Doctor Who: How do you transition from David Tenant to Matt Smith?

ninjaRiv

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I don't get how people can't transition. Here in Britain we've been doing it for ages. Because, as you know, this isn't the first one.

Personally, I like him more than any other.
 
Sep 24, 2008
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Silvanus said:
Christopher Eccleston won me to the New Who, but most of what he represented was wiped away by Tennant, not Smith.
Thank you.

Thank you.

so many people act like Eccleston doesn't exist. He made me love the Doctor, and Tennant... honestly I didn't feel anything for. Then when the legion of fangirls (and guys) yelled at me for not completely accepting their Waifish Sex God, I just started to resent him.

Eccleston had range. Just such range. He was like a living roller coaster. He really enjoyed what he enjoyed, and he burned with what he hated. God, he was good.
 

Diddy_Mao

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I actually rather like Matt Smith's Doctor. It's the fact that his inaugural run was almost immediately usurped by a metaplot that focused on his companions more than it focused on him that tends to bring me down on his run on the show more than anything else.

I like the Ponds, I do. But it's not the Amy and Rory show...it's Dr Who.
 

Remus

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Moffat writes the Doctor well I think, largely because he hasn't been doing it for years and enjoys pointing out that yes, the Doctor is an alien and does not think about things the same way we do. David Tennant was an ok doctor, but he could be described like the fixer in Pulp Fiction - he works fast, he talks fast. The many times the world was about to be destroyed or something similarly dire, it never really felt that way like it does with Matt Smith's Doctor. Plus Smith has this huge head that just makes him look like a gray in a man's clothing. If the change is too jarring, I agree, take some time away before really getting into the new series. Us regular watchers waited months before starting Moffat's series.
 

theNater

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My take on it was that 11 is a little bit broken, in part due to 10 fighting so hard to hang on.
 

Little Woodsman

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Well since this is a Dr. Who thread I had better add my $.02.....
Firstly, please remember that staying in the same role for too long is suicide for an actor...Jon Pertwee stuck with the role of the Doctor for five years and had a really hard time getting his career re-started afterwards...Tom Baker stayed in the role for seven years, and it pretty much wrecked his acting career.
Next, think about this...would you want another actor to try and replicate the role of the one who came before? If Smith
tried to be Tennant--wouldn't you end up disliking Smith & his performance even more? Because of this, the show's producers often try to take the show in a whole new direction when the actor changes.
My final bit of advice on this show & the changes in actors...regeneration stories tend to be weak. You should see the first serial Sylvester McCoy did (actually you shouldn't, it's truly cringe-worthy) but McCoy in pretty short order made the role his own, and grew in to a much-loved & admired interpretation of the character.

PS--please don't judge Ms. Pond too harshly until you have seen "The Beast Below" and "Victory of the Daleks".
 

Roxor

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I think Matt Smith's Doctor borrows a bit from William Hartnell's Doctor. Both seem like an old professor in a way, but both also seem somewhat young.

I think I like the first Doctor a bit more, though.
 

Soulrender95

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god I hate end of time, the very end especially so it's narm inducingly bad, I hated the direction John Simm's the master was taken in, half-resurrected with superpowers.... the preceding stuff before that wasn't great but not horrible either it really helps that David Tennant is a pretty good actor which makes most of the episodes watchable ( nothing could make me watch Love and Monsters or Fear her again though), while the travelling around to visit each companion is in character for 10 the time it would take to do it means he had pretty much enough time to heal himself, that and I really hate the fact he visits Jack Harkness and essentially forgives him for
Sacrificing his (jack's) own grandson to save the world. good of the world be damned he killed a child, if the child had made the heroic sacrifice by choice fine, but he did not, he was murdered by his grandfather.
which is horrendously out of character for any incarnation of the Doctor but then it was out of character for the Doctor NOT to be involved with the Children of Earth Torchwood storyline at all (Gwen's excuse is grade A prime Bullshit)

I guess for me the transition wasn't a problem having been watching the series since the bbc 2 repeats back in the day and knowing how radically different each Doctor is, and if anyone thinks RTD is a good writer or just wants to see how badly suited he was for the role of head writer on Doctor who (I swear the man must have been watching a different series) pick up the excellent Doctor Who : The flood comic collection which basically details the events leading up to but not including the death of the eighth Doctor at the back there is an excellent little piece by the comics writers and they detail RTD's "suggestion" for how they could continue with the series the writers don't call it out for it's stupidity because hell at the time he was technically their boss, but you'll understand why they didn't continue it like they wanted.
 

