The Eleventh Doctor: A loving Homage of The Second Doctor

I am a big fan of Matt Smith’s doctor but I think it is important to make it clear that The Eleventh Doctor is very much a homage of an earlier, brilliant doctor. A doctor who slough filmed in monochrome sparkled more than the average twilight vampire. The Doctor I am talking about is Patrick Troughton’s brilliant Second Doctor.

Steven Moffat and Matt Smith have both told the world about their admiration for the Second Doctor with Smith stating that he is his favourite doctor. In the same way that David Tennant’s Tenth Doctor is a modern day homage of the Fifth, I think the Eleventh is even more so of the Second.

So let’s have a look see.

Appearance.

The Second Doctor is well known as The Cosmic Hobo. He wears a tatty coast, braces, a collection of hats, differing coats, baggy trousers and most importantly a bow tie. Look at The Eleventh Doctor and you ill see that his costume is simple a modern version of The Second. He wears a suit jacket, braces, trousers, and a bow tie. The Eleventh Doctor likes hats and coats. In both cases The Doctor has longish black hair. Put it this way; if Matt Smith was not The Eleventh Doctor and they wanted to recast The Second for a special I would say that Smith would fit the bill completely.

Characteristics.

Both the Eleventh and the Second Doctor often deceive people in order to succeed with what they want. They both use their cunning to outwit their enemies.

The Doctor’s best friend.

To people that have only ever watched New Who they would say that The Doctor’s best friend is either Donna or Any Pond. Of late, Pond has very much been made out to be his best friend of all. But to me she never will be. I love Amy but she does not have the relationship that another Scot has with The Doctor and that man is Jamie (The Second Doctor’s companion). Jamie is possibly my favourite companion and Frazier Hines (the man who played Jamie) relationship with Troughton is clear. They gel better than many people would on screen. With Jamie being in every story line of The Second Doctor’s apart from the first he is almost synonymous with The Troughton years as much as Troughton himself. In the same respect it would seem strange to think of The Eleventh Doctor without Amy. Further in both these characters they are feisty, courageous and like to show off their legs.

Romans.

The final episodes of the fifth series of New Who are by far some of my favourite Moffat episodes and once you have watched the amazing Second Doctor’s finale War Games, you can see where much of it has come from. The Romans appearing in a time that was not there is integral to both plots. Although there is not a Rory you can clearly see that a young Moffat was watching War Games with his mind thinking up crazy story lines.

Daleks.

The story Power of the Daleks no longer exists completely.  But one thing is known about the story: the Daleks pretend to be servants. Let’s now look towards Victory of the Daleks (the Eleventh Doctor’s first meeting with his classic foe and in my opinion a highlight of the Moffat era). Just like Power, Victory shows the Daleks being servants for humans. The only difference is that in the Troughton story it was thought that the Daleks were destroyed whereas the Daleks are victorious in the Smith story.

So if you like The Eleventh Doctor I urge you to check out The Second Doctor. He is the far superior version with some brilliant stories.

Setting the Record Straight on Moffat’s Doctor Who

Whenever I talk about Doctor Who of late I get branded as a Steven Moffat hater and a Russell T Davies (RTD) lover. I’m writing this because I want to make the point that I have never thought that RTD was perfect (neither of them are: RTD’s terrible Peter Kay ep and the overuse of the daleks) but that Moffat’s flaws are so big that they need to be discussed. In my opinion a lot of these flaws come from one character: River Song. I do believe that many people who class me as the Moff hater and RTD lover read my tweets and this is the perfect example where 140 characters cannot show your opinions perfectly. So the best way I thought to go through this was by episode by episode.

First of all I’m going all the way back to the gas mask episodes of Season One (The Empty Child and The Doctor Dances). Both written by Moffat and both possibly the best episodes of season one. Further it seems to me that a lot of people that adore Moff argue that he does not have characters like Captain Jack and this is a good thing. Well shock shock, Steven actually wrote our first appearance of the fair captain. Something to think about.

Moffat’s next dabble in the Doctor Who pond (sounds wrong now doesn’t it!) came with The Girl in The Fireplace. Again I loved this episode and was only beaten by the introduction of the Cybermen in season 2. It had me hooked. So looking quite good so far Mr Steven. Well done!

Then he returned for Season 3 with Blink. In many people’s eyes this is the best episode of Doctor Who since its return and we can trace perfectly here that this is the place that Moffat got given the keys to the castle. This episode became the archetype for what Moffat was going to do with the show when he got it. People applauded that it was the first scary episode since the return and for me personally it also seemed to make something else for Moffat: the doctor would become a secondary character to a person that would continually go past him in his timeline. Interesting couple of facts about Blink. Although it is critically seen as the best episode of season 3, it actually did quite poorly in the ratings. Further I liked this episode but I preferred Paul Cornell’s family of blood the week before it. Here we had genuinely creepy villains with the scarecrows and the family: I was never creeped out by the angels.

