Let Them Eat Trailers and Scripts: An Operation Blue Harvest Update

Someday I will attend San Diego Comic Con.  But this year, when Matt Smith, Jenna Louise-Coleman, and Steven Moffat were all there, was unfortunately not the year.  I guess I'll have to wait until Matt Smith is all washed up before he'll appear at another Comic Con to talk about Doctor Who.  So I wasn't there when they showed the awesome teaser trailer at Comic Con, I had to wait for it to come out online like everybody else did.  Nobody managed to steal a quick video from it like the trailer for "The End of Time."  So when I woke up this morning and found that the trailer was released, I was glad I would have something to write about in my blog besides people's various and fruitless attempts to predict the 12th Doctor.

The trailer is amazing!  I think my favorite part is probably the awesome, ominous music.  If that's Murray Gold's doing, he might have just outdone himself.  (Well, okay, nothing beats "Abigail's Song" from "A Christmas Carol).  But it sets the stage for what looks like a very dark episode.  Of course, there's bound to be much more lighthearted humor in this episode than the trailer suggests.  That's Moffat's style:  dark, but funny.

The moment of the Doctor meeting the Doctor in this is fantastic, even though the 10th Doctor's facial expression says "Who just farted?".  That first meeting is going to be one of the highlights of the revived series.  And the trailer pretty much proves that this is the actual 10th Doctor, not Meta-Crisis 10, which is what I was afraid of.  Meta-Crisis 10 could still have been fun, but I want the 11th Doctor to meet the actual 10th Doctor, not his half-human off-shoot from a ridiculous and convoluted plot.  But with both Doctors standing directly in front of their TARDISes--one with the St. John's Ambulance badge on it, one without--it shows that this is definitely the proper 10th Doctor.  Meta-Crisis 10 doesn't have a TARDIS.

If you start the trailer at exactly 0:24 you'll see a shot of the 10th Doctor walking into a TARDIS where the 2nd Doctor, and someone else, are controlling the TARDIS panel.  But there's something I'm confused about:  I guess if I went back and watched all of "The Three Doctors" I might recognize what scene that was.  The 2nd Doctor in a color scene with that quality camera work and that TARDIS design is almost certainly a multi-Doctor episode.  And I checked "The Five Doctors" and the design doesn't match up.  It has to be "The Three Doctors."  But as the 10th Doctor's shoulder slowly starts to move out of the way, you can see the head of someone else at the TARDIS console.  It looks like the 1st Doctor.  And this is why I'm confused:  the 1st Doctor never appeared in the TARDIS during "The Three Doctors."  Hartnell was in such poor health that they had to write in a way for him to spend the entire serial sitting down, so he was in the television for the whole serial.  What is that shot from?  Again, if I were to go through all of "The Three Doctors" I might find it, and maybe I'll go through it later, but I can't for the life of me imagine where that shot might be from.  Perhaps it was an early outtake of "The Three Doctors" before they decided to keep Hartnell in the TV.  That's what they did with the 4th Doctor in "The Five Doctors":  put in footage of him that had never made it to air.

But it does tell us one very interesting thing:  the special will incorporate, at the very least, archive footage of past Doctors.  I'll be interested to see how that works in.  They certainly did a very good job of it in "The Name of the Doctor."

And what the fuck is with the knight walking towards the tent?

-------------------

Now, in other news, you might have heard that Stephen Moffat recently released copies of the audition scripts he's using to try out potential 12th Doctors.  This has led to a lot of people trying to guess who the new Doctor is going to be based on the tone and word choice in the Doctor's dialogue.  These are clearly people who do not know what an audition script is.  Moffat even said that these scripts will never be in an episode of the show.  So don't try to read into it.  Moffat is trying to whet our appetites for the 12th Doctor without actually telling us anything about him at all.  So enjoy the scripts, they're deliciously clever in a very Moffat-y kind of way, but don't pretend that they're going to help you figure anything out.

Five "Potential" Twelfth Doctors Everyone Needs to Stop Talking About

Part of the reason that I'm not posting much anymore is that all that people want to talk about in Doctor Who fandom right now is who they think is going to be the next Doctor.  I think that all of that speculation is ridiculous.  None of us have any idea who the next Doctor is going to be.  But, while all of this speculation is silly, I'm going to talk about the names people are throwing around as possible 12th Doctors that are absolutely ridiculous and who will never become the Doctor.

5.  Benedict Cumberbatch

Much like with David Tennant, it's very hard to pick out the sexiest picture
of Benedict Cumberbatch on the Internet.

People have been talking about Cumberbatch as the Doctor since his first episode of Sherlock.  First of all, it's bad enough that we have the show runner splitting his attention between Doctor Who and Sherlock without the star doing the same thing.  Having two big hit shows on the BBC with the same head writer and star would be, at the very least...a bit weird.

But here's the biggest problem with Cumberbatch:  Have you ever seen him play a lighthearted, good, happy character?  His version of Sherlock Holmes makes Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's look like a happy little wood nymph.  There's a certain way in which the original Holmes was a bit of a dark loner and a pompous ass, but Cumberbatch's portrayal takes it to a truly darker level.  It's all summed up in some of his final lines from the last episode, "The Reichenbach Fall":  "Oh, I may be on the side of the angels, but don't think for one second that I am one of them"

The only time I saw Cumberbatch as a potential Doctor was from this past week's episode of Top Gear when Cumberbatch was their Star in the Reasonably Priced Car.  Cumberbatch, in his interview, was laid back, friendly, and personable.  But I've yet to see him put that forward in any of his characters.  They're always dark, cold, and distant.  Those are things the Doctor absolutely cannot be.

The main point, though, is that he can't be Sherlock and the Doctor at the same time.  And playing the Doctor, Sherlock Holmes, and Khan Noonien Singh might be too much awesome for any one person's career.  But most importantly...he'd make a much better Master!

4.  Dame Helen Mirren

Sexiest woman over 60 in the world!

I've given my opinions on the idea of a female Doctor in a previous blog.  And I agree with people who say that Mirren might very well be the only actress who could pull off the Doctor's first gender transition.  But there are two things standing in the way:  the fans don't want a woman, and she doesn't want to do it.  Those are fairly big hurdles to overcome before she could become the Doctor.

The simple fact is that a lot of people don't want to see a female Doctor.  Moffat ran a poll at a conference and everyone said they'd stop watching.  No, I don't think all of the people who say they don't want a female Doctor are sexist.  Some of them are, but some of them just don't think that Time Lords should be able to change genders between regenerations.  There's not a clear example of it happening in canon.

Helen Mirren stated pretty unequivocally that she doesn't want to do it.  She did say, however, that she wanted a "gay, black, woman Doctor."  I understand the desire to see either a black or female Doctor, but can the show, at this point, really said to be lacking in LGBT advocacy?  So yes, I think it would be absolutely fascinating to see Helen Mirren in the role, but you will never, ever see it.

