"I'll be a story in your head. But that's okay. We're all stories in the end. Just make it a good one, eh? Because it was, you know, the best."
Dear Doctor,
They say you never forget your first Doctor.
I will say, you were not quite the first for me. The first Doctor I watched was the Ninth. But you were the Doctor when I became a Whovian. So, not only is this my first Christmas special, but this is my first regeneration as well.
Though this may be the first time I actually
admit it, the answer is, and always will be yes.
You know by now that I have mixed feelings about you. I hope it counts for something that a really, really do want to like you. But I think Ten will always be my Doctor.
I began watching the show on a medical leave from college in February of this year. I am a Theatre Arts major and a lot of the other students in the program love it. I didn't quite fit in with them, and so I began watching it as something to be able to talk with them about and understand the references.
But, as you can tell, it became more. So much more.
Since my second or third year of high school, I've known I was a relatively decent writer compared to my peers. (Quite franklyI thought that spoke more about my peers than myself.) Starting this blog proved me wrong. Once it picked up momentum, it never really stopped. It evolved in a way I could not imagine.
And you carried the show while all this was happening.
For me, you only became the Doctor in late February or March, so I am still attached to your previous face. It's strange, how we attach to faces.
Your song is ending now, too. But, as Ood Sigma said, the story never ends.
And that is so true. Just over a month ago, we all celebrated fifty years of Doctor Who. And we, as a community, have never been stronger. I would attribute most of that to the internet, allowing millions of Whovians to connect everyday. I believe there have been studies that prove that talking about things (and people too!) is conducive to creating the bonds that we call love. Twitter. Facebook. Tumblr. All crawling with Whovians, if your know where to look. I believe the epic of your story will only perish when the human race does so as well. It will go to the end of the Earth--and perhaps beyond.
Here's the gist of what I'm trying to say. Bad Wolf said it best:
You know the sound the TARDIS makes? That wheezing groaning? That sound brings hope where ever it goes. To anyone who hears it, Doctor. Anyone. However lost.
There has been no line in all of Doctor Who with more veracity than that. That wheezing, groaning used to invoke such a response in me that I set it as the text tone on my phone to desensitize myself it it (not that it really worked, of course).
Before I end this letter, I'd like to share my most fond memory of you with you. This summer, I babysat my two-year-old cousin, Max, for two consecutive weeks. On the Tuesday or Wednesday of the second week, I popped on "The Beast Below," as we had just watched Treasure Planet and the Orcus galacticus, naturally, reminded me of the Star Whale. Max, curious as ever, asked what exactly a Star Whale is. And, as that episode is pretty child-friendly (compared to a lot of the other stories), I didn't think it could do any harm (and as far as I know, it has not). He and I watched it. And he loved it. I wonder when his mother (my aunt) will Google "star whale" and figure out what happened.
So, Doctor. The Eleventh Doctor. Matt Smith. Sir Doctor of Tardis. The Oncoming Storm. The Drunk Giraffe. And, in a way, my Doctor. You are so loved. And by no one in the exact same way as me.
Goodbye, Raggedy Man.
The Forever and Always Yours Ley Wynn
PS. It's not quite goodbye, you know--same software, different casing.
The death of one Doctor and the introduction of another, is always an awkward time. There will be people who hate the new actor, there will be people who love him right off the bat. Some people will need a bit convincing, but no matter who steps through that door tonight, all that can be asked of us, is that we give him a chance.
People did not like it when Peter Davison sat up after Tom Baker, people raged against Colin Baker, people quite after Sylvester McCoy, people dismissed Paul McGann, people rolled their eyes at the leather wearing Christopher Eccelston, people criticised the antics of David Tennant, people judged Matt Smith on his age.
Even if you hate this new Doctor, and you think there is no going back, know this. In what seems like the blink of an eye (but, um, don't blink), we'll have another. That is how Doctor Who works.
....has not yet been cast, according to a tweet by the via the BBC One account from Steven Moffat. It was tweeted today (1 June) at 5:26pm (I assume EST because the fact that Matt was leaving had not been announced at 5:26pm in Britain). It reads:
"Somewhere out there right now - all unknowing, just going about their business - is someone who's about to become the Doctor"
My first reaction is that they are randomly going to pick someone off the street and be like "YOU! You are the new Doctor!", but I doubt that will happen.
When that someone becomes the next Doctor, you can be sure that you'll hear about it from us.
Some, like myself, are happy, and some are sad. No matter what your opinion, Matt had some great moments as the last of the Time Lords and will be missed. To my knowledge, it has not yet been announced who will be taking over for him.
His last episode, as predicted, will be the 2013 Christmas special.
Here is the statement Matt made just a few minutes ago.
"Doctor Who has been the most brilliant experience for me as an actor and a bloke, and that largely is down to the cast, crew and fans of the show.
