions by the Time Lords, where he would often act as a reluctant mediator.  Even though he developed a fondness for Earthlings with whom he worked , he would jump at any chance to return to the stars with the enthusiasm of a far younger man than himself.  If this Doctor had a somewhat patrician and authoritarian air, he was just as quick to criticise authority too—having little patience with self-inflated bureaucrats, parochially-narrow ministers, knee-jerk militarists or red tape in general.  His courageousness could easily turn to waspish indignation.  It is thus no surprise that a common catchphrase of his was “Now listen to me.” Despite his arrogance, the Third Doctor genuinely cared for his companions in a paternal fashion, and even held a thinly-veiled but grudging admiration for his nemesis, the Master, and for UNIT’s leader, Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, with whom he eventually became friends.  In general, this incarnation of the Doctor was more physically daring than the previous two, and was the first to attack an enemy physically if cornered (both of his previous incarnations would nearly always attempt to dodge, flee or negotiate rather than directly defend themselves).  This often took the form of quick strikes, with the occasional joint lock or throw – usually enough to get himself and anyone accompanying him out of immediate danger – but usually not to the extent of a brawl, in keeping with the Doctor’s non-violent nature.  He would only use his fighting skills if he had no alternative, and even then generally disarmed his opponents rather than knock them unconscious.”  (Full article here.)

#1 — Fourth Doctor, Tom Baker

The best of ‘em all, as far as I’m concerned.  Part of it is the voice, which is simply as good as a voice can be without a name ending in “Earl Jones.”  Baker also had a tremendous sense of humor in the role, one that — as with future incarnations — turn on a dime into contempt or dismay or outright intimidation.

To this day, Baker is probably, visually speaking, the most iconic of the Doctors, with that hat and scarf and nose and curly mess of hair.  Like the Third Doctor before him, of whom he certainly seems a direct descendant in some regards, he has an impeccable taste in companions (Sarah Jane, Leela, Romana), although he loses a few points for picking up Adric, Nyssa, and Tegan.

For the time being, at least, I think it is Tom Baker that all of the successive actors have had to try and live up to.  Only a couple of them have truly been up to the task, and it’s a ghost actors will be chasing for years to come.

From Wikipedia:  “More so than his previous incarnations, he is thrilled by discovery and adventure.  Galvanised by higher purpose, he is disarmingly loopy, brilliant and entirely serious, all at the same time.  To an extent, the Fourth Doctor is the most unpredictable of his incarnations, befuddling all with his intelligence, constantly leaving others wondering if they have his full attention and using his more off the wall mannerisms against adversaries to distract them while arranging to take control of the situation.  His keen judge of character also enables him to navigate his way through situations with new people, helping him to discern friend from foe.  Although like all his selves he prefers his brain over his brawn, he is a capable swordsman and wrestler, following on from the martial expertise of his immediate former self.  Despite his charm and offbeat humour, the Fourth Doctor is arguably more aloof and sombre than his previous incarnations.  He could become intensely brooding, serious and even callous, and would keenly scrutinise his surroundings even when playing the fool.  He could also be furious with those he saw as stupid, frivolous, misguided or evil.  When taking charge, he could be considered authoritative to the point of egocentricity, but as it is, he is usually the only one capable of solving the situations he finds himself in.”  (Full article here.)

At the end of the day, it is this fairly marvelous stable of lead actors that has probably been THE biggest contributing factor to the decades of success Doctor Who has enjoyed.  It currently shows no signs of abating, and come this time next year, we’ll have a fresh new Doctor to compare against the others.

I don’t know how Matt Smith is going to turn out, but he’s certainly got his work cut out for him.

Other reports list both James McAvoy and Daniel Radcliffe as being the other front-runners for the job.

Fueling the fire for the rumors of Tennant’s casting is a pair of convergent facts: (1) that Hobbit producer Peter Jackson is making an appearance at next weekend’s Comic Con in San Diego; and (2) that Tennant will also be appearing at Comic Con, ostensibly in promotional support of his final episodes of Who.  There certainly appears to be some dot-connecting going on here, but it’s at least informed speculation.

Personally, I think Tennant would be brilliant in the role.  If the casting should come to pass, I think it’s safe to say that it would be the biggest post-Who role ever landed by one of the Doctors, and would therefore represent something of a milestone for the series as well as for Tennant himself.

Stay tuned, as further developments will certainly be reported here when they arise.

It isn’t dreadful, or anything — we’re not talking about “Revelation of the Daleks” here — but it’s a bit of a letdown from an inspired concept.

The idea is that the Doctor shows up on Christmas Eve in 1851 London, steps out of the TARDIS, looks about gleefully, and is almost immediately called by someone shouting for his help … or so he thinks.  The woman is actually shouting for another fellow who claims to be the Doctor, and our Doctor assumes that he has met a future incarnation of himself.  And why not?  It’s not as if crossovers never happen.

Of course, as it turns out, the Next Doctor isn’t the Doctor at all, but a poor man whose brain was affected by a Cyberman infostamp; that combined with a fugue state (brought on by the death of his wife) has made him temporarily take on the guise of the Doctor to combat the evil threatening London.  It also causes him to take on a companion, named (conveninetly) Rosita … and construct a “TARDIS” (an air balloon) … and wield a “sonic screwdriver”.  All of this is done so that for the first few minutes of the episode, we will actually think we’re seeing the next Doctor.  But since that part of the plot is done away with so quickly, it all seems like highly convenient wasted work.

