Matt Smith as the new Doctor Who
When the BBC announced five years or more ago that they would be remounting the classic Doctor Who series, I was both thrilled and scared. I was raised on British television, and Doctor Who was always my favourite. While it has its ups and downs, I longed to be the Doctor (never the companion – for some reason I could never relate to them), flying about the galaxy for danger and adventure. When I found out that Christopher Eccelston would be playing the Doctor for at least the first season, I knew at least we would be getting a stellar performance. Eccelston is one of the finest actors of his generation. And certainly from him I was not disappointed. Although I am not quite that raging Rose Tyler fan that everyone else seems to be, I liked her well enough and enjoyed the first season immensely.
When David Tennant came on board (whom I admit I had not heard of before), the first episode had me completely on side. I loved Eccelston’s Doctor, but I also loved Tennant’s. A bit more eccentric, a lot more fun, he raced through like a teenager on Ritalin and blazed a fiery trail. But something happened: perhaps because he burned so bright at the beginning, he burnt out too fast. That being said, there were some great episodes in his last season, such as Midnight. But I began to tire of Tennant, and of executive producer Russell T. Davies. The last few stand-alone episodes were pretty bad overall, and what kept coming through Tennant’s Doctor was a massive ego; I don’t know if this was just Tennant or how the character was written, but if he said “I’m sorry” to someone one more time I would have kicked in my television. Yes, you are a time-lord and yes you know everything about everything, but have a little humility, please. Also, the goofiness was going too far. Tom Baker could pull it off; Tennant could not. The last special was particularly horrible, and the last ten minutes were pretty much Davies’ wank-fest to himself. Yes, you revived the series, great. Let’s move on shall we?
