#i know thats probably like sacrilege or something but it's true

[galacticlamps]

hey no pressure to answer this but I'm really curious about some of the stuff you've said recently about Four's era kind of. avoiding looking backwards/being emotional and I was wondering if you had any more thoughts about that? I feel like it hits the reason I struggle to connect with Four but I can't put it into words myself o:

aw man, I actually have a lot of thoughts on this, but I've never bothered writing them down before, because I didn't see why anyone else would care to read them. I'm gonna enjoy answering this either way, but can I also say no pressure to read it all? Because I'm really sorry if this is like, way more than you bargained for but I want to make sure I elaborate on everything I say enough that people can understand why I feel this way, and that I'm not just coming from a place of negativity - so I know it's gonna wind up being long.

the short answer is I totally agree he's hard to connect to, and I think it's down to a combination of the way he fits into the show/his status as the longest lasting and most iconic version, and the show's to-do list while he was in the role.

Also, I won't tag it, even though I'm really not trying to say I don't like him (because I do, just not as much as all the other Doctors).

Long explanation starts here, enter at your own risk:

I'll just go ahead and say my most controversial Four opinion right at the beginning, shall I? It's not terribly important, but I wind up thinking of it often these days, for obvious reasons: I feel very reminded of Four's era when I hear arguments against current (Chibnall) Who. For the sake of clarity - I mean the real arguments, not the stupid 'not my doctor' misogynistic bs, but the people who point out that we don't know the main characters as well as we should given how long we've had them. Somehow, the focus has shifted (to what exactly, I'm not sure - I think hindsight will help with that, and seeing how he wants his era to end will of course give us a perspective we always already have on every show runner who isn’t the current one).

And that's the gist of why I find it hard to get invested in Four - somehow, despite being on television for the longest, I feel like I have seen the least moments showcasing Four's distinct character out of any other Doctor, before or after him. And, thinking it over, I think there are two main places where that feeling comes from:

1) Four as the "Default Doctor"

Before I watched the classic series, I was always slightly confused about what made Four the most iconic version of the character. I'm sure at some point I looked it up and saw that he'd been on the show the longest, and I knew he traveled with some companions that were so popular even I'd heard about them before I ever watched anything pre-2005. But I also think it goes past how long he was on the show, or how popular the show was in the 70s vs in the 60s or the 80s, for example. I think a lot of it really does have to do with the fact that Four's character could very much be described as the 'default' version of the Doctor as a whole. I'm not trying to say he doesn't have his own character traits, but his main traits are very Doctor-y things that really have to be part of every version of the character, just in different doses. He's strange and otherwordly, always intelligent but sometimes arrogant and insufferable about it, sometimes silly and comical about it. He's curious, and cares enough to get involved with helping people in the various places where the Tardis lands, but also aloof enough to maintain an air of mystery so that most people he meets don't know he and his friends are time travelers, and they don't form attachments to the places they pass through easily. He has a strong sense of right and wrong, and a desire to see things set right. The problem is, I don't know a single Doctor those things couldn't be said for, and then I run out of things to say about Four that seem like major parts of his character.

I realize that might sound a little biased, but even outside of how I personally compare Doctors, Four seems to get this treatment. Think of the short little epitaphs we often see defining and describing each Doctor, especially the classic ones. They aren't always the same, but you can usually guess what a person will say about 1 though 8 if they're only given a few words to identify them, either in a line on the show or a 'canon' short story or a social media post or whatever - One is known as the "grumpy grandfather" or something similar, Two is the "cosmic hobo," Three becomes the "Bond Doctor," Five usually gets something in the vein of "polite dad doctor," Six is the rude one, Seven is the chessmaster, Eight is the Romantic. But Four? How often is Four's description about his character, and how often is it about his appearance? Teeth and curls? The Scarf? The Jelly Babies or the Robot Dog? I don't think I'm imagining it when I say that more than any other Doctor, Four gets identified with superficial traits as his defining feature, rather than things that tell you at least a little about that Doctor's particular character traits, whether or not they're an accurate description for each incarnation.

