Culturess’ Official Ranking of Doctors in Doctor Who
By Ani Bundel
Image via BBC
8. Seventh Doctor: Sylvester McCoy
I don’t know who fired Colin Baker, but whoever they were, they forgot to have him film a regeneration scene. Poor Sylvester McCoy is famous for showing up first as the Sixth Doctor in a very bad wig in order to regenerate into himself. We’ll try not to hold that against him, but it was not the most glorious of entrances. It was the start of a far more comical Doctor, to try to recuperate from Baker’s iteration.
McCoy did his best with it. He embraced the silliness with relish. He told the haphazard jokes with aplomb. And he was the comedic element to his serious and grounded companion. Speaking of which, he was blessed to have one of the best and most badass companions of all time—Number Two on my list— Ace. (She even went on to found a worldwide charity after leaving the TARDIS. Check her out.)
But there was a problem. Comedy wasn’t where the writers wanted to go with the show. By the end of the Seventh Doctor’s run, the Doctor had started to take a very dark turn. In many ways, his Doctor laid the foundations for the rebooted Doctors we know today. Eccleston’s angry standoffish performance can be seen as a direct descendant of McCoy (As Rose’s character is directly descended from that of Ace.) McCoy also had the bad luck to be the last of the original Doctors to appear in TV serial format, running from 1986 to 1989 when the show was canceled.