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Post by Deleted on Dec 22, 2016 6:21:49 GMT
I'm sure I'll get flack for this, but why for everyone is the 4th Doctor so awesome? I like some of his stories... but overall he isn't even my 3rd favourite Doctor.. not even my 5th! Yet there seems to he this huge following for him. I realize for Americans he was their first... but other than that... why the hype?
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Post by Deleted on Dec 22, 2016 6:34:06 GMT
There are others here who will be able to pinpoint it more precisely than me, but I think it was a combination of dynamic chemistry. Hinchcliffe and Holmes, Tom Baker and Liz Sladen/Louise Jameson, Dudley Simpson and David Mahoney... The reason why I think he's regarded as the best is because the beginning of his era was when everything clicked in such a way as to seem peerless. There's nary a story you can skip during that first production run without missing out on something that seems to only strengthen each time it's reviewed. That and there's seven years worth of adventures to explore showing the Fourth Doctor's morality, mentality, wit, guile, sophistication, weaknesses, hopes, dreams, quirks... He's remarkably multifaceted and there were often very strong guest characters that bolstered a powerhouse of acting already. I don't just mean our heroes or villains either. Some of those characters were iconic enough that decades later they've received their own spin-off series (i.e. Jago and Litefoot).
It was an era where everything seemed to slot perfectly into place.
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Post by mark687 on Dec 22, 2016 10:40:56 GMT
Ducking for cover but bear with me.
TB isn't my favourite Doctor, However, he and everyone else involved in the show's production are consistently good for 5 years, even Underworld has its charms.
I detailed my feelings about Season 17 in its own Thread.
Then Season 18 comes along TB doesn't even attempt to hide his boredom, LW is even more off-putting then she was in Season 17, an instantly annoying new companion, and then the show talks down to the audience with an almost completely nonsensical script WG.
Regards
mark687
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bobod
Chancellery Guard
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Post by bobod on Dec 22, 2016 11:53:35 GMT
Well that must be the first time someone has accused Warriors' Gate of talking *down* to the audience.
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Post by mark687 on Dec 22, 2016 12:02:36 GMT
Well that must be the first time someone has accused Warriors' Gate of talking *down* to the audience. Sorry wrong word choice superior to the audience might be better phrasing "we've just been really clever and stylish and you've not got it".
Regards
mark687
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Post by Deleted on Dec 22, 2016 12:51:14 GMT
I'm sure I'll get flack for this, but why for everyone is the 4th Doctor so awesome? Well, the Fourth Doctor wasn't my first, but he was (and is) awesome! For me he is the iconic Doctor, the hat and long scarf is enough... celery and a white cricket jumper just isn't the same! Of course, not every Fourth Doctor story is a classic, but some of them are the best Doctor Who ever made.
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Post by dalekbuster523finish on Dec 22, 2016 12:56:40 GMT
He's not my favourite Doctor either. I just admire the way he embodies the role both off and on-screen. With Tom Baker and Matt Smith, it's like they simply are the Doctors they played.
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Post by glutamodo on Dec 22, 2016 13:23:17 GMT
Tom is no longer my favorite Doctor either, but there was a time when he was the ONLY doctor I knew, so I could have no other favorites. The first couple of years I started watching (one episode every evening and one full story every Sunday morning on PBS) in the early 80s, Tom was the only doctor my local station was airing. A couple of years later, Peter Davison showed up, I liked him OK but he felt a bit vanilla/bland in comparison. Then some John Pertwee reruns got mixed in and then Colin Baker appeared. Colin had a spark to him I found missing since Tom and he became MY doctor and I think he still is.
On Big Finish, I like the level of attention and detail to recreating Tom's era the best they can. I know Nick and Company are True Fans and really want to have stories that: 1. Tom will enjoy and want to be doing and 2. Will be produced in such a way that fans of the 70s output will feel an relationship and affinity for. And they pull it off. They get the right writers, actors, musicians and sound designers to work with him. My only regret is they didn't start soon enough for Liz Sladen to do an a new full season with Tom. The recent (admittedly, pretty much expected by myself) revelations that Lalla and Tom don't work in-studio together doesn't really bother me at all because everyone involved overcome that potential stumbling block and still deliver the necessary goods.
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Post by theotherjosh on Dec 22, 2016 13:33:30 GMT
For older fans, I think a significant portion of it was when we met him. For a lot of American fans of my generation, Tom Baker was THE Doctor, and as the t-shirt says, you never forget your first Doctor.