"I'm incredibly grateful to all the cast and crew who work tirelessly every day to realise all the elements of the show and deliver Doctor Who to the audience. Many of them have become good friends and I'm incredibly proud of what we have achieved over the last four years.
"Having Steven Moffat as show runner write such varied, funny, mind bending and brilliant scripts has been one of the greatest and most rewarding challenges of my career. It's been a privilege and a treat to work with Steven - he's a good friend and will continue to shape a brilliant world for the Doctor.
The fans of Doctor Who around the world are unlike any other; they dress up, shout louder, know more about the history of the show (and speculate more about the future of the show) in a way that I've never seen before.
"Your dedication is truly remarkable. Thank you so very much for supporting my incarnation of the Time Lord, number 11, who I might add is not done yet - I'm back for the 50th anniversary and the Christmas special.
"It's been an honour to play this part, to follow the legacy of brilliant actors, and helm the TARDIS for a spell with 'the ginger, the nose and the impossible one'. But when ya gotta go, ya gotta go and Trenzalore calls. Thank you guys."
In the fandom world, people tend to get their knickers in a bunch when the writers don't listen to rules and circumstance layed down in past episodes, and no showrunner has more canon to contradict than Doctor Who's Steven Moffat. Fans tend to have a love-hate relationship with him, due to the fact that he tends to kill off characters we like--a lot--but will he be the one to kill the Doctor himself?
While I have no way of knowing for sure, I suspect that the answer is NO! For one thing, it is rumoured that Moffat will be leaving the show after this coming season. But the question of just how many times a Time Lord can regenerate isn't voided if the show is taken over by someone else. Let's take a closer look at regeneration.
The idea of regeneration was introduced when William Hartnell's health started to interfere with his ability to play the Doctor. The show was doing well, but it's star wanted to quit. Then-showrunners John Wiles and Donald Tosh attempted to help Hartnell off the show, but were blocked by head of serials Gerald Savory, who vetoed numerous other changes. Wiles and Tosh quit, and their replacements--Gerry David and Innes Lloyd--found themselves with far more freedom at the hands of Savory's replacement, Shaun Sutton. And so the two set to work finding a way to work in a new lead actor.
At this point, it hadn't yet been established for sure that the Doctor wasn't human, and script editor Davis proposed that the Doctor's species had the ability to die and then return in a new body. Producer Lloyd built upon this by adding that the Doctor could undergo this "renewal" process regularly, transforming from an older man into a younger one. And here's a fun fact: the physiological process of regeneration is based on the psychotropic effects of LSD. Since then, it had been stated, and, surprisingly adhered to that regeneration is possible because of the TARDIS, though the reasoning behind this has varied over the years. In some cases, it is because the TARDIS itself has restorative properties, while in others it is a combination of this and Time Lord biology. More recently, in "A Good Man Goes to War."it was determined that conception on board the TARDIS can give the resulting child Time Lord DNA, which is why River Song can regenerate.
However, that's not to say the entire thing has always been set in stone: Lloyd and Davis intended for the initial "renewal" to merely be the Doctor making himself younger, and the Second Doctor's forced transformation into the Third suggested a complete cosmetic overhaul wasn't a normal part of things. It wasn't until Pertwee's regeneration in Planet of the Spiders that regeneration as we know it was solidified, and it's been suggested by many a pedant that Hartnell, Troughton, and Pertwee are all the same Doctor as a result of this.
The first time that a limit on regeneration is mentioned is a full ten years after the first regeneration happened on the show. In The Deadly Assassin, it is stated that a Time Lord has twelve regenerations, meaning thirteen incarnations in all. When that was set forward in 1976, I can't imagine that anyone could have predicted that this "fact" would make it out of the serial, as writer Robert Holmes (and indeed most Who writers) had no problems contradicting their earlier work if it made a better story. Hell, the Deadly Assassin itself dismantled a claim made by The Brain of Morbius, earlier that same year, also by Robert Holmes, that Tom Baker was the Twelfth Doctor.
It was in the 1980s, with John Nathan-Turner's turn as producer, that Who grew a head for continuity, and for some reason it picked up on the "thirteen lives" tidbit. It started out innocuously enough--after all, that limit was what had resulted in the killing off of the Master, and restoring him required addressing it. (The problem was solved by making the Master a bodysnatcher.) But references to the supposed limit continued, often simply as minutia for minutia's sake (the 80s were quite fond of this), until "thirteen bodies total" ascended to the ranks of "Time Lord" and "from Gallifrey" as one of the absolute immutables of the Doctor's life, cemented in the public consciousness for better or for worse. (Russel T Davies attempted to fix this with The Sarah Jane Adventures serial, Death of the Doctor, by having the Eleventh Doctor state that he has 507 lives. The fandom, predictably, revolted, and Davies decided to claim he had been joking.)
