Posted in: Recent Updates | Tagged: doctor who, matt smith

Ten Things To Consider About The New Doctor Who

Okay, you've had tiime to watch/catch on the BBC iPlayer/join the Wondercon throng/download the torrent. So what pops out?

1. The Doctor Is Tigger.

Seriously, in AA Milne's The House Of Pooh Corner, Tigger is a new character who comes to Pooh for breakfast claiming he loves everything. Which he subsequently doesn't.

Pooh felt rather pleased about this, and said that, as soon as he had finished his own breakfast, he would take Tigger round to Piglet's house, and Tigger could try some of Piglet's haycorns.
"Thank you, Pooh," said Tigger, "because haycorns is really what Tiggers like best."

…

Piglet pushed the bowl of haycorns towards Tigger, and said; "Help yourself," and then he got close up to Pooh and felt much braver, and said, "So you're Tigger? Well, well!" in a careless sort of voice. But Tigger said nothing because his mouth was full of haycorns. …
After a long munching noise he said:
"Ee-ers o i a-ors."
And when Pooh and Piglet said "What?" he said "Skoos ee," and went outside for a moment.
When he came back he said firmly:
"Tiggers don't like haycorns."
"But you said they liked everything except honey," said Pooh.
"Everything except honey and haycorns," explained Tigger.
When he heard this Pooh said, "Oh, I see!" and Piglet, who was rather glad that Tiggers didn't like haycorns, said, "What about thistles?"
"Thistles," said Tigger, "is what Tiggers like best."

And he bounces and bounces and bouncers. The wonderful thing about Doctors is that Doctors are wonderful things.

2. Children Are Scared Of Anything.

Steven Moffat already gave us Statues. Ticking Clocks and Killer Shadows. This time it's Creaky Swings, Cracks In The Wall and Something Out Of The Corner Of Your Eye. The Doctor Who Storybook 2007 featured the short story Out Of The Corner Of Your Eye which first saw Moffat play with the idea of aliens hiding in someone's house unseen. The previous year in the Doctor Who Annual 2006 he wrote What I Did On My Christmas Holidays By Sally Sparrow which became Blink. Steven Moffat does like to recycle those short stories of his. I really hope he does Continuity Errors one day. He's already shown us the Library from that piece. Oh, and men with dogs and people in comas.

3. The Doctor Is Middle Class Again.

For years the Doctor spoke with Received Pronounciation. Then he was played by Christopher Eccleston with a North West accent. And suddenly it was all set in and around council estates (hoursing projects) in inner-city London. We had, to all accounts, a working class Doctor and an NHS backdrop to add. And while David Tennant poshed up the accent, it was a New Labour Doctor, full of glottal stops. But now not only is the accent poshed up even further, but we've exchanged the council estate for the quaint English village, complete with green, duck pond and country houses. Add to that, instead of companion-with-family, we have companionn-with-orphan, and being an orphan is the quintessential element of proper middle-class children's stories from Enid Blyton to JK Rowling.

4. Patrick Moore Looks Better Without Prosthetics.

Alan Moore's uncle (Alan went to the same schoool as Matt Smith, worth pointing out), the famed TV astronomer for sixty years Patrick Moore makes an appearance in a video teleconference. And a far more dignified appearance than his run on GamesMaster, a TV show about computer games where his image was distorted, covered in cybernetic implants and he doled out hints, tips and cheat codes. Here he helps save the world. Much better.

5. Silence Will Knock Four Times.

It's the new Bad Wolf, Torchwood,You Are Not Alone, He Will Knock Four Times and it appears to be linked to cracks in the very surface of reality. Oh, so much more of that to come I expect. And of course – silence is scary.

6. We're Facing Up To Continuity.

Oh you thought the Next Doctor geeky look-through-all-the-Doctors bit was fanservice? You ain't seen nothing till you get the all-the-faces-of-the-Doctor-with-Eleven-walking-through-them bit. Little bit sledge-hammery with the "See? See? It is him!" but one cool moment.

7. The Doctor Is A Shit Boyfriend Again.

Seriously, he says he'll be back in five minutes and takes twelve years? Then another two years? First making Amy an obsessive who is very untrustful of both herself and other people. And then does it again, and throws in a spanner just as she's on the verge of putting her life together for a second time? He's the ex who's back for a third chance and Amy is going for it. This is really not healthy.

8. The Doctor Is Lying To Amy.

There's a reason it was Amy's room that had a crack in space-time running through it. The crack reappears in the TARDIS scanners when Amy is standing right there. When asked "why me", he replies "why not" and indicated there was no particular reason he's invited her along. He is lying.

9. Amy Writes FanFic.

This, it seems, is the first Doctor Who companion who actually wroite fan fic about the Doctor before joining him. Oh, we've had fans join the show as cast members before – Adric and The Tenth Doctor are probably the most prominent – but the character of Amy Pond has spent her life writing and fantasising about the Raggedy Doctor. And, it seems, playing sexual roleplay with her fiancee Mickey 2.0 standing in as him. Yeah, that's going to be healthy.

10. That Dress Won't Go Away.

Should make for an interesting moment when Pond meets River. Ha ha, there. Also we've seen how bad the Doctor's timekeeping is – there's no way she'll make it to the church on time.

Six days four hours till the next one.

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