Quicksand Fans

This is definitely off topic except I suppose to the extent the answers might suggest something about character preferences. I am interested to know various opinions on who is the best supporting character is the entire Dr. Who series, dating back all the way to 1965. By supporting character, I mean a character who is not the Dr., not any of the companions, and not any of the villains. I have a definite opinion on the top two but I will hold my peace on that for a while.

Does Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart qualify since he was not a regular companion but may have traveled in the TARDIS a few times?

QuicksandMania wrote:Does Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart qualify since he was not a regular companion but may have traveled in the TARDIS a few times?

In my opinion no. He is pretty much the same as he companions. My question is pretty much about characters who appear once, or perhaps, I suppose, twice.

Based on that criteria, you have just parsed the list down to nonexistence. Or some utterly obscure and forgettable character over 50 years of episodes? Good luck

kham wrote:Based on that criteria, you have just parsed the list down to nonexistence. Or some utterly obscure and forgettable character over 50 years of episodes? Good luck

I beg to differ. There have been dozens of characters that meet the criteria. While they may be forgettable or obscure to some that may not be the case for all.

Fred588 wrote:This is definitely off topic except I suppose to the extent the answers might suggest something about character preferences. I am interested to know various opinions on who is the best supporting character is the entire Dr. Who series, dating back all the way to 1965. By supporting character, I mean a character who is not the Dr., not any of the companions, and not any of the villains. I have a definite opinion on the top two but I will hold my peace on that for a while.

My initial thought was to nominate Roger Delgado, but then I noticed that as well as Companions you disallow Villains. I presume you also disqualify Nabil Shaban (Sil) or Michael Wisher (the original Davros)? Hmm - that doesn't leave a lot. I'll go away and think about it.

By the way - Doctor Who was first aired in 1963. The first episode was broadcast slightly later than advertised because the news over-ran due coverage of the Kennedy assassination.

Lomax wrote:

Fred588 wrote:This is definitely off topic except I suppose to the extent the answers might suggest something about character preferences. I am interested to know various opinions on who is the best supporting character is the entire Dr. Who series, dating back all the way to 1965. By supporting character, I mean a character who is not the Dr., not any of the companions, and not any of the villains. I have a definite opinion on the top two but I will hold my peace on that for a while.

My initial thought was to nominate Roger Delgado, but then I noticed that as well as Companions you disallow Villains. I presume you also disqualify Nabil Shaban (Sil) or Michael Wisher (the original Davros)? Hmm - that doesn't leave a lot. I'll go away and think about it.

By the way - Doctor Who was first aired in 1963. The first episode was broadcast slightly later than advertised because the news over-ran due coverage of the Kennedy assassination.

I stand corrected on the original air date. By way of some examples I list the following: Count Grenel of Gracht, Binroe the heretic, Mr. Fibuli, The Portreve, The Gorm, Grandma Tyler, Soldeed, The Pirate captain, Reuben, Jago, and Organon. While the pirate captain was in some sense one of the bad guys he was not the REAL badguy in the story.

Fred588 wrote:I stand corrected on the original air date. By way of some examples I list the following: Count Grenel of Gracht, Binroe the heretic, Mr. Fibuli, The Portreve, The Gorm, Grandma Tyler, Soldeed, The Pirate captain, Reuben, Jago, and Organon. While the pirate captain was in some sense one of the bad guys he was not the REAL badguy in the story.

Not all of those ring a bell - but I'm pretty sure that at least three come from The Key to Time. I had thought about nominating Unstoffe from the same series. I think Jago is from the Talons of Weng Chiang, one of my all-time favourites, but I would nominate Li Chang. I also liked Beryl Reid in Earthshock (there was a time when British audiences used to play sport-the-famous-face when watching Doctor Who - and when any British actor needed to have Doctor Who and Jackanory on their CV for the kudos). Or the Gatherer and the Collector from The Sun Makers - OK, the latter's the villain. I'll try to come up with some more for tomorrow.

kham wrote:Based on that criteria, you have just parsed the list down to nonexistence. Or some utterly obscure and forgettable character over 50 years of episodes? Good luck

+1

Although saying "over 50 years of episodes" is a bit disingenuous, the idea that a character who appears, ad a maximum, two times in over 800 episodes, not including seasonal specials in the reboot, strikes me as... difficult. And as previously noted, the definition excludes some pivotal-yet-rarely-seen essential characters such as Davros. What significant development could occur in 0.002% of the show's run?

The characters mentioned so far serve simply as a foil to pose a challenge to either the Doctor or his companion de jour.

Now, were we to relax the definiton a bot, I'd start in a derivative manner and submit Davros. Then John Lumic. Finally, I'd offer Rassilon. Each of these minor characters spawned one of the Dr's nemeses. Sadly, each appeared more than twice, excluding them from consideration.

I suppose the two council Timelords who opposed Rassilon, whom he dubbed "the original weeping angels," would qualify, had they been given names.

Lomax has understood what I requested.