There are two things that would allow for the Doctor to have extra lives. Firstly, in "Let's Kill Hitler", the Doctor was dying and River Song healed him by using her extra regeneration energy, thus using up the rest of her lives on him. We know that she was in her third body at the time, so that may have given the Doctor a whopping ten more regenerations. It is, though, also true that the Doctor used some regeneration energy to heal River's broken wrist in "The Angels Take Manhattan", but I do not expect that it was all of his remaining lives, as he now has great control over the use of the energy as exhibited in part two of The End of Time, as he is able to hold off regenerating until he has gotten his reward.
The other way that the Doctor may be able to regenerate more than twelve times is the idea that the twelve life limit was a rule of Time Lord society and not a law of their biology. This concept has been hinted at several times over the years--most people like to point out the Time Lord High Council offering the Master a completely new regenerative cycle in The Five Doctors, and an FAQ the BBC released regarding Series 4 seems to back this up.
Also, we must consider that despite our wildest dreams that these tales of the Doctor and his TARDIS are based in fact, when it comes down to it, Doctor Who is a business, and a wildly lucrative one at that. Anyone with a brain knows that making money is a good thing and as long as the show doesn't go into the red, it will likely keep going.
So when it comes down to the meat of it, I doubt that the twelve-life rule will stop the show. If it does, I'll eat my fez.
Earlier today, I saw this a little online article in "The Telegraph" that has now made me think so much that this post is happening. Here is what the article said:
A new collection of essays analysing the adventures of the Time Lord, titled Doctor Who And Race, suggests that the BBC cult programme is based on outdated attitudes.Several of the 23 contributors to the book claim the failure to cast a black or Asian actor as the Doctor demonstrates an overarching racism. Early versions of the show were also criticised for casting white actors in ethnic roles such as John Bennett, who played a Chinese villain in the storyline The Talons Of Weng- Chiang. Author Amit Gupta, an American professor, even suggests Peter Davison’s cricket loving Doctor harked back to the 'racial and class nostalgia’ of the British Imperialism. There was also criticism of the introduction and Adolf Hitler as a character last year, which was condemned as 'slapstick’, and said did nothing to increase understanding of the Holocaust. Authors also condemned the way primitive cultures were portrayed as 'savages.’ Australian academic Lindy Orthia, who compiled the anthology, concluded: 'The biggest elephant in the room is the problem privately nursed by many fans of loving a TV show when it is thunderingly racist.’ But fans dismiss such criticisms as 'groundless’ and 'ridiculous’. Sebastian Clark, editor of Doctor Who Online, said the show 'embraced rather than divided’. He told the Mail on Sunday: 'I think the suggestion the show is racist is ridiculous.” The BBC said: 'Doctor Who has a strong track record of diverse casting among both regular and guest cast. Freema Agyeman became the first black companion and Noel Clarke starred in a major role for five years [Mickey Smith]. “Reflecting the diversity of the UK is a duty of the BBC, and casting on Doctor Who is colour-blind. It is always about the best actors for the roles.”
This is Ley. These are Ley's opinions, not Seth's, and the first thing I am going to say is about why maybe the Doctor has not been black or Asian. We have to remember that he is an alien. As in, not from Earth. As far as I know, all the Time Lords we have ever seen have been Caucasian. So I would then have to say that the genetics that make someone have dark skin and the genetics that make people look Asian are just not in the Time Lord gene pool. And, my understanding of the regeneration process is that it recombines the DNA that he has into new combinations, so the codes for "Asian" or "black" are just not in him. If you're going to be do critical of that, you gotta think of the "science" behind regeneration. (As a side note, I would assume that he could regenerate as a female, because that calls for X chromosomes, and males have an X and a Y, so it is possible. And, even if by an accident of genetics [speciffically, Turner's syndrome] when someone only has one X and no additional Y or X, they are female.)
This is what I have to say to the people who wrote those essays.
I do agree that it is strange (and his costume was just plain offensive) that a white guy was cast as an Chinese character, but, come off it. That was years ago.
Yes, it may be that the Fifth Doctor's love of cricket reflects the
show's Britishness, but that is like saying that an American show can't
have a protagonist that likes baseball or (American) football.
When it comes to presenting less developed civilizations as "savages" I think that is totally crazy. On the most part, at least from what I've seen, one of the most undeveloped societies on DW is, in fact, Earth. Most places the Doctor takes his companions are places that make us look like the savages.
I do agree that the Doctor did treat Mickey Smith unfairly. But he would have done the same if Mickey was white, it had to do with the fact that a) Mickey's character was a bit lacking upstairs, which was just a character quirk, not a jab at the intelegence of black people and b) he was Rose's boyfriend and he was jealous of Mickey for that because the Doctor was falling in love with Rose.
As for Martha, the Doctor did treat her a bit odd as well but that has nothing to do with her being black. It has to do with the fact that he just lost Rose and was trying to make Martha be just like Rose and that could never happen simply because Martha is not Rose. And Martha was training to be a doctor, and that means that she is very smart.