3.  Russell Tovey

Oh come on, if you were searching Google Images for a picture of
Russell Tovey and this came up, you'd choose this one too.

Are you kidding me?!  If Cumberbatch has been typecast as cold and dark, Tovey only plays shy and awkward.  His performance in Being Human is brilliant because the whole idea is: "what if the most socially awkward and kind person in the world became a werewolf and had to deal with all of the emotional baggage that comes with being a supernatural killer?"  His role as Midshipman Alonzo Frame in "Voyage of the Damned" (and briefly again in "The End of Time (Part 2)") was endearing because he was so meek, but put aside that meekness to show his bravery when it was absolutely necessary.  Even his character in the Sherlock episode, "The Hounds of Baskerville," was shy and skiddish.

I know every actor has to have range, but I haven't seen it yet from Russell Tovey, and I've probably seen more of his work than I've seen of the work of anyone else I've put on this list.  He's kind of like a British version of Michael Cerra:  they both play the same "adorably" shy character in every role they're cast in.  I can't imagine Russell Tovey bouncing around the TARDIS with a big smile on his face, or threatening the Daleks with a steely stare.  Maybe he could surprise me, but he hasn't shown me enough to believe that he could be the Doctor.

2.  Rupert Grint

This is not remotely a metaphor for impotence.

I'm not even going to dignify this one with a response.

...okay, it seems like you're going to make me.  Ron Weasley cannot be the Doctor.  Period.  I'd love to see Rupert Grint branch out into other roles that are really different from what he did in Harry Potter, but there's no way he's going to be allowed to do it as the Doctor.  He's too recognizable in one role right now.  He needs to become established in more diverse roles before he'd even be considered for another big, iconic role.  Furthermore, Doctor Who is not really new territory for Rupert Grint.  He'd just be moving from a fantasy franchise to a science-fiction franchise which, if it didn't have its very, very thin scientific rationales, would pretty much be a fantasy franchise.  It would be a bad decision for both Doctor Who and for Grint's career.

1.  David Tennant

I'm going to stab the next fangirl who asks me to come back.

One month ago I read a report that said that Skybet had placed 50/1 odds on David Tennant coming back.  I can't find any such bets on Skybet at the moment.  Hopefully, someone realized that it was a ridiculous thing to bet on because every single person would lose as nobody has any idea who is going to be the next Doctor.

But I would bet everything I own (which, admittedly, isn't much) that David Tennant will never, ever return to the role full time.  Doctors don't come back.  No actor ever has, ever will, or ever should become the Doctor.  Nobody is going to Grover Cleveland this thing.  Doctor Who is a show about time travel.  Much like time travel, it's a show that has to move both forwards and backwards at the same time.  It can bring back past enemies and past monsters, but it absolutely cannot move back to a previous regeneration of the Doctor.  It would be a cheap ploy that any true fan would reject, leaving nothing but a fan base of 13 year old girls.

It simply will never happen.  Get over it.

A Doctor's Dozen: A Doctor Who Book Report on the Thirteen Doctors Problem

Why is there a monkey dressed as a German soldier in WWI?

"When they came [to America] to launch The Eleventh Hour, I went along to this screening in LA and journalists put their hands up, and one of the first questions was, 'WHat will happen when he reaches the thirteenth regeneration?' There's a fascinating academic study to be made out of how some facts stick and some don't--how Jon Pertwee's Doctor could say he was thousands of years old, and no-one listens to that, and yet someone once says he's only got thirteen lives, and it becomes lore.  It's really interesting, I think.  That's why I'm quite serious that that 507 thing won't stick, because the 13 is too deeply ingrained in the public consciousness.  But how?  How did that get there?"

-Russell T. Davies

I've said sometimes that Moffat bases his version of Doctor Who on a mis-remembering of what the classic series really was.  This quote makes it clear that Davies is mis-remembering the classic series as well.  The Doctor's age has fluctuated so much over the years that, no, nobody remembers him saying that he was thousands of years old. The First Doctor claimed to be about 100, the Fourth Doctor claimed to be about 700, and then pretty much every Doctor between 6 and 11 claimed to be 900.  How could any of these numbers stick in anybody's head?  We've all just assumed he's lying.  Rule 1, after all.

It was first established in the Fifth Doctor episode "Mawdryn Undead" that Time Lords can only regenerate 12 times.  For those who failed elementary school math, you'll realize that that doesn't mean that there can only be 12 Doctors, but that there can only be 13.  Davies, as shown above, seems to mis-remember the number of times the 13 Doctor's issue was brought up.  He thinks it was just once.  He is very wrong.  It was not a minor plot point in "Mawdryn Undead," as the episode was about someone trying to steal the Doctor's remaining 8 regenerations.  The Valeyard was said, by the Master, to be created between the Doctor's 12th and final incarnations.  It was established in the Fourth Doctor episode "The Deadly Assassin" that the Master had already used up all of his regenerations, which is why he was clinging to life and needed to steal a body.  The Eighth Doctor said in the narration to the Doctor Who that the Master had used up all of his thirteen lives.  There were a few other casual references, but it was used as main plot points in a number of episodes.  That's why 13 stuck in the public consciousness, Russell.

When Davies mentions the number 507 here, he is referring to the fact that, the one time he got to write for the Eleventh Doctor, in his guest appearance in the Sarah Jane Adventures episode "Death of the Doctor," the Doctor was asked how many times he could regenerate, and he answered "507."  The number was Davies's little "fuck you" to the fans, as the digits in that number add up to--you guessed it--thirteen!  507 has not only failed to stick in the public consciousness, fans are rejecting it because we flat out find it insulting that he thinks you can just throw away a piece of the mythology like that.  It's easier to throw away the Doctor's claim of 507 under Rule 1.

Now we find ourselves in an interesting situation.  The number thirteen was obviously chosen during the Fifth Doctor era because nobody thought they had to worry about the show going through another 8 regenerations.  Now we're here decades later and Moffat has decided to speed up the process.  By adding "True 9," or the "John Hurt Doctor," every Doctor number since 9 has to be bumped up by one.  Eccleston was truly the 10th Doctor, Tennant the 11th, Smith the 12th, and the new Doctor who will take over for Smith in December...will technically be the 13th, and final, Doctor!  That means that Steven Moffat will most likely be the person to decide how the 13th Doctor problem is to be resolved.  Moffat is going to decide how to pull off the impossible regeneration.

So why do I call this the Thirteen Doctors Problem?  The first reason is that it's a narrative problem.  We have no doubt that this show is going to keep going, so it's a narrative hurdle we know that they have to overcome before the show moves forward.  But my biggest concern is whether or not they're even going to bother addressing it.  To use Davies's solution--to take Route 507, if you will--would be insulting to the fan base.