I was aware that there had been predecessors, but he defined the role for me. So, nostalgia is a part of it, but I don't think nostalgia alone could account for his enduring popularity were there not something greater behind it.
I didn't discover Big Finish until 2012, but when I did, I got into it in a big way. It was really everything I wanted out of Doctor Who. I enjoyed it so much that I was nervous to return to what had previously been my favorite. What if it was just rose-tinted nostalgia? To employ a Doctor Who phrase, the memory cheats, and this wouldn't be the first time I went back to something I had loved as a kid to discover that it had really been pretty awful. Could I appreciate the Baker era as an adult?
Yup. It’s still great. Not all of it, of course, anything of that length is going to have some stinkers, but I still love Baker’s Doctor. He’s fun to watch, and charming and bonkers. As wolfie observed earlier in the thread, he had a very long run, and that allowed him to tell more stories and more kinds of stories than any other Doctor. He didn’t define his era, he defined Doctor Who as a whole.
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Post by liam on Dec 22, 2016 13:43:21 GMT
He's not my favourite either. My particular soft spot is for 1 & 11. But I think what it is, is that Tom Baker really feels like The Doctor. I think the companions and writing helped Tom become a favourite too. Louise Jameson & Lis Sladen were brilliant with him and it made for a brilliant few seasons. I'm not a huge fan of Romana II either to be honest. I'd much rather Mary Tamm had stayed on board. She was sassy!
I think Tom Baker just embodies what Doctor Who is all about. He may not be my favourite but he'll always be held in high regard in the Whoniverse.
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Post by mrperson on Dec 22, 2016 14:21:28 GMT
Wit, charm, the ability to put on a series performance throughout an episode while regularly cracking jokes in a way that doesn't diminish the atmosphere. The unique voice. He's simply great.
It's not just his Doctor....the man is interesting and hilarious whenever he opens his mouth.
For a long time I called him my favorite (and I'm really not sure who the 'first' was), but at this point, I have a hard time rating them. In the original series, I felt that the later docs suffered somewhat from scripts despite their own abilities. Big Finish has remedied that.
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Post by Timelord007 on Dec 22, 2016 15:40:12 GMT
Mans a legend, i adore him, always have, always will.
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bobod
Chancellery Guard
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Post by bobod on Dec 22, 2016 17:19:41 GMT
Well that must be the first time someone has accused Warriors' Gate of talking *down* to the audience. Sorry wrong word choice superior to the audience might be better phrasing "we've just been really clever and stylish and you've not got it".
Regards
mark687
That makes more sense. Though I don't agree with it. It's a shame you don't personally 'get it'. But it's not fundamentally not-gettable. I totally get it. It's clever as opposed to clever-clever. It's one of my favourite stories. The cliffhanger to part three is, for me, one of the most perfect Doctor Who moments ever.
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Post by mark687 on Dec 22, 2016 21:19:37 GMT
Sorry wrong word choice superior to the audience might be better phrasing "we've just been really clever and stylish and you've not got it".
Regards
mark687
That makes more sense. Though I don't agree with it. It's a shame you don't personally 'get it'. But it's not fundamentally not-gettable. I totally get it. It's clever as opposed to clever-clever. It's one of my favourite stories. The cliffhanger to part three is, for me, one of the most perfect Doctor Who moments ever. Oh I get it I just don't think its very good and there's clearly a breakdown in communication between Directors concept and Production team capability, but to each their own.
Regards
mark687
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shutupbanks
Castellan
There’s a horror movie called Alien? That’s really offensive. No wonder everyone keeps invading you.
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Post by shutupbanks on Dec 23, 2016 0:36:49 GMT
I've always maintained that I'm with the brig on this ("Splendid chap, all of them") but a lot of my favourite stories are from TB's time on the show. As others have said, he was the Doctor at a time when the show experienced a peak in quality and audience and was a terrific ambassador for the role as well. Playing the character for over a quarter of the original run didn't hurt either, I imagine.
