What your favourite Doctor Who says about you
The Doctor will see you now: the first five Time Lords (Picture: Rex/Shutterstock) To be honest, you..
To be honest, your favourite Doctor Who doesn’t actually say anything about you – because your favourite Doctor Who doesn’t know you exist.
Sorry, kids.
Hey, don’t do that with the sonic screwdriver – that’s just plain rude.
Stanley Johnson ruled out of yet another I'm A Celeb Bushtucker Trial
But, as we count down to the first appearance of the 13th Doctor, Jodie Whittaker, on Christmas Day, we want to share what your choice of Doctor – the one who gets your pulse racing – reveals about your personality.
Capisce?
Thank the Time Lord!
William Hartnell
William Hartnell was the first actor to play the Doctor (on the tellybox. We’re not including Peter Cushing, who played the good Doctor in the films Dr Who & The Daleks and Daleks – Invasion Earth 2150 AD) – from the first 1963 episode to his retirement (OK, ‘regeneration’) in 1966.
Hartnell described his Doctor as ‘a cross between the Wizard of Oz and Father Christmas’ – whereas later Doctor Paul McGann said he ‘seemed like a Victorian, someone kind of stern and paterfamilias about him. Something kind but scary’.
A time-travelling Mary Berry, if you will.
If Hartnell is your favourite Doctor, you like things posh, you like things old-school, you like things proper.
And you’re most probably 88.
Patrick Troughton
Troughton’s Doctor was called the ‘Cosmic Hobo’.
Not sure we’re allowed to say that these days.
Anyway.
Scruffy, eccentric and childlike, Troughton travelled time, space and beyond until 1969.
His bumbling fool persona (hiding a dark, dangerous mind) was a huge hit. Think Boris Johnson in a black Beatles’ mop-top wig.
If Troughton is your favourite Doctor, you’re a little kerrazy, a little Machiavellian, super-bright – and you’d quite like to be leading this country.
Bake the cake – it could happen.
Jon Pertwee
Jon Pertwee is famous for being the first Doctor to be seen on TV in colour.
He’s also famous for being the father of Voice-over King Sean.
Who, I hear you ask?
Get yer shell-likes around MasterChef right now.
Or practically any TV ad.
And you thought his dad got around.
Pertwee played the Doctor until 1974 – giving him a suave, dapper edge that prompted the nickname ‘Fancy Pants’ from the second Doctor.
Unlike his predecessors, Pertwee’s Doctor was a man of physical action.
If Pertwee is your favourite Doctor, you’re a dandy who won’t mind running for a bus.
Tom Baker
Tom Baker was the longest-serving Doctor – saving the world(s) for seven years, until 1981.
Longest-serving and longest-scarving.
From his multi-coloured, mile-long knit to his cute curls, Baker’s Doctor, all warm, whimsical and, occasionally, fabulously angry, was a national hit and a hoot to boot.
Was it his huge, toothy grin that people loved?
His robotic dog, K-9?
His penchant for Jelly Babies?
All the above.
Ahhhhh-har.
If Baker is your favourite Doctor, you’re populist, love sweeties and are not averse to a demi-wave.
Peter Davison
Peter Davison played the Doctor for three years.
Fresh-faced, floppy-haired and the right side of boyish, Davison’s Doctor appeared in episodes that favoured science over silliness.
His sweet, vulnerable, indecisive nature, combined with his cream-coloured Edwardian cricketer outfit, gave him a whiff of the virgin.
If Davison is your favourite Doctor, you love the tech stuff, you enjoy rubbing red balls on your thighs, and you’ve never made the sweet love.
Colin Baker
Poor Colin Baker (no relation to our hero above) spent less than three years as the Doctor, to 1986 – with his time-travelling somewhat stifled by an 18-month hiatus in the show’s production.
Boy, that’s some traffic jam.
Baker’s Doctor – despite the Opal Fruit outfit (red and green frock coat, yellow trousers, green boots – made to make your eyes water) – made less of an impact on viewers.
But, really, what chance did his bright clothes and brash personality have if he was hardly on the tellyvisual box?
