LogFAQs > #968577822

12. 5th Doctor (Peter Davison)

Best Serial: Mawdryn Undead (Season 20, Serial 3)
Worst Serial: Kinda (Season 19, Serial 3)

During the pandemic, with so much free time stuck around my apartment, it finally inspired me to go back and watch through all of the classic Doctors, giving me the full knowledge needed to make this ranking in the first place. Now, going into this watchthrough, all I really knew about Peter Davison was the following: a. he was David Tennant's favorite Doctor, b. my mom loves him because he played Tristan on All Creatures Great and Small, and c. Caves of Androzani is rated VERY highly among Doctor Who fans. After the watchthrough...that's largely the exact same information I have regarding Peter Davison's tenure.

Here's the thing...there are Doctors whose time in the role has been marred by poor writing or poor acting, but even those low-tier performances at least were capable of rising from the mud to demonstrate what got them the role in the first place. Peter Davison is very...nice. He is a perfectly passable actor to fill the role on a show that needs to have a main character. His biggest problem is that he, more than ANYONE else to have taken on the role (including the four Doctors I've already ranked) feels like he's just some guy. He's a handsome, normal guy. None of the quirks and traits that make the Doctor stand out as a character are really there with Davison. As a result, I came out of every episode not really feeling like the Doctor had a strong impact on any of the events therein.

Seriously, the episodes I enjoyed the most in Davison's era tend to be the ones where other characters take prominent roles, and I genuinely cannot remember any instances where I felt like Davison himself stepped up and took charge and made his mark as THE DOCTOR. The three seasons under his watch aren't TERRIBLE or anything like that, but he just doesn't really contribute a whole lot to show itself that couldn't have been perhaps done better by any of the other major actors to assume the role for a lengthier duration of time.

Hint for #11: From the reboot era.