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Post by relativetime on Dec 23, 2016 2:07:17 GMT
Tom Baker was my favorite before I discovered Big Finish and the Sixth Doctor. It's really difficult to say what makes him so brilliant, honestly. Maybe I just watched his seasons at the right time in my life and associate it with a lot of good memories; maybe I just saw something I wasn't getting from NuWho. He's alien without the scripts making it some tiresome running gag and he doesn't have to be some mythical "Oncoming Storm" or "The Last Time Lord" to save the day - he can just be a really clever, but really silly man traveling in a box who saves the day because he puts his intelligence to use. He wasn't my first Doctor, but he was the first Doctor that completely sold the part of a "mad man in a box."
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Post by barnabaslives on Dec 23, 2016 2:27:41 GMT
I think the 4th Doctor era was an adventurous but not preposterous one where it was safe to feel almost guaranteed of a good story and an interesting one, and I think a substantial part of that might have been companions who were increasingly something to reckon with in their own right. The stories feel like they don't have to worry so much about the companions and are thus at liberty to come up with more interesting dilemmas than centering on who will fly the TARDIS if The Doctor is indisposed or companions being taken in by simple ruses, and so forth.
I think Tom has a fantastic voice and a profound ability to convey emotions to the audience no matter what he's doing, and more than any other performer to play The Doctor, I feel like I can trust his cues as to what I should be feeling about a situation. His Doctor seems very straightforward and honest, and a bit less murky and complex than other Doctors can seem at times. The 7th Doctor is an utterly charming fellow but I wish it felt safe to take him at face value very often.
I do associate those 4th Doctor expectations very much with childhood viewing, but mainly I think nothing's really ever come along to change my opinion of the 4th Doctor in all these years, in contrast to the way my association of 6th and 7th Doctors with a certain quality of stories has been massively rejuvenated by the care Big Finish has taken in giving them good stories. I've come to expect really good stories with them in the audios whereas that was not my expectation with the TV series. With the 4th Doctor, perhaps the "Not now, K-9" routine is starting to stale a bit, but I think Tom and everyone are generally doing such a fine job keeping up a fine tradition that my youthful impression of the 4th Doctor as "the best Doctor ever" (if only by a little) really hasn't been tarnished any.
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Post by constonks on Dec 23, 2016 5:38:55 GMT
Tom Baker was just perfect at playing the mad alien walking non sequitur that he was and always will be. And he had the good luck to be on the show at a time when everything just clicked.
Honestly, it's the same reason that the other post-Tom Doctors' popularity shot up at the start of Big Finish. It's a case of great actors who knew what they were doing being given adventurous, well-written stories at a time when the fandom would have taken ANYTHING (and got something fantastic).
Now, there's so much good stuff out there that any Doctor could be someone's favourite - I'd say even John Hurt is amassing enough material that he could be someone's number one choice - and so it might make a fan wonder why everyone holds Tom Baker in such high regard over the rest. But if you only look at Telly DW (which most do), Tom's got the madness, the companions and the scripts to impress.
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Post by ulyssessarcher on Dec 23, 2016 8:13:44 GMT
I'm sure I'll get flack for this, but why for everyone is the 4th Doctor so awesome? I like some of his stories... but overall he isn't even my 3rd favourite Doctor.. not even my 5th! Yet there seems to he this huge following for him. I realize for Americans he was their first... but other than that... why the hype? I'm not gonna give you flack, just tell you....TWWWWWW. seriously, 4 is not my favorite, but he is a solid 3rd, behind 3 and ole sixie. Cause he was America's first Doctor who, the stories were great, the comedy and drama was great, the companions were adorable(Liz Sladen was my first love, and Leela my first lust. I know, way TMI), and he was just brilliant as the doctor. Question, where does he rank in comparison with the original doctors? if He aint in that top 5 then, you might have a bit of bias over something, just sayin.
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Post by doctorkernow on Jan 8, 2017 20:16:43 GMT
Hello again.
Tom Baker is a very unusual actor. His interpretation of the role was basically a more extreme version of his own character. If you saw him as a child you knew he was on your side. He was child-like and yes at times childish. That was part of his charm.
That voice is his greatest asset. A huge vocal range that he could imbue with whatever emotion the story demanded. Even now, you know instantly if he is doing a voiceover.
After seven years, there were some occasions where perhaps his heart wasn't in it but I believe he was ill during his last season. He still delivered. I enjoyed State of Decay and Full Circle from Season 18.
Favourite Doctors are as individual as we are as fans. We all cannot understand why 'our Doctor', is not beloved by all fans. It is an unusual programme that is still producing new content with actors who left the series thirty-five odd years ago. We are lucky that he still wants to extend his considerable legacy.
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