The greatest moment of each Doctor...

Simple concept, but I'm sure we'll get lots of great answers...I hope *lol*

Okay, what do you feel is the greatest moment of each Doctor? The moment or scene where he displays the very essence of who he is and what he is about. It could be a scene where he battles evil, chastises wrong-doers, risks it all to save a life, or even offers mercy where perhaps none is actually deserved.

Now, I don't have greatest moments for all the Doctors, but I have several. If you agree with any of them, feel free to say so. If not, post your own!

Third Doctor - Planet of the Spiders

In the final episode, the 3rd Doctor returns to the cave of the great one because he feels he absolutely must face his fear of her, and that facing the fear was more important than simply going on living, because the radiation inside the chamber is lethal. And this moment shows just how brave the Doctor is.

But there's more to it than that. He does something that the Doctor has done and will do many times, but doing it here was truly remarkable.

The Great one has built a great lattice from the blue crystals designed to increase her mental acumen a thousand-fold. But the Doctor realize that the feedback loop will destroy her if she uses the device. He implores her to refrain and warns her off, but she refuses to listen, and dooms herself as the Doctor had warned. Her screams of agony are terrible to hear, and the Doctor flees, unable to do anything more for her, and already a dying man.

Fourth Doctor - Genesis of the Daleks

The Time-Lords have charged the Doctor with the task of ending the threat of the Daleks by preventing their creation. Having wired the Dalek incubator-room with high-explosives, the moment is before him. All he has to do is touch two wires together, and the Daleks will cease to be.

But the Doctor hesitates, and asks himself if he has the right to do it. The Daleks represent the greatest threat, the most evil creatures in the whole of creation, but to do this would be genocide. What's more, the great evil of the Daleks would also spawn great good: Alliances of races and beings, united against the threat of the Daleks in ways they likely never would have otherwise.

Its an amazing moment, one which boils the Doctor down to the very essence of who he is and what he represents.

Fifth Doctor - The Caves of Androzani

A simple excursion has become disastrous for the Doctor and Peri. Caught between corrupt politicians, soldiers, smugglers, a revenge-driven madman named Sharaz Jek, who has become dangerously obsessed with Peri's beauty: all while suffering from the lethal Spectrox Toxemia threatening to kill them both.

Despite the odds, and dying from the toxemia himself, the Doctor is determined to save his friends life. To escape the smugglers he commandeers and almost crash-lands their space-vessel, runs across the sandy wastes of Androzani Minor while dodging bullets, returns to the caves to get the bats-milk that will cure the toxemia by going to the nearly airless chambers where the queen bats hibernate, and does so with a small oxygen canister that runs empty before he's done.

With the tiny vial of the milk now in hand, he fetches the unconscious Peri from the lair of the now-dead Sharaz Jek, bodily carries her from the caves and across the sand, dodging violent mud-bursts, and back to the TARDIS...where he spills half of the milk before getting her inside. He sets his ship into motion and gives her all of the milk, leaving none for himself, and collapses as Peri recovers. He lays there, not knowing if he shall regenerate, or die, having risked everything in his dogged refusal to allow another of his companions die.

Sixth Doctor - The Ultimate Foe

The Doctor has been put on trial by the Time Lords for violations of Gallifreyan Law, including interference and even genocide, a prosecution driven by a man called the Valeyard. Evidence is presented via the Matrix, evidence at odds with the Doctor's own memory. However, the doctor has no witnesses...until Sabalom Glitz and Mel Bush arrive...sent by the Master, speaking from the Matrix itself.

Glitz reveals the duplicity of the corrupt Time-Lord high council, who had secretly moved the Earth across the universe, causing a fiery cataclysm which nearly destroyed the planet, all to protect a few technological secrets from the Andromedan Sleepers, who had operated from Earth as cover. When the Doctor came cross the Earth, re-dubbed Ravalox, the high-council feared the Doctor would discover their perfidy, and lifted him out of Time to place him on trial.

Enraged, the Doctor tears into his own race:
"In all my travelings throughout the universe I have battled against evil, against power-mad conspirators. I should have stayed here. The oldest civilization… Decadent, degenerate, and rotten to the core… Power-mad conspirators, Daleks, Sontarans, Cybermen-- they're still in the nursery compared to us. Ten million years of absolute power-- that's what it takes to be really corrupt!"

