Moderator's Note: This is Mike's original McCoy summary:

Sylvester McCoy comes the closest to unseating Tom Baker from the Best Doctor throne. After a shaky first season, McCoy's Doctor settled into the subtle, witty, more-than-meets-the-eye Doctor I really liked. He was given a lot of great lines, too. The 7th Doctor in the NA's is a little hard to get into, but I think after you've read all 50 he might make more sense.


50? Nonsense. 60 glorious 7th Doctor NAs! (Well, 60 7th Doctor NAs, anyway.)

Before I found this board I was marooned in a sea of 'Sylvester McCoy - that's the one who stuffed ferrets down his trousers, isn't it?' philistines.

I have to admit though, watching that 'literal' cliffhanger in Dragonfire makes me understand their attitude a little better.

IMHO, the FOX movie would have been a lot better if McCoy wasn't shot in it.

Yeah, you have to wonder what the people at Fox were thinking. Instead of using an actor only Who fans had heard of, let's cast an actor almost no one has heard of. That way, we'll be guaranteed to have crummy ratings!

Emily--I was thinking of the count up to "Happy Endings." I don't know why. I guess because I read somewhere that HE ties up some loose threads from the previous 49 novels (and only makes sense if you've read all 49).

I have to disagree that the telemovie would have got better ratings with Sylvester McCoy in it throughout. He was loathed by almost everyone except (some) die-hard fans. It would have made more sense to all those non-fans the program was trying to appeal to, if he hadn't appeared at all - no regeneration, no 'Who am I' for half the story, but just the McGann Doctor. That's not the way I'd want it, of course, but I'm getting so desperate for more Who that, far from objecting to McCoy getting shot, I'd be happy to personally dismember and eat him onscreen, if that would raise the story's ratings.

Personally I'd have preferred the telemovie if they'd hired a writer.

There's just no pleasing you with the telemovie, is there Ed?

Emily, since I'm one of the fans that loved McCoy, I would have really enjoyed seeing him carried over into the telemovie, instead of offed in the first 15 minutes. I would really like to see new Who too, but good Who. Do it right or don't do it at all.

Mike, I'd have agreed with you for the first five years of Who deprivation, but I am now in an advanced state of rabid desperation. I remember when Spielberg was supposed to be making Dr Who (Ha! The miserable failure. Let's all boycott his films) there were these rumours about a Baywatch actor playing the Doctor, the TARDIS gaining a pair of hologramatic lips and speaking in rap - that kind of thing. I screamed a number of rascist obsenities against all Americans, and swore that the Doctor would be better off dead than desecrated in this way. (I'd be interested to know if these rumours cropped up in America, or whether it was xenophobic British fandom working itself up into hysteria). Now, however, I would even be prepared to contemplate such degredation. If Who had ended after the Tom Baker or Davison eras, I might have said, Rest In Peace, don't risk ruining the memories - but as it is, the programme didn't exactly end on a high, did it? And as you point out somewhere, EVERY Dr Who story has something good about it - and if that doesn't prove to be the case, there's always the off switch.

I don't Doctor Who as an excuse to boycott Speilberg; I loathe his films on principle.

I don't recall hearing those specific rumors about the Spielberg Who movie. I have a copy of "The Nth Doctor," and I don't believe it says anything about a talking TARDIS. Let's just hope it was a bad dream; I'm getting the willies just thinking about it.

It always astounds me that H'Wood constantly gives in to the urge to remake great, older films and shows, then also feels the need to tinker with them. Haven't they ever read the story of the goose that laid the golden egg?

I preferred the open-ended conclusion to "Survival." It let me believe the fantasy that the Doctor was out there, doing what he does best.

I agree that the telemovie had its faults, but at least they tried to keep SOME continuity by having Sylvester McCoy regenrate into Paul McGann. I would have liked some explanation as to Ace's absense, and why the interior was different,etc.

And Emily, I think they did some great stories before, during, AND after the Tom Baker and Peter Davison eras. Also, there's no reason to scream obsenities against the American Doctor Who fans. We liked the series just the way it was, too.

Chris, I didn't mean to imply I'm anti-American - that was just an isolated incident 5 years ago, and the only time in my life that I've experienced patriotism/rascism/xenophobia etc. And I agree totally that there were wonderful stories post-Davison - as far as I'm concerned season 26 was the best ever. But it followed four seasons of drivel, albeit with the occasional gem thrown in. Public perception of Doctor Who, in Britain at least, was rock-bottom, ratings had plummeted to 4 million - nothing any future series, however blasphemous, could do would spoil the image, so I'm willing to risk it.

By the way, the producer was asked for an explanation for Ace's absence, and he said that the Virgin NAs had cleared this matter up. So they ARE supposed to be canon!

Sorry, I misunderstood. Although wether those 4 seasons were drivel is a matter of opinion. I liked most of the episodes contained therein.

How 'bout a list of McCoy's great lines?
I'll start:
Time and tide melt the snowman.
All good things must come to a bend. (Which I especially remembered during the last episode of ST:TNG)

Can't remember any more right now (Darn!) Anybody else?
This is when I really liked the 7th Doctor. He was funny and quirky. I didn't really like how dark he got.

I agree, all the genocide got a bit worrying.

He has the BEST lines. How about in Ghostlight -

'Gone to see a man about a god.'

