A few years ago, I did a series of 47 daily posts which all looked at different questions related to the revival series of Doctor Who, focusing on stuff I like about the show. I worked out a series of questions in advance and then picked one randomly for each day. I’ve decided to revisit the series to see how my opinions may or may not have changed, and to bring two of my daughters into the discussion, since they are both big fans and have recently finished watching the revival series.
Why 47? It’s my favorite number.
Why Doctor Who? It’s my favorite show.
Why the modern day Doctor Who only? Simply because I remember it better.
Why are we looking back at this now? Because we’re on a 47 day countdown to November 23, the birthday of the show.
Check out Day #30 here.
When I first did this, it was September 2016, which means we were in between the Christmas episodes The Husbands of River Song and The Return of Dr. Mysterio, and were yet to debut Peter Capaldi’s last season on the show. Jodie Whittaker was even further away. How has the passage of time, evolution of opinions, and three further seasons of the program impacted my opinions?
Today is Day #29, and our theme is…
Favorite Doctor
Well, this is a pretty easy one. Just like last time, my favorite doctor is
The Eleventh Doctor (Matt Smith)
Even though I like the idea that we have multiple Doctors, and there are plenty others that I like a lot, it’s Matt Smith’s combination of world-weariness and childlike glee that really grabbed my heart and my mind.
This is a topic I’ve spoken to my daughters about a fair bit as well.
Johanna (16) would have previously said the Eleventh Doctor, but lately she has been wrestling with the idea of liking the Twelfth Doctor the best.
Laurelle (14) has been saying the Twelfth Doctor as her favorite for a while. It was the Tenth for a long time, but then after she watched Peter Capaldi in her role, she shifted her affections, largely because of how funny she thought he was when he was being rude.
To make this a bit more complicated, I thought we’d do a bit of a ranking. I’m going to give us all 100 points to play with, and we have to divide those points up between all the Doctors of the revival series. We have to give at least one point to ever Doctor, and we can’t give any Doctors the same number of points as each other.
And we’re going to include all of the Doctors from the revival series, so that’s the 9th (Christopher Eccleston), 10th (David Tennant), 11th (Matt Smith), 12th (Peter Capaldi), and 13th (Jodie Whittaker), but also the 5th Doctor (Peter Davison, from Time Crash only), the War Doctor (John Hurt), the 8th Doctor (Paul McGann, from Night of the Doctor only), the 1st Doctor (David Bradley’s two episodes only) and the so-called Fugitive Doctor (Jo Martin). So that’s ten different Doctors, each getting a portion of 100 points.
(Incidentally, I realized only too late that I forgot the “Curator” from The Day of the Doctor on this list. Oh well, it’s not clear at all that he’s actually the Doctor, so I guess that’s okay).
My Rankings and Point Distribution
• 24 Points – 11th Doctor
• 23 Points – 12th Doctor
• 12 Points – 8th Doctor
• 11 Points – 10th Doctor (I like him, but I find him a bit overrated)
• 9 Points – War Doctor
• 8 Points – 9th Doctor
• 6 Points – 13th Doctor (not a big fan, at least not yet)
• 4 Points – 5th Doctor (obviously would be higher if it had included more than the one mini-episode)
• 2 Points – 1st Doctor (I’m fine with David Bradley but it’s hard for me to really see him as the 1st Doctor)
• 1 Point – Fugitive Doctor (I don’t mind Jo Martin but I find the whole idea of her to be annoying)
My Daughter Johanna’s Rankings and Point Distribution
• 25 Points – 12th Doctor (Whoa! She made the change! 12th Doctor beats 11th Doctor!)
• 24 Points – 11th Doctor
• 20 Points – 10th Doctor
• 10 Points – 8th Doctor
• 6 Points – War Doctor
• 5 Points – 9th Doctor
• 4 Points – 1st Doctor
• 3 Points – 5th Doctor
• 2 Points – Fugitive Doctor
• 1 Point – 13th Doctor (Wow–her dislike of the current show runs deep!)
My Daughter Laurelle’s Rankings and Point Distribution
• 17 Points – 12th Doctor
• 15 Points – 11th Doctor (Wow–the 11th beats the 10th. That never would have happened a little while ago, even when she was first watching the 11th Doctor. She says that was almost an impossible decision to make)
• 14 Points – 10th Doctor
• 12 Points – 9th Doctor
• 11 Points – 13th Doctor
• 9 Points – War Doctor
• 7 Points – 8th Doctor
• 6 Points – 1st Doctor
• 5 Points – Fugitive Doctor
• 4 Points – 5th Doctor (She likes the old episodes with him, but can’t rate him highly here as he did so little in the modern series)
Which gives us a total ranking and point distribution of…
• 65 Points – 12th Doctor
• 63 Points – 11th Doctor
• 45 Points – 10th Doctor
• 29 Points – 8th Doctor
• 25 Points – 9th Doctor
• 24 Points – War Doctor
• 18 Points – 13th Doctor
• 12 Points – 1st Doctor
• 11 Points – 5th Doctor
• 8 Points – Fugitive Doctor
Thus making it clear, that amongst me and my two younger daughters anyway, the undisputed favorite Doctor is
The Twelth Doctor (Peter Capaldi)
What??! I want a recount!
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