Of course, there's a positive side to this too, and more than anything else, that has convinced me I'm not imagining it. I know one of the show's original creators (at the moment, I can't recall if it was Verity Lambert or Sydney Newman) is said to have admitted that Tom Baker's portrayal of the character was closest to what they originally had in mind when creating the series. And even if that turns out to be one of those flattering remarks used to market a new Doctor (I have no recollection of when the quote was from, during or after Four's run), it makes a lot of sense - Pertwee was the Doctor when the show went in an entirely unique and self-contained direction, Troughton's job was to continue the story but take the character into new territory, rather than trying to play Hartnell’s Doctor. On the other hand, Tom Baker really did come into the role at a point where it was possible, and even preferable story-wise, for the Doctor to fit into the original idea for the character, and just because I personally would prefer someone who is only one of many versions of a character (which was also not the case when Four was written, he was one of just 4) to stand out from the others more starkly, that doesn't mean that it was a bad choice to make him more generic.

This actually links up kind of nicely with my second big bullet point:

2) During Four's run, the writers were focused on lots of things that weren't character development.

Four's era had a lot going on, and his writers were on the whole pretty game to take the show in new directions and pour their attention into committing to that, which I will never really condemn for Doctor Who. I believe quite firmly that the show's ability to change so much is one of its strongest points, and even though I develop obvious personal favorites, I'm always pro-changing it up every so often, and I don't even want my favorite eras to go on forever. I've also been surprised by what I did like on this show many times, so I rarely know what direction I want it to go in, but even when I'm not as in love with one period as I could be, I'm never really put off by it because I know at any moment it could turn into something I happen to really vibe with.

So I'm not trying to criticize the fact that the show did go in so many different directions while Four was the Doctor, but I think it's important to remember just how much was going on at the time. For one, they pulled the show all the way out of the earthbound/UNIT focus that had been a staple for years at that point, and eventually changed it back to baseless wanderings through space. They also experimented with more interlinked stories than the show had ever done before at that point - first with the way every story in Four's first season led directly into the others, and then later with the introduction of Series-long arcs (Key to Time) and smaller multi-story arcs (E-Space Trilogy). While all this was happening, they also spent a good chunk of Four's era delving into themes & tropes - like the run of Gothic Horror stories, some of which involved directly adapting parts of existing classics like Frankenstein and the Phantom of the Opera, and figuring out how best to incorporate everything that goes along with that. Later on, they had Douglas Adams at the helm, and even though the show had always been funny, Comedy became a more focused element of the show than it ever had been before. And throughout all this, there were always periodic stories taking us back to Gallifrey (or Skaro) and really really expanding on the lore/backstory/world building/whatever you want to call it.

One of the reasons I like how often Doctor Who changes is because I know it can't be all things to all people at all times. It's real job is to tell episodic, self-contained science fiction stories, and once you have a stand-alone plot and characters for the current adventure, there's only so much room in a serial for whatever else you want to put in - and when Four was the Doctor, there were a lot of other things they wanted to incorporate, so I don't think it's unfair to say that character insights often took a backseat to those other priorities.

The thing that illustrates this the most clearly for me is Four's Companions' entrances and exits - because those moments are some of the simplest & easiest ways to get all the characters to show some emotion and open up about how they really feel about one another (and themselves!), even if they don't usually do so. And Four has so many companions, it should be easy to get some insights into his character through those relationships, right? But then you think about it.

To address the entrances first: Four inherits Sarah Jane from Three (and on top of that, she already knows about regeneration, so it isn't quite the Big Deal with a sideplot about trusting the 'new' Doctor that it was with Ben and Polly or even Rose, for example). Harry Sullivan gets invited along as a prank that gets out of hand. Leela invites herself aboard, Romana gets assigned to Four, and Adric sneaks into the Tardis as a stowaway. He meets Nyssa and Tegan as Four but doesn't really travel with them until he becomes Five, but even then, Nyssa’s planet gets destroyed so she has nowhere else to go, and he supposedly intends to return Tegan home from the start.

