Thursday 1 July 2010

Is Matt Smith a better Doctor than David Tennant?

TOTTERS Facebook Group Admin Jamie Jones...

"... why compare them two when they are cast to be two different apsects of the Doctor. And if that is the case why not start comparing Matt and David to Tom Baker or William Hartnell and so on.
Admittedly my take on it is that Matt is the more perfect casting than David. Notice I said perfect and not better because I just don't see how you can say better as such because both Doctors have been enjoyable to watch and have both produced some perfect Doctor Who.
So to explain Matt is the more perfect cast as really he is playing more the ideal character of who the Doctor really is and has been and remember we are talking about the character as laid down between 1963 to 89 and not 1996 or 2005 onwards as in those two instances the series was returning and had to be reinvented especially more-so in the 2005 series.
And to gather who the perfect ideal character of the Doctor is you have to look right back to William Hartnell and the charcacter he played as that is who the Doctor is and a little bit of that character remained throughout each successive Doctor right up until 1989. Paul McGann's Doctor was really a greatest hits compilation of all those characters done so that the series could try and play to an American audience.
And then we come to 2005 where the Doctor gets totally reinvented to try and grab a whole new audience and to try and get rid of the bad reputation the show had falsely attained since the enforced hiatus in 1985.
So gone is the RP accent, gone is the stiff upper lip, gone is the mad old embarrassing uncle at the family party wearing clothes from the jumble sale and gone is the eccentric and in comes a Doctor who is suddenly cool, hip, attractive and all of a sudden a more identifiable hero that you could put alongside the likes of Luke Skywalker and so on. At first we got Christopher Eccleston and then David Tennant who in both cases was playing Russell T Davies's all new brand hero, the Last of the Time Lords. Admittedly again this had to be done to try and sell the programme to the audience as in the 21st Century there was a possibility that the younger audience wouldn't accept an older man playing an unlikely eccentric hero plus also the BBC were after two sets of demographic apart from the overall family audience. For one they were after the current modern teenage audience and two they after increasing the female audience after many years of a male dominated one. And as you can see with David Tennant in the role that worked perfectly as the Doctor became a pin up for the first time. Now take that into consideration and then remember that with the 10th Doctor you are also supposed to be looking at the 1st Doctor i.e. William Hartnell and then somehow the idea of the pin-up Doctor suddenly doesn't stick or rather the character passed down through the ages has been watered down so much that it no longer exists in the form that everyone used to know.
So the series is a success based on the new format created by RTD and brings in a whole new crowd but then Tennant leaves and a new Doctor has to be found and in comes Matt Smith.
At first there is unrest and claims that he is too young to play the part but then he takes to the screen and all of a sudden there is this young man who for some reason doesn't seem so young anymore. At times it seems as if he is ancient. The RP posh accent is back in place and the clothes from the jumble sale are back once more and of course at times the 11th Doctor is like the mad old uncle at the family party even coming with the Dad dancing. The 11th Doctor is once more the unlikely hero, the eccentric professor, the scientist and more importantly you look at him and believe that this man was once the 1st Doctor.
Matt Smith, born to play the Doctor."

2 comments:

KidWithTheSpecs.blogspot.com said...

For me, Matt Smith IS everything the Doctor is. He's all his best and worst bits, rolled into one. David Tennant was too human for me.

Matt Smith is definately my favourite of the two

Combom said...

yes he is!