4. "John Hurt As The Doctor" Would Actually Mean We Got John Hurt As The Doctor!
This brings up an interesting distinction - There is a definite and significant difference between the perks of having a 'name' actor on your show and having a 'great' actor on your show. When John Nathan Turner tried as hard as he could (and almost succeeded, it must be acknowledged) to get Laurence Olivier to do a cameo in Revelation of the Daleks, it was clearly a case of the former (not that Sir Larry was not also a great actor). He didn't want Laurence Olivier to be a Great Actor on Doctor Who - he wanted him to be a Name Actor on Doctor Who to get a lot of free publicity. And there's really nothing wrong with that, to be honest - most TV and Film relies a lot on that sort of thing. And it isn't as if JNT didn't get a few fairly big name actors to appear (I'm a fan of Richard Briers' appearance, despite some...um.. interesting choices he made with the part.) But that's the really interesting bit. John Hurt seems like he should be a Name Actor, because we all know his name. But ask your average Joe on the street who is not a big film or TV enthusiast if they like John Hurt and they will say 'Oh sure, he's great!' and then when you ask them what their favorite role is that he's played they'll shuffle their feet for a bit and eventually say 'well... he's good in everything, isn't he?' Eventually they may remember he was Olivander in the Harry Potter films. Possibly that he was the voice of the Dragon in Merlin. Because that's the interesting thing about John Hurt. At the end of the day, he's not 'John Hurt as...'. He's just an amazingly good actor who makes the parts he plays more important and memorable than his own personality. (Also he has the distinction of being the first character ever to have an Alien jump out of their chest, and that has
got to earn you some geek-street cred.) Having an actor like that in the role of The Doctor would be amazing. Can you imagine three years of that?