30 Jul 2010

Ten reasons the Tenth Doctor both Tantalised and Ticked me off.

tenth

Tenth Doctor
Portrayed by: David Tennant
Tenure: 2005 – 2010

The Tenth Doctor was a mixed bag for me, but to my way of thinking he got off to a bad start with me as he took over from my favourite Doctor, and so I was quite annoyed that thirteen episodes was all I would get out of possibly the first positive interpretation of a northerner.

To add to this, Tennant’s first episode was decidedly weak, indeed only featuring him in the closing moments of the episode. His initial interpretation of the Doctor seemed remarkably amateurish as he bawled and shouted his way through a conversation with the Sycorax.

All the same, Tennant was here to stay, and whilst my doubts were mounting, I decided to stick around for a little longer. Unfortunately this Doctor’s next downfall for me wasn’t even his fault, it was Rose’s. The dynamic between the two characters evolved from creepy to ridiculous, as the two grinned in the face of danger as if it was nothing. Their wanton disregard for the ridiculous peril they were in at every turn just destroyed the second season entirely for me, and sadly even a stern word from Queen Victoria failed to set them straight.

Fortunately the blonde bimbo was sucked into the wall and never seen again. Okay, five more times, but she wasn’t permanent anymore, which was better than nothing. With the packaging of Martha onboard the Doctor could return to being the Doctor rather than making up for McGann’s still born tenure. The darker side of the Doctor that emerged was one I relished, as it had that haunted quality that made the Doctor interesting back when he was in leather. This is probably best illustrated in Daleks in Manhatten when he shows a blatant disregard for his life in trying to stop his enemies.

By season three I had warmed to Doc 10, as he was no longer grinning away at everything and instead took serious stuff seriously. No, seriously! To my way of thinking this all played into the Tenth Doctor’s hands better than it did some soppy love story.

This Doctor does also have the acting abilities on his side. Whilst Eccleston was billed as a Shakespearean actor due to his having performed in a Shakespeare play once, Tennant had to drop out a year to play Macbeth, and so his credentials can’t be in doubt. Amongst these acting highlights were the emotional scenes of sorrow and loss available in The Girl in the Fireplace and The Last of the Timelords.

I now had to concede Tennant was really quite good, but the prime reason for his overwhelming popularity was so misplaced. If it was due to his acting, or a string of good stories then I could heartily accept the hype, but in a staggering number of cases the reason I got back for his popularity was that Tennant was fit. Apparently.

This leads me on to another aspect of the Tenth Doc. His costume much like his predecessor was pretty conventional. Indeed it’d struggle to raise an eyebrow. Whilst a number of fans rejoiced at the geek chic look, I was slightly dismayed. Whilst keeping to the shadows suited the Ninth Doc it didn’t fit with Ten’s more extroverted personality, it seemed more of trying to be modern for the hell of it.

Another thing that ground at my nerves was this Doctor, by total contrast to his predecessor was also Mr. Fixit. Literally every problem he came across he had a string of gobbledegook to put it to rest, and the number of things that were solved by waggling his screwdriver were getting ridiculous. Whilst it’s more a fault of the stories than the Doctor, his era saw a marked decline in quality of story telling, in particular, Davies just seemed to get lazy.

Finally this Doctor needed a catch phrase to put him on par with what went before, so sadly we were tortured into learning the French for ‘let’s go’. I was surprised when his last words were the inverse of this famous line, and I’m glad the Doc has at least reverted to English, as the number of favourite phrases for Tennant was getting too long for my liking, I mean, what was wrong with original dialogue?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I love TEN!!!!!

Anonymous said...

I hate TEN!!!!!