Feats N' Faults, Doctor Who: 4th Doctor

Tom Baker Era:

Here we go again. You should know the drill by now. I watched through every episode that the 4th Doctor or one of his companions were in. Then I calculated their points based on the Feats N’ Faults scale to see who the best Doctor or companion was. Please find my pinned article for a more complete breakdown of the rules, and below we will post a quick cheat sheet to reference for the point guide. If you are playing at home, we have a lot more companions today than last time. That is to be expected since this Doctor lasted seven whole seasons. Our lineup this time is Sarah Jane Smith, Harry, Leela, K-9, K-9 MK II, and Romana. GO ahead and rank them and if you are feeling daring even guess how many points you think they got. Let me know how you did in the comments. Now that that is out of the way let’s get started.

The 4th Doctor’s Companions:

Starting our list we have Harry Sullivan played by Ian Marter. Harry was a Navy medical officer who was assigned by Unit to accompany the Doctor. Harry was a fine companion, but I do not think his military ways meshed too well with the Doctor as he decided to stay on Earth after a conflict with the Zygons. Harry is not seen after that, but he is mentioned in the episode Zygon Inversion. In this episode, the 12th Doctor is dealing with the Zygons once again and is told by Kate that Harry developed a gas that could kill them all. The Doctor then calls it the Imbecile’s gas referring to an early scene by the 4th Doctor. So, the Zygons had an impact on this character. Too bad this character didn't have a huge impact on his story. Scoring a measly 6 and putting himself at the bottom of this list.

Up next is a score that I was really surprised by. Romana the fellow Time Lord, played by Mary Tamm and Lalla Ward, traveled with the 4th Doctor for a while. Watching through I remember Romana being extremely capable. She even regenerated in the show and has two actresses to add to her score. However, she never had any real big Feats to her name. Most of them only scored her single points. Even though she had a lot of these single-point Feats she was never able to come out with anything significant. That with her -7 Fault score brings her score down to a 16. I know Time Lords can do better and this score is a big disappointment. Romana is a great character and companion. Too bad she is not great when it comes to FN’F.

With another shocking score, we have Leela played by Louise Jameson. Leela is one of my favorite companions, by far. And now I know what you are thinking, of course, she is looking at that outfit. But I swear to you if you can look past the scantily clad nature of Leela you will find a very rich character. Born and raised on a warrior planet, that the Doctor created accidentally. Leela is super tough and quick to revert to violence. That means the Doctor has to try and rein it in. A wonderful dichotomy of The Doctor trying to go for pacifism and Leela going straight in for the kill. She was there to protect Gallifrey and to my knowledge is one of the only people, who was not a Time Lord, who lived on Gallifrey. When it comes to FN’F Leela suffered from the same problems Romana did. Able to rack up a lot of Feats but nothing substantial. The 4th Doctor ended up stealing a bunch of the larger feats in these stories leaving the companions to get the scraps. Leela was still able to score a respectable 24 points, but I just thought this quick-to-act character would have scored more.

All right we have made it to our top three! How is your list looking so far? Ok OK, I know what you are thinking. How is K9 in second and third place? Well, technically they are not. The Doctor traveled with 2 different K-9 units and then even sent a 3rd one to live with Sarah Jane. So, we will be tracking 3 different K-9 units in this series. Wild I know. In the end, these K-9 units are like a Swiss army knife for the Doctor. Able to kill, Stun, Hack, and analyze this little pup had to eventually be written out of the show since he could solve most of the problems they encountered. I think the design for this guy a super cool too. More than earning his points K-9 and K-9 MK II did just as good as I thought they would. How do you think MK III will do? Don’t forget to subscribe to find out when we get to him during the 10th Doctor’s FN’F.

Anyone familiar with Doctor Who should not be surprised by who scored first. Sarah Jane Smith, played by Elisabeth Sladen, just has a ton of source material to earn points. She traveled with three different Doctors, had a pilot for her own show in the 80s, and had multiple seasons of her own show in the revival Who. With that many episodes, it is no wonder she was able to score a whopping 102 Feats. However, with that many episodes, she was also able to rack up -36 in faults. This did equalize her score a bit but scoring 66 is no laughing matter. Being our highest-scoring companion on this list and one of the highest we have seen so far Sarah Jane Smith is a Doctor Who icon and put on a show here at FN’F. She passed away way too early and should be remembered for her great contribution to Doctor Who, rest in peace Elizabeth.

Here is our final list of our companions. How did you do? Were you able to guess the order correctly?

1. Sarah Jane Smith 66pts.

2. K-9 MK II 44 pts.

3. K-9 35 pts.

4. Leela 24 pts.

5. Romana 16 pts.

6. Harry Sullivan 6 pts.

The 4th Doctor:

Tom Baker is a joy to watch. He is viewed by most as the iconic classic Doctor. There is a reason for that. He is also the longest-tenured Doctor in the series. Lasting seven seasons the 4th Doctor had plenty of great serials to score some insane points. He fought the Master, galaxy-destroying monsters, Vampires, and even the Loch Ness Monster. With quick wit and a smile, this scarf-wielding Doc could solve any problem that the Universe could throw at him. He did, however, put the universe at risk a time or two and earned Fault points higher than most characters’ totals. But even with the -183 Fault points he still ended up with a spectacular 683 points! That is 83 points higher than his previous three incarnations combined! He blows the others out of the water and becomes the highest-scoring character we have tracked so far. Someone get this man a Jelly Baby! This puts the Doctor’s total FN’F score up to 1283 points! Can any fictional character come close to the Doctor’s score? We will have to wait and see.

Review: 7/10

Tom Baker scores like the rest of Classic Who. It is a great show with some wonderful scripts. Of course, with his long run, there are a couple of duds in there, but he has some marvelous stories that are a joy to watch. For anyone interested in Tom Baker’s era I would recommend you check out these three serials. They are great episodes that would be perfect to introduce anyone to the 4th Doctor.

1. The Sun Makers

2. City of Death

3. The Creature From The Pit

With that, we will close out this week’s Feats N’ Faults. Thanks so much for joining us and please consider subscribing or sharing with a friend. The support is appreciated. Until next time who do you think will score the closest to or higher than the 4th Doctor? See ya next week when we tackle the 5th Doctor!