And the end result of all of this is, we never once get to see Four meet somebody and decide he likes them enough to ask them to travel with him. Companion introductions are usually moments where we can get a glimpse of the Doctor's real feelings - we see who they admire, and how much or how little they struggle to admit that to the person. We hear what they think is worth it and exciting about the life they already lead in the Tardis, and how they'd convince someone else to join them. But with Four, we miss out on every opportunity for even a small moment like that. Yeah, Eleven's long-awaited scene with Amy or his multiple offers to different Claras were probably too much to hope for at this point, but even the smaller emotional beats of One inviting Vicki along or Two warning Zoe about the dangers would've been stand-out moments for someone like Four, who so rarely shows us how he feels.

Then when you look at the exits, it's almost worse (in terms of missed opportunities for character development, I mean) - because every single one of Four's companions leaves voluntarily, and usually, without any great threat/pressing reason/difficult choice for them to go. Including K-9. Twice. Now, I’m not trying to say all companions need to be tragically and permanently ripped away from life on the Tardis like the modern show frequently does, but Four’s era really seems to have gone out of its way to steer clear of anything that could’ve been emotional or revealing. UNIT, the Brig, Benton, and Harry all disappear without acknowledgment, and Romana I literally dies and regenerates offscreen, with no explanation and hardly any comment on it ever given onscreen. There’s so little resistance on all sides when companions exit the show, mainly because there’s so little time spent on their decisions and the aftermath, so naturally it winds up carrying a bit of an implication that leaving the Doctor isn’t really something most companions are all that unwilling to do, and that can cast a shadow of doubt over the rest of their relationship as well, especially when it was never something the show focused on too much in the first place.

I feel like it's important that I point out - I'm not trying to say there wasn't any emotion when Sarah Jane or Romana left, and I'm not trying to argue that those relationships weren't as important to the Doctor as other Doctor’s companions, because I think we all know they were, or at least, were supposed to be - but I do think the writers in Four's time were significantly less interested in spending airtime proving that than those of some other eras were.

Four is a rather private and unemotional Doctor, and I get that, but there’s a difference between a character being unwilling to open up to other characters, and writers choosing not to foreground that character’s inner thoughts and values in what they present to the audience. Plenty of other Doctors keep things to themselves or put on a brave faces for their companions, but a lot of the time, their writers will use that to highlight the contrast of even a few short moments where the audience, if no one else, gets to see through that - but with Four that doesn’t seem to have been something anyone was interested in doing.

That’s why the companions entrances & exits stick out to me as so significant - even if you don’t want the plot of the show to revolve around them or the Doctor’s relationships with them, those are natural points that present themselves as easy opportunities to spend a little time showing us what’s going on in the Doctor’s head and in his heart - and you’d think, if you had a character who didn't like showing their emotions and admitting to missing people, and you wanted to give the audience a glimpse of how much they really do care for their companions - because that level of character depth was important to you - you might put them in a more difficult/tragic position once or twice, just so you could be excused if they did let the facade slip. So when all of Four’s companions decide they want to leave him, we loose yet another easy opportunity to gain some insight into how Four feels about people, on top of the ones we’ve already missed at their entrances.

That's why I put this all under "the writers had other priorities" - I think it's less of a question of Four's character vs any other Doctor, and more just a side effect of what we see on screen. One isn't known for being the most open Doctor ever, but we still get to see how sad he is that Ian and Barbara left when he talks with Vicki after they're gone. Most people wouldn't say Victoria is the most important companion to ever be on the show, but after the plot of Fury from the Deep is wrapped up, we have several scenes devoted to her departure, and the only reason to include them is because of their emotional weight. In other words, we never would’ve gotten those scenes if Fury was a Fourth Doctor story, presumably because it wouldn’t have been deemed important enough.

Four's episodes definitely acknowledge (and even at times, directly state) how much he cares for his companions, but for a run so long there are shockingly few moments when the audience gets to see him reflecting on that, and it can't just be that there was never any time - it also had to be that it wasn't on these writers' radar as much as it must have been for, say, whoever decided we needed those shots of Three driving alone in the sunset after Jo leaves, just to underscore his loneliness.