We know the lore better than you do.  Don't try to change it without really thinking about it and researching it and coming up with a solution that doesn't insult our intelligence.  So my fear that Moffat is going to listen to Davies and just ignore the issue is the main "problem" to which I refer.

Someone at Comic Con mentioned to me his theory:  that, in "Let's Kill Hitler," when River saved the Doctor with her regeneration energy, it was said she used up the rest of her regenerations to save him, so maybe she gave him her remaining regenerations.  We only know for sure that she had regenerated at least 2 times before that.  It's unlikely that she regenerated any more than two times (but it's not impossible).  Thus, she would give him probably 9 more regenerations, and keep us from having to deal with this problem again for another few decades.  Interesting idea.

Do Gallifreyan sex-ed teachers teach you that sex can lead to things like babies, STDs, or losing 9 of your lives?

Personally, I think the Cartmel Masterplan gets us easily out of the problem.  The Doctor is a god, so how can he die?  I do believe in the Cartmel Masterplan, as you know if you've been reading me for a while.  But I don't think anybody will--or necessarily should--state explicitly on the show that the Cartmel Masterplan is canon.

I'm going to do something I don't do often and tell you what I would do if I was the head writer of Doctor Who (and, damn, do I wish I was):  The Doctor is injured one last time.  As he starts to become weaker, he starts to say his goodbyes to those around him, thinking the true end has finally come.  Suddenly, he regenerates, and the 13th Doctor appears and says "That's not possible!"  Then I'd wait for a while to explain it, if I bothered to explain it at all.  Nobody explained what regeneration even was until the 3rd time it happened.  Maybe I'd just let the mystery of why the Doctor can still regenerate hang around for a while for someone far down the line from me to solve.  I think that adding some of that mystery back to the show would be a lot of fun.

Also, as we get closer to the "final" regeneration, it's important to ask:  Will the Doctor start to become more afraid of his death since he thinks the last one is coming soon?  Being in your final regeneration must be pretty terrifying for a Time Lord.  Will he start to become more cautious?  Or will he become even more reckless, hoping to squeeze as much as he can out of the last of his lives?  If I know Moffat's writing, I think the latter is more likely.

I'm really glad that Davies is not in the driver's seat right now, but it's not entirely clear where Steven Moffat stands on this issue.  So let this be my plea to Moffat:  When the time comes for the "12th" Doctor to regenerate, address the Thirteen Doctors Problem.  I don't give a single shit how you do it, as long as it's something that does not insult our intelligence (like Route 507).  Just address it.  Somehow.

Oh, and also, make Richard Ayoade the 12th Doctor!

Is The Answer in the Question?: A Further Rundown of The Eleventh Prophesy

The Universe is cracked.  The Pandorica will open.  Silence will fall when the question is asked.  The first question. The oldest question in the universe. Hidden in plain sight.  On the fields of Trenzalore, at the fall of the Eleventh, when no living creature can speak falsely, or fail to answer, a question will be asked. A question that must never, ever be answered.  "Doctor who?"

Above is what I'm going to start calling The Eleventh Prophesy.  It is a combination of three interconnected prophesies given to the Doctor in the course of the three seasons, all of them copied verbatim, their only changes that were made were made to fit them together into one coherent paragraph.  The words have not been rearranged in a way that might cover up a second meaning that Moffat hid in the words.  The first comes from Prisoner Zero, the second from the Teselecta, the third from Dorium.  If you put them together, you kind of get one full prophesy about the entirety of the Eleventh Doctor era.  An entire religion was created with the sole mission of preventing the fulfillment of this prophesy.  Essentially, every single episode of the Eleventh Doctor era, from "The Eleventh Hour" to "The Name of the Doctor" is held together with this one, strong, overarching prophesy.

So let's start taking another look at that prophesy.  Because I thought it had come to a terribly unsatisfying conclusion in "The Name of the Doctor."  But it occurred to me that I might have something wrong.  Maybe the prophesy's fulfillment just hasn't ended yet.  What if we're not done yet?

My biggest problem with "The Name of the Doctor" was that it failed to fulfill The Eleventh Prophesy.  On the fields of Trenzalore, the Doctor was asked the question that must never be answered.  But, the prophesy said that "no living creature could speak falsely, or fail to answer."  As a matter of fact, the Doctor distinctly failed to answer.  I had a problem with that, because I took it from the prophesy that it meant that the fields of Trenzalore were a place that acted like truth serum and forced any person there to answer any question posed to them truthfully.  Clearly, this didn't happen in "The Name of the Doctor."

But there's one thing that can't be overlooked:  "the fall of the Eleventh."  The Doctor did not really "fall" in any way in "The Name of the Doctor."  He was attacked in every part of his timeline, but Clara saved him.  So it's hard to believe that the events in "The Name of the Doctor" were "the fall of the Eleventh."  But I think I was expecting this episode to be the fulfillment of the prophesy so badly that it ruined my enjoyment of it when it turned out not to be what I thought it was.

It became clear at the end of the episode that the title "The Name of the Doctor" was a mislead.  Moffat wanted us to think that we'd learn the Doctor's name in this episode, as that was assumed to be his greatest secret.  Instead, his greatest secret was True 9, who he said didn't deserve "the name of The Doctor."  Essentially, this explains the title of the episode, and Moffat's promise that the Doctor's greatest secret will be revealed, in a way that has absolutely nothing to do with what we thought he meant when he named and teased the episode.  I was pissed because I thought that this meant that he had chosen to just throw out entire sentences of the prophesy and pretend they weren't even there to begin with.  But now I've realized:  just because this was a mislead from Moffat doesn't mean that he's not going to do what we were expecting.  It just means it didn't happen in this episode.

Okay, hopefully I'm still making myself clear.  This is the simple of it:  We all thought that "The Name of the Doctor" was going to be the fulfillment of the prophesy.  It failed to fulfill the prophesy.  But that doesn't mean the prophesy won't be fulfilled.

Credit where credit is due, it was my friend Dawn Gabriel who helped me realize something I hadn't thought of:  just because the Doctor went to Trenzalore in "The Name of the Doctor," doesn't mean he can't go back.  It's possible that this planet does have such "truth serum" properties, but only at certain times of the day, or the week, or the year, or every few millenia.  The prophesy does not say "where no living creature could speak falsely, or fail to answer."  It says "when."  The situation in which no living creature can speak falsely or fail to answer might not simply happen in a place, it might happen only at a particular time, most likely a particular time in a specific place.  That time has not come yet.

"The Fall of the Eleventh" is obviously meant to be the Eleventh Doctor's regeneration into the Twelfth.  This could be Moffat lying or misleading us, but remember that sometimes, when we think Moffat's being too obvious, it's because he actually is being obvious.  The best example was "The Impossible Astronaut" where many people guessed River was the astronaut, and many of us said "No, she can't be, because that's what Moffat wanted us to think."  I try to remember that now.  It's possible that, when he says "The Fall of the Eleventh," it really is the "Fall" of the Eleventh.

