The most successful Doctors were over 6 feet tall.

Jon Pertwee 6'3"
Tom Baker 6'3"
David Tennant 6'1"

The least successful Doctors were very short.

Patrick Troughton 5'7"
Sylvester McCoy 5'6"
Jodie Whitaker 5'6"

I read conflicting information about Ncuti's height, but most sites list it
as either 5'7" or 5'8".

The Dark Doctor <darkdoctor@geocities.com> wrote:
> The most successful Doctors were over 6 feet tall.
>
> Jon Pertwee 6'3"
> Tom Baker 6'3"
> David Tennant 6'1"
>
> The least successful Doctors were very short.
>
> Patrick Troughton 5'7"
> Sylvester McCoy 5'6"
> Jodie Whitaker 5'6"
>
> I read conflicting information about Ncuti's height, but most sites list it
> as either 5'7" or 5'8".

Personally I think only Sylv was unsuccessful as the Doctor. He has become
a much better actor down the years, but even with the best of the writing
in the 80s his performance was part of the problem.

Pat was sublime, let down a bit by the near constant repeat of the “base
under siege” trope in his scripts.

Jodie was a good choice, let down by a deliberate choice to do “down to
earth” storytelling, to begin with - and a rushed and confused mess in
series 13 caused partly by compression of a planned arc from 10 to 6
episodes, and the enforcement of a smaller ensemble cast to enable COVID
compliant filming.

It isn’t the size of the actor. It’s what the show does with them that
matters. Ncuti is a way better actor before he starts than Sylv was even by
the end of season 26.

--
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 wrote:
>
> Chibnall was a bad choice and Whittaker falls with him.

- - - NEWSFLASH - - -
They have both left the show. Move on David.

"The Last Doctor" wrote in message news:t68nv1$l6q$1@dont-email.me...

> It isn’t the size of the actor. It’s what the show does with them that
> matters. Ncuti is a way better actor before he starts than Sylv was even
> by
> the end of season 26.

I will have to wait to see how he portrays the role before I can judge that,
but I suspect you are probably right. The thing is, the show does not have
a good track record in how it handles shorter lead actors... to the point
where many viewers have lost faith that the BBC will not screw it up again
like they did with Jodie...

"The Doctor" wrote in message news:t68tih$h5t$9@gallifrey.nk.ca...

> PT not successful?

Correct. The show was very close to cancellation at the end of Troughton's
run.

On 5/20/2022 12:00 PM, The Dark Doctor wrote:
> The most successful Doctors were over 6 feet tall.
>
> Jon Pertwee 6'3"
> Tom Baker 6'3"
> David Tennant 6'1"
>
> The least successful Doctors were very short.
>
> Patrick Troughton 5'7"
> Sylvester McCoy 5'6"
> Jodie Whitaker 5'6"
>
> I read conflicting information about Ncuti's height, but most sites list
> it as either 5'7" or 5'8".

It seems to me that a "good Doctor" (as you mention in your subject) and
a "successful Doctor" (as you mention in the body of your post) are not
necessarily the same. While I won't argue that any of the successful
Doctors you listed are bad (although Tennant is not one of my personal
favorites), the ones you listed as unsuccessful are certainly not bad.
Troughton had incredible acting as the Doctor, and while McCoy wasn't
the best Doctor in terms of acting, he did a fine job and was
complemented by some of the best writing Doctor Who has ever had. Jodie
Whitaker did an alright job acting as well, she just had practically
nothing to work with since the writing and general direction of the show
during her era were so poor.

All the unsuccessful Doctor largely have different factors to why they
weren't commercially successful. Troughton suffered from having a
repetitive formula with too many BUS episodes, the solid writing of
McCoy's era was too little and too late after years of JNT's crap, and
Whitaker had to deal with horrible writing with Chibnall.

Of course, the entire premise that the height of an actor has anything
to do with the quality of their acting or their era in general is silly,
but even if we accept that premise, it just doesn't work out for Doctor Who.