If Colin Baker is your favourite Doctor, you’re flamboyant, bold, and maybe a bit of a fibber.
Sylvester McCoy
McCoy played the Doctor until the show’s axing in 1989.
Don’t fret.
That was the past.
And we all know we can go back and fiddle with that.
His Doctor was affable and easygoing, but then grew a little secretive, a little manipulative, a little darker.
He’d play the magic trick-loving fool but, actually, was quite the devious game-master.
(Is this whole piece about Boris Johnson?)
If Sylvester McCoy is your favourite Doctor, you’re a sly bunny who simply cannot be trusted. I write that from a place of love.
Paul McGann
In 1996, a Doctor Who TV film was broadcast, the hope being that this special would kickstart the TV revival.
It didn’t.
But Paul McGann was the Doctor.
Woo chuffing hoo!
McGann’s tenure was the shortest of all the Doctors (bit personal).
Boo.
But he modelled a black, moody, romantic look – and had that face. Phwoar.
I hate to be that person, but if Paul McGann was your favourite Doctor, you appreciate the hot.
Doctor Phew, if I may.
Christopher Eccleston
Doctor Who regenerated itself in 2005 and Christopher Eccleston played our leading man.
He was less eccentric, grittier and more real (for a fictional character).
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Despite fans, press and sci-fi reviewers crediting his performance (award-winning, grabbing the 2005 National Television Award for Most Popular Actor, innit) with re-establishing the show, Eccleston chose to only make one series.
If Christopher Eccleston is your favourite Doctor, you like disappointment and pain.
You’re a Catholic, in short.
David Tennant
David Tennant was the Doctor from Christmas Day 2005 until the first day of 2010.
Viewers loved his amiable, enthusiastic style.
Charismatic, cute, laid-back, then righteously furious, Tennant’s Doctor was modern, like his two predecessors’ creations – but a little magical and emotional, too.
In an outfit consisting of various shades of brown, Tennant had the air of a young, hot, angry Geography teacher.
If David Tennant was your favourite Doctor, you want the world to be fair, you’ll fight for your beliefs and you’ve wank-banked your Geography teacher.
Matt Smith
When Matt Smith started his four-year run as the Doctor, he was just 27 – and viewers and press loved this young pup.
His cute, boyish performances strengthened the show’s renewed popularity.
With his Burberry-styled hair and tweed, Smith’s compassionate, sweet, young-but-wise Doctor gave off a sexy, indie nerd air.
If Matt Smith is your favourite Doctor, you think bow ties are cool.
Really cool.
(The Day Of The Doctor, the special that marked the show’s 50th anniversary in 2013, introduced John Hurt as The War Doctor. If John Hurt is your favourite Doctor, you’re a contrary soul.)
Peter Capaldi
Peter Capaldi is still the Doctor.
For a few more weeks.
By the time he regenerates, he will have played the Time Lord for four years.
Immediately amazing, Capaldi’s Doctor was older, intense, brusque (‘his own unique intergalactic curmudgeon’, said The Telegraph’s Ceri Radford) – and really bloody moving.
Time God Tom Baker is a fan, saying, ‘Instantly one felt: this fellow comes from far far away; he’s strange. An instant frisson. And what’s the word? Yes, got it! Alien. He’s an alien.’
If Peter Capaldi is your favourite Doctor, you like the witty, the brilliant, the moody, the thought of him slipping in a Tucker-esque ‘F***ing exterminate me? You f***ing f**wit tin-can piece of f** c*nt!’ line or two.
Jodie Whittaker
Jodie Whittaker will be the 13th Doctor.
And the first woman to play the character.
(Sorry, Joanna Lumley – we’re not counting your Comic Relief sketch.)
Whittaker will take over during the 2017 Christmas special Twice Upon A Time.
If Jodie Whittaker is already your favourite Doctor, you and your time-travelling ways should probably have been considered for the role, too.
Nah, you’re just excited.
Like the rest of us.
Good times.
Bibi would make the perfect Doctor’s Assistant. She writes about this and other life goals at bibilynch.com
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