I know that just from looking at the title of this article, some of you have your pitchforks out and are ready to set fire to my home. David Tennant received such love during his time as the Doctor (from myself included) that I’m sure plenty of people balk at the very idea that there could be a better Doctor. That’s certainly a valid point — Tennant was very, very good — but I know for a fact that Matt Smith is a better Doctor because I don’t miss Tennant anymore.
Sure, I missed him after “The End of Time.” Who wouldn’t have, after seeing Tennant’s impassioned whisper of “I don’t want to go” right before the regeneration kicked in? I, like most others, was a little put off by who he turned into: a young, silly man who questioned his own gender before kissing his legs and shouting “Geronimo!” That was partially because the introduction of Smith really broke the emotional crescendo set by Tennant’s goodbye, and maybe we were all a little subconsciously angry with him for that.
But when the Doctor burst through the image of Tennant’s face in the climax of “The Eleventh Hour,” I knew it was all over. Tennant was my first Doctor, but Smith was my best. His performance was much lighter than Tennant, with the ability to go just as dark. “Hello, I’m the Doctor,” he warned the Atraxi in the series five premiere. “Basically… run.”
Smith’s brilliant acting made him the star of every episode, not unlike Tennant. In fact, there are many similarities between Tennant and Smith. It all comes down to range of emotion, and Smith simply has more than Tennant, especially on the lighter side of things. Tennant can play angry like nobody’s business, and he can play sad as well. Smith, while well-versed on all ranges of emotions, really excels in the happiness department. Perhaps that’s because he’s rid himself of all the guilt left over from the Time War. While Tennant (like Christopher Eccleston before him) spent a lot of his episodes reflecting on the horrible Time War that killed his species, Smith’s Doctor simply dismissed the Time War as “It was a bad day. A lot of bad stuff happened.” And like that, the Doctor’s guilt seems to be no longer a burden to the Doctor, or to the viewer (it was getting rather tiresome). Instead, while the Doctor still copes with the loneliness of being the last of his species, he has a little more room for happiness and love. Who can deny that, after watching the last few scenes of “Vincent and the Doctor,” or “The Lodger?”
Finally, part of what makes Smith great is the comedy induced by his culture shock. While most of Tennant’s comedy drew from his rambling on about science and “wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey, stuff,” Smith plays the Doctor as simply a fish out of water — more alien than ever. His impulsive nature only makes this nature more apparent — after stealing a tweed suit with a bow tie, Smith proclaims that “bow ties are cool,” and later swaps compliments with a museum curator about each others’ bow ties. He similarly adopts a fez in “The Big Bang,” declaring that “fezzes are cool,” but this idea was literally shot down by River Song. The Doctor’s football match in “The Lodger” was equally hilarious, because he insisted upon kissing the cheeks of everyone he met (though he did turn out to be quite talented at football).
And that comedy is equally balanced by the darkness. Smith portrays the Doctor’s age perhaps more well than Tennant because he is younger — his acting reflects the same amount of world-weariness as previous incarnations, though his youth really accentuates that emotion and makes it even more prevalent. Take “The Beast Below,” for example, when he is faced with the choice to lobotomize a star whale or to kill an entire spaceship full of humans. “And then, I… I find a new name, because I won’t be the Doctor anymore,” he says.
It all comes down to acting and range, really, and Smith simply brings more to the table than Tennant did. While Tennant is the most popular Doctor to date (and probably still has a lot of vehement fans who object to this article), I think that giving Smith a couple of years in the TARDIS will lead others to really appreciate him as one of the best — if not the best — Doctors yet.
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First of all, you should never blame the actor for being a bad character (unless if they’re over or under-acting). I should first of all state that I completely disagree with you, and state that I in general relatively highly dislike the characteristic of Matt Smith compared to David Tennant, and that the series really went down-hill when he was introduced.
I should first mention that Matt doesn’t seem to know when to be serious. Many of the doctors joked around a lot, including David Tennant and (my personal favorite) Tom Baker. However, These doctors knew when it was right moment to serious up and act realistically. With Smith, he’s just always a comedian. True, he is well versed in the happiness department, but it isn’t always the right moment to be happy; Doctor Who isn’t a comedy!
This leads to the change in writing in the fifth season of Doctor Who. The new writer is a comedian; did you know that? Now, I’m okay with a few comedic moments in the show, but I don’t want Doctor Who to become dominantly comedy and melodrama. The adventurous aspect of Doctor Who began to decline after Matt Smith became doctor. There was once a time where the doctor was feared and loved by his companions. Now he’s just the silly guy in a bow-tie that they like to poke fun at.