As for
not casting black people in the show, about 85% of people in the UK are
white, and I think that that statistic is fairly represented in the
show. Also, it is true that there is not an overwhelming amount of black
actors. Most actors are white, statistically speaking, so that does effect casting. I absolutely loved Freema on the show and the character of Mickey was great. I think that the casting at least seems colour-blind, because if it did focus on race I think we would see more minority actors in an effort to fill some sort of imagined quota.
Saying that Doctor Who is racist is not a "groundless" claim but it is "ridiculous". No society on earth is completely colour-blind, and I doubt it ever will be, honestly. DW not casting minority actors reflects a socio-economic problem, not a problem at the BBC. There is clearly ground for the claim to have been made and from their eyes, they are completely right. It is all a question of opinion and I have to say that I was never offended by the show in regards of racial anything (sexism is a different story) and I didn't even think about the show being racist until I saw the article.
Over the past 36 hours, it seems that there has been a major leak to the public about some of the plot for the DW 50th Anniversary Special.
John Hurt, who was announced to the cast along with Billie and David may have made a boo-boo and revealed his role, which we were previously in the dark about.
The 73 year-old actor, known for many roles in big-name film, television and theatre, such as Mr. Olivander. in Harry Potter, Adam Sutler in V for Vendetta, Dr. Harold Oxley in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, and Control in Tinker Taylor Soldier Spy, and now the international talent says he can add the Doctor himself to the list--or at least "part of the Doctor" in a "kind of trinity," which includes David Tennant.
The possibly the most obvious "trinity" would be a past-present-and-future type thing, but the most talked about idea is a bit more complex and Moffat-esque. Remember how we never saw Paul McGann regenerate into Christopher Eccleston? That is the key. Some are saying that Hurt's Doctor will be one in between the two.
WHAT?
Yes, you read that right. The plot deepens: this regeneration has been forgotten due to the psychological (and I won't rule out physical) trauma from The Last Great Time War
As you can see on the left, John's costume has the Victorian Gentleman elements like McGann's Doctor, as well as the Leather Emo elements of the Eccleston Doctor, making for a much easier transition, at least fashion wise, in the Doctor. Whovian Rule 134.
This would make Chris the 10th Doctor, David the 11th, and Matt the 12th, which possibly puts the Time Lord at risk for being out of regenerations although I believe the last time that subject was brought up it was said that regenerations are unlimited now that there are no other Time Lords, and we can't forget when Melody/River gave her remaining regens to the Doctor.
What are your thoughts? Comment them.
Personally, I trust Steven Moffat to be amazing with the show.
UPDATE:
Okay, so after seeing "The Name of the Doctor", I have to say that he of course is a Doctor from the past. We don't know what he did, but we know the Doctor doesn't condone his actions. My guess, like many others, I assume, is that he is responsible for the destruction of Gallifrey. More on the season finale later, from both myself and Seth.
"I wish I never met you, Doctor. I was much better off as a coward" -Cpt. Jack Harkness
"If I'm very clever and I'm more than clever, I'm brilliant, I might just save the world." -The Doctor
Then he goes and saves Rose. He saves his world.
This is Emergency Programme One. Rose, now listen, this is important. If this message is activated, then it can only mean one thing. We must be in danger. And I mean fatal. I'm dead or about to die any second with no chance of escape. And that's okay. Hope it's a good death. But I promised to look after you, and that's what I'm doing. The TARDIS is taking you home. And I bet you're fussing and moaning now. Typical. But hold on and just listen a bit more. The TARDIS can never return for me. Emergency Programme One means I'm facing an enemy that should never get their hands on this machine. So this is what you should do. Let the TARDIS die. Just let this old box gather dust. No one can open it. No one'll even notice it. Let it become a strange little thing standing on a street corner. And over the years, the world'll move on and the box will be buried. And if you want to remember me, then you can do one thing. That's all, one thing. Have a good life. Do that for me, Rose. Have a fantastic life.
-The Doctor
What is the bad wolf story? Is it just the thing from the three little pigs?
Bet cha wish ya had all-wheel drive now, Mickey.
Captain Jack's so cute when he's mortal.
Go, Mickey, save the world with a yellow truck...and break the TARDIS.
Congrats, Jack, you are now a fixed point in time and space! A temporal anomaly!
mah head!
mah Rose!
Kiss the girl.
and then...regenerate.
Oh, but first, abandon Jack.
Sing a song and the Daleks will go away? Yep, that's it.
BECOME DAVID TENNANT! Yes, get rid of that daft old face. And yes, you were fantastic. Now be David and make smiles come to my face. Yep, that's right: Barcelona.
I'm not really sure if you can call yourself a Whovian if you haven't watched any of the classic series. You don't have to like them, you just have to give them a try. I've made my way through all the on-demand Netflix episodes, and I will definitely say that the revival episodes are much more exciting.
