The Top 12 Doctors in Doctor Who (Part II)

Now it's time to start listing the real Doctors. There's a lot of ground to cover, so I think we'll break this into another four parts, three Doctors on each one. This listing may be confusing for some of you since the Doctor has been around for almost 50 years. I'll try to remember to include some pictures and links to help you out with the actors you may not know. Anyway, here are the bottom three Doctors on my list. Now before I begin, I'd like to make it known that while these guys are on the bottom of the list, that doesn't mean they aren't worth checking out. It's just that someone has to end up lower on the list.

Anyway, here we go with numbers 12-10 on the top twelve Doctors.

Number 12

Paul McGann played the Eighth Doctor in a special TV movie/secret pilot in an attempt to revive Doctor Who.

I first got acquainted with Doctor Who back in the days that the show was aired late on Friday nights on PBS along with Monty Python's Flying Circus. I didn't always understand what was going on. I certainly didn't realize that I was about seven years behind the original BBC viewers. The show was a lot of fun to watch even if I only got half an hour every weekend.

Eventually I learned that the show had been taken off the air. The US did not get to see the final adventures of Sylvester McCoy at that time, but let's just say that the ending wasn't a very great send off to the longest-running science fiction show in the history of television.

In 1996, I was excited because Fox had made arrangements to broadcast a made-for-TV movie of Doctor Who. I couldn't wait to see the Doctor again and share in his adventures.Unfortunately, someone at the BBC allowed a little too much freedom to the production team so you have the strangest regeneration sequence ever. You also get to watch as the violent shooting and death of the seventh Doctor (Sylvester McCoy.) There are lots of other issues with this movie that I won't get into since it will give away the ending if you decide to watch it.

McGann isn't to blame for this atrocity, and he's done a lot of work with Doctor Who audio dramas since his short tenure as the Doctor. Check it out just to see what's wrong with the movie, but keep your expectations low.

Number 11

Rowan Atkinson played the Doctor in a special spoof made to support the Red Nose Day  charity telethon.

Here's a guy who shouldn't technically be on the list, but if you've ever seen "The Curse of the Fatal Death," you'll understand why Rowan Atkinson gets a place here. There's another reason that I include this story. Doctor Who has a long-standing tradition of helping charities. This was a four-part special created to benefit the Red Nose Day charity. The writing is brilliant and manages to find plenty of comedy in the concepts of time travel. In one scene, the Doctor and the Master talk about going back in time to convince an architect to put a trap door in the floor under the other person. It works out like that scene in Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure when they agree that after they get done, they will go back in time to steal Ted's Dad's keys and leave them for themselves right then.

Rowan Atkinson certainly isn't an official Doctor, but this adventure is embraced by fans everywhere so it earns the Number Eleven spot on the list. (Follow this link to check out the entire adventure: http://www.veoh.com/collection/DrWhoComedy/watch/v606442CTZzRPHG)

Number 10

Colin Baker played the sixth Doctor in a very difficult time for the series.

It's not Colin Baker's fault. If he'd had his way, Colin Baker would have been the longest-running Doctor in the history of Doctor Who. He would have fought all the traditional foes and struggled against every evil the writers could have come up with. Unfortunately he was fighting an unbeatable foe, the BBC.

I remember hearing a rumor when I first encountered the sixth Doctor that the writers were planning to make him abrasive and unstable so they could bring in another Doctor to turn the show around. This wasn't the case, but the difference between the fifth and sixth Doctors is extreme and did cause a lot of commotion.

Baker only got two series before he was removed as the Doctor. This included an 18-month hiatus that nearly ended the show. The final Baker story was a 14-part story called "The Trial of a Time Lord." This also doubled as the trial for Colin Baker and Doctor Who as a whole.

Since his abrupt departure as the Doctor, Colin Baker has continued to be involved in audio dramas and animated productions. He can also be seen on the special features section of most of the DVDs BBC has released from his era.

That's it for now. Be on the look out for Part 3 featuring picks seven through nine.  Feel free to leave a comment below.