1. David Tennant: The guy was flat-out brilliant so often when he could pull wonderful moments out of some otherwise goofy (crappy?) stories. He showed a flawed Doctor trying to be the best he could. The quiet scenes were often his best. In "The End of Time" he had some absolutely brilliant moments; with Wilf in the cafe, with John Simm's less manic moments, the "farewell" scene with Jessica Hynes...I'm almost amazed how much I like those moments out of (imo) a pretty crappy story overall.
2. Matt Smith: He does a great job of "Mad Man in a Box". Part of what makes him climb to the
#2 spot is the interaction with Rory. Before the last series he was down a couple notches. Rory adds perspective and depth to the character by countering and pointing out certain things while sometimes being treated like a "third wheel".
3. Paul McGann: His sense of wonder really captures how I picture the Doctor. The Big Finish audio adventures with Lucy as companion are some of my favorite stories. I loved him originally in the really crappy TV movie and thought "If I can like him a lot in that setting, how good will he be with decent treatment?" I wasn't disappointed.
4. Christopher Eccleston: He's up a couple spots also after re-watching his series. His war-weary Doctor really captures a nice feeling of "the only guy who lived while having to eradicate his own people in a long, hard war of worlds."
5. Patrick Troughton: I'm not sure what it is, but the eclectic, sometimes manic, portrayal by Troughton is something I enjoy a lot. He's the impish meddler whose curiosity seemed perfect as the personaility after "the one who ran away".
6. Peter Davison: He had some cheesy scripts to work with and was in the unenviable position of taking over after the immensely popular Tom Baker, but he brought a humanity and introspective heir to the role I really enjoyed.
7: Jon Pertwee: A nice counter to Troughton's impish doctor, Pertwee brought a regal heir to the character who "remembered" he was of a noble and storied race and embraced that part.
8. William Hartnell: What I liked about Hartnell was how he captured the crotchety old noble man with the (sometimes) hidden impish and devious streak. His "transition" to Troughton may still be the most natural switch in Doctors still, personality-wise.
9. Tom Baker: His Bohemian eccentricity was fun, but it never held the impishness, curiosity or wonder of Troughton, McGann or Smith. His "I wander and I'm weird" vibe never resonated with me as much as others. He did have some great stories though. The Dealy Assassin, The Key to Time, The Talons of Weng Chang, etc. were all well done and probably the prime time of the original series. He also had an interesting array of companions.
10 . Sylvester McCoy: I actually liked his Doctor, but man, most of the stories suuuuucked. You could really tell the BBC didn't care much about the show at that point. He also had two rather annoying companions in Sophie Aldred and Bonnie Langford.
11. Colin Baker: Worst. Doctor. Ever. He did some interesting things early on (which actually got the show some heat) and the stories turned darker, but so often his Doctor was just irritating.