'I can't stand burnt toast. I loathe bus stations - terrible places, full of lost luggage and lost souls. And then there's cruelty, and tyranny, and unrequited love.'

It's just a shame he only got to speak a few words in the telemovie.

Ghostlight was the first McCoy story I showed to my girlfriend and she thought he was a bit like Q from Star Trek! It's always interesting to see a non-fan's reaction.

My comment`s a bit late, but I agree that Sylvester should have starred in the Fox Telemovie - and that a decent writer should have been hired.

There was so much politics behind the scenes and wrestling with what each network wanted that any creative control had to be fought for tooth and nail - we're lucky, it could have been a lot worse. Sure, it could have been better but if you've read The Nth Doctor, it could have been worse.

This is my first post to the Dr WHo board, and I'm going to begin with an honest confession.

I don't get McCoy's Doctor.

Actually, it's not him I don't get. I like his character and the acting. It's the stories that elude me. The characters in them are so one-dimenional or archetypical. They completely ruined the Master's character for me (although not as bad as Fox did).

I think they were making WHO for a new generation and lost me in the process. And for the record, I really, really WANT to like the stories.

Bryan, not ALL of the characters were like that. Watch The Curse of Fenric, for a start.

Does that mean you think Ace was one-dimensional as well?

Bryan, what have you got against the portrayal of the Master in Survival? I thought it was one of the best ever. Certainly a vast improvement on him dressing up as an oriental magician in Timeflight, running round miniaturised in Planet of Fire, squabbling with the Rani in Mark of the Rani, or doing, well, nothing at all in Trial of a Timelord.

I agree; for the first time, the Master was shown as truly evil, rather than a cartoon baddie.

Bryan, have you seen all the McCoy episodes?

If your viewing pleasure has been limited to, say, Silver Nemesis, then I understand your sentiment. However, I think that there are a fair few interesting characters to be found scattered around seasons 25 and 26 - one of my favourites is Deadbeat (Greatest Show). I loved his initial semi-catatonic state, mumbling and shuffling, and that moment where he sees the escaping Ace and says "Follow ..." left me completely unsure as to whether he was friend or foe.

And the Master didn`t have some ridiculous scheme to take over the Universe for once, which made a nice change.

It seems to me after reading "The Nth Doctor" that the rumor that the TARDIS would have lips must have originated from the proposed TV-movie script referred to in that book as "Fathers and Brothers," in which the Doctor's grandfather, who is named Borusa, dies and his spirit then inhabits the Doctor's TARDIS. The deceased Borusa is able to speak to the Doctor and his female friend (whose name is Lizzie in this story, I think) and offer sage advice.
As for great McCoy lines, how about his big speech at the end of "Survival," the last words spoken in the original BBC television series? The first time I saw that story the speech absolutely took my breath away: "There are planets out there where the sky is burning, where the sea's asleep and the rivers dream. People made of smoke and cities made of song. Somewhere there's danger, somewhere there's injustice, somewhere else the tea's getting cold. Come on, Ace, we've got work to do."

That is one of the finest lines in Doctor Who, and makes you wonder if they realised at that point that this might be the last series.

It manages to work equally well as an ending for 'More than 30 Years in the TARDIS'.

My understanding is the production team became aware the series was going to be put on hold and script editor Andrew Cartmel quickly wrote that ending just in case the series didn't come back.

Regarding the NAs as canonical for Ace, I don't buy it.
My understanding of the comment was that an answer was given about her, but not the answer.
Or maybe that's how I want to take it, as I've never been terribly fond of the NAs.

No I'm lost. What are you referring to Brian?

And do we really have do debate the canonicity of the NAs? The BBC considers the BBC EDAs canon, and presumably considered the Virgin ones canon before it. Since a lot of the writers for Virgin now write for the BBC range, continuity is kept.

Do you mean what ultimately happened to Ace, Brian?

Why do you think the Seventh Doctor chose that pullover with all the question marks just after he regenerated?
Was it a "What the heck was *that* all about it?" kind of expression in response to his former blustering and technicolour dreamcoat-wearing incarnation?

You'd think if that was the case, he'd have gone for something a little more restrained and tasteful than that pullover.

A man is the sum of his parts, a Time Lord even more so.

I guess I'm the minority when I say that I liked the question-mark pullover. It simply continued the question mark motif from the Fourth and Fifth Doctor's shirt collars. I didn't like the hat at first, but it grew on me.
Now what about that jacket, people? Did you prefer the white or brown one? I'm kinda partial to the white, myself.

Does Sylvester McCoy say, "Thufferin' Thucottasth, Jim, I'm a doctor, not a Time Lord"?

No.

Interestingly, the hat was McCoy's own and the producer liked it when he wore it to the audition. It was also the only part of his old costume they asked him to wear in the telemovie.

I prefer the brown jacket myself.

CBC, I didn't actually dislike the pullover myself, at first. Actually I didn't notice it - I'm blissfully impervious to people's appearances, unless they should happen to be sporting 17 foot scarves. But when I first heard a disparaging remark about the pullover, I took another look and thought, god, that IS a little unsubtle, isn't it?

The Doctor never struck me as a jumper person anyway. Could you imagine how many of the other Doctors would've suited a pullover? None.