So all looking good so far don’t you think? Well yes but then the big bo bo arrives in season 4. Moffat was granted 2 episodes based in a library fighting shadows. By now you can see that, like any writer, because he was praised so much for Blink I will keep giving them what they want mentality was created. It was trying to recreate the creep element of the angels and never succeeded. Further to these episodes problems was the introduction of the obnoxious, annoying River Song that even The Tenth Doctor seems to dislike. She reeked of a character that I never wanted to see again. In my opinion the way Moff brought her in was stupid: saying a character would continually cross The Doctor’s timeline when he did not even know whether the fans liked her was an insane choice. At the same time I am aware that RTD has to take some of the criticism here for letting him do it (see RTD made mistakes too!) These two eps were by far the weakest of Moff and The Doctor together so far.

So the news came that RTD was leaving and that Moff was going to take over. As soon as I heard of Smith I was skeptical like everyone (admit it you were) but once I saw the pictures of him in costume I was convinced that he was The Doctor. Through all those agonizing months I preyed that River Song would not be his companion and she wasn’t.  And low and behold I was given by wish with Amy Pond! A fantastic companion.

The beginning of Season 5 and here I am going to go into more detail about this season as he is now head writer. The first ep written by Moff The Eleventh Hour, was amazing. I loved it and actually thought that it was the start of a new great era. Smith was perfect, the direction was amazing: everything worked! Well done Moff. Then came The Beast Below. Again written by Moff and lacked the greatness of The Eleventh Hour. It was still strong and thankfully kept in something that Moff seems to have forgotten now: The Doctor got angry about life and the way people treated it. Again Victory of the Daleks is a brilliant episode and rivals season 1’s Dalek episode as the best since the return of who. Yet again however, the flaws showed: it was as if you could not have a Moff ep without something truly niggling you. The power ranger Daleks looked terrible. All the fear that a Dalek could bring seemed brought down to a marketing tool for toys. George Lucas would be proud! Then came the beginning of the true problems: the return of the angels. It was always going to be difficult to bring them back after they were so successful and one of the key problems was that they worked perfectly as a small story. Did we need them being given two episodes? No is the answer. They were re written to be the greatest evil The Doctor could face. I hated this: that should always be the Daleks. Further we saw the return of River Song. She was as over the top and as annoying as before, if not more so. By now every time she said SPOILERS I wanted to march into the tele and put her somewhere in time that Moff would never find her.

So the angels were actually a down point in the series compared to the last time when they were the highlight. Again came another thing I disliked: Rory as a part of the main team. Don’t get me wrong, I like Rory but I think the Doctor works better with one companion. With Rory begin introduced it alienated The Doctor from Amy: she and Rory would get into mischief and The Doctor would work it out himself. The next big issue was The Hungry Earth and Cold Blood. These were bad bad episodes. Yet the season, although lulling in the middle finished on a high with the superb Lodger episode and the tremendous finale that restored my faith in the Moff. This finish is still my favourite out of all the endings. So season 5 was a mixed bag: weak middle, too many double eps that should have been one offs, I still did not feel I knew who The Doctor was (I knew who the tenth was after the first ep) and too much River. But River was still a fringe character. I could handle that.

I was looking forward to the Christmas Special. It got huge licks before it came out and I was very excited after the brilliant ending with the pnadorica. I was deeply disappointed by this episode. It was ok but very mediocre. What is more, The Doctor fiddled with a time line like the way he never had. This seemed to go against everything The Doctor had preached in the past. Surely if he felt like this, it did not matter that the tenth Doctor altered history in the Waters of Mars (still my favourite episode since the return).

