William Hartnell was the Coach in "This Sporting Life"

[This somehow failed to post yeterday.]

So, I got the Doctor Who story, "The Time Meddler" from Netflix, and was not for the first time struck by the fact that William Hartnell was actually kind of a touch guy. I decided, then to list the Doctors in descending order of physical toughness:
(Btw, there's rumor going around that Patrivck Stewart will play the Meddling Monk in an upcoming Dr. Who series. That's actually good casting, in my opinion.)

1. The Third Doctor. Jon Pertwee's Doctor was the mater of Venusian Aikido, and was constantly getting into fights.

2. The First Doctor. Bill Hartnell was actually a standard tough guy in British cinema sort of like a poor man's Gene Hackman or something. People remember him as a frail old guy, but he was actually pretty solid.

3. The Tenth Doctor. David Tennant. The Tenth Doctor is not so much shown fighting on screen but he always threaten people, and he has racke up a heavy body count.

4. The Second Doctor. Patrick Troughton actually had a tough side to his portrayal of the Doctor. In the Ice Warriors epsidoes, he's always willing to do dangerous stuf, but he never so much engages in combat.

5. The Fourth Doctor. Tom Baker was over 6 foot tall and over 200 pounds. He went back and forth though. He'd engage Sontaran and villains in combat. But he'd also get beaten up. He was like Jim Rockford.

6. The Seventh Doctor. Sylvester McCoy's Doctor was pretty damned cold-blooded in the Troughton tradition and has some similarities to Tennant.

7. The Sixth Doctor. Colin Baker was a big guy, and did some stuff that was heroic, but he was kind of a wimp.

8. The Ninth Doctor. Christopher Eccleston's Doctor got beat up kind of a lot, andnever actually engaged anyone phyiically that I recall. Also, Jackie slapped him.

X. Peter Cushing, the Doctor Who from the movies. He was one of the the great stage fihters, and I'll be damned if I am rating Peter Davison over Van Helsing. He doesn't do anything fighting in the Who flicks, though.

9. The Fifth Doctor. Peter Davison actually did a fair amoutnof action, but he was never credible.

10. The Eightth Doctor. Paul McGann never had much of a chance but such is life.