It's a good thing the Seventh wore a coat, (cream or brown), because otherwise it wouldn't've looked right. Besides, the Seventh Doctor isn't technically wearing a pullover/jumper. He's wearing a tank-top, which works a lot better. In 'The Greatest Show in the Galaxy', when he's jacket-less, the sight of him at the helm of the TARDIS in long-sleeve knitwear would have looked absolutely terrible. As it is, I suppose the tank top manages to carry itself off.

The fact it has question marks on it is perhaps immaterial and I have to say I never really thought about it or even noticed it until fan handbooks and magazines. Had it sported a train or the word 'WHO' in big yellow lettering, then I may have really got my hooks in it. After the Sixth Doctor's get-up, I think the public would've gladly accepted anything. Leathers, a Roman toga, neon thigh boots, a cagoule, or even a completely naked Doctor. :?)

The question mark motif always annoyed and distracted me. Probably much more than it should have. The question marks seemed so silly and unrealistic that it became hard to suspend disbelief and just enjoy the story. They were a constant, prominently placed reminder that "Hey, this is just a low-budget TV show with a producer who thinks question marks well make the character mysterious." It's a shame that in nine years, no one told ever taught JNT the storyteller's mantra: show, don't tell.

Mercifully, Tom Baker's scarf usually hid them from view in season 18. But I suffered through Davison and C. Baker. Watching the regeneration scene from "Time and the Rani," my eyes immediately turned to the collar of McCoy's new costume: no question marks. Whew. I sighed in relief. Then I noticed the pullover. Oh well.

I wouldn't call it a tank top - aren't they just coloured singlets you wear as you would a T-shirt?

Rolling (and rolling...and rolling...) the "R"s. Does Sylvester McCoy talk that way normally, or was it something that he and/or the production team introduced as a character trait?

It certainly is extremely annoying. I thought as an actor, McCoy could have done a lot more to disguise his broad Scots accent.

It just shows you what a lottery regeneration can be for some Time Lords.

I'll settle this once and for all - The 7th Doctor wore a wollen vest: *not* a jumper, tank top or singlet.

Luke, I'm looking at his picture on the Doctor Who calendar right now. There are no buttons down the front, so that means it can't be a vest. I has a v-neck and no sleeves which, in my fashion book, makes it a pullover.

No, if it has no sleeves at all and has *no* buttons then it is a vest. A *waist-coat* has buttons.
Trust me, I checked a golfing shop the other day, :)

This is precisely why there are question marks all over it. :-)

I think a pullover can come with sleeves or without - and I've heard a waistcoast described as a vest in the past as well.

I'm still getting used to the British calling a sweater a "jumper."

That's what we call them in Australia, too.

I don't expect this to settle the argument, but thought I'd better mention that the Seventh Doctor's...er...woolly question-marky thing was referred to as a pullover TWICE in Prime Time - once by the Doctor himself.

Slyvester McCoy was the first Doctor I saw on a
regular basis so his stories as the Doctor are
always amongst my favorites.Of course he and
Sophie Aldred had a really great chemistry during the time they did the show together.My one regret
concerning the tv movie is that we didn't get to
see Ace one last time!

The tv movie spawned only one regret in you?

Okay, I've been checking out a few of the old McCoy stories on video lately...

McCoy really wasn't that good, was he? He's so over the top and he manages to spoil what could've been a good Doctor a lot of the time. I've always preferred his more understated performances in season 26, but even they have their embarrassing moments these days.

What?? Are you nuts? Sure, he had a few silly moments in his first season, but he got over most of that by "Remembrance of the Daleks." And he's certainly not the first Doctor to have fits of OTT behavior; even Tom Baker did that from time to time.

I think what I like most of about McCoy's Doctor is that he's the first Doctor to decide to actively fight evil. The previous Doctor's always appeared to get involved mostly by accident.

In any incarnation, over the top behavior is what the Doctor is all about.

I didn't like Sylvester's first season because of the silly, sometimes non-sensical storylines he was saddled with. The writing got better towards the end, and Sylvester grew on me, despite my annoyance that his predecessor, who I liked, had been needlesssly and unfairly fired by a man who neither liked nor understood the show.

By OTT, I mean OTT acting. McCoy's acting ability seems to only be up to Pantomime standards at such times. Witness 'You aint seen nothin' yeeeeet' in 'Greatest Show in the Galaxy' - Ouch! It just makes me cringe.

Mike - I know the previous Doctors always APPEARED to be fighting evil by accident, but they must have known, even if they didn't usually talk about it, that their tendency to land in the middle of trouble and sort it all out was a) not an accident, and b) their vocation. In fact, when asked what he did for a living, the Fourth Doctor said 'Save planets, mostly.' I think the Seventh Doctor was just the first one to get a job title (Time's Champion) and a boss (Time).

Well, I know that the 3rd Doctor certainly resented being the Time Lord's errand boy in "The Mutants", and the 4th Doctor was quite PO'ed when the TL's redirected his TARDIS in "Genesis of the Daleks", and the 6th Doctor was really angry at the TLs in "The Two Doctors", and so on.

My point? Yes, they'd fight if thrown into the fray, but rarely did they actively go out look for a fight.

