The Nerd Signal

I Wish I Were An Alien – You Had Me At Apples

With the first season of Matt Smith as the new Doctor winding down I wanted to take a moment to reflect on the youngest actor to play the character.  By this point, I have now seen about a dozen actors play the Doctor to varying degrees of success.  A few, like Tom Baker and Christopher Eccleston, nailed it out of the gate.  Others, like Patrick Troughton and David Tennant, took a little while for me to warm up to, but I quickly came to enjoy.  As for the Collin Bakers of the world…they tried.  I think McGann could have done a credible job as well if it weren’t for that awful script written by people who obviously didn’t entirely get the show.  I am still glad The Doctor is half-human scenario has been conveniently forgotten.

When Tennant’s reign as The Doctor came to an end, there was a lot of buzz as to who would play the role next.  Who could they possibly get to replace the most popular Doctor to date?  Whoever it would be had some major huge shoes to fill.  Eccleston brought the new series back in style, but Tennant caused it to become a modern phenomena, taking it out of cult status into the mainstream.  For a while it was assumed they would get a major heavy weight like Eddie Izzard or Ricky Gervais.

After all the speculation and rumor we found out they chose a young actor by the name of Matt Smith.  Wait, who?  Who on earth is Matt Smith?  No one knew much about him.  He did a few plays and television appearances, but not much else.  The message boards exploded with both positive and negative feedback.  And who can forget how hateful it got after pictures of the Doctor in his new threads leaked onto the internet?  The first episode was no where near ready to be aired and people were already freaking out.  Skott told me one night people speculated that the transition would have been akin to the 4^th to the 5^th regeneration.  Nothing special, but the guy managed to maintain the integrity of the series.  Instead we got the equivalent of the transition from the 3^rd to 4^th regeneration where a very popular Doctor was replaced by an unknown actor to blow the popularity out of the sky.  I couldn’t agree more.

He had me at Apples.  When the manic Doctor popped out of the lopsided TARDIS drenched asking the young Amelia Pond for apples I knew we had someone special.  I have heard him described as the mid-life crisis Doctor or the old man trapped in the young man’s body. I think he is a little bit of both with a splash of dork to round out the personality.  Where Tennant was the young and hip Doctor, Smith was smart to take the character in a different direction.  Over all I’d say he has done a great job.  It would have been easy for Matt to come into the real and turn him into a caricature.  How terrifying it must be for an actor to take on a well established role and be expected to do something new.  Lesser actors would have probably played it safe digging into the history to recreate an older version hoping no one would notice.

Of course great casting can only go so far without great writing. While I didn’t care for “The Beast Below,” the majority of the season was at the very least solid.  The ending of “Vincent and The Doctor” has become one of my favorite scenes ever. I am very optimistic about the direction the show is going.  It is hard to believe we are already at his 11^th incarnation.  We have a few good years left before the series must come to an end. One of the benefits of Matt’s age is he will be able to keep playing The Doctor for years to come.  Assuming it keeps going as strong it has been, I will be enjoying new episodes for a while.  I look forward to seeing what Matt and Stephen Moffatt have in store for us.