Three Christmases ago, the saviour of humanity appeared in a new incarnation. (Slight exaggeration, of course; we’d seen him briefly at the end of The Parting of the Ways and the Children in Need special.) As with Davison and Tom Baker, I found it a bit difficult to forgive him for Not Being Christopher Eccleston at first; but he captured me with School Reunion, the episode that brought back Sarah Jane Smith (and also gave us Anthony Stewart Head as a bat-creature headmaster).

Since then he’s been fine. He’s not one of my top three Doctors – those I think remain Four, Nine and One in that order – but he is approachable, he is even vulnerable, he does manic!Doctor very well (as referenced by Neil Gaimanlong standing, and had appeared as a Nazi guard, a UNIT commander, and a mad Scotsman in various Big Finish audios. But I have to admire the way in which he has now taken the role of the Doctor and made it his own as a public personality; I can’t remember any of his predecessors being quite so visible, though perhaps Tom Baker and Pertwee, in the different media landscape of the Seventies, came close. By the time he leaves at the end of next year, he will have lasted longer (in the sense of first-to-last appearance as a regular) than anyone except those two as well. I think he will find it difficult to move on.

Having said that, like Troughton, he is a versatile actor, and like Davison he is leaving the role pretty early in his own career. So I don’t imagine he lies awake at night worrying about what the future holds.

And we’ll see at least one possible alternative Doctor tomorrow. Can’t wait, myself!

Index of my last few days’ Whoblogging: One | Two | Three | Four | Five | Six | Seven | Eight | Nine | Ten