However, that's not all. The Master reveals that the High-Council had struck a deal with the Valeyard to prosecute the Doctor in exchange for his remaining regenerations, and that the Valeyard is actually the Doctor himself: a distillation of the doctor's dark impulses, lying somewhere between his 12th and 13th incarnations. Shocked,the Doctor speaks again, his voice barely above a whisper:

“Madame, this revelation should halt this trial immediately. Surely even Gallifreyian law must acknowledge that the same person cannot be both prosecutor and defendant.”

And thus is the true battle joined: The Doctor versus himself!

Eighth Doctor - Doctor Who the (TV) Movie

On the run from the Master, needing to escape from the traffic jam that has snarled traffic, the Doctor and his friend Grace come upon a motorcycle cop, and thus finds a way out.

The Doctor gains the officer's trust with a jelly-baby, and then uses the distraction to snatch the officer's side arm, which he promptly aims at...himself.

Even in the face of so much danger, and only having recently regenerated and regained his memory, the Doctor still refuses to threaten an innocent man, even as a bluff.

Tenth Doctor - Evolution of the Daleks

In 1930, the Doctor and Martha have encountered the Cult of Skaro in the Empire State building. Dalek Sec has changed into a Human/Dalek hybrid, and the human aspect of his genetic makeup makes him begin to question the purpose of the Daleks. However, his fellow Daleks refuse to follow his example. They enslave him, and the humans they have in storage, and use them in a gambit to kill the Doctor.

However, Sec and the Doctor had already outmaneuvered them. Sec steps in from of the Dalek blaster fire, sacrificing himself to save the Doctor, a move which enrages the Time-Lord, and awakens the time-lord DNA the Doctor had managed to transfer to the human slaves. The slaves rebel, killing Dalek Jast and Dalek Thay, and saving the Doctor and his friends.

The Doctor returns to the Dalek's lair, where the last Dalek, Caan, waits, utterly alone. The Doctor, a man who has fought the Daleks across the cosmos innumerable times, who watched them ravage one planet after another, a man who stopped the Time-War by killing the Daleks at the cost of his own planet. A man who hates the Daleks and what they stand for, and for good reason. A man now sickened of death and genocide...

The Doctor offers to help Caan, to show him mercy, because together they are the last of their respective species. Caan refuses, and escapes via a temporal shift. However, little did the Doctor know that he had planted a tiny seed of doubt within Dalek Caan, a seed which would bear fruit much later.

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...^o^CORVUS^o^
Doctor Who: The Winds of Time

For me, not necessarily the most awe inspiring moments, but the coolest things I think they've done -

The 1st Doctor - Using a string to pull out the Meddling Monk's dimensional circuit, stranding him in the past. Brilliant!

The 2nd Doctor - In War Games, going to The Time Lords for help in rescuing the various soldiers stranded out of time and space.

I don't feel qualified to judge the 3rd-8th Doctors yet, not having seen enough of them in action.

The 9th Doctor - 'Everybody lives today, Rose!'

The 10th Doctor - Toss up for me between beating the Sontaran commander with a tennis ball and the Sycorax leader in a sword fight.

The 11th Doctor -

I can certainly agree about that scene in "The Doctor Dances". Superb choice!

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...^o^CORVUS^o^
Doctor Who: The Winds of Time

The exact quote, as I admire that scene, not to mention it is why I like 9 over 10, goes,

9th Doctor smiling, as if the Time War was just a bad dream,
"Just this once Rose, EVERYBODY LIVES!"

I thought the 9th Doctor's greatest moment came right after the delta wave finished building in "The Parting of the Ways." His face fell -- really fell -- and I thought all hope was lost... but then he leapt up, raced about while spewing manic technobabble, and I thought, "YES! He's going to be able to do it!" And then, with Rose at the TARDIS controls, he raced back out of the machine... and his face fell again and once more hope was gone. Brilliant.

The holo-message to Rose was pretty great, too... as was his final speech. Eccleston was so fantastic.

Ooooh. This is tough. For the First Doctor, I would say my favorite great moment was when faced with an approaching War Machine, the Doctor with hands on his lapels and head held high defiantly stands up to the massive machine with silent determination... I tell you what, when Hartnell was "on" he sure was frickkin "ON!"

Wes, you're right. Eccleston was fantastic. Here's another one for him. At the end of "Bad Wolf" when the Doctor speaks to Rose over the vid saying that he was going to save her and wipe out every last stinking Dalek I get chills.