The rest of the plot is utter nonsense.  The Cybermen have showed up and started working with a woman to raise a Cyberking from the river and blah blah blah.  Doctor Who can be (and often is) silly, just-for-fun stuff, but this one is one nonsensicality after another.

What redeems “The Next Doctor” is The Two Davids: Tennant and Morrissey, both of whom are terrific.  Tennant, of course, well, when isn’t he?  He gets his usual quotient of comedy, and the scene in which he informs the “Doctor” that he is, in fact, Jackson Lake is one of the better scenes he’s ever done.

As for Morrissey, he had a tough role.  He had to be convincing as somebody who plausibly could be the Doctor, but with undercurrents that would make it instantly plausible that he had at no point actually been the Doctor.  He pulls it off brilliantly.  I can imagine that there will eventually be some sort of alternate-universe fiction (either in prose or in drama form) in which his role as “the Doctor” gets expanded upon a bit.

I enjoyed seeing the shots of the first nine Doctors emitted from the infostamp; those nods to continuity are always welcome.

All in all, though, it’s a seriously mixed bag of an episode.

Well, Torchwood fans even more cause to be excited now: BBC Radio 4 is debuting three new radio-only episodes this week as part of its Afternoon Play series.  The episodes star the show’s actual cast members (John Barrowman, Eve Myles, and Gareth David-Lloyd) and were each written by members of the show’s writing staff.

Does this mean the radio plays are official Torchwood episodes?  Yes, it does.

Click here to visit the BBC Radio 4′s Torchwood site, where the episodes will be available for download.  There’s a catch, though: they will each be available for only seven days, so make sure you head over there promptly.

The first episode, “Asylum,” debuted today; the second, “Golden Age,” will air tomorrow; and the third, “The Dead Line,” airs on Friday.

“Children of Earth” airs in the UK starting next week, and will debut on BBC America later in July.

Essentially representing an expansion of one bit of King’s original story — Roland’s matricide — this issue is not without its interesting moments, but I’d have to say it’s one of the new issues of Marvel’s Dark Tower comics that has left me feeling rather unimpressed.

For one thing … can I talk a bit about Peter David’s script?  I’ve never been a big fan of the “folksy” voice he’s given the narrative.  In this issue, David’s “narrator” is particularly odious, especially on the first couple of pages, where he seems to be channeling Firefly‘s Mal Reynolds for some reason.  Maybe it was the resultant grumpiness that made me less appreciative of this issue than is commonly the case; I don’t know.

On page 3, there is a weird bit involving Gabrielle’s ghost or spirit or whatever emerging from her corpse and pausing over Roland’s unconscious body.  I’m not sure what to make of this.  It’s not that it feels inconsistent with the Dark Tower universe or anything like that … but it’s also a plot element that doesn’t seem to be intending to go anywhere, and therefore, it’s kinda pointless.  It’s overly theatrical, and feels like something that might be done in a mediocre stage adaptation of the story.  I would guess that the idea was to try and drive home the ironic horror of the situation a bit more forecfully, but the image on the following page of Gabrielle’s dead arm (still clutching the belt she was giving to Roland, surrounded by spatters of blood) does that job far more effectively … and subtly.  Why bring ghostly asides into the mix?

Speaking of theatricality, why is Cort speaking aloud to himself on p. 17-8?  I get the necessity of us having access to what’s going on Cort’s mind during those moments, but why couldn’t he have been thinking these things, rather than actually speaking them?

One element of this arc that I’m already enjoying is the addition of Aileen into the dynamic between Cuthbert and Alain.  I can’t imagine that Aileen is going to be alive much longer — I’m giving her about four issues more — but it seems that she may provide some nice story sparks between now and then.  Similarly, there is a nice dynamic between Cort and Vannay, but given the fact that Cort ends this issue having been poisoned, I’d guess there’s not much time left for this particular relationship to play out, either.  In both of these cases, it’d be understandable to be a bit annoyed that the writers are only now (at what appears to be a very late stage in the series) getting around to establishing such relationships, but I think it’s an effective tactic: it makes the impending loss of Gilead and the gunslinger culture seem that much more tragic.  It also brings in a very real sense of time running out and it being too late to do anything about it.

I’m curious to see how the story of Roland’s matricide plays out over the rest of the series.  It seems like he may be in hot water with Steven, and that’s an aspect of the story which had never crossed my mind previously.

A couple of parting notes:

Pay close attention to the walls on page 9; Stephen King fans might see something familiar in a painting in one panel.

Finally, I was amused to discover while reading Robin Furth’s afterword that the enchanted journal Cort becomes poisoned by was directly inspired by Doctor Who.  When I got to that scene in the issue, the thought “psychic paper” flashed into my brain, and then I immediately dismissed it as a coincidence.  Well, not so fast there, buckaroo; looks like it was a good connection after all.

I’m always amused when one branch of geekdom intersects another … and given certain events in both Wolves of the Calla and Song of Susannah, this is fair game as much as anything else would be.