With Matt Smith's announcement that he's leaving after the Christmas special, it all makes sense now.  There are only 2 more episodes of the Eleventh Doctor era.  One will be the 50th Anniversary special.  We know that that will involve the Tenth and Eleventh Doctors teaming up to fight the Zygons and that somehow True 9 will become involved.  The Christmas Special will be Matt's farewell.  At the end of the Christmas special, the Doctor will probably face the moment on the fields of Trenzalore when he is asked the question and cannot fail to answer.  He will then somehow be rescued from having to say it aloud, but will then regenerate, possibly due to the effect of the answer itself, or from what he has to do to be able to keep from answering.  It's also fairly likely that there is a strong arc from "The Name of the Doctor" through both the 50th Anniversary special and The Christmas Special that will slowly bring us to the Fall of the Eleventh.

What I find fantastic about this is that, if I'm correct, then Moffat has engineered one entire story arc that covers the exact lifespan of one whole Doctor.  One whole Doctor played out one long plot that pretty much made up his entire era.  Season arcs have been tried before, but never has there been an arc that literally ran from a single Doctor's first to last episodes; from regeneration to regeneration.  The slow march towards the Eleventh Doctor's farewell literally started on the first day of the Doctor's life when he first encountered the cracks that were made (presumably) by The Silence to kill him, and heard the first third of the prophesy.  That is a huge and amazing accomplishment, with the one arc being separated into three, equally fascinating sub-arcs, each of which took up one season.  Everything has interconnected perfectly, from the Doctor meeting Amy, to Amy's daughter turning out to be created by The Silence, an Order of the Question.  It wove in and out of the story so much that we almost forgot it was there sometimes, or thought it was about to resolve itself.  And every time we learned that there was at least one more corner we had to go around to finally get to it.

This would mean that True 9 isn't the end of the story, although it's possible that the 50th Anniversary special is so tied in to the prophesy and the overarching plot of the Eleventh Doctor era that Moffat actually thought up the plot for this special before writing "The Eleventh Hour."  Somehow, I think True 9 is the first to last surprise Moffat has in store for us.  Will the last one wow us even more than True 9 did?

It's possible that my faith in Moffat is misplaced and he'll just come up with something that doesn't satisfy the prophesy at all.  But I take back some (not all) of my comments about "The Name of the Doctor" very tentatively, and will reaffirm my complaints if the later specials fail to fulfill the prophesy properly.  Perhaps "The Name of the Doctor" was actually only part 1 of a 3 part answer to the questions we've been asking since 2010.

Or perhaps Moffat just gave up on the prophesy and doesn't care anymore.

Have You Tried Turning it Off and On Again?: I Restart the Richard Ayoade for 12th Doctor Campaign

"I came here to drink milk and kick ass. And I've just finished my milk."

Sign the Most Important Petition You'll Ever Sign (That Has to do with Doctor Who)!

So, my original reason for halting my Richard Ayoade for 12th Doctor campaign was that Wil Wheton claimed to have known who the Doctor was for several week before Matt Smith announced his retirement.  Then Steven Moffat came out and said that the search had just begun.  Who is more likely to be lying?  Moffat or Wheaton?  Honestly, it's a coin flip on that one.  So I thought I might as well give it one more shot, just in case there's still a chance of the best choice for the Doctor being cast for the role.

My first exposure to Richard Ayoade was when Jackie, a member of my PhD cohort, introduced me to The I.T. Crowd one night after a really rough day of classes.  What I got to watch was one of the funniest, nerdiest shows in British television history.  And the entire thing was carried by one brilliantly comic actor who played such a brilliant nerd that he put Steve Urkel to shame.

I later came to love Ayoade in pretty much everything else he did.  He kind of works with a very specific crowd of actors and comedians, most of them in some way associated with the brilliant comedy duo, The Mighty Boosh.  Ayoade was actually a pretty main character in the Boosh's radio show, but when they got their own TV show, he was pretty busy with The I.T. Crowd.  Still, the two shows had a little crossover, with half of the Boosh (Noel Fielding) having a recurring role on The I.T. Crowd, Matt Berry appearing prominently in both shows, and Ayoade having a small but hilarious recurring role as the shaman Saboo.

Ayoade has done tons of other things, such as his short but hilarious cameo in The Bunny and The Bull, directing an Arctic Monkey's concert video, and three different films that he wrote himself.

I could sing Ayoade's praises for hours, but I thought I'd try to talk you into signing my petition by showing you some of the best of Ayoade.

First, The I.T. Crowd:

And now, The Mighty Boosh, as a true Doctor must know about the crunch:

And finally, the trailer for his own movie that he wrote and directed, Submarine (which, admittedly, I've yet to see):

What more evidence do you need?  Sign the petition today.  If a Facebook group can get Betty White to host SNL, I can make Richard Ayoade the motherflippin' Doctor.

And he would probably keep all of the swooning Doctor Who fangirls, too!

YOLTT (You Only Live Thirteen Times)

So, I did an article for Network Awesome's Doctor Who week.  Network Awesome is a great blog that I've done a few articles for because I met one of their editors, Ben Gray, through poetry.  The article is called YOLTT (You Only Live Thirteen Times): Regeneration in Doctor Who.  I discuss the overall concept of regeneration in the show, and what it means for the upcoming 12th Doctor.
Check it out, as well as the rest of the site.  The site is a great place to check out some really old, obscure television.

All I Know Is That I Don't Know Nothing: An Update On the Search for the 12th Doctor

Little known fact:  Socrates ghost wrote ska-punk songs in the early 90's.

 

So, where have I been with the blog?  Mostly busy.  I've been working on a guest blog for Network Awesome for their Doctor Who week (I'll be sure to let you know when that's up).  In the mean time, the rumors are flying around about who the 12th Doctor is going to be.  Why am I not digging into every single rumor and speculating on them?  This is, after all, an "overanalyzing" blog, isn't it?

The truth is, I don't believe any of the rumors.  You've got Wil Wheaton saying he's known who it's going to be for weeks, while Moffat is saying he's barely started looking.  You've got everyone from Helen Mirren to Stephen Fry being asked if they've been offered the role, and all of them are saying no.  I don't have the time or the mental energy to look into every rumor and dissect it before it's debunked.

So let me state one thing outright here:  None of you know anything.  Nobody.  All we have is a bunch of hyped up Whovians making wild speculation on the Internet.  At least I called my Richard Ayoade campaign what it was:  just a campaign.  Not a prediction.  Not something I have from inside information.  It's what I want to see happen.  That's all that anybody else is doing:  telling you what they want to see happen.  They just don't have the decency to call it wishful thinking.  They have to pretend they have something to back it up with.

