Doctor Who: Ranking All 13 Doctors From Worst To Best

10. The Fifth Doctor (Peter Davison)

Fifth Doctor Tardis Peter Davison
BBC Studios

At the time, Peter Davison was the youngest actor to take on the role of the Doctor, and this was reflected in the raw likeability of his incarnation.

And while that makes his era a fun one to watch, there's a persistent feeling that his stories aren't as dramatic as they should be, almost like the decision to scale back the Doctor's age meant that the show's edge had to be scaled back with it. The Fifth Doctor simply doesn't feel as daunting as the Doctor needs to be, and his fresh-faced vigour is a little too overcooked.

Still, Davison had some great episodes in his time (The Caves Of Androzani is a brilliant piece of work), and he was definitely capable of a lot more than was asked of him - there aren't many actors who could convincingly pull off a scene where the Doctor plays cricket, and later star in an episode as powerful as Earthshock.

But on the whole, his Doctor lacks that much-needed authoritative spirit, and it really is hard to get over the fact that he wears a freakin' stick of celery on his lapel. A brave choice, sir, but still a ridiculous one.

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Danny has been with WhatCulture for over ten years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. In 2022, he took charge of WhoCulture and has grown it into the biggest Doctor Who channel on YouTube, and one of the biggest Doctor Who communities on the web full-stop. He has been writing and video editing since his early teens, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers, off the back of a burning obsession with the Matt Smith era of the show. Like many his age, he first got into Doctor Who with the 2005 revival, but has since gone back and fallen in love with the classic years too. If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order, or to give you a random factoid about the making of Gridlock, Danny is the person to ask!