So Matt Smith is the eleventh incarnation of the Doctor in Doctor Who.
Does anybody else, upon watching the BBC video, think that producers wanted to/were told to get someone “David Tennant-y”? Because that’s what Matt Smith seems like – a low-rent version of David Tennant, and worse one who doesn’t seem to innately understand the awesomeness of Doctor Who (something Eccleston and Tennant both always brought to the role). Blathering on about how the role is “iconic” and how even his granddad knows who the Doctor is isn’t actually a reason to want to play the Doctor. Well, that’s not true, it is. It’s just not a particularly great reason.
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… it just smacks of a missed opportunity to me. The oddsmakers and the public seemed to back the idea of the first female Doctor, or the first Doctor of color, so here Moffat and company had the chance to bring home the notion that The Doctor could be anybody. Instead we get an even younger white guy. I don’t think the series will get worse, necessarily, but I can’t say I won’t wonder what might have been.
Eccleston remains my favorite Doctor, but it appears that the idiots running the show will keep changing the Doctor around until they come across one that will somehow, magically, unite the fans under one banner.
There’s a better chance of peace breaking out in Gaza in the next 24 hours.
For those that think there should be a female or ethnic doctor, I have two words for you: Japanese Spiderman
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGxde2a2_iQ&feature=related
Honestly, I’m looking forward to seeing Eleven in action.
I’m a little wary of seeing a Doctor who was literally born in the same year I was take flight, but the same can be said of other fans who were wary of Eccleston and Tennant. I mean, people were wary of Peter Davison taking the role, and he wound up being one of the arguably better Doctors.
I’ll just cross my fingers and hope for the best. At worst, the Doctor will just regenerate again in a few years and we’ll have our Twelfth Doctor. And honestly, they’ll ignore the regeneration-limitations made by the old show to make sure the series continues on.
And so long as the writing is excellent, I won’t mind at all.
The Third Doctor will always be my Doctor.
The entire new series has kind of broken tradition – and not in the good way (Sonic screwdriver can do whatever, instead of just a few established uses, he’s kissing his companions and stuff), and this guy doesn’t really feel like the one who’s going to bring back the Classic Doctor feel.
I want the Cranky Old Doctor back, damn it.
(Okay, we haven’t really had a Cranky Old Doctor since before I was born, but still… the Doctor shouldn’t be younger than me. My entitled fanboy sense tells me it just ain’t right)
Personally, I would LOVE to see Laurence Fishburne as the Doctor…. ^_^
Oh, give him a chance, already! Yes, he is a little Tennant-esque, but let’s see what he brings to the table. I’m being optimistic. I’m just glad we didn’t get an old guy. When SM said in an interview that it would be good for the next doctor to be old, I couldn’t help but picture the first doctor. Not exciting.
Or better yet, Ving Rhames. 😀
Craig Charles, while an amusing choice, would definitely have been pushing it.
While speaking of Craig Charles, what about Chris Barrie?
Not that I’m wishing they’d chosen someone else or anything. As Sherry said above, I want to give this guy a chance before claiming the show has jumped the shark or something. The head writer alone for the show has me pumped for 2010’s season, and while Matt leaves me wary, I won’t shy away from this new Doctor (and this is coming from someone who far prefers the old shows).
Disappointed here as well. I have no qualms with the actor, but I miss my semi-paternal doctors. At this rate the next doctor will be Jamie Borthwick.
On the other hand, I loved Tennant in the role, so I could be just pissing and moaning.
The problem with the last Christmas special is by the end, I really, really wanted David Morrissey to be the Doctor. Doctor Who has a fine tradition of angst, but it also has a fine tradition of having a magic box that takes you any damn where in space and time and Morrissey’s delivery of his last few lines reminded me of how freakin’ awesome that is.
But then, the new Doctor will never quite be the old Doctor, just in how the actors approach the parts. Tennant, by his own admittance, felt he had to live up to Davidson and now Smith feels he has to live up to Tennant. It’s always a bad sign when the lead has to depend on toner.
Just like I consider Tom Baker to be the definitive Doctor of my childhood, Tennant is my definitive Doctor now. No matter who they picked, the show is never going to be the same to me anymore.
I think the new kid will be alright. His hand gestures in the interview caught my eye, and I think he could do an alright job in the role.
His face is a bit odd though… reminds me of Marlyn Manson without the makeup.
I love love LOVE David Tennant, but I’m willing to suspend judgement on this guy until after I see him in action. From his BBC interview, he seems to have that slightly zany, eccentric energy of the Doctor (something I didn’t see in Morrissey in the Christmas special, personally). So, we’ll see.