When David Tennant stepped down, a million and one names were thrown around before Steven Moffat said "Hey, here's a small child I hired to play the role who you've never heard of before!"  Nobody guessed Matt Smith.  Nobody knew who the fuck he was.  Steven Moffat might as well have hired the guy who shined his shoes once at a train station.  There's a small group of people who have any idea who the next Doctor is going to be, and the one with the most say in that decision is a funny little Scottish man who likes to be secretive.  Skybet is basing their odds on nothing but pure speculation.  If they had a bet for "Nobody who's been mentioned yet," I'd put my life savings down on it.

I've considered restarting my Richard Ayoade for 12th Doctor campaign.  While I halted it because of Wil Wheaton's announcement that he knew who the 12th Doctor was going to be, Moffat now says that he's barely begun searching.  Nobody believes him (because of Rule 1), but when did Wil Wheaton become the honest little Boy Scout?  Wheaton has the ego of a Sontaran and I don't doubt for a second that he'd make shit up just because people aren't paying attention to him for five minutes.

"The screen still isn't big enough.  Everyone must be forced look at me!"

So, shut down the rumor mill already!  The only thing we know right now is that there's going to be a 12th Doctor.  You won't have a clue who it is until they announce him.  And when they do, it'll be nobody you had guessed.

Daleks are Sexy: A Report from the Denver Comic Con and How I Met My First Doctor

The glare fucked up my sign.  It's supposed to say "The Horror of Fan Blog loves Colin Baker (Whether you like it or not)."

It's been a busy week.  I know it doesn't seem that way since I posted a blog on almost every single day for the past 2 weeks, but most of those were written in advance and put on a timer to post when I was at work.  My job has become wicked busy, and I'm working 50-60 hour weeks.  But it's good money, lots of overtime, good tips, and I spend most of the time riding around in a dump truck.  So it took me a week to finish my write up of my experience at the Denver Comic Con last week.  I wanted to go into some detail of the non-Doctor Who related things I did there, too, but I feel like this post is long enough as it is.

I went to the Denver Comic Con primarily to see Colin Baker.  What I didn't expect was the plethora of incredibly hot girls in nerd costumes, including several sexy Daleks.  I have a new bucket list goal to sleep with a girl in a sexy Dalek costume.

This is not from Denver Comic Con, but rather a picture I found on a Google Image search.  However, this isn't far off from the really sexy Dalek outfits I saw.

By the end of the day, I felt nerded out, like I felt like I couldn't do a single thing nerdy for about a week.  I love being a nerd and I loved being around my fellow nerds.  I thought I was going to hyperventilate from joy.  But after a few hours, you hit a point where you see the obese guy with long hair and the black jean shorts, sneakers, and some sort of black Star Wars shirt (because black on black looks so good together) with some sort of slogan on it that he thinks is funny like "May I Force One In You" (Yes, I've actually seen that) and he's with his girlfriend who is also obese and is wearing too much make-up and a leather corset and she probably does Renaissance Fairs and you think to yourself "Please tell me I don't look like them to other people."  But, I've got just enough nerd in me to write about what happened.

I was one of the more half-assed cosplayers there, and only one of about a million 11th Doctors.  Doctor Who cosplayers were all 4th, 10th, and 11th Doctors, with one solitary 5th Doctor.  That's 7 Doctors being completely unrepresented, including the one who was there.  Although, admittedly, Colin Baker said, flat out, he didn't blame people for not wearing his costume because it's hideous and hard to do.  He said he envies Christopher Eccleston, because Eccleston got the costume that Baker had asked to be able to wear.  Even though he's one of my least favorites, I think next year I'm going to go as the 9th Doctor.  I'll put a sign around my neck that says "I know you can't tell, but I'm supposed to be the 9th Doctor."

Some teenage girls actually stopped me to ask me to take pictures with them, because they were happy that I thought to wear the cowboy hat with my 11th Doctor outfit instead of a fez.  I gave them my email to send me the pictures, but they never seem to have arrived.  Perhaps they thought I was creepy being a 29 year old man giving my email to teenage girls, but I swear I just wanted the pictures.

My favorite Doctor Who related costumes (other than Doctors) were:
-Complete Amy Pond kiss-a-gram outfit, that was impeccably made
-Two different Weeping Angels.  Not the most well done outfits (how could you do a realistic Weeping Angel and still see?), but a creative choice
-The sexy Daleks, obviously.
-Multiple girls in sexy TARDIS dresses, one with "Bad Wolf" written on her ass in chalk.
-A girl dressed as The Empty Child who, as I walked by, put her gas mask back on and said "Are you my mummy?"

The most hilariously irrelevant costumes at the Comic Con:

-Mr. T from The A-Team
-Ronald McDonald
-Oscar the Grouch
-The Mask (from the Jim Carrey movie The Mask)
-Belle from Beauty and the Beast
-The Mad Hatter (specifically from the stupid Tim Burton version of Alice in Wonderland)
-Natalie Portman in Black Swan
-Gumby
-A narwhal

Colin Baker was an interesting man to talk to.  I asked him a question, and avoided the obvious ones that I knew someone was going to ask because I knew I only got one question.  I knew plenty of people would ask him his opinion about the new series, as there were like 50 girls in the room who were just Tennant fangirls who came because they heard this guy was a Doctor back before they were born.  He was complementary about most of the new series and, even though he was very complementary about David Tennant, he spent a lot of time making fun of David Tennant for being so good looking and young.  He was especially complementary about Matt Smith, saying that, at first, he was afraid because they had "cast another child," but found that, although his body is young, Matt Smith had the mind of a 900 year old man.  His criticisms of the new series included the fact that they are only casting young Doctors (not that he was anything but nice about the actors themselves, just the fact that none of them are older), the revoking of Jonathan Nathan-Turner's old "No Hanky-Panky in the TARDIS" rule (he said he didn't think the Doctor and his companion should even notice that they are of different genders), John Simm's Master, and the fact that the Doctor never suggested keeping the Weeping Angels away by winking with alternating eyes.  Despite the quotations, the following is a paraphrase:  "If he had been a proper Doctor, he would have known how to keep the Angels away.  (Audience laughs)  That's not an insult.  Did I regenerate?  No!  I wasn't there.  So I never regenerated.  That means the 6th Doctor is still the Doctor and any others after him are just impostors."

A lot of people wanted to ask him about his opinion regarding the introduction of the John Hurt Doctor.  Even after he said that he had not seen the most recent season, some people, who either didn't hear him or walked in late, still tried to ask him about the John Hurt Doctor.  I got people to start yelling "Spoilers!" when this happened.  But I think he may have figured out what's happened, and that's a shame.  But he's a Doctor, and the introduction of a new Doctor is an unbelievably important change to his character, and he was pretty much the only person in the room and didn't know about it.