Chris Mosher

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Soulrender95 said:
which is horrendously out of character for any incarnation of the Doctor but then it was out of character for the Doctor NOT to be involved with the Children of Earth Torchwood storyline at all (Gwen's excuse is grade A prime Bullshit)
I always just chalked Gwen's theory up to her own conjecture about why the Doctor could not save them this one time. Queen Victoria created Torchwood because she knew that one day the Doctor would not be there to help and I think that Children of Earth or whatever it was called was the creator paying off on that line finally. I also liked that it brought Jack back to being someone who was willing to do whatever it took to survive.


Anyway the question was how to you transition to Matt Smith?
Easy, After a year of knowing the Tenant was going to be leaving I was sorta tired of the extended good bye and Smith's first ep was a breath of fresh air. I actually missed Donna more then Tenant. Also I have been watching reruns on PBS and TVO (Ontario's verson of PBS) since I was in either in grade school or earlier (that would be early to mid 80's). So practice makes perfect???
 

ohellynot

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SaneAmongInsane said:
albino boo said:
SaneAmongInsane said:
So I finished Season 4, and just watched Episode 1 of Season 5.

I'm not one for the "They changed it, so it sucks" argument but Jesus fucking Christ. So much change, it's like they rebooted the entire series. New Doctor, new tarted up companion, new TARDIS, new sonic fucking screw driver? Did everything from the first 4 seasons have to be kicked to the curb?

Maybe I didn't mind the transition from the 9th to the 10th, because when 9 goes he leaves at relative peace with what's he's accomplished. He's in a coma when he comes back and his regeneration is treated as such a big deal, and he comes back and it's a natural arch for the character. He went from being angsty and rage-filled back to being lighthearted and filled with compassion. It felt like the character grew in that short amount of time, but still maintaining some elements of 9 ("No second chances, I'm that kind of a man.")

But when 10 dies.... It's ssssoooooooooooooo fucking heartbreaking. He reacts so human, he doesn't want to die! His reaction to Donna's father being trapped in the box is so beautifully tragic, we see his frustration. We see him say his goodbyes. Then he dies.

Then BAM! Regeneration. "Still not ginger", number 11 moves on with his fucking life with out so much a glance at his past or any of the deep feelings he's had in the past couple of hours.

Someone tell me, does it stay like this? Does 11 just exist in his own little bubble world from here on out?
If you want a show with internal consistency you watching the wrong program. Th Doctor's character has always changed radically with each regeneration. The first regeneration I remember was from Tom Baker to Peter Davidson. Tom's Doctor was larger than life and pretty much insane whereas Davidson's Dr was quite and wistful. Colin Baker's Dr was shouty and angry, Sylvester Mccoy's was slightly menacing and the rest you have seen. Fundamentally with each new Dr it's new character that bears no relation to the previous one. The writers have always felt free to ignore previous lore and change the rules to what suits them dramatically as to what the Dr can and can't do. The fact that the show isn't internal consistent is why its going to have its 50th birthday this year.
Aug.... it is my fault being a Doctor Who newbie.

Kills me though, such a jarring tone from End Of Time to The Eleventh Hour.
Actually no, I think it's worse than that. Now I didn't like the Matt Smith, not because of the charachter or the acting but because of the writng. But one absoloute stand out moment was in arandom episode I watched 10 mins of during lunch>
The scene was some science dude had done made some dudes into cyborgs because they were in the middle of a war and it the cyborgs won that war for them so all was good. Circumstance trapped him on a plannet with one of the cyborgs trying to kill him or blow up the plannet trying.
In comes the doctor finds out and his reaction to this was the problem. He takes the whole well we'll give you to the cyborg to spare every one else becaus eyou deserve to die. I know that the doctor's personally is allowed to change with each incarnation, but that just seems like coming down on one side far too much especially as both sides are kind of valid. But this is made worse as the doctor should be able to sypathise with someone trying to get their people not genocided, because all the time war bussines. Those time war aspects have always been a consistant part of the doctor's persoanlity across all generations and this kind of just smacks that all in the face with a wet fish.
 

Atmos Duality

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Soulrender95 said:
god I hate end of time, the very end especially so it's narm inducingly bad, I hated the direction John Simm's the master was taken in, half-resurrected with superpowers....
Prior to The End of Time, I had seen Classic Dr Who on a public access channel when I was a child, and hadn't seen the Master. I bought the Dalek War/Space Frontier DVD (Pertwee, 3rd Doctor) saw Roger Delgado's original Master, and was floored.

It's unfortunate that Delgado died when he did; We were robbed of a truly great chemistry between him and Pertwee, though this did lead to Tom Baker being hired on as the 4th Doctor (Pertwee left the show on account of Delgado's death since they were close friends in real life).

