Giant flying eyeballs, a kissagram for an assistant and maybe the best Doctor Who ever

By Sinclair Mckay

The new Doctor Who (Matt Smith) with his glamorous assistant Amy Pond (Karen Gillan) in the first episode of the new series which screened last night


It was the most eagerly awaited television event of the year – the new Doctor Who, with unknown Matt Smith, 27, making his debut as the youngest Time Lord in the show’s 47-year history. Fans had been warned to expect a modern twist to the series – and so it proved, with the Doctor’s glamorous new assistant cast as a kissagram with a variety of skimpy outfits. So how did the new show fare? SINCLAIR McKAY gives his verdict...

‘I’m saving the world. I need a decent shirt,’ exclaimed an angular-faced, floppy-haired young chap last night, before unselfconsciously changing his clothes in front of a very attractive redhead dressed as a policewoman in a tiny skirt.

You would not have caught William Hartnell, the first Doctor Who in 1963, in such a scenario.

Last night millions tuned in for Matt Smith’s much anticipated debut as the new Doctor and there was only really one question: could the relatively unknown 27-year-old fill the considerable shoes of his madly popular predecessor, David Tennant?

Or even the scuffed brogues of Tom Baker’s goggle-eyed lunatic, or the patent-leather ankle boots of suave Jon Pertwee? More than that, given his age, wasn’t there the chance this lad was a shade too young and callow to play a 907-year-old Time Lord?


The pair seen together here in a publicity shot with the Tardis in the background


Well, the moment the Tardis crash-lands in an English country garden – and the still-regenerating Doctor clambers out into a beguilingly mad scenario involving sinister cracks in walls, a flying giant eyeball and the proposed incineration of Earth – Smith faces down any doubters with aplomb.

It’s always initially odd adjusting to a new Doctor. But Smith’s first performance was inventively physical and immediately charming; his newborn Doctor spent the first 20 minutes going through weird food cravings and seeing the world through new eyes.

This is the first time the series has really gone into the business of what it must be like to inhabit an entirely new body. Previous Doctors simply lay around in comas for their first episodes.


A Dalek as seen in the new show

Viewers are always right to be anxious about change, though. The series is now so vast, so central a part of British life that any transformation of the Doctor is akin to anointing a new Archbishop of Canterbury.

There’s a new production team too – replacing the clever Russell T. Davies as head writer is the equally clever Steven Moffat, who has previously created some of the scariest monsters ever seen in Doctor Who.

This deft first episode, called The Eleventh Hour, was packed with one-liners and an even more fantastical feel than of late. But it had that old reassuring combination of intense Britishness, quirkiness and a sense of the macabre.


Former Time Lord David Tennant


The new Doctor was hurled straight into the complex, time-hopping business of meeting his new companion, Amy – first as a young girl a few years back, then, in the winning form of Karen Gillan, a thoroughly grown-up Amy.

It was a clever and occasionally rather moving way of getting into the age-old set-up, that of the Doctor and his glamorous Dr Watson. Unlike previous Doctor Who companions, Amy is a kissagram.

To the Doctor’s amusing bewilderment, it transpires that Amy also has a French maid, a nurse, and a nun outfit in her repertoire.

But when the Doctor spirits her away to the stars at the end, he is not aware that she is to be married the next day. There is a spark between the two of them – but of what? It all bodes intriguingly well for the next 12 weeks.

And Smith seems to have caught it all effortlessly – the sudden leaps of inspiration, the mobile face, the geeky yet implacable squaring up to terrible monsters.

By the end of the episode, in his tweed jacket and bow tie, like an Indie-band Professor Quatermass, you have forgotten all about his illustrious predecessor.

Indeed, Smith might turn out to be one of the best Time Lords of the lot.

source: dailymail