When did Doctor Who change from Adventurer to Crusader?

[Lord Shiva]

Not that its a bad thing, I noticed a very different 'feel' between the 1st season (William Hartnell) and the 1st season of the NEW Doctor Who (technically season 27)? I will admit while i am a BIG Doctor Who fan, I have yet to watch even a fraction of the episodes. I've watched almost the entire first season of Doctor Who, and I've seen the new series, but I haven't seen much of Doctor Who 2-8 yet (though I plan on it!). So I don't know if its a gradual thing or a sudden thing.

When does the feeling of "adventuring" change? Obviously they do still do that, but it just feels different compared to the older shows.

[Flyboy]

I THINK that maybe the Jon Pertwee era moved Who into the crusader area, as there was a lot less to explore, and it was more about foiling alien invasion.

Though he's never been as much of a crusaders as he is now.

[creed462]

I don't feel like he ever changed

[Deputy-Assistant-Second-Prime]

Good question. He definitely became a crusader in the 60s and that makes sense considering the level of activism during that time.

Specifically, I attribute this change to Innes Lloyd taking over as producer and Gerry Davis taking over as script editor.

The first obvious instance of this was in The Savages.

Prior to this, the Doctor and his companions got entangled in a plot and were only trying to protect themselves.

In The Savages, the Doctor clearly has a choice to not get involved, but he still chooses to.

Now we saw more and more crusading from The Power of the Daleks on. In fact, it became part of Patrick Troughton's performance as the Doctor.

From that point on, the Doctor became less an explorer and more a crusader. The Doctor's trial in The War Games was a direct result of this behavior.

If you want to call The Savages an aberration, we can come to the alternate conclusion that the crusading aspect of the show was Patrick Troughton's contribution to the character.

I tend to see it as part of the evolution of the character from the anti-hero we saw in An Unearthly Child.

[creed462]

I never saw him as an anti-hero. I just saw he had a lot of pain

[Deputy-Assistant-Second-Prime]

I never saw him as an anti-hero. I just saw he had a lot of pain

Think about the Doctor in An Unearthly Child and then read this definition from Wikipedia.

In literature and film, an anti-hero is a fictional character that has some characteristics of a villain or an outsider, but is nevertheless portrayed somewhat sympathetically. In particular, an anti-hero may have enough heroic qualities and intentions to align them with the heroes in the readers' minds.
Anti-heroes can be awkward, obnoxious, passive, pitiful, obtuse, or just normal; but they are always, in some fundamental way, flawed, unqualified, or failed heroes. When the anti-hero is a central character in a work of fiction the work will frequently deal with the effect their flawed character has on the other people they meet. Additionally the work may depict how their character alters over time, either leading to punishment, un-heroic success or redemption.

[creed462]

I can see it using that defination

[4thDoctor]

I would like to see the Doctor return to being just an adventurer and explorer now that he's faked his death and decided to fade into the shadows. He had become too much the Super-Hero of late.

[cosmichobo]

I think there's a definite cross over between the two, as once the Doctor sees injustice, he interferes, with crusaderistic gusto.

It has become "worse" however with the new series, especially as the TARDIS now works, as opposed to previously when 99% of the time when he wouldn't know where he was going - thus more of an adventurer beforehand...

I did hope that Smith's Doctor would return to an adventurer... after Tennant's Doc was faced with the fact that he, by his own admission, had "gone too far"... but we've just ended up in a massive crusade... albeit of someone else's creation.

[The Flyattractor]

I would say probably the biggest jump from being just an adventurere to crusader was during the 7th Doctor's era. In that regen he seemed to be making a very deliberate move to go around the universe rectifying some things he saw as "wrong".
Like how he screwed with Ace's timeline to defeat Fenric.

[4thDoctor]

I'll agree that Doctor #7 was more in the "Hero mode" than Doctors 1-6 were.