Now I’m not saying that Doctor Who is no longer a good show; it’s not. I still like it, but I used to like it a lot more, when it was serious.
After reading the comments here, perhaps we might want to take away our personal comparisons and just simply appreciate what each actor has brought to the role of the “Who Institution.” I’m not disagreeing with the comments here just adding mine…
For me, my enthusiasm of the show goes back to my high school days watching Tom Baker on PBS after school. It had super cool theme music and it being British -something different from my boring American life that kept me watching. My re-interest happened by accident. Having BBC America on all summer, I was aware that Doctor Who had made a come back but never paid attention until one night with insomnia, I clicked around and landed on Christopher Eccleston and Rose in the “Father’s Day” episode — hook, line, sinker. Perhaps in my tired state I was more emotional or something, perhaps it was the way he held Rose’s hand when she saw her father lying in the street….don’t know. I think everyone can go back to the episode that did it for them.
My now Doctor Who passion was helped out by a local librarian who helped me get the DVD’s I needed to get caught up on the story lines. Turns out I was talking to someone who is so passionate about the show he even got married in a David Tennant Doctor’s suit, white converse and all – he had it especially tailored for him — considering my husband, a marathoner got married in bright green running shoes, I could only think the “Who suit” was too cool.
My all out “I can’t watch anything else but Doctor Who” happened after doing a non stop marathon of season 5 — episode 1 on my list of favs. The Matt Smith Doctor and the Amelia Pond/crack in the wall with the new music and all the wonderful seeds planted by David Moffit’s story line, made me search for everything I can get my hands on with all Three Doctors. My husband and I have watched nothing else and are lamenting that we are finally coming to the end of all there is to watch. With this blitz of all three Doctors in the past three weeks, we’ve had plenty of immediate comparisons and found that the best way to appreciate the Doctors is to simply not compare at all — as hard as that is to do. Perhaps if we had a chance to have grown with the show over the years, we would see things more critical —perhaps the “newness” of it all that has us liking everything….?
I can see what you are both saying about each actor but then again we can see that each actor brings their own brilliant interpretations. With all three it is right actors for right writers and right companions. I can’t see Matt doing Billie Pipers last scenes anymore than I can see David doing the River Song chemistry that has developed with Matt’s Doctor. (I guess you could see each actor in each other’s episodes, but then it would seem all backwards or perhaps a bit not quite right.)
Yes I can see David is a bit “say more with your facial registry than words” — I can sometimes “see” the dialog on David’s face and Matt is a bit the opposite “say more with your words and how you deliver them.” Even though each has excellent acting command in registry and line delivery, I think each plays more to their natural talent. Neither is wrong and neither is right, it is just the way it is with each actor. I think what makes us like or dislike comes down to our personal preference — I feel that talented acting is talented acting whether we like the performance we are seeing or not.
What is clear is that each actor adds a piece of themselves to the Doctor and the maturity, professionalism and sincerity of how each actor believes in the part is evident in their performances (sometimes it is very marked and jumps off the screen) and keeps us moving on with each new Doctor. Yes I wish David Tennant had more Stephen Moffat stories to play — he was excellent in “Silence in the Library and “Forest of the Dead” — my favs. I feel some of Stephen’s earlier stories are a bit more suited to David’s temperament — more theatrical (although I understand Matt is no slouch in the theater either) but then this is just my opinion. I believe David did well with the scripts handed to him, it is his performances that keep us in there with Russell’s once in a while “what were you thinking” writing.
I like both Stephen Moffat and Russell Davies work, the craft of their creation is what is exciting to me – not just the end result, but the entire process of it all, actors and behind the scenes people included. Sometimes the behind the scenes are just as exciting. Some story lines are a bit whacky, but again, it is the sincerity of each actor’s belief in their part that pulls it all off. My only hope is that we will be able to add Doctor #12 to our list of likes whenever that happens in the future. For now we’re equally enjoying all three and even the now “cheesy-cool” oldies I grew up with.
Sam, we don’t own a pitchfork and we won’t be coming along with torches to burn your house, ïŠ Your comments are valid and I enjoyed reading them.
p.s. I wanted to mention in my already long enough writing, that if people find themselves rewinding during Matt’s performances to catch all he says, we found that the captions can be a big help, especially in catching the quickly spoken funny bits as well as all the seeds Moffat plants of the interwoven story lines.
I think the beauty in Doctor Who is in its versatility. Each actor portrays the Doctor differently, so there will be at least one that will float your boat. I think the “best” Doctor just varies depending on what characteristics people want to see in the Doctor. Personally, I really liked Tennant’s portrayal of the Doctor, but I haven’t seen enough episodes of Matt Smith’s Doctor to really make a judgement call on which I personally like better.