The element that really makes the difference for me is the personality and psychological makeup of the Doctor himself. He's a bit more stable in the classics. With a character of this nature, that has been redesigned literally from the inside out more than ten times, there is going to be huge changes from actor to actor. Perhaps it is that the art of television is evolving. The overall "strangeness" of each doctor is a character choice for each individual actor, but I think that the actors now feel more at liberty to go all-out with the Doctor's idiosyncratic behaviors. Is my theatre arts major showing?
Christopher Eccleston set the stage for this with his Doctor. Fresh off the front lines of The Last Great Time War, the ninth Doctor is drowning in survivor's guilt. With Tennant's Doctor, I'd go so far as to say that he's developed some serious PTSD, especially after the ordeal with Rose. His psychological state is still in one of decompensation, and it has to be if he is in fact going to become the Valeyard (and I really do want to see him become that), but he is more emotionally static as Matt Smith. Is my psych major showing?
None of this is to say that I don't like the classic episodes, because that's not true. While I favor the revival, I appreciate the classics.
In a post from 26 March 13, SciFiBulletin reports that Matt Smith will stay as the Doctor in to the 2014 season, according to an interview in the upcoming edition (30 March-5 April) of "Radio Times."
"Doctor Who star Matt Smith has confirmed categorically that he is committed to Doctor Who for the next year – taking him through the recording of series eight – and that he is taking the show on a year by year basis.
"There have been rumours that the 50th anniversary special would conclude with the Doctor regenerating, but this would seem to put a stop to those.
"The Radio Times includes a wraparound cover featuring the various monsters to be featured in the eight episodes about to be aired, and confirms the titles of all bar the finale: The Bells of Saint John; The Rings of Akhaten; Cold War; Hide; Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS; The Crimson Horror; and Nightmare in Silver. Moffat’s finale, featuring the return of River Song, will be revealed later, with the head writer explaining, 'You’re about to learn something about the Doctor that you never knew before. And I think you’re in for a shock…'”
There's some heavy foreshadowing in The End of Time. Some of it seems like a coincidence, but never ignore a coincidence. Unless you're busy.
The Silence
It is said that in the final days of planet Earth, everyone had bad dreams...Each and every one of those people had dreamt of the terrible things to come. But they forgot, because they must. They forgot their nightmares of fire and war and insanity. They forgot.
-Narrator (Rassilon), The End of Time, Part I
The Dream Lord
The Dream Lord is the dark side of the Doctor, and we've seen a lot of that lately, climaxing in The Waters of Mars when he manipulates someone into suicide. He makes his first corporeal appearance in the revival series in Amy's Choice. Since the Doctor has the power to give people "dreams" we must assume that the other Time Lords, specifically the Master, also have that capability.
Something Evil in the WiFi
"She got Mister Smith to put out this story saying that WiFi went mad all across the world, giving everyone hallucinations. I mean, how else do you explain it? Everyone with a different face." -Luke Smith, The End of Time, Part II
Its been revealed that this weekend's premier episode, The Bells of Saint John, will be about something evil in the WiFi that is trying to control humans.
While we all wait, and wait, and wait for that clock on the left to hit zero, those of us with many Facebook fan pages (ours is here!) in our News Feed are wondering if all their friends have stopped posting, but then realise that the Doctor Who fan pages are just posting...a lot.
And who can blame them? I know I long for some new info on Clara to make a new post out of! But since I haven't got that, I'll post about something else.
Call me what you will, but I don't think bowties are cool. Frankly, I think that the Doctor should really try a cravat again. But his bowties are certainly something that make this Doctor...unique.
All the Doctors have had elements of their dress that aren't quite normal to us.
The First Doctor
William Hartnell as the
First Doctor get a 4/10
It's not in the picture here, but the first thing I want to cover is that hat of his. Really, what is is? It looks like a small trash bag. If anyone knows what the deal is with that, please let me know in the comments section.
And under that hat is something else...strange. His hair. I'm not saying I don't like it, I'm just saying that it is odd. Like an Ood.
Then, there is his tie. I really don't know the proper word for it. This is do like.
Next, the coat. It seems that most of the Doctors have a coat that is strange but loveable.
And I just noticed this--the ring he's wearing. Let me say that I'm not a fan of rings, and this one isn't and different.
In total, it seems that the First Doctor's outfit, not including the bottoms, is a throwback to the late 1800s or the early 1900s. I'm the kind of person who really likes the dress of that period.
This incarnation of the Doctor was strict and grandfatherly. He communicated those traits with his old-style choice of dress that's a bit shocking at first look, but might grow on you as you watch him slowly become a bit more relaxed.