I showed up late to take a picture with him, but he was kind enough to set up a late picture with me.  Unfortunately, this meant that I had to wait near his booth until he was available, and caused me to miss out on William Shatner.  He was a little cold.  When I asked him if he would take a picture with my sign, he said "It's your photograph."  I was thrilled, so I tried to show him the sign, and he simply repeated "It's your photograph."  I could tell I had annoyed him a bit, but it might be because I fucked up and missed the photo taking times.  I was also stammering like a mad idiot because I was so happy about meeting a Doctor.

The other Doctor Who "celebrity" there was Daphne Ashbrook, who played the one and only televised companion to the 8th Doctor, Grace Holloway.  This woman pissed me off to no end.  Now, understand, she was on screen in this series for only 90 minutes in the 1996 Doctor Who made-for-TV movie.  So, really, she's not much of a get for this convention.  I could understand if this woman was only involved in one movie, but later fell in love with the series and wanted to talk with the fans about how proud she was of her one small achievement in this franchise.  Sadly, that was not the case.  This was a woman who was in the franchise for 90 minutes almost 20 years ago and does not care about Doctor Who.  She talked about recently starting to watch the Classic Series episodes.  This seems like basic character research work for someone before they start playing a companion.  She didn't know the franchise very well.  And this is the moment where she really lost me:  She said that she only realized, the day before, at that very same convention, sitting in on another panel, that The Master was from the same planet as The Doctor.



I.  Was.  Stunned.

Hey, Daphne, there was exactly one villain in your Doctor Who movie.  How did you miss a key plot point in your own movie?  Why would you have acted in a movie that you didn't fully understand the plot of?  Why wouldn't you ask as many questions as possible to figure out what you're getting yourself into.

And, while we're at it, why did you come to a convention for a franchise you clearly care so little about?  Oh, wait, I think I know what it is.  You're a 2-bit hack actress who couldn't act her way out of a shoebox to get into a shoe commercial.  But it turns out that science-fiction conventions are rife with fans so fucking in love with this wonderful franchise that, in their love of that franchise--crossed with a number of cases of unfortunately strong OCD--they would pay for an autograph from anyone who has ever touched anything Doctor Who, right down to the key grip on the 7th episode of K-9.  So you went to a convention, pretended you liked this one movie that you did that you clearly cared very little about, avoid the questions you don't know the answers to by somehow parlaying it into a barely related anecdote about your movie, and charged people $30 a pop to get your autograph and--maybe if they're really off of their rockers--a photograph with you.  Oh, and you put up a picture of yourself from your one episode of Deep Space Nine that you did just in case you reel in some of the equally enthusiastic Star Trek fan.

The fans are good people with a deep passion, not walking ATMs, Daphne.

I refused to be sucked in, and it made me think a little bit about my own fandomness.  There are some things I'm going to be interested in paying money to do just because of the way it's linked to the franchise I love.  I need to remember that, sometimes, these things are not an important part of being a fan.  If I'm ever paying money to buy a perfect replica of the 6th Doctor's blue variant costume from the expanded universe stories simply because I have to have an exact replica of every costume the Doctor ever wore, I want you to smack me in the head with my sonic screwdriver for the love of Christ!  I'm going to buy a lot of Doctor Who merchandise in my lifetime.  Perhaps more than some people would deem normal.  They're going to have to accept that about me.  But I need to realize that there are some limits, and that I don't have to have everything just to have everything.  From now on, when I'm looking into a Doctor Who item I want to purchase, I'm going to ask myself a very important question:  Is this really something I want, or is this Daphne Ashbrook's autograph.

The Fall of the Eleventh: Some Thoughts on Matt Smith's Departure and the Search for the 12th Doctor

Sadly, it seems that my campaign to make Richard Ayoade the next Doctor is in vain, because Wil Wheaton claims to have known who the next Doctor is for weeks.  Perhaps I needed to start my Richard Ayoade campaign a year ago.  That's a shame.  Maybe I can get him in next time.  Unless Wil Wheaton is just the spitting image of his fictional portrayal of himself on The Big Bang Theory--which makes him look like a completely petty douche--then I think he's probably telling the truth.  Unless this falls into Rule 2:  Moffat gets other people to lie for him.  But why Wil Wheaton?  Certainly, Star Trek has always been a sister franchise to Doctor Who, as each started in approximately the same year and each one is about as popular in its own country as the other one is in it's country.  There's a long list of actors that have appeared in both franchises--such as Daphne Ashbrook and John de Lancie--but nobody has been a significantly important part of both franchises.  So why does Wil Wheaton, an American who is mostly known as an ironic, post-modern camp celebrity who has somehow reopened the door to his former popularity with his online presence know who the 12th Doctor is?  Why would he be privvy to this information?

My only guess is that, by coincidence, Wheaton happens to be friends with whoever is cast.  However, I wasn't aware that Wheaton had a lot of friends who are British actors.  When it comes to British actors that Wheaton is close to, there's only one name that pops up as glaringly obvious:  Patrick Stewart.  I put this as an unlikely option, though, but it would be an interesting and bold choice.  Stewart would not play the character with as much whimsy as the last few.  I can't imagine Stewart being whimsical.  Furthermore, he'd have the most epic science-fiction career ever, having played The Doctor, a Star Trek captain, and Professor Xavier.  He'd go down as the greatest science-fiction icon in history.  Still, I don't like this option.  The change from Matt Smith would be too abrupt and I don't think that the fans would follow.

The shirt isn't just a visual joke, it's also a statement about the infinite capacity of Wheaton's ego.

Colin Baker at Comic Con said last week that he really wants the next Doctor to be an older man, or black, or maybe even a woman.  Apparently a "Helen Mirren for Doctor" campaign started in Denver.  However, Moffat recently polled an audience at a comic con and more than half of the audience said that they'd stop watching if there was a female Doctor.  The thing is, we assume these were men who don't want to see a female Doctor, but the last few Doctors have become sex symbols.  Maybe the women don't want a female Doctor, either.  Regardless of my own mixed feelings on the subject, whether or not a female Doctor would be a progressive and positive thing to do is irrelevant:  It's such an unpopular concept that it would likely sink the show.  (Although, I don't doubt for a second that River would carry on her romance with a female Doctor.)

Skybet has started placing odds on who the 12th Doctor will be, allowing people with way too much money to actually bet on it.  If you look at the odds, you'll notice one thing:  they're fucking stupid.  What possible information could there be to predict this?  Sports have Vegas-style odds because you can analyze the strength of the teams and the players and estimate the likeliness of each team winning.  Horses are similar, you can judge them on their past performances.  Even the odds that are put out on the Oscars are based on some inside industry insight.  How can you possibly create odds based on zero clues?  Clues are being kept under very tight raps until the announcement (with the exception being that somehow the news has leaked to Leslie Crusher).  I feel like those that are being given good odds are given those because the odds makers want a certain Doctor to be cast.  It would be like a more underhanded version of my Richard Ayoade campaign.  If I put out that the odds were good that Richard Ayoade would be the Doctor, that might help me get him cast in the role.