SeaDevil wrote:

Ooooh. This is tough. For the First Doctor, I would say my favorite great moment was when faced with an approaching War Machine, the Doctor with hands on his lapels and head held high defiantly stands up to the massive machine with silent determination... I tell you what, when Hartnell was "on" he sure was frickkin "ON!"

Agree with that one!!

Not sure about 2. Need to re-watch a few episodes to decide!

#3: Still, for me, my favorite Who moment ever: When the Doctor drives off alone at the end of Green Death.

#4: Have to agree about the Dalek hesitation, does he have the right to destroy them. Of course, now we are led to believe that was the start of the time war, so it is a big deal.

#5: The end of episode 3 of Caves of Androzoni, when the Doctor is trying to crash the ship as the mercs are cutting through and threatening to kill him. The "I am not going to let you stop me now" speech.

6: In Trial, his rant about the Time Lords being corrupt.

7: His "Unlimited rice pudding" speech to Davros! I love that for some reason!

8:
Pass for the moment!

9: OK, Changed this one....In Bad Wolf when the Daleks demand he leave them alone or Rose dies, and he says "No" And everyone is like, what does he mean No?

10: Against the Torchwood wall after Rose was sucked through the Void. So sad....until they brought her back

"Just go forward in all your beliefs, and prove to me I am not mistaken in mine."

"You get on with your butchery!"

"A tear Sarah Jane?"

"It's the end, but the moment has been prepared for."

"Why not, after all, that's how it all started."

"I know, I'll take you to....."

"Oi Dalek!, what's the matter, don't you recognise your mortal enemy?"

"Whatever you do, don't be here next year."

"Just this once Rose, EVERYBODY LIVES!"

"Hello, Sarah Jane"

"Who da man!?, I'll never say that again"

I loved the section:

Doctor: "Because this is what I'm gonna do. I'm going to rescue her. I'm going to save Rose Tyler from the middle of the Dalek fleet and then I'm going to save the Earth and then, just to finish off, I'm going to wipe every last stinking Dalek out of the sky."

Daleks: "But you have no weapons, no defences, no plan."

Doctor: "Yeah. And doesn't that scare you to death?"

That and the whole, "Just this once, Everybody Lives!" were the best moments of the 9th, I think.

This thread died a death before its time I daresay. Unfortunately, I've not seen a complete series of any of the Doctors as my experience watching the show was more catch as catch can on PBS back in the day, so there are big holes in my knowledge and I haven't invested the time and money to collect/watch the entire run.

I probably know Peter Davison's Doctor best having seen the most of his episodes. The call about his conversation with Stotz as he prepares to crash land back on Minor is definitely a good call.

I'd love ro contribute more to this thread, but it requires knowledge I don't really have I'm afraid. That said, I think it's a great idea and would love to see some more replies.

Thread Necromancy, ahoy!

I'll put in a bit of Love for 11, since I don't think I'm familiar enough with the Classic Doctors to make a call, and 8, 9, and 10 are spoken for...

Frankly, I loved the Doctor's big sacrifice to restore the universe in "The Big Bang." And remember, not only was he saving Earth and his friends, but also his enemies, like the Daleks. So, in order to put it right, he had to sacrifice his own existence. And who couldn't love it when he says good-bye to little Amy?

"The Doctor and Amy Pond, and the days that never came."

As unsatisfying as some think the last scenes were, I thought the Doctor getting rewarded by being restored to the universe was the only way they could have gone.

"They're never gonna come! Your race is dead! You all burned, all of you! Ten million ships on fire, the entire Dalek race wiped out in one second."
"YOU LIE."
"I watched it happen. I MADE it happen!!"

I think that whole scene was what made me really start loving Doctor Who in general and the Ninth Doctor in particular.

I've only seen Doctors 9 -11. ER ok haven't "really" seen 11. But seen clips to know best moment.

9 doc.. When he's trying to figure out why his TARDIS phone is ringing.

10 Doc. Fighting The master and The TimeLords for the final time.

11 Doc. The Pandorica speech.

For me, one of the Doctor's greatest moments came during Hartnell's era at the end of "The Daleks Invasion of Earth" when he sees that Susan has fallen in love, and the Doctor decides to leave her behind by locking her out of the TARDIS. It was a sad moment, but also one that shows his compassion by telling Susan that she has found someone who loves her and that she should stay and help rebuild.

11: That scene from The Big Bang when he is talking to young Amelia. He is sitting next to her bed, I can't remember what he said exactly, but it was superb acting from Matt Smith!

