A Madman with a Box
Matt Smith, 2010-13
In 2010,
Doctor Who underwent
one of the greatest reinventions in its long history, with almost the
entire cast and the bulk of the core creative team changing. Steven
Moffat built on the foundation laid down by Russell T. Davies, but
simultaneously wiped the slate clean and imposed his own unique
vision on the series. From the outset, with brand new opening titles
and an idiosyncratic, up-tempo arrangement of the theme music, the
series boldly declared that it had changed. Into this stepped a new
Doctor, starting his life afresh with a wholly new set of supporting
characters. Even his TARDIS regenerated along with him.
Following the
massively popular David Tennant was the most difficult task for any
Doctor since Peter Davison took over from Tom Baker in 1981. Yet even
Davison had fame on his side to ease the transition. Of all the names
bandied about by speculative fans and columnists, no one predicted
Matt Smith. While he had already garnered critical praise for his
screen work, Smith was a relative unknown in 2010. I don't think
anyone expected the new lead of the BBC's premier fantasy series to
be a 26-year-old footballer, let alone that he would so successfully
come to inhabit the part and make it his own.
Again paralleling
Davison's time in the role, Smith was criticised initially for being
too young. At twenty-six when he began filming, Smith is the youngest
of the Doctors by several years, still only in his early thirties now
that he has left the role. And yet, he embodies the great age of the
Doctor like no one else. Given his youth, Smith has further to go to
convince viewers of his character's age, and so he puts his all into
it. And yet, he is simultaneously so fresh and childlike. He brings
many ages to his performance, but never his own. He is both the old
man in the young man's body, and the enthusiastic child dressing up
as an adult.
While
he put his own stamp on the part, Smith nonetheless embraced his
predecessors' performances. Being a child of the Wilderness Years, he
had not grown up with
Doctor Who,
and instead threw himself into research. Like all right-minded
individuals, he became particularly enamoured of Patrick Troughton's
performance, and much of this shows through in his own. A very
physical actor, Smith has a sort of graceful clumsiness that allows
him to capture the Troughton-like quality of appearing more foolish
and less capable than he really is.
Smith's costume
also carries hints of Troughton's. Moffat came up with several
suggestions for the Doctor's new look, most of which were
self-consciously modern and cool, and nothing like what the Doctor
would wear. Smith instead suggested a tweed jacket, adding braces and
a bowtie. Moffat disliked the look, thinking it to be old-fashioned
and a fancy dress version of the Doctor's costume. Smith, on the
other hand, was immediately comfortable, realising that his Doctor
was, unlike his predecessor, not cool at all. While the braces and
bowtie, not to mention the succession of ridiculous hats, recalls the
second Doctor's outfit, there is also both a hint of both the
professor and the student about it, a touch of Henry Jones Jr. Such
was its success, that 2010 saw a sudden increase in sales of both
Harris tweeds and bowties, as young men took up the new fashion.
Later
variations in the costume are more obviously dressy, with the
eleventh Doctor clearly having an everyday look and a smarter look
for special occasions. His little seen green peacoat added a touch of
flare in the latter half of the sixth season, while his white tie
ensemble only came out for the most important events, such as
weddings or his own imminent death. For the final half of season
seven, the Doctor reverted to a Victorian look, with both an everyday
pseudo-Victorian version that combines the classic and modern, and a
plusher winter variation for the 19
th
century itself (his Christmas outfit, in fact). The purplish frock
coat, combined with the braces and bowtie, give this ensemble hints
of both the second and third Doctors. More obviously, though, is that
the gradual return to old-fashioned outfits belies a series becoming
evermore comfortable with its own past, an approach that would reach
its culmination in the fiftieth anniversary year celebrations.
The face of William Hartnell was
seen no fewer than four times in Smith's first season, as the series
began to explore its own background once more. As we learned about
the Doctor's latest life, we learned more about his past selves.
There have been brief insights into the Doctor's past over the years,
but suddenly we got a stream of information, adding to and rewriting
the Time Lord's past. As well as the astonishing revelation of a
hidden incarnation, we learned of his old friends and influences like
the Corsair, saw his infant cot (why was he carrying it around with
him?), and even saw him, in his first body, about to leave Gallifrey
with Susan.
