11th Doctor Announced
I’m still in the middle of updating my blog with retroposts (there’s one I wrote a couple days ago, backdated to Dec 17th (when I was thinking about it) and then some others in the works.)
But I just had to interrupt things to say: Wow! the 11th Doctor was announced! I know I don’t talk about it enough (if only because I know the rest of my family other than my sister just aren’t that interested) but Doctor Who is far and away my favorite TV series. It’s certainly got a lot of high quality competition- I love Life on Mars to pieces, I’ve got a soft spot for Stargate, I love the writing and drama of Battlestar Galactica, and I enjoy Firefly and other shows as well. (Why yes, I do love my science fiction television :ppp )
But Doctor Who is the show that speaks to my heart, I know I’ll forever be a fan of it, down the years I’ll still be watching the inevitable spin-offs and reading the mediocre written tie-in novels just to get a little taste of what drew me to the show in the first place. I nearly wish I could say I had grown up with this show, or even just say I discovered it earlier than this summer (impossible!), to explain how much this show means to me. But I guess that’s just how it goes, you don’t get to pick when you get introduced to things.
I started loving this show when I started watching the new Doctor Who in season 3 (remarkably different from the cheesier, campier early Who- kinda like Star Trek:TOS vs. TNG). And I thought the next season was, well, Fantastic! And now to see Tennant leave (he’ll always be the Doctor as far as I’m concerned!) is just so….. this mix of apprehension and uncertainty. I think it would naturally follow any casting change for any classic, enduring role: you really want to hope that it’ll all be for the best, but at the same time you worry that it’ll never really be quite the same either.
Which pretty much sums up how I feel about this new unknown actor Matt Smith- a guy whose professional roles can pretty much be numbered on one hand. I want to hope that this guy has some sort of amazing talent that we just haven’t seen yet, that Moffat can see something in him that we can’t. But so far he doesn’t really strike me as the Doctor (only from a couple interviews, to be fair).
I already thought that Tennant was a bit pushing it, playing this 900+ year old immortal traveler- sure Tennant’s 37, but he’s got a very youthful appearance. And this new guy to play his successor, Matt Smith, looks even younger- he’s only 26! If anything, he seems more qualified to be another traveling companion than the Doctor.
I called my silly sis about it as soon as I heard the news, and we agreed maybe Moffat just wants to take the show into new territory- after all, with the latest season being one of the best ever, the show’s got the standing and budget to have their pick of the best actors. Maybe Moffat just wants to try something different, make his own mark on this show that has continued for 28 seasons, and seen plenty of it’s share of upsets- a show that’s constantly innovating itself with new directions.
The New Year has just started, and already 2009 is looking like a year of changes… hopefully for the better….!
(*Favorite TV show doesn’t include anime: that would be like comparing apples and oranges. As the saying goes. I still think they’re actually pretty similar, both being fruits and all.
*The Star Trek:TOS vs TNG comparison is actually pretty apt: RTD literally took a old, campy scifi show and turned it into a quality show now enjoyed all over the world. Yay~)