The Second Doctor
Patrick Throughton as
the Second Doctor gets a 4.5/10
It is here we see bowties appear, but at this point in real-world time, bowties aren't as much of a faux-pas as they are today. Aside from his hats, we don't really see too much eccentricity in the dress. But that is not to say, and I do not mean that the character is not eccentric. Because he is. Very, very eccentric. He's got catchphrases like "Oh my giddy aunt" and introduces us to the endless running with "when I say run, run," a phrase that also graced the lips of the Ninth Doctor. And I won't fail to mention his recorder. See? I just did. It's also worth the note that this Doctor is the one who adopts his over-arching pacifism after the series was criticized for being too violent.
The Third Doctor
Jon Pertwee as the Third
Doctor gets a 6.75/10
Now here's where we get cookin' with the strange. The Third Doctor steers us back to the Victorian Era (in the Bessie, of course) with his red coat and the ruffles on his shirt. Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't he also have a cape at some point? And that hair. Ooh, that hair. Its the first coiffure that's full of Time Lord secrets. What Three doesn't have in the oddness factor, he makes up for with his clothes. And, with Jo Grant, he starts to have companions that can hold their own in tough situations. And Sarah Jane Smith starts her time with the Doctor here, too. The Third Doctor makes great contributions to the character traits of the Doctor that don't fade with regeneration. The gentelmanly dapper dress of this incarnation is like the bright colours on poisonous frogs: it says "don't mess!", but reassures you that if you don't get on his bad side he won't woop your butt with his martial art skills.
The Fourth Doctor
Tom Baker as the Fourth Doctor gets a 9/10
The Fourth Doctor brings us the most eccentricity in dress and very possibly character. He's the first doctor to wear question marks, although they feature much more prominently with the Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh Doctors.
The wide brim of this fedora is brilliant, simply marvellous. It sits upon oodles of curly hair, rivalled only by his previous regeneration.
One does not simply watch Doctor Who and not develop a love for long scarves. The Doctor says that it was knitted by Madame Nostradamus and deems it irreplaceable when it gets hit by a laser in The Arc in Space. Baker says that the original scarf was made by Begonia Pope who was given the yarn but unsure of how long to make it, so she used all of it. There was a much shorter "stunt scarf", and the total length of it varied, the maximum being 24' which is about four times the height of the Fourth Doctor.
This Doctor is one that acts the strangest, and until the introduction of the other Baker, dresses the strangest. It's the scarf that assures you that he's crazy if his demeanour didn't already convince you of that.
The hat, hair, and scarf are the most prominent of this Doctor's off-kilter dress. As Baker played the doctor for the longest amount of time of all the Doctors (1974-81), his costume was in constant flux. Read more about it here.
The Fifth Doctor
Peter Davison as the Fifth
Doctor gets a 3/10
Not many man can pull off decorative vegetables, but if any one can, it's the Fifth Doctor. This Doctor's clothing is basically just cricket whites, plus the jacket and hat. This Doctor's clothes influenced some of the Tenth Doctor's dressing habits as well.
Oh, and the trainers. And... [putting his glasses on] snap! 'Cos you know what, Doctor? You were my Doctor
-The Tenth Doctor to the Fifth Doctor, Time Crash
This Doctor, aside from the question marks on his collar and the celery, is one of the more "normal" regenerations of the Doctor, at least dress wise.
This Doctor was challenged at first by the Whovians because of his age, being by far the youngest to get cast in the role at the time. His calm outfit helped reassure viewers that he was the respectable Doctor we know and love and not young whipper-snapper, while keeping some of the oddity from his previous regenerations with the celery, the purpose of which is artfully unexplained until his last episode.
The Sixth Doctor
Colin Baker as the Sixth
Doctor gets 2/10
Woah, there. This Doctor needs to calm down a bit. He looks like a unicorn drunk on rainbows threw up on him. Again, we see wild curly hair and question marks on his collar. The coat is a Do-It-Yourself nightmare which I don't even what to address but will. (The things I do for my readers...) Colin Baker's Doctor is brash and puts a foul taste reminiscent of ear wax in many mouths, as does that coat. That coat. That coat. It must have been that coat that made the Doctor swear them off in his next incarnatuon
The Seventh Doctor
Sylvester McCoy as the
Seventh Doctor gets 3.5/10
The Seventh Doctor looks a lot (in terms of clothing) like the Fifth, minus the decorative vegetable, and add more delightfully tacky question marks. Sweater vests, in my book, are even lamer than bow ties. And I feel just plain bad for the person who had to knit that. Their sight can't possibly be what it once was. All the question marks must have been what threw Ace when thinking of his name. But really, you'd think after a while she'd get that it's the Doctor and not the Professor.
The Eighth Doctor
Paul McGann as the Eighth
Doctor gets a 7.75/10
Believe it or not, a really do like this Doctor's look. His forehead and chin/jawline is what really make it work. I think the dress of the Victorian Era is charming in general. It seems (ha, "seems" and we're talking about costumes which have seams...) that the Doctor fancies clothes from that era, as the First and Third Doctors' outfits also have late-1800s overtones. McGann, who wore a wig as the Doctor, suggested (like Colin Baker) that the character have the short hair and leather jacket combo that was adopted for the next Doctor, portrayed by Christopher Eccleston, who had been asked to play the Eighth Doctor. With this Doctor's amnesia playing a significant role in his only on-screen appearance, I'm surprised we don't seem more question marks on him.
