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Underground > Film, TV & Theatre >

The New Doctor Who

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18:27 / 03.01.09

So pretty much a given that you'll all be watching then?

I like the way he gesticulates when he talks and the way he trails off a bit before finding the thread again.

18:31 / 03.01.09

i mean it's good they didn't bow to PC pressure, as someone said above that would definitely have been a shame and there's nothing racist about agreeing that the dr is a white guy... altho i agree that a woman doctor who would have been cool (and hot lol!)

but in a way making him young and alt is the same thing, right? its all about making dr who more "mtv", sigh. the doctor doesn't need rebranding, it's a show that has lasted for years without ever needing to be changed to be more "cool' or "modern"... not that i've seen many of the original seasons except sometimes on p.b.s.

anyway a friend of mine who has seen more of the show than i have argues that we should not judge Matt S because of how people had problems with Billi Piper and Freema Agayman and Donna Noble before they were introduced, but i think this is different... this guy has literally done NOTHING so far, it makes me wonder if Russell T Davis really understands who the dr is after all...

18:32 / 03.01.09

Here he is talking about being the 11th Doctor, (for those who don´t receive BBC).

18:33 / 03.01.09

What was it about Patterson Joseph and Chojetwa Whatsisname that you particularly didn't like, dark stallion?

18:33 / 03.01.09

iamus i don't think there is any need for that kind of "snark", i think you'll find you are in the minority here if you think Matt S will be an awesome dr (cough).

18:34 / 03.01.09

grandma there was just something that was off about them... when i looked at them i did not see the dr... just my 2 $s.

Hallo, Paper Spaceboy

18:38 / 03.01.09

Yes, but if it doesn't work out they can just kill him, regenerate him, and ____'s your Doctor.

18:41 / 03.01.09

He's got a weird head that just kind of extends out of his neck.

18:43 / 03.01.09

(sarcasm)well then i guess he's more than qualified... /sarcasm)

18:47 / 03.01.09

I agree that Joseph and Whatisname seemed a bit shifty.

I don't know if you'd be interested in this, DS, but some friends of mine and I meet up every week to discuss what's gone wrong with society, and how it can be put right.

They're pretty amenable, the guys - if you could link to an image of a burning cross on your lawn*, I'm sure we could conference you in.

* The lawn will have to be immaculate.

18:53 / 03.01.09

Is anybody getting a bit of a Bakerish quality to him?

Looks-wise, he actually seems a bit over-familiarly Tennantish, but you'know younger, more accessible. But the way he talks seems to have a bit more restrained, explosive energy behind it than Tennant does. Tennant goes mental in the role, but it's not really him. Watch him in interviews and he's totally different. This guy's got a glint to him.

Also, his face is odd. Cheeky and boyish in a bit, but when he puts his head down it all goes in shadow and changes quite a bit...

18:55 / 03.01.09

I can't believe that you're still here stallion, nor that you still haven't got the hang of this "PC" bullshit. Or this "woman, hot, lol" bullshit. Did we introduce user-defined skins to Barbelith without anybody telling me, and does one of them look like this?

The new Doctor... looks a bit Noel Fielding, no? Which wouldn't be a bad thing, but Noel Fielding might have been a better choice than a Noel Fielding clone. One with a weird concave face, at that.

And it's just wrong that the new Doctor should be somebody younger than me. I realise that this becomes inevitable, the longer the series goes on, but I'm only in my early 30s. I'm still at least part of the target audience. Dude's supposed to be authoritative. He's twenty-fucking-six.

MattShepherd: I WEDDED KALI!

19:02 / 03.01.09

i think you'll find you are in the minority here if you think Matt S will be an awesome dr (cough).

I would make an excellent Doctor, thank you, and I already pass the "Kali fancies him" test.

...odd coincidence, actually.

19:06 / 03.01.09

hey e randy dupre if you go back and read this thread you will see that i was not the person who talked about pc first OR the person who suggested the dr should be a woman.... i'm not familiar with the site you linked to, it seems kinda mainstream for me but i live by the creedo "live and let live", you should try it...

Poke it with a stick

19:07 / 03.01.09

Addressing the points rather than the horriblt trollish way in which they were laid out:

dark stallion - I don't think it's the BBC trying to make it more cool and modern. The show started in the 60s and having a misanthropic old duffer kidnapping people or having a villain that's either a hopelessly racist oriental stereotype or made of bubble-wrap was not really going to work in this day and age.

Russell T. Davies had nothing to with the casting, the guy has two Olivier Awards so far and we haven't seen him actually playing the Doctor. That was him playing himself. Saying he has done NOTHING so far is simply WRONG.

iamus, I'm seeing the Baker comparison myself - more of the puckish quality the last two haven't quite had (and I say that as one who loves Tennant).