Most surprising, though, was The
Doctor's Wife, an episode that amounts to an origin story
for the TARDIS. It's easy to imagine the eleventh Doctor calling the
TARDIS “the most beautiful thing [he's] ever seen,” but a little
harder to imagine it coming from the first Doctor. Still, it fits
with how we've seen the Doctor act towards the TARDIS through his
lives. Over the years, the time-and-space machine has developed from
a mere machine, albeit a remarkable one, to a living entity, to
mathematics embodied, to a true character in her own right. It was
only a matter of time before the Doctor came face to face with his
longest, truest, most faithful companion. Having the soul of the Ship
in the body of Suranne Jones helps articulate it, but we've always
known that the Doctor loved his Ship, and his Ship loved her thief.
It's a love story between a bloke and his car, told across time and
space.
The latest phase
of Doctor Who has proved to be one of its most controversial, hitting
new heights of worldwide popularity while also attracting great
criticism. Showrunner Steven Moffat has built on the foundations set
by Russell T. Davies and sculpted a version of Doctor Who unique to
his own sensibilities. The series has undoubtedly become more
complex, with ongoing storylines playing out over the four years of
Matt Smith's tenure. Numerous mysteries are raised and explored
throughout the series, with their ultimate explanations deferred.
Whether this approach is successful depends on the individual viewer.
Certainly, it is an approach that has divided fans.
Moffat's
Doctor Who is one of
fairytale logic, in which lives are stories to be written and
rewritten. This is a version of the universe in which people can be
erased from history, and then wished back into existence. In which a
man who lives on a cloud can be accessed by climbing an invisible
staricase, and a mysterious caretaker can drop round for Christmas
with a world in a box. Time travel works like magic, and consequences
occur before events; but it's a magic without defined rules, and
often events seem to just happen, with little explanation. There's a
clear sense that both the Doctor's past and future are catching up
with him, converging at his present. Indeed, every major event in the
eleventh Doctor's life is a result of his final battle. The events on
Trenzalore rebound back down his timeline, with the “endless,
bitter war” of the Kovarian chapter leading to the destruction of
the TARDIS, itself causing the cracks in time that release Prisoner
Zero into the world to become the first foe the eleventh Doctor
faces.
Doctor Who has
changed vastly over the fifty years of its history. Once a
long-running serial, it developed into a series of enclosed serials,
and then returned from cancellation as a series of one and two
episode adventures. By the end of its fiftieth year it was comprised
of short runs of singular episode stories, linked together in a
narrative spanning years, both more and less serialised than it has
ever been. The series had, by now, developed from one in which the
Doctor was a peripheral character, to one in which he was the star,
and now to one in which he was the centre of the universe. There had
been stories which revolved around the Doctor before, but in the
eleventh Doctor's run, very few episodes involve the Doctor simply
dropping in somewhere and finding a problem. He is summoned, pursued
and targeted.
There has been a great deal of
hyperbole over Doctor Who's
diminishing ratings. Overnight ratings for television have been
dropping across the board, not only for Doctor
Who as more and more viewers turn to catch-up and
time-shifted services. How many of these views are from unique
viewers is unknown, though, but what is clear is that the way in
which we watch television is changing. The series, then, has changed
with it, embracing the possibilities of the medium with a plethora of
mini-episodes that range from throwaway extras to essential chapters
in the story. Even the arena of video games, a format that Doctor
Who has never quite managed to succeed in, has finally
opened up, with Smith voicing the Doctor for online Adventure Games
and Nintendo console games. Even the jerky animation of the sprites
works in its favour – Smith actually does walk like that.
The Doctor has been a mass of
contradictions and mysteries throughout all his lives, and the
eleventh Doctor is no exception. Physically the youngest we have ever
seen him, the Doctor is now older than ever. Indeed, this incarnation
lives for an unusually long time, with decades-long gaps between the
adventures we see. While this has been supposed for his earlier
incarnations, the eleventh Doctor's era makes it explicit,
deliberately providing openings for unseen adventures. Even before
his exceptionally long experiences in his final episode, the eleventh
Doctor lasts for centuries, ageing from 906 to over 1200 during his
three seasons. Even if we accept that the Doctor loses track of his
age – he does say that he can't even remember if he's lying about
his age – centuries must pass from his perspective. Yet he remains
physically young throughout.
.JPG)