Yeah, he was exceedingly displeased by being the Time Lords' errand boy, but who wouldn't be? Would you want to spend your time cleaning up the messes of a bunch of fossilised male chauvinists? (Well, OK, if they let me have a TARDIS, yes!) The Doctor fancies himself as an independent adventurer, master of his own soul and fate and all that. Plus the universe's. He doesn't like being reminded that to his own people he's just, to quote Life of Brian, a very naughty boy. It's not that he isn't happy to save the universe when required. And if he doesn't actively go out looking for a fight, it's because he's perfectly well aware that the TARDIS will find one for him, without him having to lift a finger. (Unless you're suggesting that the Doctor's too thick to notice that post-The Highlanders (i.e. for seven out of his eight lives) the TARDIS presents him with a planet-saving situation EVERY SINGLE TIME. (Yeah, yeah, I know, there's Black Orchid.)

Sylvester was wheelchair-bound at the last convention he was at - he's also apparently developed a bad case of gout

My god, his gout is the ONLY thing any of us have said about our question-mark-pullover-ed hero since 2002!

Um...was he REALLY the ultimate in Arch-Manipulators? Or was that just the NAs getting ludicrously carried-away on the basis of Remembrance (and its inferior Nemesis rip-off)? After all, the Scottish Gnome wasn't the one stockpiling all the most deadly (and/or stupid) weapons in the cosmos - that was (apparently) Hartnell...

A dark and sinister Doctor wouldn't be tricking Davros into using the Hand of Omega to destroy Skaro; he'd use the hand of Omega himself to set up shop as the Emperor of the Universe.

But one with a dark and sinister sense of humor would.

The Seventh Doctor crossed with Emperor Palpatine. Wonderful thought!

Sylvester McCoy will be playing the wizard Radagast in the two upcoming movies "The Hobbit"

I'm still stuck on there being TWO Hobbit movies? Can't they fit the story into just one?

From what I've heard there's going to be a lot of stuff not in "The Hobbit" in these movies.

I think they're pulling material from the appendices in "The Return of the King".

Also note:IIRC--Radagast is never even mentioned in "The Hobbit">

The first reference to him is in "The Fellowship of the Ring"--and there he's never seen.

John, you're wrong in your fact but accurate enough pragmatically. Radagast is mentioned in The Hobbit.

Really--may I ask where???

It has been a few years since I read it.

It's been more than a few since I read it. When I read your comment, I was certain I remembered him being mentioned so I just googled it which confirmed my belief. I don't remember exactly where though.

In the chapter "Queer Lodgings", when Gandalf is introducing himself to Beorn. He mentions 'my good cousin Radagast', who Beorn says he's met a few times, and considers a decent wizard. Quite who Beorn is comparing Radagast with is less than clear - he's never even heard of Gandalf, Saruman is an unlikely visitor, and the Blue Wizards haven't been seen for 2000 years.

Sorry to be so long getting back to you--it took some time to find my copy of "The Hobbit".

You are right--I had forgotten that line was in the book.

These little throw-away lines can be real killers.

I am glad I used IIRC in my post--now all I need say is that I guess I didn't.

My reward for working from memory.

Oh well--

Mr. McCoy shows up in the latest Hobbit video log from ComicCon. His brief appearance begins ~4:45

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=cTUQi8HBlg4#!

McCoy - Gives it a go, but the mans' casting is a testament to what the BBC thought the show was worth at the time.

You can argue that the show had never cast the greatest living actor each time (cf Pertwee) but here was a man who wouldn't have even made the top 100 list of greatest UK actors at the time it was made.

For most of the Doctors, you could go several stories where they'd at least hold their own against their co-stars, and rarely, if ever, be totally outclassed.

This guy was outclassed by the little girl from Dragonfire!

Maybe he should have worn a silver party frock instead of a question-mark pullover?

His first year was not the best, but I think even HE realized that. I have heard him say he didn't feel like he was playing "the Doctor" until his second year. I felt he greatly improved then.

Looking at that video he could easily pull off playing his Doctor the 50th anniversary show.

I can confirm that I saw McCoy in 'The Hobbit', and it was unexpected, since I hadn't read the above exchange between John and Robert and Kevin. Great to see him in a blockbuster movie!

I also checked imdb.com, and he's supposed to appear in the next two sequels as Radagast.

Never seen this one before:
https://fbcdn-sphotos-g-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/q71/67987_10200281378556085_1690756387_n.jpg

I think the "little man" element is actually one of McCoy's strongest qualities, and that's part of why I like Remembrance so much. McCoy is not an actor - and probably not even a real person - who can just walk in and command a room, like Pertwee, Tom or Colin could. He's really at his best when he's working under the radar, making little quips and subtly influencing people. It's probably why I have less trouble with the Cartmel Masterplan than most; I don't love it unconditionally, but most of my issues are with the comic-book size of the stakes (i.e. the entire planet of Skaro, or a feud with an all-powerful creature from before time), or the sheer extremes it sometimes went to in the NAs. In terms of characterization in the TV stories, a manipulative little man seems to me a direct callback to Troughton, sometimes even Hartnell. There's not that much about McCoy's Doctor in Remembrance of the Daleks, Ghost Light or The Curse of Fenric that wasn't just as dark about Troughton in Evil of the Daleks twenty years earlier.

COLIN can't command a room!

Or even a rabbit-hutch!

He probably only wears THOSE clothes and tries to murder people all the time cos otherwise no one would even notice his existence...

---
McCoy is not an actor
---
Not quite fair to pick up on that particular line, but IIRC, he didn't really start as an actor, more an old circus/variety-style entertainer, which is where the spoon-playing came from.

I think another part of his act was the good-old "ferret down the trousers".

Colin strikes me as the most confident, devil may care Doctor.