Nothing about a website that offers you your first bet for free makes them sound like scam artists or drug dealers.  Nothing at all.

The biggest bullshit about these numbers is this:  Skybet put a fluctuating number on the possibility of David Tennant coming back to take over the role again, floating his odds between 15/1 and 50/1.  50 is a pretty low number in that situation.  If it were me making this list, that first number would have a lot more digits on it.  You could be hit by lightning in a submarine full of gay, black, Jewish rednecks before David Tennant came back to the role of the Doctor.  These people are making these up based on wishful thinking.  If they actually believe that the chance of David Tennant's return to the role is high enough that it might actually happen, then they fail to understand how Doctor Who works.

Of the actors that are being tossed around, there are three that usually fall near the top:  Ben Singer from Law and Order:  UK, Chiwetel Ejiofor who won a Lawrence Olivier award in 2008 for Othello, and Russel Tovey from Being Human.  I know nothing about Singer, but I love Being Human, and Russel Tovey was the main part of that.  The thing is, he's already appeared on Doctor Who twice playing the same role, Alonzo Frame, in "Voyage of the Damned" and "The End of Time (Part 2)."  However, there is precedent in the franchise to suggest that Time Lords do have (at least limited) control over how they're going to look when they regenerate, and some of them, such as Romana or, depending on how you interpret it, the 6th Doctor may have intentionally based his new image on Commander Maxil as that was Colin Baker's role before he became a Doctor.  Even River in "Let's Kill Hitler" said, as she regenerated from Mels into River, that she was "trying to focus on a dress size," but it seems mostly random.  You might even suggest that Time Ladies can do it and Time Lords can't

The problem is, Tovey pretty much always plays excruciatingly shy characters.  I can't imagine Tovey playing such an extroverted character as the Doctor.  A shy Doctor is an oxymoron.  I can't even imagine it.  And I simply can't imagine Tovey as an extrovert.

A real Doctor wouldn't need to hide anything.

I don't know much about Eijofor, other than that he was in Dirty Pretty Things, a movie that I watched for no other reason than the fact that it was Audrey Tautou's first English speaking movie (because I was in Emerson film school, and everyone on campus was all about Amelie that year).  I've been told he was also in Serenity, the film that wrapped up the plot of Joss Whedon's science-fiction franchise, Firefly.  While I've certainly seen Serenity (I am a Buffy nerd, too, after all), it's not a movie that I've watched more than once.  Personally, when it comes to post-Angel Whedon, I lean more towards Dollhouse than Firefly.

Even though I don't know much about him, Eijofor is my first choice of the names being batted around, simply because I think it is long past time for the Doctor to stop being a white man.  Of course I would prefer Ayoade, but I'd be happy to see a black Doctor.  I just hope that the first black Doctor is brilliant.  I don't want it to be a poor performance that can be used as some ridiculous excuse for all the future Doctors to be white.  Of all the dumb excuses I've heard as to why the Doctor shouldn't be a woman, one was someone citing the way a female captain screwed up the Star Trek franchise.  Which is bullshit because Kate Mulgrew should be considered a national treasure.

Yet, there's one important thing to remember:  When David Tennant stepped down, the Internet was filled with people speculating over who the next Doctor would be.  And wouldn't you know it, not only did they pull out an actor nobody had been speculating about, they pulled out someone nobody had ever heard of.  Apart from a supporting role on a show called Party Animals, Smith was primarily a stage actor when he was cast as the Doctor.  Neil Gaiman recently said that he thought the Doctor should be played by an unknown actor because he wanted the Doctor to be the Doctor and didn't want to think of all the famous work that this actor had done instead of thinking of him as the Doctor.  I totally understand that.  Most Doctors started as character actors, really.  It's actually a subset of the acting community that is uniquely suited to play the role of the Doctor.  And the Doctor is pretty much the only role that can give these actors such a high level of notoriety.

So what I'm saying is that, while I love the speculation, we have to acknowledge that all of our guesses are probably wrong.  I wonder how much money Skybet makes if nobody on their list is chosen?  Hmm...sounds suspicious to me.


And, with the introduction of the John Hurt Doctor--which technically makes Matt Smith the 12th Doctor, not the 11th--and the announcement that Matt Smith is leaving at the Christmas special, that means that the Doctor is actually going to have his final regeneration this Christmas.  Of course, there's going to be more regenerations in the future, I just hope there's an explanation why the Doctor gets more regenerations.

But my point is that, if this is his last natural regeneration...where is the Valeyard?

The Order of Rassilon #1: Matt Smith, The Ancient Amateur

Hair, nose, chin.  I guess that everything on Matt is abnormally large...

When I started writing this list about 10 days ago, I had no idea that, when I got to number 1 on the list, that very Doctor would have already announced his retirement, leaving me to write an obituary for my favorite Doctor in the franchise.  When I first saw a picture of Matt Smith, I thought "This is going to be the ugliest Doctor of all time."  I was very wrong about that, as his pure charm and attractiveness shine through when he's moving around.  Matt Smith's Doctor was a truly excitable child with the wisdom of an ancient soul.  Something old, something new...

If you want to talk about big shoes to fill, Smith had his work cut out for him just as much as Peter Davison did, if not moreso.  Smith not only had to replace the most popular Doctor of his time, he had to replace Doctor Who's first real male sex icon, a man whose screaming fangirls could contend with the Beatles' concert at Shea Stadium.  But Steven Moffat said that, while he expected it to take about a season and a half for the audience to accept Matt Smith, he really felt that everyone fell in love with him the second he popped out of that TARDIS and said "Hello, I'm the Doctor."  His first landing on the ground showed his new trademark Doctor stance. The way that Matt Smith moves is simply unique.  The way he stands.  The way he moves his hands.  The way he jerks around exaggeratedly with his head flopping all around.  It just gives this lovably manic quality to him that is both endearing and exciting at the same time.

"My anger at the Daleks has turned me into a ferret!"

Where Tennant's Doctor was cool as a cucumber, Smith's was a little different.  He had an unshakable confidence when staring down a Dalek battle fleet, but fell into a bumbling mess when trying to talk to women.  His first kiss with River is hilariously awkward.  I feel like that's the appeal of the Eleventh Doctor to really awkward nerds:  It gives us this hope that, even though we're terrified of everyday social situations, if the chips were really down, we could be just as brave as the Eleventh Doctor.  All the Doctors have shown a striking confidence in themselves to be a primary trait (the Second Doctor appeared to be very terrified and/or stressed, but still knew that he was strong enough to handle the situation), but none have combined it with awkwardness the way Matt Smith did.  That's the brilliance of his performance:  he's awkward and confident, childish and ancient, silly and serious, handsome and gawky, sometimes all at the same time.

