It feels like it’s been forever since Steven Moffat was announced as the new showrunner and Matt Smith as the new Doctor. It hasn’t been, of course, but well over a year in both cases is nothing to sneeze at. For some fans, the anticipation has been damn near excruciating. Another very vocal minority had little interest in the continuing adventures of the Time Lord without David Tennant steering the TARDIS. And yet another group – perhaps the most important, due simply to the fact that they comprise a huge segment of the viewing audience – were understandably nervous that a new Doctor alongside a new head honcho might lead to a series that was somehow lesser than what had been seen over the past five years.
I’d like to believe that everybody was as utterly intoxicated by “The Eleventh Hour” as I was, but that’s probably wishing for too much. On the other hand, I can’t really see that it offered up anything that would possibly alienate audiences – not even in the form of the new Doctor, who’s not such a drastic departure from the antics of Tennant so as to drive viewers away. Indeed, the differences between Eccleston and Tennant are far more tangible than the divide between Tennant and Smith. All that said, Smith definitely has something of his own going on, and whatever that “something” is will most certainly grow as the season progresses. Both Eccleston and Tennant each took about a half season to find their Time Lord groove; Smith found it by the end of his first episode. I was wholly won over by him upon his delivery of “I am definitely a mad man with a box,” which was followed by an uneasy cackle that seems to imply this Doctor is not quite as right in the head as his recent predecessors.
But I’ve clearly jumped to the end of the episode far too quickly. The pre-credits sequence with the Doctor hanging onto the TARDIS as it flies over London is utter nonsense – derivative of the worst aspects of the Davies era, and completely different from the tone of the rest of the episode. Maybe that was the point? To reassure viewers right off the bat that they’re still watching the same show? I don’t know, but let’s hope there’s less of that and more of all that follows as the weeks move on.
Of course the sequence is followed by a brand new set of opening titles and a rearrangement of the theme tune. I haven’t done an immense amount of reading reactions to this episode, but even with what little I have read, there appeared to be an immediate backlash to these changes. Every time these basic alterations are made to the series, people complain, which is understandable, because why fix what isn’t broken? But “Doctor Who” thrives on change, and this is just another aspect of it. Eventually they get over it and move on, realizing that it probably isn’t quite the disaster their fanboy gut had told them on first viewing. Having seen the sequence numerous times now, I’m already digging it. Unlike the previous credits, the lightning bolts and cloud tunnel seem to indicate the TARDIS is travelling through some sort of space as opposed to time, and the rearrangement has grown on me with each subsequent viewing.
The next 15 minutes, which detail the first meeting of the Eleventh Doctor and the 7-year old Amelia Pond (Caitlin Blackwood) are deliriously charming, and it kicks off with the girl praying to Santa on Easter, and it’s nice to see Moffat’s keeping things on a vaguely secular level. Using children as a big part of the narrative has been a Moffat hallmark (“The Empty Child,” “The Girl in the Fireplace,” “The Silence on the Library”), and here it once again works as a wonderful means to cement the Doctor/companion relationship (although you may not find me as supportive of this gimmick in the coming weeks). No doubt the highpoint of this section is the search for food, which is something that’s never been done before during the post-regenerative state. If every cell in the body of a Time Lord rearranges itself during regeneration, then it’s perfectly reasonable to assume the tastes buds have changed, too. The Doctor thinks he knows what he likes, but it turns out he finds most of it disgusting. In the end, he finds a thoroughly revolting dish – fish fingers and custard – the most tasty and appetizing, which is a gas (or surely will be once it passes through his digestive tract).
