Doctor Who - Tom Baker
Some say Tom Baker was the definitive Dr. Who. The reason? Most likely people think of Tom Baker's who as the Doctor who faced crisis, danger, and even death with a wry sense of humor and almost disrespectful gaze. In fact, in one key scene early in Baker's role, he is asked to threaten a young warrior. Having no prop weapon in hand, he grabs the fellow and announces, "Stop or I will kill you with this deadly Jelly Baby!" When the brave man says, "Go ahead", Baker replies, "no" and promptly eats the candy. All this an adlib, and because he didn't think the Dr. Who character would seriously threaten anyone with death. His toothy smile, and on screen humor didn't detract from his serious protrayal of serious events. Unlike Patrick Troughten, Baker's humor while at times slapstick, was a far cry from Vaudvillian.
When a fan sent in this huge long scarf, Baker adopted it immediately, using it for comic relief incessantly. Run to Tardis, trip on scarf. Need a flair for attention, grab and throw scarf over shoulder. The device became so pervasive, die hard fans would be begin to count the events. When Peter Davison unravelled the scarf, fans screamed bloody murder, setting in motion his ending as the character far before he tired of the role.
Of course another important reason is that Baker was able to hold onto the role longer than any other actor (actual number of episodes or air time), and thus was probably seen by more fans. Add a third reason...writing on the series went through a remarkable change during Baker's tenure, with a like upgrade in sets, special effects and yes even the musical score. With all this occuring, his departure allowed the producers to throw in a more Rock beat and updated the title sequence, making a sharp cut between the old and new doctors, and thus permanently separating the Baker Who from the Davison Who. While probably done for good strategic reasons at the time, in retrospect, it managed to divide the Who audience into similar camps. Only the truly die-hard fans were able to transition along with the Doctor character.
Another device that appears to be used to separate the Davidson Doctor from Tom Baker's protrayal, was the unravelling of the Tom Baker Doctor's famous scarf. With this little ingenious bit of destruction, BBC symbolized the full transition from Baker to Davidson, leaving few hints as to the past Doctor's lifes.