Incidentally, A couple weeks after that my friend queued up The End of Time again to show to another friend who was visiting, and every fucking moment Simms was on screen, I cringed. (and when I watched Last of the Time Lords after that, I wanted to raze Britain to the ground, just to be sure I'd nail Simms in the process)
 

Soulrender95

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Chris Mosher said:
Soulrender95 said:
which is horrendously out of character for any incarnation of the Doctor but then it was out of character for the Doctor NOT to be involved with the Children of Earth Torchwood storyline at all (Gwen's excuse is grade A prime Bullshit)
I always just chalked Gwen's theory up to her own conjecture about why the Doctor could not save them this one time. Queen Victoria created Torchwood because she knew that one day the Doctor would not be there to help and I think that Children of Earth or whatever it was called was the creator paying off on that line finally. I also liked that it brought Jack back to being someone who was willing to do whatever it took to survive.
Torchwood was setup because Queen Victoria was introduced to the existence of aliens and threats beyond human means , which combined with the 10th Doctors and Roses casual disregard for danger made her see the need for a deference against such things.

Harriet Jones was the one who saw (and was right) about the Doctor not being always there to protect earth and she used Torchwood (Which by the modern age had switched from being about protecting earth from aliens to restoring British superiority) weapons to destroy the Sycorax in the christmas Invasion, so it was her line that was played out here, and there were so many better ways to bring Jack back to this point without making him cross that particular moral line.


Of course it's all technically a Moot point, since Torchwood's two mini-series don't really fit into the post season 5 (the events are just too big to not be mentioned even in passing) and are probably considered a redundant timeline, it'd take all sorts of crazy re-writes and fan speculation to actually make it still cannon.

Atmos Duality said:
Prior to The End of Time, I had seen Classic Dr Who on a public access channel when I was a child, and hadn't seen the Master. I bought the Dalek War/Space Frontier DVD (Pertwee, 3rd Doctor) saw Roger Delgado's original Master, and was floored.

It's unfortunate that Delgado died when he did; We were robbed of a truly great chemistry between him and Pertwee, though this did lead to Tom Baker being hired on as the 4th Doctor (Pertwee left the show on account of Delgado's death since they were close friends in real life).

Incidentally, A couple weeks after that my friend queued up The End of Time again to show to another friend who was visiting, and every fucking moment Simms was on screen, I cringed. (and when I watched Last of the Time Lords after that, I wanted to raze Britain to the ground, just to be sure I'd nail Simms in the process)
Totally agree, Delgado's Master is the perfect foil to the third Doctor and no one had come as close to being as good a Master as John Simms had in season three, then it went off the rails in end of time and it wasn't the master anymore it was like a second rate knockoff (Hint to writers, The Master is smart enough to know Lucy would betray him, have the end of time master be the waste product of him getting rid of Rassilions drumming hence why nothing could fix him), still had Delgado lived we'd have lost the Master entirely the plan at the time was to have him literally be the Doctors evil side, a role that went to the Valeyard eventually, and what "Time lord Victorious" from waters of mars was leaning towards.
 

Atmos Duality

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Soulrender95 said:
Totally agree, Delgado's Master is the perfect foil to the third Doctor and no one had come as close to being as good a Master as John Simms had in season three, then it went off the rails in end of time and it wasn't the master anymore it was like a second rate knockoff (Hint to writers, The Master is smart enough to know Lucy would betray him, have the end of time master be the waste product of him getting rid of Rassilions drumming hence why nothing could fix him), still had Delgado lived we'd have lost the Master entirely the plan at the time was to have him literally be the Doctors evil side, a role that went to the Valeyard eventually, and what "Time lord Victorious" from waters of mars was leaning towards.
I'm not entirely sure if that was the plan when Delgado was still alive and kicking.
That Trial of a Timelord business came around with Colin Baker second series more than a decade later.

Zachary Amaranth said:
I already covered what you called "bullshit" on.

And the Doctor faced guaranteed death time and again. This was no different, except for the horrible scripting and "because ponies" logic.
Yup. Logopolis, Tom Baker's final episode.
He knew he was going to die in the following events, and even saw a preview of his next incarnation.

The line "I don't wanna go" is more than just the reverse of Allon-sy, it's meta-scripting aimed squarely at the audience, following Tenant's wildly successful run at the Doctor. Whether it's Tenant or Davies who's saying it (could be both), I'm not sure.
 

Master_of_Oldskool

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It's rather like the transition from a passing-decent session of oral sex to having your genitals mutilated by your partner's angry ex: it hurts, it's shocking, and there's someone shouting "Love ME now! ME, not this whore!" at you.