All praise the Scottish Midget!

Hear hear!

As far as 1963-89 Who was concerned, he was my THIRD FAVOURITE DOCTOR!

McCoy was the shortest Doctor in height. No wonder he had to resort to scheming - all the villains towered over him in a fight!

'I also wanted someone who was much smaller than Colin Baker' - JNT on the Seventh Doctor casting process. Jeez. Until now I never did quite believe all that 'JNT said the next Companion HAD to be a redhead so he cast Bonnie Langford!' stuff...

Rodney and I seem to have had the same problem with the McCoy era stories. We had to watch them multiple times to get it, a problem we never had before. Also, the McCoy era introduced long story arcs, something that never really turned up on Classic Who before (Key To Time and the Trial being the exceptions).

I wonder if Andrew Cartmel, who was Script Editor at this time, was the reason for this change in format? He got the job when the McCoy era began and remained in the position until Classic Who ended in 1989.

Rodney thinks, and I agree with him, that this change got the show cancelled. Fans were used to the old format and didn't much care for this new one. Not that the new format was bad, it's just that fans expected what they had been used to for years now.

Granted, the New Series gets away with this, but this was in the 21st Century. This is long after shows like Babylon Five, Stargate SG1, and X-Files made long story arcs the norm, not the exception.

Rodney and I seem to have had the same problem with the McCoy era stories. We had to watch them multiple times to get it, a problem we never had before.

This being the DVD era, it's not necessarily a PROBLEM. Alright, so it was in the 80s, but...how many of the Not We got even the simpler Who stories when they were vaguely watching 'em over a period of WEEKS? Let alone the Rug-Rat Not We population? How much of a problem IS the sense that a few bits of Who are beyond one's comprehension?

Also, the McCoy era introduced long story arcs,

WHAT long story arcs?!

this change got the show cancelled.

Doctor Who being utter rubbish for a few years and blatantly sabotaged by the PTB got it cancelled.

Rodney and I seem to have had the same problem with the McCoy era stories. We had to watch them multiple times to get it, a problem we never had before.

It's true with the final season that I found pretty much the entire run confusing. the earlier stories were fine.

I wonder if Andrew Cartmel, who was Script Editor at this time, was the reason for this change in format?
Yes it was. He's pretty much said as much that he was trying to move the show into a new direction and style but the show had the most minute of budgets and therefore was very limited.

Rodney thinks, and I agree with him, that this change got the show cancelled. Fans were used to the old format and didn't much care for this new one. Not that the new format was bad, it's just that fans expected what they had been used to for years now
I don't believe I ever said that, i think EMily's comment above is EXACTLY why it got cancelled. A producer who had been in the show too long and a tired and old format with little to no love from the BBC. How it lasted four seasons is beyond me....

It's true with the final season that I found pretty much the entire run confusing. the earlier stories were fine.

My apologies, Rodney. Your comments in the Curse Of Fenric thread gave me the impression you felt this way about the entire McCoy era.

However, I too think Curse is stupid.


Yes it was. He's pretty much said as much that he was trying to move the show into a new direction and style but the show had the most minute of budgets and therefore was very limited.

Sucks when a meager budget can screw up a show.

For another example, check out the final season of Charmed. The WB really screwed them over (the budget was slashed so much that they had to let one cast member go and cut another down to half the season) and it showed.


A producer who had been in the show too long

As I have said, JNT wanted to leave, but the BBC wouldn't let him. Reason, no one else wanted the job of producing a show that the BBC wanted to get rid of anyway.

For the man who has everything:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Doctor-Who-Sylvester-Mccoy-Latex-Type-Life-Size-Head-7th-/261674356639?pt=UK_Collectables_SciFi_fantasyCollectables_EH&hash=item3ced01cf9f

For the man who has everything:

Or for the Rani who already owns a couple of 3-D Doctors' severed heads...

MCoy used to have a lot of poop poured on him for being the man unfortunate enough to be holding the bag when Classic Who ended. Has there been much of a rehabilitation since New Who?

If anything it seems to have got worse since the new series started.

Back in the mid 1990s Sylvester McCoy was hailed for making the best of an impossible situation but wasn't given a real chance to shine.

This attitude seemed to have faded in the last decade.

Hmm, good point. Of course, there are now a HELL of a lot more Doctors, all of whom have shown those Old Who Losers* how it's done, so poor dear Sylvester is steadily sliding down my Favourite Doctors List.**

*Bar Tom n'Troughton, obviously

**Though he STILL beats John Hurt

Happy Birthday to both Sylvester McCoy and Sophie Aldred, who share August 20th!

He's 72 and she's 53. (1943 & 1962)

Man, do I feel old now!

Given how old she looked as Ace, isn't "53" an underestimate?

She was 26 playing 19. I thought she could pass for that back then.

"A Doctor with potential, ruined by a late decision to turn him into basically the Master. If he'd stayed the eccentric, spoon playing guy who mixed up his metaphors, he could have been really good, especially with Ace. Instead, he became the most uncaring, vicious bastard"

Are you KIDDING? Capaldi and Eccy proved that a Doctor with a good dose of darkness is a MARVELLOUS Doctor. (I'm not saying the Production Team got it EXACTLY right with their more-than-just-a-Time-Lord hints, but even so they managed to provide us with someone who actually felt like a Doctor for the first time since Tom jumped off that radio telescope.)

