5. Paul Darrow - Timelash
"Save your breath for the Timelash, Doctor. Most people depart with a scream!" Timelash is commonly regarded as one of the worst Doctor Who serials, and nearly everyone involved looks as if they know it. Character actors shuffle about, struggling to place emphasis anywhere in the placeholder-alike dialogue they've been written. Perhaps they were dazzled by the bright lighting that reveals a future world with the glamour and exoticism of a shopping centre. Maybe they were blinded by Colin Baker's hideous jacket. Whatever the cause, the only one of them that doesn't succumb to studio set torpor is Paul Darrow, already famous for over-acting his pants off as the not titular at all hero of Blake's 7. Compared to the other actors, Darrow's performance (which is awful) is strikingly dynamic. He's playing Maylin Tekker, right hand man of the shadowy Borad who controls the planet Karfel which is at war with the Bandrells who...you can see why no-one could be bothered, right? Darrow is no different, but at least he's fun to watch. Instead of projecting menace, he struts around with a huge grin on his face, relishing the fact that the only other actor to challenge him in the ham stakes (that's Colin Baker) has to do this sort of thing every day of the week. Probably that's why The Big C looks as though he wants to tear off Darrow's mad thatched mullet (I hope it was a wig) and stuff it through his cheeser. In essence, Darrow is the Doctor Who world's biggest troll. He wanted to play the character as Richard III, with a hump. Sadly, he didn't get his way- which is bizarre considering everything else the production team did get away with here- but his performance achieves immortality through sheer force of 'I don't give a s**t'.
Most OTT Moment: It's hard to beat the cliffhanger to Episode One, which he mostly spends laughing in Colin Baker's face. However, I'd go for the following triumphant speech: 'Soon our planet will rule this corner of the galaxy with the power of a giant ocean!' Any serious actor would've questioned the stupidity of the line 'giant ocean' and either rewritten it, or attempted to play against it. But Darrow is not a serious actor, and he steamrollers right on with the kind of mock gravitas that a piece of dialogue that terrible deserves. He was probably pissing himself afterwards.