The Ninth Doctor
Christopher Eccleston as the Ninth Doctor gets 6.5/10
The first episode of Doctor Who that I watched was Rose, which is the first episode with Christopher Eccleston, and I'm gonna be honest: That first time the Doctor appeared on screen, I was a bit perplexed. I went in to it knowing that David Tennant was one of the Doctors, but didn't know about Eccleston. My confusion was due to the fact that the Ninth Doctor's garb isn't strange or anything. In fact, if the v-neck was just a normal tee, he dresses like my dad (one of them pulls it off way better than the other, and I just realized that if you add a moustache to Eccleston, the result would look like my dad). Since Eccleston was only the Doctor for 13 or so episodes, he doesn't have as much of a developed character as most of the other Doctors. He looks like any other denizen (a synonym of which is tenant) of London, but couldn't be farther from the truth. Here is when we really start to see the Doctor as a god trying to be human.
The Tenth Doctor
David Tennant as the Tenth Doctor gets 10/10
Ten is my favourite, no question. The slim-and-a-little-bit-foxy David Tennnat is a 10 to start with, and the geek-chique helps the cause. From the head down:
He may not be ginger, but his hair rocks. It's full of Time Lord secrets on its worst days. His left eyebrow is eloquent and prolific in emotion. Plus, you can't really look at them without seeing his chocolatey eyes. Then, we have his sideburns. I love them, but they do get mixed reviews. I think the people who don't like them haven't seen him without them. Next, we have the coat. Personally, I really love the coat. The prop replica is hanging in my closet right now. I don't know why or how the coat is as fabulous as it is. Time Lord secrets, again. The main element of the outfit is the Junior-Lawer esque suit and loose tie, which highlights how incredibly thin Tennant is--"you hug him and you get a papercut!" The final thing is the converse. They rock my socks, and apparently his too, as when he takes them off in Smith and Jones he's not wearing any. The BBC gives a guide to dressing like Ten. We also see the most developed character from him, which just goes to show how much of an amazing actor he is. If you haven't seen him in Cassanova and Hamlet, I strongly suggest you do.
The Eleventh Doctor
Matt Smith as the Eleventh
Doctor gets an 8/10
All of us who like the Tenth Doctor are a bit spoiled by his performance. I know I don't like him as much as far as his ability to show emotion as an actor, but do realize that it may be a character choice. It's fun to see him in the whimsical ensemble elements, like the tweed jacket, high-hemmed pants, and the suspenders, and certainly the fez and the Stetson are a laugh. Bow ties aren't cool, but he does pull them off. It's not as eccentric as some of the outfits we've seen the Doctor in (coughsixcough), but you definitely would do a bit of a double take if you saw a man this young dressed like your grandfather and looking this incredible on the street. And if you do see a rather young man dressed this old on the street, go to him and ask if he's the Doctor, because you might just be on to something.
In Conclusion....
Like any of us, our style is indicative of who we are. My dress patterns are erratic, and so am I (you have no idea). Every time he regenerates, he's a new man, and we can only expect to see it on the outside, too. If the clothes make the man, then most of us think that DT is the best-dressed, too.
As you may have seen yesterday, there are regeneration rumours surrpunding the 2013 Christmas special. The rumour is that Matt wants to leave the TARDIS in exchange for a career in Hollywood.
This is the only article I found that makes an attempt at debunking it:
"The last time showrunner Steven Moffat was asked how long incumbent Doctor Matt Smith would remain in the role, he snapped back with a cheerily brisk 'Forever. For the rest of time'. There's the slightest chance you know, that he wasn't telling the truth...
"Of course he wasn't. If there's one thing more certain than death, taxes, and repetition of the phrase "Doctor Who?" in the new episodes, it's that Matt Smith won't be the Doctor forever. The Sun, amongst others, is keen for us to think that his departure will come sooner rather than later, namely, after the 2013 Christmas special. The newspaper ran a story suggesting that 'Insiders say the festive special will be Matt's last outing as The Doctor', citing Smith's ambition to break into Hollywood as his reason for bowing out after a four year stint.
"The BBC was quick to respond to the story, and had this to say:
"'Sorry folks but even we don’t know what’s going to happen at Christmas. It’s not been written yet! But Matt loves the show and is to start filming the unmissable 50th anniversary, and the new series starting on Easter Saturday.'
"It's not exactly a denial, and neither was Smith's answer to the question posed by Jonathan Ross last week, 'I am very happy doing it. I do the anniversary special, then the Christmas special. At the moment it’s 2013 and we will see what 2014 holds.'”