E.Randy At least we only remember the colour episodes, right?

19:18 / 03.01.09

Dude's supposed to be authoritative. He's twenty-fucking-six.

I reignited blooms of phytoplankton across whole swathes of the Chorion Nebula using nothing but a toothpick, a make-up mirror and the Eye of Harmony! I freed the indigenous people of Cluxxon Seven from a temporal mind-trap by aging their parents into their kids and back again through their own bodies! I've arranged and aimed banks of quasars across galaxies to treat Astral Cancers creeping backwards through spacetime from the Big Crunch!

Now I'm telling you, there is a microscopic civilisation older than the universe itself freezing to death in the space between my fingernail and cuticle and I'm only going to ask you so many times...

...Twenty Lambert+Butler mate.

There could be about twenty problems with that Randy. But I could also see about twenty ways they could be really funny and smart with it.

19:22 / 03.01.09

i'm not familiar with the site you linked to, it seems kinda mainstream for me but i live by the creedo "live and let live", you should try it.

And I have the credo "don't let idiots get a free pass on the sections of Barbelith that you moderate". Take your reactionary shit elsewhere.

19:29 / 03.01.09

dude you are the one being reactionary, stop trying to suppress opinions you disagree with. i get it that from reading older threads barbelith used to be more of an extreme pc place but it seems like things have become more balanced recently and personally i believe that's a good thing, after all its never a good idea to be extreme in either direction, just look at where it's got the middle east.

19:31 / 03.01.09

iamus: There could be about twenty problems with that Randy. But I could also see about twenty ways they could be really funny and smart with it.

Yeah. I'm not completely down on this choice - actually, it's something of a pleasant surprise. Given who we could have ended up with.

For one thing, I think it's great that they've gone with a relative unknown - he can do his own thing and the audience, on the whole, won't have any preconceptions about him or be picturing him in any other roles (Tenant, for a long time, was that guy out of Takin' Over the Asylum and Casanova, in my head).

And his age makes him an interesting proposition, because it seems likely that the only Who he'll have had proper exposure to will be New Who - if not, then he's definitely the first actor to play the part who didn't grow up with the series as a going concern for the BBC.

19:31 / 03.01.09

stallion, shut the fuck up.

19:48 / 03.01.09

I'm seeing the Baker comparison myself - more of the puckish quality the last two haven't quite had (and I say that as one who loves Tennant).

Same here. I can see a few different Doctors in the way he talks, but fuck knows if I'm just reaching or not. Still, colour me curiously optimistic... or actually, don't bother, as that's generally my colour anyhow. Fact is, I think if it was still RTD I would be less enthused, but Moffat has more than gained my trust over the last four seasons.

And his age makes him an interesting proposition, because it seems likely that the only Who he'll have had proper exposure to will be New Who - if not, then he's definitely the first actor to play the part who didn't grow up with the series as a going concern for the BBC.

He's the same age as me (well, about three or so months younger), so I'm also kind of interested for those reasons. I only ever caught McCoy's run when I was wee, but it had a massive impact in the way that half-remembered childhood telly does.

20:17 / 03.01.09

The hair, oddly, is bugging me. Because it's only a short step from

the floppy long fringe to

The Izuru Kira. Of which can come nothing good.

As an aside: Stallion, Political Correctness / PC is not something to bandy about without knowing a bit more of the history of how Barbelith treats the term - you may want to start here. I personally find the term redolent of the Daily Mail and "Political Correctness Gone Mad", as I suspect others do, which is why you get such a negative reaction.

Also:

after all its never a good idea to be extreme in either direction, just look at where it's got the middle east.

Please see Godwin's Law; this isn't a textbook case, but making the leap from The New Dr Who to the Middle East Situation is not going to show you in the greatest light. Really.

I'm a little weirded out by the actor playing the Doctor being younger than me, also. But I think this might turn out to be a good thing, and he's hardly a teenager, is he?

Hallo, Paper Spaceboy

20:54 / 03.01.09

He looks sort of serial killer pretty, actually.

21:53 / 03.01.09

Regardless of whether or not he's going to be any good in the role, this bit of casting has certainly fulfilled one criteria: Everybody's talking about him. It means the papers and the blogs will constantly be talking about him, trying to discern something about this relative unknown (it kind of annoys me that everybody's calling him an unknown, even though he's been in some pretty popular dramas). It must be horrible for the poor guy to have everybody dissecting a hastily put together interview and drawing conclusions about his future performance.

