Doctor Who?

Once again I find myself surprised by the results of one of my polls!  I really expected that there would be heaps of votes for Tom Baker and maybe Peter Davison, since they were the reigning Doctors of my youth and that otherwise there'd be a little spike for Christopher Eccleston, who brought some much needed credibility back during his short time on the throne.  But no...

The most popular Doctor is Jon Pertwee!  To my mind, that means there's a bloc of readers slightly older than me who watched the good Mr Pertwee as the Doctor before their memory of him would be forever blighted by his portrayal of Worzel Gummidge, the scarecrow who comes to life in a Calvin-&-Hobbes-esque fashion.  Whereas I was young enough to only catch Pertwee's Doctor in repeats and so he'd lost street cred with me already.  Having said that, one of the most genuinely scary Dr Who stories ever was, for me, Planet Of The Spiders, with Jon Pertwee as the Doctor.  Tellingly though, it was his last, with the irrepressible Tom Baker taking over after this.

I don't know what to make of the people who voted for Colin Baker, Sylvester McCoy or Paul McGann.  I stopped watching during that time so when I did see these actors they just looked like twits in silly costumes.  Eccleston was where the Doctor first started to creep back into my consciousness, as his role coincided in my my mind with him getting a fair bit of critical attention for some of his other more dramatic roles.  Perhaps that was why he was so short-lived.  And perhaps people felt that he didn't stick with it long enough to be credited with their vote.  Pure speculation of course, but it is interesting to see how fast actors move on from the role these days compared to the Golden Age of Tom Baker who hung around for seven years.

As for David Tennant, the putative second-best Doctor ever, I just don't know.  I still don't watch the show so I have no opinion at all on either him or the losers readers who voted for him.  Perhaps he has great virtues, chief among them being that he doesn't have a head shaped like a besser block like the current Doctor does.  Perhaps he got the votes purely for ushering in a new Silver Age of Doctor Who.

Do any of my Gentle Readers care to illuminate me as to why they voted the way they did?

p.s. New poll up.  Vote now or I'll make an ill-defined threat.