Doctor Who: Ranking All 12 Doctors From Worst To Best
4. The Tenth Doctor (David Tennant)
STORIES: 8
ALIENNESS: 1
HEROISM: 8
LIKABILITY: 8
LEGACY: 10
OVERALL SCORE: 35
David Tennant achieved something quite extraordinary – almost. He very nearly took the mantle away from Tom Baker as the most iconic Doctor of all time. The Fourth Doctor might have a cartoon version of himself in The Simpsons, but Tennant recently became the Doctor of choice in Family Guy. Despite being one of the later Doctors, the Tenth Doctor’s legacy is immense, and you only have to peruse fanfic sites, the Character Options action figure range, or photographs of cosplayers to appreciate his popularity.
Blessed with the brilliance of Russell T Davies’ vision for the show and skill as a scriptwriter, the Tenth Doctor was able to shine brighter than most, even when his character was reaching ridiculous heights of heroism. He loses a couple of points on that front, because he became overly smug and triumphalist.
His death, whilst in order to save Wilfred Mott, ceased to be a hero’s end, with his anger and “I don’t want to go” line. It also brings down his likeability rating slightly, along with examples of his questionable use of power, such as the eternal punishments netted out to the family of blood, or his comments about being out of mercy to the Krillatine (School Reunion).
The Tenth Doctor comes out bottom when it comes to alienness. The lines are there as with Capaldi, but they fail to work because the dynamic between the Tenth Doctor and his companions is always far too human. The concept of the Doctor using the fob watch to become human (Human Nature) works far better in the Seventh novel from which it was based, precisely because the Tenth Doctor was not alien enough in the first place.