Whereas that spoon-playing mixing-metaphors CLOWN from Time and the Rani was, not to put too fine a point on it, an abomination.

When was he uncaring and vicious, exactly?

No way am I defending weird old Judibug, but my guess is she means when he tricked Ace into meeting her mother as a baby and when they went to that house that Ace (in the future) would burn down, I'd assume.

How many other Doctors ever made their companions cry on purpose?

weird old Judibug

Don't diss your fellow posters! (Or, in case you should happen to be another of Judi's alter egos, yourself.)

he tricked Ace into meeting her mother as a baby

I don't think he did that DELIBERATELY.

Did he?

and when they went to that house that Ace (in the future) would burn down

Ace sensed evil in that house. Seriously, what did she EXPECT the Doctor to do?!

How many other Doctors ever made their companions cry on purpose?

Eleven broke Amy's faith in him in God Complex in exactly the way Seven broke Ace's faith in him in Curse of Fenric. Only worse. (WILLIAMS you sick git?! That broke MY faith in the Doctor too!)

Ten stranded poor Rose in a drowning alternative universe with his spare HAND.

Six tried to throttle Peri to death.

Troughton tormented Ben and Polly by pretending not to be the Doctor when he'd JUST REGENERATED.

Hartnell tried to kick Ian n'Babs out the nearest airlock on more than one occasion after he KIDNAPPED THEM.

Hartnell also abandoned his own granddaughter against her will on a Dalek-devastated world.

Pertwee frequently gave the impression that his life's ambition was to make the Brig burst into tears.

Five make the UNIVERSE cry, unravelling the Sacred Scarf.

Nine betrayed n'abandoned Captain Jack.

Eight spent the whole of Scherzo trying to make Charley cry (yes Tim it counts! He mentioned her in Night of the Doctor and EVERYTHING!).

Twelve's reaction to his Companion informing him that the Love Of Her Life had gone splat was 'And?'

Four DUMPED Sarah and DIDN'T GO BACK FOR HER.

According to McCoy at The Doctor Who Festival today in Sydney, Paul McGann is a small and dirty Liverpudlian. Inter-Doctor bickering is not what it used to be....

Using your real name now Judi/Natalie?

Yes. The difference is purely perceptual.

Here's a question for all you Who fans? What was Sylvester McCoy's worst? No counting Dimensions in Time which is in a class by itself.

Is it Time and the Rani? Pip and Jane Baker's magnum opus, an adaptation of a 'Choose Your Own Adventure' novel, spiced up with John Nathan-Turner's addition of a giant brain, the Doctor playing Breast-spoons, and the Rani cross-dressing as Mel.

Is it the cascading incoherent mess that is Delta and the Bannerman?

The bilious pompousness of Dragonsfire?

Can we not admire the way that Silver Nemesis rips off the plot of Remembrance of the Daleks, even down to the neo-Nazis, which was at that time, only three weeks old.

How about the Happiness Patrol? Where to begin on that one?

Or how about this, what was McCoy's worse monster: The puffball cheetahs of Survival, the faux werewolf of Greatest Show in the Galaxy, the near immobile latex gone wrong effigies of Battlefield and Curse of Fenric, the utterly gratuitious husks of Ghost Light, the Kandyman.... Whoa, stop the presses, Kandyman wins hands down. The contest is now to see who gets second place.

Y'know, it's funny, I remember eagerly awaiting every new episode of the Sylvester McCoy era, anticipating it like a starving man waiting for dinner, and sitting enthusiastically through it, clenching my teeth all the way... because at least it was Doctor Who.

But in hindsight, man, was the McCoy era godawful. It was so appallingly painful in every possible way, and for every thing they managed to get right, they had a half dozen things horribly botched.

The only good thing I can say about McCoy is that Eric Saward was no longer involved. That boil had been lanced.

Look, I've got nothing against Percy Kent-Smith himself. Likeable man, talented performer and all that.

But he was saddled with a burned out, disgraced, alcoholic husk of a producer, who kept trying to resign each year, he had a neophyte story editor who had never actually had a script produced and got the job after taking a scriptwriting workshop, the budgets had been gutted, several generations of writing and directing staff had been burned off and the BBC management hated the show.

The McCoy era were the dying days of Doctor Who when the show was terminally screwed and crippled. Even the misguided inept ambitious blundering of the Colin Baker era was beyond its abilities.

They did the best they could with the little they had to work with. I compliment Kent-Smith for marching bravely into the fire and giving the role everything he had, and I congratulate Cartmel for at least trying to have ideas.

But oy vey!

What was Sylvester McCoy's worst?

Story? The Curse of Fenric. Hands down THE worst.

Performance? Hmmm... Ghost Light?

what was McCoy's worse monster

I have to say that Light, from Ghost Light, really bores me. He's out of touch, ineffectual, and not even the episode's main villain. It's only that he supposedly has some great power levels that we're supposed to take him as a threat, but what Light really needed was a good counselor to convince him that evolution is not really a bad thing, that even an incomplete index of life can be useful to researchers and that he really needs to find another job to spend his time doing.

Kandyman wins hands down

The Kandyman is campy fun. Actually Happiness Patrol itself has a lot of fun elements that, if done right, could have made it a classic comedy story. Sadly it comes off more as slightly amusing.

