Hello again! It’s been a long time, but there has been a lot of Dr. Who to watch. I have finally finished the third doctor, and it is now time to compare him to the first two. I will not go into a lot of detail on the first two doctors, as I already did that here. Therefore, I will dive straight into Doctor Three, Jon Pertwee.
Jon Pertwee’s Doctor rubbed me the wrong way at the beginning. He had the same thin veneer of humor over a core of arrogance that was reminiscent of the first doctor. He never hid his scorn for the Brigadier’s military bent, and he was downright abusive to anyone who wasn’t a brilliant scientific genius. Much like the first doctor, you started to wonder WHY he was helping mankind, as he had little to say in their favor.
However, as time went on, I began to see that a lot of it hinged on his current condition. He had been exiled to Earth against his will, and though he liked humans, they sometimes frustrated him. The Brigadier’s attitude of shoot first and ask questions later especially drove him crazy. Despite this, his early abusiveness seems a little excessive. He mellowed out in later seasons, and by the end he was less arrogant and had a greater sense of humor. Many people have named Jon Pertwee as their favorite doctor, and I will put him in my top five, with the caveat that we only consider his later seasons.
Pertwee’s Doctor is where the scientist facet of the Doctor is most evident. There were very few episodes where he didn’t don a lab coat at some point. He spent a great deal of time hunched over diagnostic equipment or bubbling beakers, and the main set, with the TARDIS tucked in the background, was his laboratory. He was also the Doctor that brought the sonic screwdriver into its own, as it was used to unlock doors, unscrew vent covers, and even explode landmines. Pertwee was also in the Navy before becoming an actor, and many of the Third Doctor’s episodes have a scene on the water, where Pertwee did his own stunts.
In conclusion, the third Doctor showed that not only can Doctors change when they regenerate, but that they can change within one body, too. Pertwee’s gradual mellowing showed a character transform before our eyes, and we hardly realize it. When Hartnell changed to Troughton I was excited, and when Troughton changed to Pertwee it was a little bittersweet, but as Pertwee’s reign ended I was genuinely sad to see him go.
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