Six Great Doctor Who Moments

by Mike Gold on October 9th, 2009 at 7:49 pm
Posted In: News

As we brace ourselves for the new Doctor Who specials, the return of Sarah Jane Adventures, and Matt Smith’s first season, here’s a little gasoline to pour on the fan-fire – my take on the six top moments on Doctor Who.

6.
Quiet Time

There’s a great moment in the Doctor Who teevee movie, one
that we had rarely seen (if ever) in the original series: the Doctor, in this
case Doctor Seven, quietly sitting in the TARDIS in his comphy chair, reading a
book. Of course, drama being what it is he quickly gets, well, killed. Fatally.
And then begins a difficult regeneration into Doctor Eight. That wasn’t the
worst thing that confronted him: he had to face Eric Roberts as the Master. He,
and his series of proposed telemovies, was doomed.

5.
The Ears Have It

There’s this great moment in Rose, the first of Doctor
Nine’s shows where Christopher Eccleston stops the action when he crosses a
mirror in the TARDIS. He peers into the mirror, thinks he’s kind of good
looking, but he’s not too sure about those ears. In one stroke, Russell T.
Davies established the Doctor had just reincarnated and, therefore, the fight
that destroyed the other Time Lords had “just” happened (however one defines
“just” in time travel) while, at the same time, revealing quite a lot about this
new Doctor’s personality. Nice moment.

4.
The One and Phony Master

Stephen Moffat is the current Doctor Who showrunner and,
along with Davies, the most significant writer of the new series. But between
this series and the original, the BBC aired a wonderful “Doctor Who” episode
called The Curse of Fatal Death. It was a charity fundraiser ten years ago, a
brilliant parody, and the Who debut of writer Moffat. It featured no less than
five new Doctors – played, sequentially, by Rowan Atkinson, Richard E. Grant,
Jim Broadbent, Hugh Grant and Joanna Lumley – and one stellar Master: the
gifted stage and film performer, Jonathan Pryce. Had one of those movie
projects ever gotten off the ground, he would have been perfect in the role and
might have given Delgado a run for his money. It isn’t easy being menacing in
such a broad parody, and it is to the credit of both Pryce and Moffat that it
comes off.

3.
The One and True Master

It has long been my belief that the original Master, Roger
Delgado, was not only the finest teevee villain but also the second most
brilliantly evil villainous actor ever – right behind Charles “Ming the
Merciless” Middleton. Brilliantly menacing with a joie de vivre unmatched until David Tennent came along. All of his
successors pale in comparison, although John Simm was smart enough to abandon
Delgado’s approach entirely and let loose his inner-Joker. Sadly, Delgado died
in a car accident in 1973, between the 10th and 11th seasons of the original
series.

2.
Doctor, Doctor

Crossover moments between Doctors are few and far between
– for very good reason. You don’t want to take your best stunt and run it into
the ground, the way the Joker’s been overused the past several decades. So the
latest (I think it’s the fourth?) happened between the third and the fourth
series of the current show as another teevee fundraiser. Set squarely between
the conclusion to The Last of the Time Lords and the beginning of Partners In
Crime and using clips from both, Moffat wrote an eight-minute episode where
Doctor Five meets Doctor Ten. Doubtful at first, Peter Davison thinks a fan has
kidnapped him. David Tennant doesn’t let him off the hook, bouncing around with
that joie de vivre I referred to
above. Great fun – I loved the part where Doctor Five refers to the TARDIS’s
appearance as a “desktop design” – and, damnit, it works.

1.
Cry Havoc – Again and Again

There are four reasons why I think the Jon Pertwee
episodes are the best by far of the original series: the aforementioned Roger
Delgado, the wonderful Elisabeth Sladen as Sarah Jane Smith (who came in about
two-thirds of the way through Pertwee’s run), the hugely gifted Nicholas
Courtney as the Brigadier, and an outfit called Havoc. Oh, yeah, and Pertwee as
Doctor Three. So that’s five. But let’s focus on Havoc. Damn near each serial
ended with the soldiers of UNIT, under the direction of the Brigadier, mount a
massive free-for-all assault against the monsters, aliens, and the Master. And
I mean massive: they throw everything into it including the kitchen sink. Sort
of like the opening of Saving Private
Ryan but, you know, less serious. The soldiers were played by a stunt team
called HAVOC (credited as “Action by Havoc”), and they were great. Headed by Derek Ware, these guys approached
their work with an intensity that would stupefy even Mark Evanier. A perfect
addition to a solid team, and great fun.

Of course, all this is only one fan’s opinion. If you’ve
made it this far, you undoubtedly: 1) think I’m full of it, and 2) have your
own ideas.

Well, that’s what the comments section is for!