It's not an exciting choice though, I'll agree and it's definitely playing it safe to have a Doctor physically quite similar to the Doctor. Iamus, I think, everybody is entitled to their gut reactions to the casting of a character as beloved as the Doctor is. As long as they don't start getting as hideously personal as some of the comments about Billie Piper (and some pretty nasty things said about her teeth) during season 4. Or as formless and boring as the comments made by the idiots that were parroting on about Catherine Tate's casting.

22:23 / 03.01.09

Iamus, I think, everybody is entitled to their gut reactions to the casting of a character as beloved as the Doctor is.

I totally agree. I've not being putting anyone else's opinions down. I just feel pretty positive about it myself.

22:33 / 03.01.09

Sorry about aiming that at you specifically, iamus and especially sorry if it seemed snarky. There's just a bit of madness going on about the place (being the whole interweb) regarding Smith. I also meant to add: but of course we'll all be watching! We wouldn't be able to complain otherwise! Might they put an older woman with him as companion? Somebody in their late forties maybe.

Trudy Kockenlocker

22:58 / 03.01.09

Gut reaction was "meh", followed by "poor Paterson", followed by "Moffat is a genius so let's give him a chance eh?"

I do think this comment is slightly unfair: "the producers have...been forced to appeal to "the kids" by the BBC suits...".

What, Beeb producers wanted the most successful family show in ages to appeal more to the kids?

Kali, Queen of Kitteh

01:38 / 04.01.09

I think what I am disappointed with in general is that not only he is too young, it is also that he doesn't seem to have the weight and the ancient-ness behind the eyes that even Tennant had. That sort of "regardless my skin, I've seen more than you ever will, friend" quality.

Inevitable point ending up as: RTD better give Tennant the best farewell ever and Matt Smith better impress the ever living hell out of me his first try out.

09:08 / 04.01.09

Sorry about aiming that at you specifically, iamus and especially sorry if it seemed snarky.

No offense taken whatsoever. For the record, I was kind of aiming at the same thing, if not nearly as eloquently.

So pretty much a given that you'll all be watching then?

is equal to

this bit of casting has certainly fulfilled one criteria: Everybody's talking about him.

Dark side of the Moonfrog1

09:21 / 04.01.09

Y'know i've been wondering how much emotional weight will be lost when the Doctor regenerates, as he won't have an established companion with him... From what i've heard of the specials, the Doc will be companion-less or at the most have a token 'companion of the week' for the duration of each episode.

The Eccleston/Tennant regeneration was played very nicely with Billie not quite sure what was going on and wondering whether this strange new man was really her doctor. The whole relationship that had built up between Rose and the 9th Doctor led to a great emotional conundurum.

Without someone in an established Timelord/companion relationship to react to what is happening, I wonder if the new regeneration scene might seem a little bit empty... (Though i guess there's nothing stopping them bringing back Martha i suppose, or even River Song.)

10:58 / 04.01.09

I think it's a good choice. In fact it's the perfect opportunity for the Tardis to get broken somehow (a la Pertwee's Earth trapped Doctor), the Doctor to get reunited with his Daughter and the two of them spending a series flying around in her spaceship kicking ass. Thats what i'd like to see. A break from all the tortured Jesus crap. Teenage delinquent Doctor. It could be like the Crazy Chrissie episodes of D.R & Quinch in 2000AD.

11:53 / 04.01.09

If the producers are seriously going with the haircut in Feverfew's link, above, then this is more of an edgy casting decision than I'd thought.

No wonder he hasn't got a companion - would you get into a Tardis with David Bowie's biggest fan? (He has all the memorabilia, plus a fridge full of what can only be described as David's 'samples')

Not seeing the Baker comparison yet, but if it turns out Matt Smith spends his spare time getting wrecked in the French House (and at this stage who could blame him?) then maybe I will.

11:59 / 04.01.09

I'd forgotten about the Doctor's daughter. But she does raise some interesting possibilities.

Is it okay to have a sexually charged relationship with your daughter, if she was fathered by a previous incarnation?

12:06 / 04.01.09

Can the new Doctor, erm, 'date' her, in effect?

12:29 / 04.01.09

You know, take her out to the O2 stadium to watch Simply Red in concert, then for a late meal, and then the taxi ride back to the Tardis -

' Doctor ... Dad you're crying ...'

'I am not your father ... Or am I? No, don't touch me ...'

'But I want to give you a hug'.

'... Gah'.

I'll be hugely impressed if the producers address this issue. But they probably won't, funny guys in top-to-toe silverr who want to destroy the universe being more palatable for the Saturday teatime audience than a simple tale of love, a love that society may not understand.

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