Smith was lucky, as well, as he was surrounded with some truly amazing people.  Karen Gillan and Arthur Darvill were the first multi-companion pair since the 5th Doctor's outings with Tegan and Turlough, which was also the last time we saw a full-time male companion.  The "no hanky-panky in the TARDIS" rule that had been instituted in the classic series by Jonathan-Nathan Turner was violated once or twice with Amy, but for the most part hers was a love story that was going on inside the TARDIS, with the Doctor merely as a chaperone.  Traditionally, companions left the Doctor when it was time for them to get married.  Jo Grant, Leela, Peri, and even the Doctor's granddaughter, Susan, all left the Doctor because they fell in love a man they met during their adventure with the Doctor.  The Amy and Rory storyline taught us that that wasn't a coincidence.  The Doctor doesn't want to become too attached to someone.  "He hates endings" River tells us.  The Doctor ducked out on his companions that wanted to get married because he didn't want to see them grow old and die, or become too involved in their new life to stay with them.  Remember the end of the second Whinnie the Pooh book where Pooh just turned back into a stuffed animal because Christopher Robbin grew out of him?  The Doctor didn't want to turn back into the little, stuffed, raggedy Doctor puppet.  He got out first.

Amy was the first and only companion to convince him to stick around and bring her husband with her, allowing their relationship to grow and develop over a decade of their lives (and 300 years of the Doctor's).  It went into a deeper Doctor/Companion relationship than ever before, and not in a simple romance way like the Tenth Doctor/Rose relationship.  Colin Baker at Denver Comic Con last weekend said that he thought the Doctor and his companion should not even notice that they are of different genders, and that it should be a strictly paternal relationship.  The Doctor's relationship with Amy, despite her early on misinterpreting it as sexual, was actually extremely paternal.  Rory was, in some strange ways, a son-in-law to the Doctor, which made them both friends and, in some cases, rivals.

The Eleventh Doctor's awkwardness with women made you wonder how the First Doctor could possibly have had a granddaughter.  Thus, it only makes sense that the woman to win his heart would have to be someone assertive enough to be the pursuer.  Thankfully, Moffat had just such a character lying around ready to be used from an earlier episode he wrote in the David Tennant era:  the aggressive, and sexually aggressive, River Song, played brilliantly by Alex Kingston.  Moffat claims to have not had a plan for River when he wrote "Silence in the Library" (I'm not sure if I believe him), but it seems funny that a character who was created before the Eleventh Doctor had been cast actually turned out to be a better match for the Eleventh Doctor than for the Doctor she originally appeared with.  River became an important part of the Eleventh Doctor era.  The entire era is defined by the characters of Amy, Rory, and River.  Jenny, Vastra, Strax, and Clara, who are the primary supporting characters at the moment, really seem to be more of an entourage that's been made in preparation for the 12th Doctor.  The Pond family was the real focus of the entire effort:  Amy (mother), Rory (father), River (daughter), Doctor (son-in-law).  Yet, while these may have been the biological and legal labels for how they relate to each other, in a brilliant irony, the way they act towards each other completely flips these relationships around.  The daughter and the son-in-law end up actually being the experts, becoming parent figures for their own parents/in-laws.

This should be hanging over the fireplace in the TARDIS.

Alex Kingston and Matt Smith were a match made in heaven.  She was sexy and fiercely independent.  He was horrified of her sexually, and she was almost his equal intellectually.  While they may have disagreed about the neccesity of violence in battling evil, the Doctor always respected River's ability to get things done.  Moffat once said that he had an endgame planned for Amy, Rory, AND River.  I can't imagine how there could be an endgame for River, as her first appearance was her death.  It would be a tough way to write her out of the show at this point.  Hopefully, she'll stick around to annoy the 12th Doctor.

Most importantly, Matt Smith was backed up by the greatest writer in Doctor Who history:  Steven Moffat.  Those people who say that Moffat ruined Doctor Who and want Russel T. Davies back must be the kind of people who would wait in line for an opening night screening of Fast and Furious 6 and call The Godfather boring.  Moffat's writing is light years ahead of even the best of Davies's episodes.  He created fascinating stories that didn't just lean back on the classic villains for excitement.  With the exception of the Great Intelligence, most of the season-arcs were focused more on a new villain that Moffat invented, most notably The Silence.  Not seen until "The Impossible Astronaut," The Silence are implied to have also been secretly involved in the explosion of the TARDIS, meaning that they were the primary villain of the entire era, despite appearing in only 3 episodes.  In all of Moffat's season finales, classic series villains and races show up, but they are always side characters, added for flavor, who serve as extra menaces in an episode about something else.  A Dalek attacks the Doctor in a library, but while trying to repair the universe from a Silence plot.  Another Dalek gives the Doctor the information about trying to find the Silence.  A Silurian and a Sontaran appear in "The Name of the Doctor" but, unlike the classic series, they are exclusively protagonists of the stories.  Moffat took his own original, imaginative stories and sprinkled them with a little bit of familiar Doctor Who flavor by placing these iconic characters in the background.  It's distinctly Doctor Who, and distinctly Moffat.

Moffat's most unique talent is actually steeped in a Freudian concept called "the uncanny."*  While this isn't something Moffat has ever cited as an inspiration for his writing, the definition of "uncanny" sounds strikingly Moffatian:  "The uncanny is a Freudian concept of an instance where something can be familiar, yet foreign at the same time, resulting in a feeling of it being uncomfortably strange or uncomfortably familiar" (from the Wikipedia page).  Moffat says he does just that:  he tries to make something strikingly unfamiliar, grotesque, and horrifying out of something that is commonplace and familiar.  He's done this with gas masks, clockwork toys, statues, dust in sunbeams, "the smilers," whispers in the darkness, and, most recently, wi-fi.

"Are you my mummy?"

The truly terrifying concepts behind Moffat's best episodes are emphasized perfectly by Matt Smith, whose Doctor is so optimistic and brave that the darkest moments of the Eleventh Doctor's era become less scary when you realize exactly who is standing in the way of these monsters:  A man who, unarmed, can taunt an entire fleet of ships, telling them to come and get him.  Matt Smith's Doctor is the man who stands firmly in the way of everything terrifying in the Universe.  He is what monsters have nightmares about.

Now, as he departs, he will leave behind a legacy of being in the shadow of what many will continue to call the greatest Doctor in the new series, or possibly in the whole franchise.  Few will give Smith the credit he deserves for being his own, unique, and brilliant version of this 50 year old character.

The age of the David Tennant vs. Tom Baker debate is over.  Long live the age of the Matt Smith vs. David Tennant debate!

It's a tie, guys!  You're both pretty!

*I owe this concept of linking Moffat to "the uncanny" to someone I saw at the Popular Culture Association conference.  I don't remember her name, but can look it up upon request.