The Doctor's Regeneration
I've been an unashamed fan of the new Doctor Who since Christopher Ecclestone and Billie Piper arrived in a flash of pyrotechnics in 2005, and have followed the adventures through three new assistants and two new Doctors with the excitement of a ten-year-old. Little awakens the geeky, child-like glee in me as much as the prospect of new Who; only the early teaser trailers for last year's Star Trek, and of course Avatar, have managed it recently. With the prospect of a new Doctor, a new assistant, and, to top it all off, the excellent Stephen Moffat taking from Russell T. Davies the reins as Executive Producer and Lead Writer, the excitement, anticipation and expectations were ratcheted up to eleven.
Matt Smith of course succeeds David Tennant, who has been hailed as the most-loved Doctor of all time. With four years, three series and 8 specials under his belt, Tennant is the Doctor to children and fans of the series everywhere. Whereas Ecclestone played the Doctor as a dead-eyed warrior bereaving the loss of his race, the tenth Doctor moved on from his recent past, coming to terms with his role as the last remaining Time Lord, at times revelling in it with eccentricity and a hint of swagger, and always dashing about the place, everywhere. There is, then, no pressure on Matt Smith to match his recent predecessors.
The good news is that, purely on the basis of a single episode, Smith has truly made the role his own. As we meet him, the eleventh Doctor is desperately clinging on to the TARDIS as it careers towards London, narrowly avoiding a collision with Big Ben, before crash landing in the sleepy village of Leadworth. As we soon discover, he's still recovering from his latest regeneration: he's not yet comfortable in his new body, and is, in his own words, "still cooking".
This is all helped by the fact that everything about Doctor Who has been updated for series five: in addition to the big three (Doctor, assistant and Executive Producer), the title sequence, theme tune and logo have also all been revised as has the TARDIS. As a result, series five blasts onto our screens as a new show in much the same way as Davies's original reincarnation did in 2005. Here we have a clean break: the show has a new identity that is creepier than Davies's take and clearly signposts the direction it will take under Moffat's stewardship. As was recently intimated in The Guardian, Moffat is "less concerned with searing emotional journeys than laughs and scares", which is bad news for people who enjoyed blubbing their way through the most heart-wrenching of Davies' episodes (most notably Tennant's final exit) and good news for those who couldn't be doing with all that.
In case there was any doubt on this fact, Moffat's approach works. His previous Who outings include the creepy Ecclestone-era World War Two two-parter with the kid in the gas mask (The Empty Child and The Doctor Dances) and the ingenious and outright pant-wettingly scary Blink (which is widely regarded as the best episode of the reincarnated show). Last night's episode, The Eleventh Hour, was funny, creepy and brilliant. Regeneration stories are hard to write for Doctor Who, not least because no one really knows how the new identity is going to pan out, much less how it will be received. Moffat capably rises to the challenge and gives us a peach of a story that takes the Doctor wildly out of his depth even whilst he grapples with his "still cooking" body: his sonic screwdriver is broken, the TARDIS has locked him out whilst she regenerates herself, and he has twenty minutes to save the world. What better introduction could we possibly expect?
Smith has a unique face that is somehow simultaneously young and old: initially I thought him timeless, but in reality he is more ageless. At the age of 26 when cast Smith is the youngest ever Doctor, and yet he could easily pass for someone ten years older; he has little of Tennant's boyishness in spite of his age. His rubbery features are almost cartoonish and — I imagine — very child-friendly. The young Amelia Pond is certainly quite taken with him.
The older Amy Pond (beautifully played by Karen Gillan), the eleventh Doctor's assistant, is already evidently a complex character. Moffat has expertly painted her as intelligent, independent, feisty and sexy: the Doctor is not this wonderful, perfect being to her as he was to Rose; nor is he hurting and a bit lost as Martha found him. Instead of being in awe of him, the Doctor has let her down — twice in the space of an episode! — and she otherwise has a life that she is happy with and is in no hurry to leave behind. Pond is excellently written, scripted and acted, and will prove herself to be an excellent assistant over the course of this series.
The new TARDIS is quite something to behold. Even bigger on the inside than it was previously, the main area now has three levels to it. The central console/dashboard, is covered with an even wider assortment of crazy levers, buttons and other gadgetry. The lower level houses the TARDIS's heart; the upper level presumably leads to the library, wardrobe and swimming pool.
David Tennant is gone, but not forgotten. Smith spends most of the episode in a ripped, scruffy and torn version of Tennant's Doctor's outfit, and utters in manner befitting the tenth Doctor lines that could have been scripted for Tennant. Towards the end of the episode, Smith walks through an image of the tenth Doctor, symbolising in a moment how he is simultaneously both versions of the one person.
After a year with just a handful of specials to tide me over (woefully concentrated at the end of the year), I am positively gagging for a new full series. My expectations were high for the new series, and it has more than met them. I cannot wait for the next twelve weeks to unfold, and I only mourn how quickly those three months will pass.