Too young but I’m looking forward to seeing what he’s like.
And Moffat is writing! *fangirls*
I’m disappointed it wasn’t Paterson Johnston, as Lying in the Gutters had rumoured.
My reaction was ‘meh’. I really wanted a more daring choice, a big change, whether Paterson Joseph or someone else, and instead, as you said, he looks like a Tennant knockoff, but even *more* emo. And I loved Tennant for most of the run, but post-Donna, I’m really done with his Doctor’s emo self pity.
And one of the reasons I’m not much of a fan of Moffat is his obsession with the Doctor boffing chicks. Not that the Doctor has to be asexual, but half of his episodes featured it, and he went on about it in interviews. And this casting makes me suspect we will get more of it.
Once I got over Tom Baker not being the Doctor anymore (it took until Eccleston), I stopped being invested in the actors and started being invested in the character himself. As long as the actor is male and can pull off quirky I’m content. I wasn’t actually following who the contenders were so I didn’t have my heart set on anyone. I’m trepidatious and yet hopeful…pretty much exactly the same as I felt when they cast Tennant and look how well that turned out.
Her DOES come off a little Edward Cullen and Beaker the Muppet’s love child to me, though, and I wish he had eyebrows.
I agree with the shock of getting over Tom Baker, he was my first Doctor and will always be my favorite.
http://www.thinkgeek.com/tshirts-apparel/unisex/popculture/988c/
but this guy looks silly… Its like Emo his the TARDIS!
I’ll wait and see. He’s going to have a huge advantage, in that he’ll be acting out Moffat’s scripts, and “obscure” =/= bad. After all, I’d never heard of James Nesbitt before “Jekyll”, and by the end, I was rooting for him as the next Doctor. 🙂
Would I have liked Chiwetel Ejiofor? Sure. I’d also have liked Anthony Stewart Head and Tim Roth. But I’m aware that they don’t want and can’t afford a “star” actor in the role, and so it’s usually going to go to a good actor I’ve never heard of. And until I see some Matt Smith to decide on his acting skills, I’m going to assume that’s what happened.
I will admit to having hoped it would be Patterson Joseph, but I am going to trust Moffat. He’s always written my favorite episodes of the last several seasons. I’ll reserve judgment until I see him in action.
By god though, another year before we get that? The announcement probably could have been put off a bit longer, I would have thought.
My first reaction was “Damn, more emo doctor”. There’s at least a year to go before we see the new one, maybe he;ll be OK.
Seeing how I know bupkis about British actors, I can’t make a judgment. Going through the history of the show, I can’t see a single Doctor that everybody can agree to throw off a cliff, since every incarnation is somebody’s favorite. I don’t see how this kid will be any different.
One thing . . . he won’t be the first Doctor to be played by somebody younger than a companion. Tennant’s about 2-3 years younger than Catherine Tate. I stayed up one night tearing through Wikipedia to get Doctor/companion age differences, so I know what I’m talking about this time.
And I’m still hoping for a multiple Doctor episode one day. Have Moffat sweet-talk Eccleston back, put McGann in the spotlight once more, etc. I’m thinking Seven onwards, only because McCoy never took part in a crossover steeped in canon.
I’m a little iffy on this choice. I mean in Hollywood, 26 = 18. Of course, London’s not Hollywood (but sometimes it is).
I was rooting for Chiwetel and even thought him very likely. But this guy? Meh. I’m going to give him the benefit of the doubt, and a few episodes to grow on me. Tennant took a few, after all.
The only thing that makes me nervous is it’s a new show lead, with a new actor. Moffat’s decent (sorry guys, not great. I watched Jekyll which was a mess in the last couple of episodes), so it’s entirely possible he’s bungling a choice. But he loves Who. He has Who experience. So maybe, just maybe, this guy was the best out of all the choices.
I’m feeling pretty optimistic about it actually, I like the look of the guy and he seems to have experience on stage if not so much on screen (I’m gonna have rewatch Ruby in the Smoke again aren’t I?)
So I’m going to reserve judgement till 2010, to be honest I’m more worried about Moffat. Yeah The Empty Child two parter and Blink were great, but in his most recent episode everything came off as a bit overdone, the skeletons in spacesuits and repeating voices over and over again just made me laugh.
