The Doctors Ranked Objectively

For the show's anniversary, the Doctors will be ranked as objectively as possible, my emotional opinions will be wholly ignored.

I will not include the Thirteenth Doctor or the War Doctor, simply due to a lack of exposure to their full material; the Thirteenth Doctor only had one season so far.

Ranked in Terms of Writing

12. The Sixth Doctor

JUST!

11. The Fifth Doctor

He's kind of dependent on the dynamics of his companions in order to have much going for himself, unable to stand on his own.

10. The Third Doctor

Not as exciting as he could have been, the Third still was loveable and commanded staying power, only sometimes undermined by the occasional inconsistency (Robert Sloman often wrote the Third Doctor rather differently from the other writers), and the fact that the role was originally written very much for Jon Pertwee in particular.

9. The Eighth Doctor

Because we only got one movie, I decided to cheat and reference the novels, which seem the closest to the intended characterization of the telemovie and the events that led to the Ninth Doctor, but most fans prefer the audio plays because of their use of authentic actors and superior plots.  However, in terms of characterization, the novels are probably the best.

8. The Twelfth Doctor:

His problem is that he's too inconsistent, changing too frequently.

7. The Eleventh Doctor:

His problem is that the window dressing of deity status that the Revived Series introduced was a little too intrensic to his character.

6. The Seventh Doctor

The only real problems with this Doctor were firstly, that the intended window dressing was by far too intricate to his character, and that secondly, he's a bit of a Mary Sue, not in terms of being as admired as the Tenth or leading as perfect a life as the Eleventh, but rather in terms of being a total reflection of the author's beliefs.  However, the fact he is so dynamic in some ways strongly suggests that maybe being a Mary Sue isn't the biggest sin an author can commit.

5. The Fourth Doctor:

Better-written than often given credit for, he's mostly undermined by how the producers switching around came to remove some of the character arcs intended for him.

4. The First Doctor

Probably the best balance of being truly dynamic but also truly consistent, his only major problem was sometimes a lack of character depth in some of the early individual stories.

3. The Second Doctor

Probably gifted with the single most deep and insightful characterizations out of any of the Doctors, he simply lacks a more clear sense of direction for this character, a very rare case of a character being so fleshed out that there is little place to take him.

2. The Ninth Doctor

His only major problem was that he didn't always interact with the plots as much as he could have, but usually he played a part in resolving the conflict.

1. The Tenth Doctor

Probably the best on value of the overall sense of direction that so many others lacked, his character clearly going from one place to the next in response to the events that happened.  He's only undermined by the garish window-dressing of god status that Russel T. Davies sometimes assigns him, but this is only surface detail, and behind it, one finds a man struggling with the implications of the lofty status of being the last of the Time Lords.

Ranked in Terms of Acting

12. Sylvester McCoy

He got WAY better with Big Finish, but on-show, it had room for improvement.

11. Jon Pertwee

His problem was that he often overpitched the subtlty, coming across as underconcerned half of the time.

10. Matt Smith

I think he overpitched the swagger at first, and still got a little too silly at times.

9. Colin Baker

While not the worst actor, Colin Baker had to break into his role over time.

8. Paul McGann

I think he didn't always seem like he understood his character at times, but he was very good at appearing enthusiastic when he had to.

7. William Hartnell

While he overpitched the swagger at first, he later got better about conveying sorrow and pain as the series progressed.

6. Tom Baker

A stronger actor than often given credit for, it's still hard to neglect the fact that often his method acting occasionally went too far, especially during the Graham Williams era.

5. Peter Davison

One of the few actors who mastered the art of always being subtle without ever underacting.

4. Christopher Eccleston

It's like he himself said, he overpitched the comedy, but besides that, he managed to be one of the best at conveying a tortured soul.

3. Patrick Troughton

His only problem was that towards the end, he was clearly getting somewhat bored with his role, and thus he lost some of his touch.

2. Peter Capaldi

The best method actor of the bunch, Peter Capaldi's only weakness is a relative lack of communication with the eyes.

1. David Tennant

He probably had the largest range and was the best about communicating with the eyes, a very important part of classical acting.

So, in conclusion, the Second, Ninth, and Tenth Doctors are probably the best written and acted ones if you take everything into account.

But that's the funny thing; they're not exactly my favorites.  That's because on an emotional scale, I prefer Doctors with a more subtle mystique, hence I love the Fourth Doctor the most.  But it's hard for me to resist good writing and good acting, so the Tenth is, probably, objectively the best one on the most critical fronts.