Tuesday, April 6, 2010

New Doctor. New TARDIS. New Sonic Screwdriver. Same fun!

DO NOT READ THIS IF YOU HAVE YET TO SEE THE EPISODE, BUT INTEND TO. IT'S VERY SPOILERIFIC!

Like many Doctor Who fans, I was initially apprehensive about David Tennant's replacement as the Doctor, Matt Smith. We had been given three absolutely fantastic (to steal the Ninth Doctor's favorite word) seasons with Tennant, followed by a chain of specials ending with the two part "The End of Time", which for me redefined "Epic Doctor Who", with Timothy Dalton guest starring as Rassilon and the return of the Master. How could any Doctor, especially an extremely young one wearing a very questionable outfit, compare with someone as deeply loved in the fandom as David Tennant?

Of course, in the months between "The End of Time" and "The Eleventh Hour", there was no shortage of leaked information, and being as deep of a fan as I am, I followed it all and ate it up like a madman. And while I was very much entranced by the lovely new red-headed companion, Amy Pond (played by Karen Gillan), and absolutely loving the new designs for both the TARDIS and the Sonic Screwdriver, I still had my doubts about Matt Smith. Thankfully, as the premiere day drew closer, more and more clips of Matt as the Doctor surfaced, and I genuinely found myself liking what I saw. I especially enjoyed the clip from the upcoming "Vampires in Venice", with the Doctor playfully quipping with five lovely vampire women. (*Doctor looks back and forth between the vampires and a mirror* "How are you doing that? I...am...LOVING IT. You're like Houdini, only five slightly scary girls.")

Finally, the episode premiered in England on Saturday night (afternoon here in the US), and by that night I had the episode in my possession. But, I was waiting to watch it as I was intending on screening it for friends of mine when I returned to school after my short Easter weekend at home. Sunday night I sat down with my friends and we started the episode...and we were quite satisfied.

The first time we see the Eleventh Doctor (at least after his first appearance at the end of "The End of Time"), he's hanging out of a barreling, dying TARDIS that's flying through London. After the new opening sequence (which I actually like, though I know some people who aren't exactly happy about it), the TARDIS coincidentally crashes outside of Amelia Pond's house (of course, she later becomes Amy Pond) just as she's praying to Santa for someone to come and fix a huge crack in her wall. What follows is some wonderfully lighthearted fun with Amelia/Amy cooking up various things for the Doctor to try so he can find a food he actually likes ("You're Scottish, fry something."), which gives us a nice introduction to our new Doctor without immediately forcing him into action. Of course he does take action and discovers that the crack Amelia is worried about is actually an opening in the fabric of space and time, through which "Prisoner Zero" has escaped from some sort of prison. But before he can investigate further, the cloister bell rings, signaling impending disaster, and the Doctor rushes off to "jump five minutes into the future to stabilize the TARDIS", and we're treated to the heartbreaking moment of him vanishing and Amelia packing a suitcase and returning to the garden to wait, as the Doctor naturally overshoots.

Flash forward twelve years, and the TARDIS finally reappears, with the Doctor sprinting out and into Amy's house because he claims to have figured things out, only to be hit with a cricket bat. Ouch. Of course, the Doctor doesn't realize upon waking that the police officer who knocked him out was in fact Amelia/Amy, but then again she's not really a cop. It's discovered that Prisoner Zero has been hiding in Amy's house since she was little, and has the power to impersonate people. But then the fun really starts when the Atraxi show up and start announcing that they will incinerate the Earth if Prisoner Zero doesn't surrender himself over every electronic device on Earth, Vogon-style (and if you don't get this last reference, go out and immediately start reading the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series, NOW). What follows is a race to hunt down Prisoner Zero and stop the Atraxi within a window of 20 minutes. Using not much more than a Blackberry Storm and a laptop with a very questionable internet history (because of the terrible loss of the Sonic Screwdriver), the Doctor manages to return the creature to the Atraxi, halting the destruction of Earth. They then fly off.

But does the Doctor leave it at that? No, and this leads to his true complete-and-total-badass-moment of the episode, where he literally calls the Atraxi on the Blackberry and ORDERS them back to Earth, not happy that they were so ready to burn a Level 5 protected planet. He proceeds to steal clothing from hospital lockers in a move we've seen from the Third and Eighth Doctors, and meets the Atraxi on the roof, where he asks if the Earth is a threat to the Atraxi or if humans have broken any Atraxi laws, and then asks "Is the Earth protected?" which causes the holographic sphere being projected by the huge Atraxi eyeball to show a montage of Doctor Who enemies (including some from classic series and many newer ones), to which the Doctor then continues "You have to ask yourself, what happened to them?". This yields a projection of all ten previous Doctors in a beautiful nod to the past, which the Eleventh Doctor steps through before delivering a beautiful line: "Hello, I'm the Doctor. Basically: RUN."

The episode ends with the Doctor running off to perform test flights with the newly regenerated TARDIS, and returns later to find that he has overshot AGAIN, returning two years after the Atraxi's appearance. However, he still convinces Amy to join him, though she tells him that she must be back the next day. We then get a shot of a wedding dress, implying that the next day is Amy's wedding day.

This episode is a wonderful example of what Doctor Who is. It's funny, it's heart-warming, it's heart-wrenching, it's tense. It has it's moments when your heart is tugged on, it has it's moments when you laugh out loud, it has it's moments when you're watching the events unfolding, wondering how it's all going to be fixed in the end, often with a moment where that happens in such a way that you can't help but exclaim "Yes!" while pumping a fist into the air. "The Eleventh Hour" provided so many awesome quotes, and gave us a solid introduction into what kind of Doctor Matt Smith is going to be portraying for at least two series. You can see hints of the Ninth and Tenth Doctors in him, and maybe even some of the earlier Doctors (unfortunately, my experiences with the earlier Doctors are limited so I can't say much for exactly who he's like, but perhaps a touch of the Fourth?). He's manic yet incredibly sharp and intelligent like the Ninth and Tenth, but he doesn't seem nearly as troubled as they did. The Ninth and Tenth were very clearly carrying a huge chip on their shoulders due to the Time War and the Doctor's direct responsibility for the destruction of Gallifrey, but so far we haven't really seen it with the Eleventh. So far he's more light-hearted, which is quite lovely.

So, with my reservations towards Matt Smith mostly demolished, I have to say I'm really looking forward to Series 5. With what I've been hearing about the upcoming "Victory of the Daleks" and the fact that we get a two-parter featuring both River Song AND The Weeping Angels, I think this series is going to be an absolutely fun ride. To quote our new Doctor: "Geronimo!"

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