Although my problem isn't so much with Matt Smith as it is with Steven Moffat. The man can't keep canon straight for shit, which wouldn't bother me so much if he weren't so fucking vindictive about retconning away the entire RTD era. Taking a good-natured jab at the old writing team is all good and well every once in a while, but when you're going through and methodically saying "Nuh-uh, forget that ever happened" to literally every episode you didn't personally write (and quite a few you did, if the new Mary-Sue Angels are anything to go by), it stops seeming quite so good-natured.

My one complaint about Eleven himself is that he comes off kind of schizophrenic. I know they wanted to make him less relatable and a bit more alien and strange, but there's a big freaking demilitarized zone of a line between "alien mindset" and "volatile psychopath," and Eleven's characterization sprints across it with nary a backward glance. The entire apeal of the Doctor as a hero is that he's not a typical dealer-out of righteous violence; he always vies for the non-lethal approach, even when, let's face it, that is a stupid fucking idea. More often than not, that doesn't work out and the bad guy dies, but that's rarely the Doctor's fault, and when he does set events in motion that lead to the villain's death, he regrets it. Eleven has killed people in cold blood, and it's presented as perfectly okay. It's completely un-Doctorly.
 

IronMit

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I will add something;

It annoys me whenever Doctor Who says stuff like 'HUMANS! OMG YOU ARE SOOO AMAZING AND WONDERFULL AND SPECIAL AND AWESOME...etc etc etc' -(I don't care if they did this in the older seasons-It makes me cringe)

David Tenant's version of Doctor who is the worst offender..possibly because he had so many seasons they recycled that theme.
 

Ragora

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ohellynot said:
Actually no, I think it's worse than that. Now I didn't like the Matt Smith, not because of the charachter or the acting but because of the writng. But one absoloute stand out moment was in arandom episode I watched 10 mins of during lunch>
The scene was some science dude had done made some dudes into cyborgs because they were in the middle of a war and it the cyborgs won that war for them so all was good. Circumstance trapped him on a plannet with one of the cyborgs trying to kill him or blow up the plannet trying.
In comes the doctor finds out and his reaction to this was the problem. He takes the whole well we'll give you to the cyborg to spare every one else becaus eyou deserve to die. I know that the doctor's personally is allowed to change with each incarnation, but that just seems like coming down on one side far too much especially as both sides are kind of valid. But this is made worse as the doctor should be able to sypathise with someone trying to get their people not genocided, because all the time war bussines. Those time war aspects have always been a consistant part of the doctor's persoanlity across all generations and this kind of just smacks that all in the face with a wet fish.
This is why 10 minutes taken out of context is a horrible way to judge anything. Yes, that moment was out of character for the Doctor, and that was the point. He saw himself in the scientist, the man who went to horrible extremes justified by the awfulness of war, and took his own self-hatred out on the dude. In the end, he relents and does his best to save everyone, because that's who he is.
 

CriticalMiss

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The transition from one Doctor to thenext is supposed to be jarring, otherwise there wouldn't be any point to changing to Doctor at all. He changes physically as well as mentally so his personality can have noticable differences, even if he is fundamentally the same guy underneath.

I've actually come to think that maybe 10 was overrated, almost everyone says he is the best even though he had to put up with the abomination that was Donna and the whole End of Time storyline. Seriously, the Timelords are coming back oh no! They show up for ten minutes then bugger off having done pretty much nothing except have a chat. And The Master can shoot lightning from his hands? Ok... I'm suprised The Doctor didn't have to go Super Saiyan to win that fight. And I never liked any of 10's assistants/companions, some of the episodes weren't very good and his run ended on a low point on the quality scale. Whilst The Doctor himself was decent, everything else was kind of 'meh'.

I personally disliked 11 to begin with, but over his first series I came to like him more. Plus he has a green sonic screwdriver. Green sonic screwdrivers are cool. The current series is going well except for the 'Dinosaurs on a spaceship' episode, which was a bit crap. 11 had better writing, not that everything was perfect mind you. River Song got a bit too regular, she started as a total mystery and now we know pretty much everything about her relationship with The Doctor. I guess we've probably seen the back of her as a regular character now, which is probably a good thing.
 

DudeistBelieve

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Ugh.... I just got to the episode where they upgrade the daleks.

Seriously? Taller and bright new colors? Are they fucking George Foreman Grills now? The Daleks were already unstoppable killing machines, they didn't need an upgrade let alone one that made them STYLISH! How are these ones any better? Because the eyestalks are a bit different? Because their voice isn't the iconic screetch anymore?

And Pond doesn't remember the planet fucking moving? They seriously ret-conned that with the cracks on the wall? And I also just met River... Not going to ask how she knows who the Doctor is already but she seems like an entirely different character then the one we met in the library.

V,V It's just easier if I pretend this is an entire reboot.... Sides a version of 10 is still out there, in Pete's World. Granted he's human.