-Den of Geek, "Doctor Who: BBC Responds to Matt Smith Quitting Rumours"
So there it is. Any allegations about Matt Smith regenerating for the Christmas special are not fact...yet.
While I was searching for that, I did come upon some very interesting "contreversy" over regeneration.
Some are saying that the Doctor's lack of gingerness is condoning anti-gingerism.The Telegraph
When Eleven does regenerate to twelve, will it be a woman? For my own aspirations of playing the Doctor, I hope so...The Huffington Post
Helen Mirren has her eyes on the role. The Huffington Post.
And for all you worrying that he's run out of regenerations, here's reassurance for you, too. It's even a "fact"now.
What do I think of all of this?
The Impending Regeneration
Good. I'm really not a fan of the Matt Smith interpretation. He's...well, I'm going to be critical here, but before you say I don't know what I'm talking about, I do: I'm an actor, so I know that he can do better.
I do have to hand it to him that David Tennant's performance is a tough act to follow. Tennant, in general, is a phenominal actor. I first saw him in the televised version of RSC's "Hamlet" and loved it. That's a big reason of why I started watching Doctor Who. When you've seen an actor before, there's always a risk of it being that character playing the character. I didn't see Hamlet playing the Doctor. (I watched Casanova, which was done before Tennant started as the Doctor after I watched all of the Tenth Doctor, so I can't say that I saw Casanova playing either.) Of course, David has his trademarks that almost all his characters use--ie, "Welllll....," "Oh yes!," his eyebrows, but all those characters use those attributes differently.
In doing the Doctor so well, David also made it a really easy role to take over. We see so much emotion in Tennat's Doctor, and that lets us in to his personality. What we see him go through are emotions we all go through, but never talk about. I think that that's one of the best things about the Tenth Doctor. It may be that yes, I do have high expectations from any actor playing the role, and it is true that every Doctor is different from the last, but they still have traits from their previous regenerations:
"You know, I loved being you. Back when I first started, at the very beginning, I was always trying to be old and grumpy and important—like you do, when you're young. And then I was you, and it was all dashing about and playing cricket and my voice going all squeaky when I shouted. I still do that, the voice thing, I got that from you. Oh, and the trainers. And... [putting his glasses on] snap! 'Cos you know what, Doctor? You were my Doctor."
-The Tenth Doctor to the Fifth Doctor, Time Crash
Anti-Gingerism
When the doctor eats beans and pears. It's quite simple: Amy is ginger and if the show had an anti-ginger agenda, then they wouldn't make someone as pivitoal as the Fantastic Amy Pond ginger.
Regenerating as a Female
and Helen Mirren as the Doctor
Also good. As I mentioned, I really want to play the role. There were some pretty solid hints that Twelve will be female. In The Eleventh Hour, one of the first post-regeneration new-body panics in that he's now a woman. Then, in The Doctor's Wife, he mentions the Time Lord Corsair and his regenerations. He says: "He had that snake as a tattoo in every regeneration. Didn't feel like himself unless he had the tattoo. Or herself, a couple of times. Ooo, she was a bad girl."
There are a couple of things that could prevent it, not "scientiffically," just from a buisness end. Since David played the role, we have the expectation for the Doctor to be a super-sexy man. While I do know females who are super-sexy men, Helen Mirren is not one of them--in fact, she is, sorry Helen, a bit on the older side, currently at age 67, and is a July baby so sould by 68 by the time she'd get the role. At 1200, the doctor is older than ever, but Helen would be the oldest actor at the start of her portrayl of the lonely god by thirteen years (William Hartnell, the First Doctor was 55 when he took on the role in 1963), which would be somewhat ironic as Matt Smith, who started as the Doctor at age 27, is the youngest actor to be the doctor by two years (Peter Davison was 29, and the third youngest was Tennant at 34). Then there is the fact that the Doctor being female would complicate the River Song-Doctor thing. I've got nothing against homosexuality--I'm a big suppourter of the LGBT movement--but I just don't see River as being a lesbian. Of course, the Doctor has now known River for three hundred years of his life, and we might just see River meet the Doctor for the first time before the eleven-twelve regeneration.
All and all, I've no problem with the Doctor being female, I just don't know how good it would be for the longterm continuing of the show...
Running Out of Regenerations
Again, we must remember that Doctor Who is a television show (yes, I know there are novels and comics and all sorts of other media of it, but mainly, it is a show) and show buisness is just that: buisness. Like the Doctor becoming female, it all depends on if the show is turning a profit or not. As long as it is, they'll throw continuity out the TARIS doors and into an event horison and/or find a reason why the Doctor earned extra regenerations.
In Conclusion...
There's a reason you're reading this blog: you like (or at leart are remotely interested) in Doctor Who. It's the longest running televison show on the planet, and thats because its fantastic. And I think it's gonna keep being fantastic for a long, long time.
Your song is ending now, too. But, as Ood Sigma said, the story never ends.