Is it Time and the Rani? Pip and Jane Baker's magnum opus, an adaptation of a 'Choose Your Own Adventure' novel, spiced up with John Nathan-Turner's addition of a giant brain, the Doctor playing Breast-spoons, and the Rani cross-dressing as Mel.

*Sigh* It's Time and the Rani, isn't it.

The McCoy era were the dying days of Doctor Who when the show was terminally screwed and crippled. Even the misguided inept ambitious blundering of the Colin Baker era was beyond its abilities.

Absolute rubbish. Cartmel got that ship turned around, it took time and experimentation and mistakes but by Season Twenty-Six Who had returned to complete glory and was ready to go on FOREVER...

(OK, so the Big Finish adaptations of the planned Season Twenty-Seven weren't very good but Big Finishes just AREN'T any good, I'm sure they'd've been just fine on TV. And even if they hadn't been, that doesn't stop Season Twenty-Six being the ONLY season in Old Who where EVERY SINGLE STORY was brilliant.)

Time and Rani, hands down. Even the title.

Thirty years to the day since Sylvester McCoy had his press call as the Doctor. The passage of time is astonishing but also what a different world that greeted the announcement: no shrieking tweets, no scramble to be the first of a billion "hot takes" online, no forum meltdowns. No journalist fans. Just a bunch of seasoned Fleet Street types asking tabloid-friendly questions and taking pictures for the next day's papers. Then off to the boozer. What's the rush? Outside of your mates the first fan reaction you'd probably hear would be in a stapled A5 fanzine, dropping through your letterbox a month or two later.

Simpler times. I rather miss them.

If you want some consolation, just look at Capaldi's method of announcing his departure - casually dropping it into a radio chat - with Tenannt's - live enormous-audience TV event involving Roman centurions.

Personally I'm already pining for the Good Old Days when everyone in the world was almost as obsessed with Who as I am.

Interesting theory on Doc 7 here
It's not very long but it is highly plausible...

Once you've watched that then watch the update here

Gods, that's one pretty slim theory ('The Doctor says he doesn't know if his family is alive in Curse of Fenric!') no wonder he spends hours shouting 'Spoilers' at us before waffling on and on about 'canon' this and 'canon' that to pad it out. Surely the Doctor's offspring MUST have died/disappeared long before the Time War - and indeed Unearthly Child - or even THAT criminally neglectful git would have MENTIONED them at some point during his trips to Gallifrey. ('Well, Damon, what news of my old companion Leela? I was so sorry to miss her wedding. Still, perhaps I'll get to see her before I - Oh wait, don't I have a wife and kids somewhere around the place too? If you see anyone from the Child Support Agency, just duck!')

Update: Did the pig-ignorant cretin really not know about the Time War of the NAs and EDAs, till someone pointed the Damaged Goods audio out to him? Maybe try doing some of this RESEARCH stuff before your next 'theory', Sunshine...

I don't like the Fenric and Ghost Light Seven who is almost as evil as The Master in what he does to Ace.

Oh, give Seven in Fenric a break - he WAS trying to stop an Evil From Beyond Time destroying Earth (or something) when he broke Ace's faith in him. (And at least he didn't change her name is a sexist and derogatory way like Matt did to poor Amy in similar circumstances.)

Ghost Light is less defensible - OF COURSE he had to go and investigate the house with evil alien emanations but he might have tried just telling Ace the truth. Without originally-planned Season 27 revelation that he's training her for a place in a Gallifreyan Academy it just sounds like pointless nastiness. (Still, I'd rather cope with pointless nastiness than that •••• about Ace becoming a Time Lord so swings and roundabouts.)

Andrew Cartmel in DWM: 'The Seventh Doctor's character was the result of looking at everything which was wrong about the Sixth and making it right. It was a reaction against the cartoonish elements - the Sixth Doctor's light clothes and even his blond hair. I had a memory of William Hartnell's sinister presence, so that was an influence. I wanted it all to be big, dark and dramatic - a bit of Shakespeare after all the Hanna-Barbera.'

OK, you can't do better than trying-to-be-the-exact-opposite-of-Colin-Baker (though I think his blond perm, ghastly as it was, was the LEAST of his problems) but...Hartnell wasn't sinister! (Alright, one always remembers him as sinister but watch any story bar Unearthly Child and he's just an adorable giggler.) And what the hell is Hanna-Barbera?

Hanna-Barbera was a prolific production company who churned out a lot of cartoons in the mid parts of the 20th century. You might know a few of them, like The Flintstones, Tom and Jerry, Scooby-Doo and Yogi Bear.

Tom and Jerry was Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)

Well, Tom and Jerry WAS created by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera in 1940, although they worked for MGM at the time. The cartoon was produced by a number of animation companies, including Hanna-Barbera itself in 1975.

Only the most die-hard New Adventures fan would claim McCoy "played" the Doctor for nine years - the TVM and Dimensions in Time were guest appearances, like Patrick Troughton in his various returns.

But Troughton was returning to other Doctors' programmes. McCoy was returning to HIS OWN programme cos there WAS no other Doctor. At least until that crazy American surgeon decided to ignore the X-rays...

the Doctor defeats Fenric by making a bowl of soup

What the...?!

I can't track the videos down now but there a whole slew of ads featuring former Who companions (and Doctors) that are well worth seeking out for their cringe value....

Probably you mean these:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWLSTvwfx5cf

which was once posted somewhere else on our forum.

Oh. Dear. God.

And you know what the WORST thing is?