So Season 6 part one came hurtling in and I was less excited than Season 5. And straight away I saw what I feared: too many double eps and too much River Song. When you were cutting the season in two I personally don’t think you can have so many double eps: 6 eps in this part and four of them were doubles. So season 6 started and I was greeted with River Song from the get go. Nooooooo! Now I have already talked about my problems with The Silence and I do need to go back and watch them because to be fair to Moff The Doctor did not seem to commit genocide as it first seemed (they are returning in part 2). But what I am going to say I hated was the back stage politics that went behind these eps and I lost respect for Moff. Moff was so arrogant, so in need to tell people how clever he was that he told the press The Silence ep storylines before they aired. Then he was shocked to see that it was all over the Internet. Then he attacked the fans. Sorry Moff but if you are going to tell people, however much you tell them not to say anything, they will! I personally did not look at the SPOILERS (funny that he got served by his own favourite catchphrase isn’t it) because I wanted to be shocked. Then came the dire pirates. This part of the season was saved by the brilliant Gaimen episode The Doctor’s Wife and the fantastic Cloning eps that warranted their double. Unfortunately however Moff’s mid season finale was not the saving grace that the pandorica was as it once again became everything to do with River Song. With Moff not really focusing on the little eps (it all has to be interconnected to the main storyline), River Song was now centre stage, seeming to get more and more air time as The Doctor shrunk away into the background.  Further the great reveal was terrible. Me and my girlfriend had guessed this from the beginning and the fact that she was part time lord we had guessed form The Silence eps. Moff was truly not as smart as he thought he was. Me bring a huge whovian (albeit I have been told vocal) I was staying on for the ride. Yet I know many people who Moff had alienated with bad stories and bad characters. I think here is a good time to make a point that is essential to my argument: there is no heart to Moff’s Doctor Who. None of the characters have been fleshed out, none I truly care about apart from the Doctor. This is why again you really focus on the eps you don’t like. When RTD was in charge, some of his stories were crap yes but I cared about the characters and I think RTD did too. The Tenth Doctor made me be able to cope with the Daleks in Manhattan for gods sake. Therefore the writing of the characters was so strong that the bad eps were forgotten about. Whereas it seems to Moff that the characters are mere cannon fodder than anything else: you never build a relationship with any of them. Again I love Smith as the Doctor and think he has never been able to truly shine yet still is one of the best doctors.

Recently Part 2 returned to our screens and I have been pleasantly surprised so far. I loved Lets Kill Hitler (one of Moff’s best eps so far) and do you want to know why I think so? Probably not as I’m babbling forever but if you are still with me I’m going to continue. Yes I cringed when I saw River Song and yet another character emerge who we had never heard of in the past: Amy’s best friend (Moff is not the only one that does this in television I’m just saying I hate when it happens) but River Song worked in this episode. Know why? Because she was the villain. This is her natural place; not beside the doctor but against him. Further it would seem that Moff has fixed the problem of the thirteen lives with River giving him his regenerations. Yet this episode did bring up a fact that I do not like with Moff’s vision: the creation of the family who. Doctor Who works at best when we have the lonely doctor, who has to continue living as he watches the rest of his companions leave him. He works best with one companion helping him as much as he helps them. By having four if not more main characters, the doctor has been pushed to the sidelines as the crazy uncle of the family. Don’t get me wrong this has happened before with the 1^st Doctor but it worked for Hartnell due to his age. The writers needed Chesetrton (as the doctor got it wrong each time I’m not bothering to write it right 😉 )to do the action. Further because Hartnell was the grumpy grandfather he worked in the background. At the same time he was still the one that worked out how to get people out of messes etc. Whereas Matt Smith is young enough to play both roles: he doesn’t need to be sidelined in anyway. Smith is such a great doctor he deserves to be the shinning light of it all (and I loved Hartnell before people think I didn’t). I am not the only one who dislikes this move either. Check this and this out.  We are only 2 eps in but I have loved both of them. So good signs for the season. Of course that is until River returns! J

Yet Moff makes a huge mistake again. Now the outspoken head writer blabbed again to The Sun saying that he hated the Internet fans. Moff do you not realise that Doctor Who began as a cult show and a lot of its fans are geeks like me. Therefore a lot of them adore the Internet. Other people do not seem to take the offence that I do over this but I think it is disgusting that he does this and I have lost any respect for him as head writer. I do not believe that someone in that position should be bad mouthing their fans. To me that is much worse than anything that Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand did. Further to this I am sick of him calling it his show. He is a small part in a big chain and so if anything the show is the fans not his!

Also complex storylines are not new in Doctor Who and I think have been done much more subtly. In particular season 3 and 4. No one would have guessed that Saxon was The Master because it wasn’t thrown into your faces every five seconds. Further the bees were a brilliant idea. I never saw the link because the bees leaving was happening in real life. These were brilliant and they were not written all over you in black permanent pen.

So the key problems with Moff’s Doctor Who is River Song. Some have said that I cannot dislike his vision on one character but when an entire story is based around her and she appears every five minutes, getting more air time than the main character I think I can. Further the true crux of my argument is that these characters Moff has created have no substance: it’s all about the style. We’re running around so much to the next thing that nothing gets developed. Someone needs to tell Moff that a simple little story can be the best. I understand the complex ones but the simple ones can be better.