I don't think showcasing the main characters' relationships or inner thoughts, feelings, and emotions was ever a main priority of the people creating Four's era, but hey, those are the kind of trade-offs writers need to make when they want to do something different with a long-running show - plus, loads of people love Four's era and his character, so it can't have totally backfired. Maybe a lot of fans of him and his companions are specifically the kind of people who like to see characters they're told matter to each other in the actual source material, and enjoy having the freedom to fill in the gaps about their relationship in their own imagination - I do genuinely admire people like that. But personally, I think I needed there to be a little more to latch onto in order to feel like I really knew Four, which is why, even though I find it impossible to actually rank all the Doctors, he's always the one I feel the least attached to.

I don't think he's a bad Doctor and I don't even really like calling him my least favorite, even though I know he has to be. I just feel like, somehow, I know him the least - and since I think all 13 Doctors are genuinely good and interesting characters, that automatically places all the ones I feel I understand better and more deeply ahead of him, before I even get into which ones I happen to vibe with the most. Even in Eight’s one movie or Nine’s one season, I feel like we see more of what's going on in their head and in their heart than we do after years of Four, which made his run a bit disappointing for me, honestly.

I know that to some degree, the obvious answer is that I should go look at his EU stuff, since those are the kinds of gaps fans and storytellers are most likely to seize upon, but I haven't done that too much for Four. In general, I'm driven to seek out extended universe books and audios when there's a character I'm already really attached to that I just want more content for, not out of curiosity about characters I know less well - that's why I've listened to more audios with Donna Noble than with the Eighth Doctor. Of course, there's also a financial element to that, since EU stuff is harder to find in libraries and streaming services - if I'm going to spend money on something, I do kind of want to know it'll be something I'll enjoy enough to return to, instead of just listening to it once to learn more about a character. But who knows, maybe at some point in my life when I'm less concerned about rent, I'll have time to get to know Four better.

Right now, I've only come across him in the EU when he appears in a multi-Doctor story - I like those for the same reason I don't super like Four's TV run: I enjoy getting to hear what the Doctor thinks of their other selves, and how being confronted with their past or future affects them personally. His cameo in Deleted Scenes was nice because even though he had to be prompted into action by Sarah Jane, it demonstrated how much he values both her and Jamie. The only story from his own range (Fourth Doctor Adventures) that I've listened to is Fate of Krelos/Return to Telos because I knew it tied in with a TV episode I liked (and I’ll be honest, it was on sale). Obviously, I enjoyed going back to Two & Jamie in that audio, but even before we got to their part I was already appreciating the dynamic he had with Leela. That relationship is a whole other issue I have with Four's era on TV, of course, but I also find that racist & colonial 'civilizing the savage' plot to be so hard to believe coming from someone like the Doctor, who does nothing but travel through time, appreciating and valuing people and cultures that are supposedly "less advanced" than his own, that I can't really see it as anything other than bad, out-of-character writing from some white english men. It strikes me as such a plothole I try not to hold it against the character, even though it does seriously affect my ability to enjoy a lot of his run.

In Krelos though, they start the audio getting ready to go fishing, which I thought was friendlier and more domestic than Leela and Four usually were in the 70s - and, when they find something of Jamie's in the old console room, not only is Four clearly affected by it, but Leela's able to call him out on it and ask questions about Jamie and the past, and he manages to answer several of them and dwell on it a bit while still being appropriately mysterious - which again, I thought was both a) more of and b) better than their relationship as seen on TV.

I feel like most of Four's Big Finish stuff is probably (hopefully) similar in terms of showing deeper, more developed (and yes, less racist) relationships between Four and his companions, but I can't quite say I'm invested in him enough to actually put in the work to find out.

On the brighter side, since I hardly ever rewatch Four’s stories, I can say that any time I do wind up seeing one, I’m automatically sent back to the first time I ever watched classic who, since it’s much fresher in my mind for those stories than the ones I return to frequently. So even though I didn’t grow up with Four (I was born in the 90s), I do sort of understand what it’s like to go back to those for nostalgia alone.

Between that and the multi-Doctor stories, I think I do alright at finding ways to enjoy him, but no, I don’t think I’ve ever found a way to properly connect with him as a character.