my first doctor

A popular doctor who question is "who is your first doctor"

I have 5.

See, I was introduced to the show by watching a review of a doctor who episode. Christopher Eccleston was The Doctor in that episode.

But at the time I saw the review, Matt Smith had just become The Doctor.

But due to this newness, all the various stuff about The Doctor online, like fan art, or even older promotional material, focused on David Tennant.

But the first actual episode I saw, rather than just a review, was when I walked into a room where someone was watching Peter Capaldi's first episode; I sat down and watched the whole thing.

But the first time I ever, myself, chose to sit down and watch, I picked Paul McGann.


See I'd seen Capaldi. The guy who did those reviews did all the other new series doctors, and he also had reviews on all of the old doctors too, but he had nothing on Paul McGann, and I wanted to know what kind of Doctor he was.



Now, you see, someone added up all The Doctor's screen time by incarnation, but the data is out of date. Regardless, it serves our purposes. Capaldi has been on screen for 20 hours, so far. Smith for over 33, Tenant for over 38, and Eccleston for over 9. McCoy and C.Baker rank in at over 17, while Davison ranks in at 31. Tom Baker has a whopping 71, while Pertwee has 51. Troughton has 47, while Harnell has 55. In order from first to most recent, The Doctors have been in 134, 119, 128, 172, 69, 31, 42, 13, 47, 44, and 26 episodes. In terms of Stories, its 29, 21, 24, 41, 20, 8, 12, 10, 36, 38, and a number I don't feel like counting that's over 15.

All of this excluded Paul McGann, and, John Hurt for that matter, but even the War Doctor, did not consider himself a Doctor.

Does does McGann stack up in terms of full hours on screen, episodes, and stories?

1, 1, and 1.

And yet, there were 8 years and 10 months between his hiring and his replacement with Eccleston. You could even add on an extra 5 years and 11 months if you wanted to count the entire gap as his run; though McCoy did appear as The Doctor at the start of the movie; but I'm trying to make a point here, so lets add that up for a full 14 years. Someone who has been The Doctor for nearly a third of the time, yet has only 1 episode.

And he wasn't even bad; the rest of the movie is what was bad, he was fine.




As such, after consulting with the part of myself that always just has to be different and stand out, I've come to a decision.

My first Doctor
is Paul McGann