Paul McGann’s Eighth Doctor had the shortest career of the bunch, but has still managed to resurface in the role in audio adventures and has been the subject of several novels.

Even so, he has his own following among Whovians and appeared at a Q&A at Orlando’s Megacon, where a fan handed him a copy of Peter Capaldi’s anti-war monologue from the recent episode ‘The Zygon Inversion.’  Capaldi’s 12th Doctor has proven popular, but some atest that he isn’t as popular as the 10th (David Tennant) and 11th (Matt Smith) Doctors.  But this speech, which lasted a stirring ten minutes in the episode, has firmly stamped Capaldi’s imprint on the ‘Doctor Who’ legacy.

Good-naturedly, McGann took a stab at the already iconic address and luckily the moment was captured on video!

You can watch for yourself below:

For comparison, here is Capaldi’s take:

What do you think?  How did McGann compare to Capaldi?

To be fair, McGann hadn’t ever heard the speech before and hadn’t even seen ‘The Zygon Inversion’ so his delivery was strictly on the fly.  It’s certainly not as impassioned as Capaldi’s, but not knowing the context, it’s still a solid effort.

McGann was selected to be the Eighth Doctor and was slated to star in an ongoing series which would have been a Britain/U.S. production, but when FOX (the U.S. side of the equation) passed, the series was not produced and in fact, ‘Doctor Who’ vanished for several years until the BBC had the full rights back and resumed the long-running program in 2005, but with Christopher Eccleston in the title role as the Ninth Doctor.

Since then, Big Finish has released several audio adventures of the Eighth Doctor with McGann providing his voice.  In addition, several Eighth Doctor books have been published to further embellish this little seen lead.

Would you be interested in seeing McGann reprise the role in live action?  If so, in what capacity?

Source: Radio Times