1st Doctor: The War Machines. A war machine ruthlessly guns down a platoon of soldiers before advancing on London, and the Doctor just clutches his lapels and stares it down. The look on his face just oozes with 'you will not mess with me!'

2nd Doctor: The Moonbase: "There are some corners of the universe which have bred the most terrible things. Things which act against everything we believe in. They must be fought!" The Doctor's 'mission statement', if ever there was one.

3rd Doctor: The Sea Devils. The Doctor and the Master are swordfighting, and the Doctor casually fends his adversary off while pinching and eating one of his sandwiches!

4th Doctor: The Genesis of the Daleks: "Do I have the right?..." An amazing monologue, and rightly considered one of the all-time greats.

5th Doctor: The Caves Of Androzani. The Doctor fights off his impending regeneration from Spectrox poisoning, in order to save his companion- and nearly dies in the process. Peter's 'crowning moment of awesome'.

6th Doctor: The Trial Of A Timelord. Specifically, the Ultimate Foe. Everything comes together, and we see the story in a completely new perspective- one of the all-time great allegories, and Colin's mastery of the role is at its' height here. Such a shame that he never got another season or two...

7th Doctor: Dragonfire. "Think about me when you're living your life one day after another, all in a neat pattern. Think about the homeless traveller in his old police box, his days like crazy paving." A brilliant monologue that sums up the essence of Sylv's Doctor, and the lines he used for his casting audition. he liked them and insisted they be put into a story, and we are all better off for that.

8th Doctor: The TVM. "It was a warm, Gallifreyan night. The stars were bright, and- Gallifrey! That's it- YES! YES!!"
"What, Doctor?"
"These shoes- they fit perfectly!"
...and I knew the Doctor was back.

9th Doctor: Rose. "Do you know like we were sayin'? About the Earth revolving? It's like when you're a kid. The first time they tell you that the world's turning and you just can't quite believe it 'cause everything looks like it's standin' still. I can feel it. The turn of the Earth. The ground beneath our feet is spinnin' at 1,000 miles an hour and the entire planet is hurtling around the sun at 67,000 miles an hour, and I can feel it. We're fallin' through space, you and me, clinging to the skin of this tiny little world, and if we let go... That's who I am." That's who the Doctor has always been.

10th Doctor: Time Crash. (My personal favourite 10 story.) "To things to come." "All my love to long ago."

11th Doctor: The Big Bang. Facing his inevitable demise with calm dignity, and especially for the wonderful monologue he gives to young Amelia before stepping through the crack. Wonderful stuff.

Nice list there, Greywoolfe, you know your Who! I agree with all your choices, especially the first 2, both fantastic scenes!

Thanks. My first ever memory was at the tender age of four, hiding behind dad's armchhair when the Cybermen invaded London in Pat Troughton's day, and I started watching regularly when Jon Pertwee came on. I've loved the show all my life, and my DVD collection grows steadily over time!

Welcome aboard, Greywoolfe. Great avatar! And great post.

Ronpur wrote:

Welcome aboard, Greywoolfe. Great avatar! And great post.

Thanks! That's the eleventh lolcat to play the Doctor, and his ginger assistant- Cat Smith and Karen Kitten.

Here's my moment for 2, in "Tomb of the Cybermen," when he tells Victoria, "No one else in the whole universe can do what we're doing."

Having now watched Pertwee through Davison, I'll say (and again, not necessarily their most defining moments, just one's that struck me as incredibly cool) -

Third Doctor - The standout for me was the transition between episode three and four of Doctor Who And The Silurians. At the end of the third episode the Doctor discovers a corpse and turns to see a repitllian humanoid emerge menaching from the dark. He looks startled as the 'stinger' sounds and the credits roll. Episode four begins, the Silurian advances, and does the Doctor Venusian judo him? No. He advances benignly and says 'Hello, I'm the Doctor.' Very awesome, non-xenophobic moment.

Fourth Doctor - Tom Baker had so many cool moments, but I think I'm gonna go with launching a rocketship into orbit and programming it to come back down like a giant stake and transfix the colossal vampire through the heart as it rises from the ground. Mainly because it's the first one that popped into my head.

Fifth Doctor - Being stranded in space with no means of propulsion, the Doctor produces a cricket ball, bounces it off the hull of the bigger ship and 'rides' the resulting rebound into the open doors of the TARDIS. BRILLIANT!