bstempleton@watmath.UUCP (Brad Templeton) (07/02/85)
Well, I know that that title will sprint up some debate, but I do want to attack him a bit. Just because he's my least favourite doctor doesn't mean he's bad, simply that he wasn't up to the level of his predecessors. Even though I have seen only a few episodes of "All Creatures...", Davison seems to me like "Tristan in Space." He seemed to have only one characterization - harried. Somebody once said to play the Doctor like Davison you must run up a flight of stair before delivering each line. Davison never had the cool confidence of the others. He was too wimpy in character, trying to make up for it in action. While action is fine, it is not the strong point of Doctor Who. Now Davison had some truly fine scripts - Caves of Androzanni (sp?) comes to mind as well as some others from that last season, (definitely his best) but these stories were good because of the scripts, not because of the actor. And that's the whole point. Baker saved stories with bad scripts and made them watchable. Davison could never do this, and in fact often did the opposite. On the side, while it isn't his fault, Davison also had 3 of the Doctors worst companions together at the same time - Adric (boo, hiss), Nyssa and Tegan. It wasn't until Turlough arrived that we got a companion with real character again. -- Brad Templeton, Looking Glass Software, Waterloo, Ont. (519) 884-7473
larryl@sun.uucp (Larry Laskowski) (07/03/85)
<> I have seen all of the Baker, Davison, and Pertwee episodes shown on our local station, KTEH, and I can't just quietly sit back and take the comments about Davison. His stories were some of the best of the three doctors I have seen, and while he took a little getting used to at first (Baker was my first "real" doctor), I found his episodes to be enjoyable. In his episodes, the other characters often took a more important role than in many of the Baker and Pertwee where the doctor was always the central focus (ex. Tegan in "Snakedance"). This more "ensemble" type show was a little different, but to me anyway, very enjoyable. I also found that the companions were not always fantastic, but their comings and goings played well in the stories, so that Adric's last episode was well done (in my opinion), etc. To my thinking, if the show is enjoyable, and ALL of the doctors have been that way for me, then it has succeeded. --- Larry Laskowski. (UUCP) ..!ihnp4!sun!larryl