Peter Davison

Dear Gary—

Now I know why, when I first did my rankings of the Doctors, I couldn’t remember enough about Peter Davison to knowledgably rate him. It is because there is really nothing distinctive or remarkable about this Fifth Doctor. He is more or less a place holder. It’s not necessarily Peter Davison’s fault. If he had been given scripts of the quality of his last throughout his run it might have been a different story. Or if he had been given companions that were truly companionable. Again, it’s not necessarily the fault of any of the actors but of the characterizations they were handed.

Peter Davison was saddled with the role of playground monitor or scolding parent through most of his opening serials followed by that of a reluctant tour guide. Perhaps that is why I find Earthshock to be the highlight of his run. Earthshock acknowledges the dysfunctional nature of TARDIS relations, but then it digs deep to uncover the true essence of friendship buried therein. The Visitation also attempts to address the quarrelsome nature of the companions, but little was followed up with this in later serials. Overall the Fifth Doctor was never allowed to get really close with any one companion.

Some of the best moments during Davison’s run are provided by the return of past companion Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart in Mawdryn Undead and in The Five Doctors, where he is also joined by a delightful Sarah Jane Smith, not to mention Patrick Troughton and Jon Pertwee as Doctors Two and Three. In a number of other stories, despite the plethora of regular companions to choose from, the Doctor teams up with a guest actor for the bulk of the script.

Without an established friendship to develop character, Peter Davison isn’t given much to work with in the scripts handed him. He even loses his sonic screwdriver. In writing about past Doctor stories I almost always had multiple memorable Doctor quotes. In writing about the Davison era, however, I found much of the time that there was very little to quote. In fact there were many entries in which I merely mentioned the Doctor in passing. This Fifth Doctor often finds himself peripheral to the plot.

As with any Doctor, there are quite a few good tales told mixed in with some bad. There is a wealth of returning monsters along with some decent new entries. Some of my favorite Davison stories are actually some of the worst—Time-Flight, Terminus, and Warriors of the Deep for example. Taking a page from MST 3000, I embrace the badness. Some, however, are just bad, like Resurrection of the Daleks.

The Caves of Androzani, on the other hand, is one of the best of any Doctor. Too bad that the Fifth Doctor was given so little in the way of characterization preceding this story, resulting in a more detached attitude on my part while viewing the heart racing dangers the Doctor faces.

Peter Davison’s Doctor is nice, pleasant, gentlemanly—bland. About the most singular thing about him is the celery on his lapel, which goes unexplained until the final curtain. This might be the crux of the matter; the Fifth Doctor remains just as much a question mark as those that adorn his collars and bracers. As I have mentioned before, the answer to the original question asked so long ago by Ian—“Doctor? Doctor Who?”—is William Hartnell himself; and it is subsequently answered by each new Doctor in turn. With Peter Davison, however, there is never sufficient justification for a similar response. It is as though during his run the question is more important than the answer.

 At the time I wrote my Jon Pertwee retrospective I said I was tempted to move him up a notch above Davison but was reserving judgment. Now that I have completed Davison I am definitely flipping their order in my rankings, moving him down to eight and Pertwee up to seven. He might even be in danger of moving down another notch after I review all of the McCoy years.

I feel a little sad, Gary, in stating this. I like Peter Davison, I like his Doctor. There just isn’t enough to him to justify ranking him in any other way. I look back on his seasons and it is the stories or the monsters or the guest stars who stand out and not the Doctor.

It is time for him to pass the torch and for me to start looking ahead. I’m cringing a little, Gary, as you well may know, but the Doctor would tell me to travel in hope, and so I send this out, Gary, with just that touch of the Doctor’s hope . . .