Matt Smith

Dear Gary—

I don’t believe you ever saw Matt Smith as the Doctor, or perhaps you caught only his first outing or two. You missed a lot, some of it good but a great deal of it bad.

The good—the best—centers on Matt Smith. He is funny, poignant, dark, witty, childlike, intelligent, and mysterious in turn; sometimes all at once. He is always interesting, but more importantly he remains likeable even while the character is rapidly becoming unpleasant.

No longer can the Doctor call himself a pacifist. Too often during this Eleventh Doctor’s run he has casually destroyed thousands (blowing an entire Cyber fleet out of the sky simply to get an answer to a question in A Good Man Goes to War) and just as casually he has murdered  individuals (Solomon in Dinosaurs on a Spaceship).  He doesn't have an aversion to gun-toting companions any more and he has no qualms about embracing mass murderers if he happens to take a shine to them (the Bloody Queen Elizabeth the Tenth as the most egregious example). The Doctor cannot claim the moral high ground these days; yet time after time he does just that, and he takes it to the heights of hypocrisy. Through it all, however, Matt Smith shines; he almost makes one forget the offhand cruelty.

Just as violence comes casually to him, so too, apparently, does sex. The Doctor’s Time Lord version of a one night stand with Rose and his intense connection with Madame de Pompadour seem innocent compared with the string of conquests this Eleventh incarnation has left in his wake. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Doctor Who universe is populated by an entire generation of half Time Lords. (I think I would watch a spin-off of Tasha Lem as a single mother raising her Doctor baby while leading the Papal Mainframe and trying to suppress her Dalek puppet self.) This is an area where Matt Smith doesn’t shine so much; he’s awkward and uncomfortable in the role of Lothario; it doesn’t suit him.

A similar pattern follows the companions of this Eleventh Doctor. Karen Gillan, Arthur Darvill, and Jenna-Louise Coleman (and Alex Kingston) do wonders with their roles. Amy and Rory in particular settle in as proper, well-rounded companions. However, they start this trend of what I have come to call yo-yo companions. That is, companions who bounce back and forth between their every day Earth lives and their out-of –this-world TARDIS lives. This aspect is acknowledged and developed with the Ponds, but never to my complete satisfaction. I just can’t accept that this duo would roll with all of the heart-rending punches they are handed and not rebel against their surreal existence if they are truly committed to life and all it offers. The half-hearted attempts they make at normalcy are never believable; and when they are robbed of their infant daughter and any chance at a happy family life with barely a whimper I have to throw up my hands in defeat and recognize that these are not people but actors playing a part as outlined in a script. As actors they are wonderful and enjoyable to watch; however any pretense that the fictional personalities of Amy and Rory are flesh and blood people trying to make a life for themselves, let alone parents, is maddening. Their lives center on the Doctor and what the written page offers, nothing else. I cannot suspend my disbelief far enough to accept them as anything more.

At least Karen and Arthur are given some complexity to keep the audience from second-guessing too much. Jenna-Louise is not so lucky. She has no substantial or consistent structure around which she can base her character. Is she Oswin or is she Clara or is she Soufflé Girl? Is she a governess, a barmaid, a nanny, or a schoolteacher? Is she brave or is she timid? Is she brilliant or is she artificially intelligent? She blew into this world on a leaf—and it shows. She is buffeted by every Doctor Who wind and never truly alights. Yet Jenna-Louise Coleman is captivating.

That is the story of this Eleventh Doctor. Matt, Karen, Arthur, Jenna (and Alex Kingston). Not the Doctor, Amy, Rory, Clara/Oswin/ Soufflé Girl (and River). It is the good fortune of casting. It is the misfortune of a show that too often leaves its script showing. It is the curse of a production team that doesn’t trust its own format and doesn’t have confidence in its actors to simply inhabit their roles. Rather it force feeds artificial arcs that burden the players and that overshadow the adventures. It started in a small way with Doctors Nine and Ten, but it has come on with a vengeance with Doctor Eleven.

I spent a good deal of my time on my slow path through this stretch being angry thanks in large part to the onerous arcs. First there is the Crack of a season; that one is bad enough. The following one, however, is far worse. I’ll never forget those first few minutes of The Impossible Astronaut that almost lost me as a Doctor Who viewer forever. The Probable Girl arc is more irritating than maddening, but it is the most damaging to character development, Clara in particular. And then there is the inane Doctor Who? arc that spans across several seasons. This question mark arc does manage to salvage itself with the wonderful punch line of The Name of the Doctor; and all of the arcs come together beautifully in Matt Smith’s curtain call The Time of the Doctor. Overall, though, the arcs saddle the series with improbable scenarios and impossibly intricate threads that distract from the adventures.

However, my biggest wrath is reserved for what I consider the worst Doctor Who episode ever: The Beast Below. I said it all in my entry on that particular story and I don’t care to revisit it.

There are some wonderful highlights as well. Matt Smith’s introduction in The Eleventh Hour with young Amelia Pond is delightful. Vincent and the Doctor and The Lodger are two enjoyable diversions. The Doctor’s Wife is one of the best of New Who. The Doctor, The Widow and the Wardrobe is a Christmas treat. Hide is a solid entry. Rounding it all out are two of my favorites: the fiftieth anniversary The Day of the Doctor and my guilty pleasure The Time of the Doctor.

Matt Smith’s era sees the dramatic and viable return of some Classic Who monsters; namely the Silurians and the Zygons. Too bad the Great Intelligence isn’t handled more intelligently, though. It also has more than its fair share of the obligatory Daleks and Cybermen; develops further on the New Who creation The Weeping Angels (much to my disappointment); and introduces a new alien in the dreadful (in my opinion) Silents.

The trio of recurring characters—Madame Vastra, Jenny Flint, and Strax—could have a spinoff of their own. They are fully realized personalities with little background provided. They are launched in A Good Man Goes to War as though they have always been part of the show; and they feel as though they have always been a part of the show. Ever entertaining, this Victorian era detective gang is a most welcome addition, even if at times they feel superfluous and merely added to provide comic relief.

In sum, the Matt Smith years are much like the little girl with the curl right in the middle of her forehead. When it is good it is very, very good, but when it is bad it is horrid. I am very much afraid, Gary, that the horrid too often overshadows. Lacking in consistency and relying too heavily on calculation, coincidence, and contrivance, the show is rapidly losing me.

Standing above it all, however, is Matt Smith. He is very, very good and never horrid. Given better material he would float towards the top of my rankings. As it is he is laden down; if I were to seriously reconsider my rankings he would be in danger of dropping a notch or two through no fault of his own.

But Matt Smith leaves on a high note, Gary, and I’ll grab on and follow it to the next chapter of my slow path.