The Matt Smith Doctor Who News
As I said on Twitter, knowing that something is going to happen and being prepared for it are two very different things. I knew, logically, that Matt Smith couldn't be on Doctor Who forever. Companions come and go, just as Doctors do, and he's been on the show for a while. Rumors have been swirling about potential casting of a new Doctor, and parsing the statements made by Matt about his future with the show, they weren't particularly definitive. So it was not with shock that I read that Matt will be stepping down as the Eleventh Doctor at the end of the year.
It is however, with great sadness. Coming to the show late as I did (February), Eleven was my Doctor. I fell in love with Doctor Who through him - through his wonder and intellect, his heart and determination and the way he never backed down from a challenge, even if it was something he wasn't sure he'd be able to survive. As Eleven once said, "Oh. I survived. Brilliant. I love it when I do that."
Although I started with "The Eleventh Hour" (minus a brief foray into Ten with "Human Nature" and "Family of Blood"), I did eventually go back and watch all of new Who. But after falling in love with Eleven, Nine and Ten really had no chance of becoming my Doctor. I've grown to appreciate Nine now that I understand the full impact of the Time War and what it must have done to him, and Ten was ridiculously, adorably, awesome and I understand all of the fuss. Maybe if I'd started with "Rose", Ten would have been my Doctor. But that's not the way things happened.
So what started this season with the Ponds leaving (my favorite companions), and River being confirmed dead (my favorite character), is going to end on Christmas, with Eleven leaving. I'm not even going to get into Moffat and the rumors of his leaving other than to say that I hope the rumor of Mark Gatiss taking over isn't true, since I don't seem to enjoy his epis much (although he's absolutely brilliant on Sherlock).
To sum up my feelings about Eleven, I'm going to shamelessly quote the article that helped guide me into Doctor Who, about "The Eleventh Hour":
Sometimes things get quite dramatic, but for the most part, this is what the Doctor essentially is, a madcap intellectual trickster with a heart big enough to hold the universe. http://www.tor.com/blogs/2010/12/how-to-get-into-doctor-who-in-one-or-two-easy-steps
Eleven certainly has my heart. And I'm not sure he's going to be letting go anytime soon. All things change and that's never more true than with Doctor Who. And change can be good. But it still doesn't make it easy.
It is however, with great sadness. Coming to the show late as I did (February), Eleven was my Doctor. I fell in love with Doctor Who through him - through his wonder and intellect, his heart and determination and the way he never backed down from a challenge, even if it was something he wasn't sure he'd be able to survive. As Eleven once said, "Oh. I survived. Brilliant. I love it when I do that."
Although I started with "The Eleventh Hour" (minus a brief foray into Ten with "Human Nature" and "Family of Blood"), I did eventually go back and watch all of new Who. But after falling in love with Eleven, Nine and Ten really had no chance of becoming my Doctor. I've grown to appreciate Nine now that I understand the full impact of the Time War and what it must have done to him, and Ten was ridiculously, adorably, awesome and I understand all of the fuss. Maybe if I'd started with "Rose", Ten would have been my Doctor. But that's not the way things happened.
So what started this season with the Ponds leaving (my favorite companions), and River being confirmed dead (my favorite character), is going to end on Christmas, with Eleven leaving. I'm not even going to get into Moffat and the rumors of his leaving other than to say that I hope the rumor of Mark Gatiss taking over isn't true, since I don't seem to enjoy his epis much (although he's absolutely brilliant on Sherlock).
To sum up my feelings about Eleven, I'm going to shamelessly quote the article that helped guide me into Doctor Who, about "The Eleventh Hour":
Sometimes things get quite dramatic, but for the most part, this is what the Doctor essentially is, a madcap intellectual trickster with a heart big enough to hold the universe. http://www.tor.com/blogs/2010/12/how-to-get-into-doctor-who-in-one-or-two-easy-steps
Eleven certainly has my heart. And I'm not sure he's going to be letting go anytime soon. All things change and that's never more true than with Doctor Who. And change can be good. But it still doesn't make it easy.