Personally I’m just happy that Moffat is taking over and Russell T. Davies is out. Dont get me wrong, all credit to Davies for bringing the franchise back, but hopefully now we can move past “EVERYONE wants to sleep with the Doctor!” which was Davies baseline for writing, well, everybody. The problem is that Russell T. Davies is a Dr Who fanboy and, as much as I want the people in charge of my sci-fi to care about it, you cant have a fanboy in charge of something like this because they automatically start to mary-sue the character they are supposed to be writing and it becomes more like fanfiction than anything else.
Moffat wrote hands-down the best episodes of Dr. Who since it has come back, and I’m optimistic that he’ll do a good job.
As for the new doctor. Hell, I called it. I dont mean that I knew the guys name or anything, but I’ve been saying for ages “You know the people the papers are predicting? It wont be any of them. None of the papers predicted Tennant or Ecclestone, they wont predict the new guy. Probably be someone you’ve never heard of”. I’ll admit that I would have liked Chiwetel Ejiofor, and that I was really really rooting for Paterson Joseph (anyone who thinks he wouldnt make a good doctor should seek out the BBC adaptation of Neil Gaimens “Neverwhere”. He played the Maquis de Carabas, and did a fantastic job), but I’m sure this guy wont be bad or anything.
You’re just jealous you weren’t tabbed to be the Eleventh Doctor.
Although Colin Salmon would have been three levels of cool as the Doctor… ah well.
Does anything ever NOT disappoint you?
Just wondering.
Although when it comes to the joy quotient:
http://fullbodytransplant.wordpress.com/2009/01/04/taking-your-life-into-your-own-hands/
I am convinced that you get joy from your constant disappointment.
I guess that works.
Davisona nd Tennant are my favorite Doctors so I see nothing wrong with it. It makes a kind of symmetry for me.
I hope they explain his lack of eyebrows as a TARDIS malfunction. Like they were sent back in time and landed on Groucho Marx or something.
A female doctor or a doctor of another colourwould be a really cool move, I do not agree with this choice, but as a who fan, will give it a chance.
What they said. And Zenrage, a small part of Spider-Man’s appeal is being one of the first fully-covered characters, enabling a greater degree of audience projection. Admittedly that’s according to Stan Lee, who I’m of mixed feelings about, but he is one of the six people maybe involved with the creation of the character and put the words in the comic.
I seriously don’t get the gutcheck negativity here. Series 2010 is going to naturally be leaps and bounds over what we’ve had so far because it’s Moffat in the driver’s seat and not Davies. I’m glad we didn’t get stunt casting for the sake of stunt casting. I thought Patterson Joseph was absolutely terrible in Jekyll (and that was with Moffat writing for him too, he was the only weak link in the entier thing), and the odds we were going to get someone like Chiwetel Ejiofor were pretty slim in my mind.
The writing is going to be top notch. I’m a guy who thinks the writing is more important than anything else, including the performances, but seriously, I just don’t see how someone CAN’T be looking forward to Moffat’s Doctor Who right now. Or at least can’t be expecting it to be very, very good relative to Davies’, even if it doesn’t follow your personal preference or what not.
I think he has the looks, the voice, and the acting range…and I’m glad that for once a really major part was given to an actor based on his skill and interpretation, rather than his CV or his ability to impress the lowest common denominators.
Plus, I like the hair. It’s got that sort of ‘Absent-Minded-Time-Traveller’ messiness that he (the character) needs.
Sam Troughton for Dr. 12!
A friend of mine called me up about the casting and my reaction was “Meh”. I’d not heard of him, nor knew much of his other tv/film roles. I’ve been watching Doctor Who for a long time and given that no one has yet come along to knock Tom Baker from being my favorite Doctor, then I doubt it’s going to happen.
In fact the only thing that I don’t want to see in a Doctor is for him to suddenly be of another race or a woman. Not that I don’t think that whoever it was couldn’t pull it off, just that the series would do nothing to deal with this fact. To keep it’s family friendly facade Doctor Who can’t deal with a topic like racisim in a realistic way. Look at Martha, I remember the production team saying that Martha’s race wouldn’t just be glossed over. That amounted to what? Shakespear wanting to fuck her anyway and the Headmaster from Human Nature giving her dirty looks. Yeah, that’s what I call dealing with the issue. So if the you want the Doctor to be black or a woman I want the subject to be taken seriously, not just, “Oh, Doctor, your black now. Well that’s new”.
I really wanted either Colin Salmon, James Nesbitt of Jeff from Coupling, just for Giggles. Though Anthony Head would have been cool too.
I was rather rooting for Stephen Fry, myself.