They're ALL better than Chibnall's JODIE!-'n'-pizza trailer...hell, even Sylvester McCoy's my-wife-pretended-to-murder-the-chicken-ooh-look-there's-the-chicken soup-fest was better than Chibnall's idea of a Doctor Who trailer...

And here is part two- with some of the finest 80's racism around (and copious use of a certain word that begins with f....)

Judi will be enthralled..

You would do THAT to me AS WELL as MORE SPACE-PIGS?

Don't you REALISE that at this point in the Long And Barren Months Of Despair cycle I need EMOTIONAL SUPPORT and KITTENS and PROPER TRAILERS WITH JODIE! IN THEM and not in any way THAT image of Jon Pertwee that I'll never be able to scrub from my mind...

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Dh75r0iVAAAjhVK.jpg

Awwwwwwwwwwwww...

THANK you!

What a ••••-up!!!

Jon Pertwee in advert: We've all had a bit to drink, so while my guard's down, I'll let you in on a bit of a secret! Guess what? These sideburns? They're not even real!

I like the Seventh Doctor's TVM outfit rather than the question marks of 1987-89. Had he been dressed like that from the beginning of his tenure, he might have been more accepted?

I think Who was too far-gone by then for a lack-of-question-mark-jumper to have saved it, plus, after Colin, said jumper was a thing of exquisite beauty and good taste...

Sooooooo I'm sure Emily won't be at all upset over this particular bit of casting/character choice for Big Finish revival...

I didn't waste time BEING UPSET, I just sighed. Heavily and repeatedly.

strangely erotic response....

Only a man could think such a thing of those exhalations of mild despair...

The Seventh Doctor looks like the Doctor in his TVM outfit. In his JN-T outfit... I don't want to say... but, yeah it's not good.

I never minded the question mark jumper, and never understood why fans didn't like it.
I actually had a problem with the hat (I don't now), because I prefer my Doctors without hats.
I guess the jumper and his mish-mash new outfit was a bit of joke when he looked in the mirror and told Mel/Rani;
"Thank goodness, in this regeneration I've regained my impeccable sense of haute couture!"
THAT look is haute couture? Oooh-kaaay.

This makes it sound like Sylvester McCoy cosplays as JN-T.

This makes it sound like Sylvester McCoy cosplays as JN-T.

*imagines McCoy with a beard, Hawaiian shirt, and swigging from a bottle of booze in a paper bag*

McCoy was once a bodyguard for the Rolling Stones. ("No one messes with the Rrrolling Stones!")

The Doctor has gotten soft after being War.

I mean the Seventh Doctor literally blew up Skaro and yet that wasn't enough for him to renounce the name.

He most certainly did NOT! It's not HIS fault if Davros pressed the button after the Doc just dangled a WMD in front of his nose and taunted him a bit...

when he tries to be angry it's a sight to behold...

From Facebook:
Sylvester has just realised that a short film he made a couple of years ago is now on youtube; it's a sweet story with Sylvester in the title role of THE LAST CONJUROR ... and it's here if you fancy it.

https://youtu.be/GOeW8nmYh_w

Does anyone think that the factors for the rather low ratings during the McCoy era are the following first, and most importantly, the scheduling of the series opposite Coronation Street. Secondly, the actual transmission time of 7.35 pm, which was rather late for some children and also gave Doctor Who's opponents on other channels a five-minute advantage. Thirdly, McCoy had a relatively low public profile.

That's why the BBC put Who opposite CS, they knew that CS would slaughter Who in the ratings, giving them the justification to cancel it.

And the plan worked.

---

quote:

Hmmm, another conversation about how rubbish McCoy is. I think I'll pass on that...

---

Who said that, and where was it said?

And honestly, of what interest should it be to us?

Fun fact, years ago I saw McCoy in pantomime, he played the villain. After he was defeated the hero’s suggest amongst other things that as punishment he should be made to do another series of Doctor Who. McCoy shouts “not that, anything but that”

Sometimes, I'm convinced McCoy should have been brought back as the War Doctor. If there was ever a Classic Doctor that should have been brought back for a proper New Who episode, and who could have ever attempted to commit genocide against his own people to stop the Daleks, it's him. Hell, he arguably started the Time War in the first place by destroying Skaro in Remembrance of the Daleks, who better to end it? The show even has a built-in way for him to come back after McGann: the Sisterhood of Karn was already giving him the chance to decide his new regeneration, why not allow him to go back to an old one?

Nothing against John Hurt or anything, but just imagine what a Time War McCoy would have been like.

7's portrait:
https://imgur.com/a/4WiNQyA

Sylvester and Star Trek: Voyager's Doctor Robert Picardo in an early version of the play A Joke:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DsQ_aRRYpmM&t=2921s

A Joke is by Dan Freeman who earlier written and directed Sylvester as the Seventh Doctor in the audio adventure/webcast Death Comes To Time.

I also at one point saw a comic that was the classic Doctors at a talk show, and there was a poll for Best Doctor, and Beverly Crusher won. And the Classic Who Doctors were bummed about it.

Sylvester McCoy - My Life in a Mixtape:
www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001sfm5


Part of Radio 2's Doctor Who 60th anniversary celebrations as Sylvester McCoy presents the music that he has experienced in his lifetime.

Quite like the first song that was played and he reveals to the listener how he got the Sylvester McCoy name as that it is not his real name.