Saturday, March 20, 2010

"Trust me - I'm the Doctor."

Massive fangirling ahead in this post.

First off, I have to say, I never heard about Doctor Who until I was in university. I always thought it was a particularly Anglophile fandom until I found out from my boyfriend that, apparently, they had actually aired a few of the Fourth Doctor's episodes when he was a kid.

[If your mind immediately conjured up the image of a mostly-happy chap with an impossibly long scarf, then yes, that's Tom Baker as the Fourth Doctor.]

Coming to university I befriended someone who was really a great fan of Paul McGann as the Eighth Doctor. After that, I started to find out more about the character and the series. I won't go into the details here - the words "information overload" tend to come to mind, as with all people coming new to a fandom they've never encountered before....

Anyway, come Easter Doctor Who fans all over the world will finally be able to start watching Matt Smith in his tenure as the Eleventh Doctor. Coming hard on the heels of the much-fangirled Tenth - mostly because he was David Tennant - the Eleventh has some tough times ahead of him.

I think I like him because, well, he dresses so damn geekily, even more so than his predecessor did. And believe me, the Tenth really dressed in geek chic. But as for the Eleventh: a coat with elbow patches? A maroon-ish bow tie? Square-framed shades AND specs? Oooh, geeky. He's just my kind of guy. Also, wow, can he contort that face or what? I love his manic expressions.

Anyway, in order to get ready for Series 5 of the new TV series here are the videos that the BBC has released as teasers. First, the actual regeneration sequence from Ten to Eleven [if you haven't seen "The End of Time" yet - SPOILER ALERT].



The rest of these videos can't really be called spoiler-y since they ARE the promotional clips being released before the actual series airs. So up next is the first full teaser with Matt Smith and his companion Amy Pond:



This trailer highlights a few of this incarnation's major foes, including the Daleks and the Weeeping Angels:



And now here is the latest one, an actual clip from the first episode of the new series, the upcoming "The Eleventh Hour". That would be a very young Amy Pond speaking with the Doctor, showing that this companion has some "history" of a sort with everyone's favorite Time Lord:



Hmm, apparently the Eleventh Doctor will have to make/obtain his own sonic screwdriver, and make lots of repairs to the TARDIS, as both these iconic objects will receive makeovers for Series 5.

Edited to add: Oooh, here's a new one, from Amy Pond's POV. The Doctor has a great line in it, and you see the refurbishments to the TARDIS and spot the new sonic screwdriver - what's the difference from the old one? The new one lights up green. :D



Anyone else out there a fan of the Eleventh?

1 comment:

PJC said...

When I first saw the pics of the Eleventh, I honestly worried that the producers were hoping to win over the "Twilight demographic" (if indeed such a thing exists). Matt Smith definitely struck me as a Robert Pattinson type, and thus not a particularly ideal match for the Doctor role. But the more clips I see, the more convinced I become that he'll grow on me.

To put it in comics terms: if the Ninth Doctor was the "Vertigo" incarnation (darker and more 'adult'), then the Eleventh seems like the "Adventures" version: maybe a little safer and kid friendly, but also necessarily more accessible.

And even if i'm not won over by the choice of actor, I do like the "internal reboot" of the TARDIS and Sonic Screwdriver; the idea that he'll evidently be doing things from scratch, and quite literally reinventing the wheel. It obviously leaves plenty of room to screw things up, but I don't necessarily believe in retaining a status quo, just because it's worked in the past. So i'm very eagerly looking forward to Series 5.

Oh, and Neil Himself is confirmed to be writing an episode, so that's one more thing to get excited about.