So here I am at last, sitting down at my computer to review Matt Smith as the Eleventh Doctor.
First off, I'll say that I was a little skeptical. Matt Smith is, at 28, the youngest actor to ever take on the role of "Doctor." I started watching Doctor Who when I was eight, and the episodes I watched were of a Doctor in his forties (well, five-hundreds, but he looked like he was in his forties). Really, he's not that much older than Robert Pattinson, and I worried that such a young face would turn one of my favorite shows of all time into a time-traveling Twilight. Or something just as awful.
But after watching a few minutes of "The Eleventh Hour," Matt Smith's first appearance as the Doctor (if you don't count those ten seconds at the end of "The End of Time Part II") I was pleasantly surprised by his maturity. And here I was expecting some annoying pretty boy.
Matt Smith brings a new level of butt-kicking ferocity different from that of his predecessor. When David Tennant got serious, it just made me want to hold him and coo, "There there, it'll be all right, poor lonely Time Lord." Matt Smith's serious seems far more dangerous. His "don't mess with me look" has already struck fear into the hearts of aliens on multiple occasions.
And yet he still manages to balance in the quirky Doctor we have all come to love (unless you've never seen Doctor Who, in which case, why aren't you watching it right now???). His young age even works to his advantage in the boy-like excitement he brings to each episode. In just a few episodes, he has eaten custard and fish sticks, stolen clothes from a hospital, attacked the Daleks with a wrench, and knocked out a robot with a clumsy uppercut. And evidently, he and the hysterical James Corden will be dressing up in football shorts in a coming episode...
Not to mention he looks super cool in sunglasses.
A lot of the credit for the quality of the episodes does have to go to Steven Moffat (the genius behind "Silence in the Library"/"Forest of the Dead," "The Empty Child"/"The Doctor Dances" and the scariest Doctor Who episode ever, "Blink"). Moffat was the perfect writer to introduce Smith to fans, as he, better than anyone else, knows how to WRITE Doctor Who, for fans both old and new.
To top it off, the TARDIS is new and improved. As much as I loved David Tennant, I missed the TARDIS of old (really old, as in, 1970s era old). And now the TARDIS is revamped, with a telephone, hot and cold faucet knobs, and lots of other shiny gadgets. Not to mention levels. I just can't wait to see what's happening next week. Also, TARDIS PRETTY.
