Aaaaanyway, I noticed that last week’s Radio Times had their interview with actress Karen Gillan (who plays the Doctor’s assistant Amy Pond) as their cover story with Matt Smith relegated to the background:

This week, it was Matt Smith’s turn to be interviewed – and the RT led with the boys from Top Gear:

Sadly, no-one at the Radio Times noticed that the actual Top Gear feature was either shot at a really weird angle or a Photoshop Disaster:

Judging by the five covers the magazine ran with David Tennant as cover star in just 12 months, I can’t imagine them turning down a cover opportunity for the 10th Doctor.  It seems that perhaps the Doctor’s assistant has eclipsed him on the ability-to-shift-magazines front – I certainly get a lot more traffic to this blog for searches for Amy Pond than for Matt Smith.

David Tennant’s Converse were always going to be big shoes to fill, but it looks like Amy/Karen has worn them in nicely.

So the 11th incarnation of Dr Who finally got his first airing last night.  Regular readers will know that I’ve really enjoyed the last few series, but wasn’t very optimistic about the casting of Matt Smith as the 11th Doctor.

I suppose you could say that he (and therefore the programme itself) wasn’t as bad as I thought he/it was going to be.  But the new Doctor is smugger, more arrogant and less emotive than David Tennant’s Doctor, in fact more like the out of control, Time-Lord-Victorious Doctor at the end of the Waters of Mars episode who quickly got his comeuppance.  As Matt Smith himself puts it, “I think my Doctor is a bit more reckless; he’s a thrill-seeker and addicted to time travel. He is the mad buffoon genius who saves the world because he’s got a great heart, spirit and soul but he also doesn’t suffer fools”.

The Doctor’s new assistant, Amy Pond is a kissogram by trade, which seems to have been wedged in there purely to ensure she was wearing a) a sexy uniform and b) a very short skirt.  Sigh.

Stephen Moffet has taken over from Russell T Davies as Showrunner and I suppose the most noticeable different (apart from a new skinny bloke in the Tardis) is that the rhythm of the show seems (at least for now) to have shifted from banter whilst battling aliens to (as my sister put it) “lots of talking but not actually battling anything”, in the case of episode one’s alien-of-the-week, “a thing with big teeth just stood around for a long time and didn’t really do anything”. 

There are still some gems in the script though, like “20 minutes to save the world and all I’ve got a post office. And it’s shut”.  The dialog also confirmed my suspicion that the Tardis contains an enormous wardrobe for Assistants – after all, we never saw Rose and Martha take suitcases with them.  On the other hand, we are now led to believe that it also has a swimming pool…

I think when it comes down to it what I’m really moaning about is that the latest series is all-round Bigger.  Bigger character, bigger Tardis inside, bigger hair (and you’d better fire whoever was responsible for continuity there, unless sonic screwdrivers now come with a ‘blow dry and style’ setting).  Bigger isn’t always better.  I’ll watch the new series, I just probably won’t bother to record it if I’m out.

Oh and that tweed jacket.  My brother in law turned up for dinner last night wearing one.  It’s the sartorial beginning of the end.  If he starts wearing a bow tie and growing his hair I may have to ask my sister to initiate divorce proceedings.

Matt Smith is 26, looks about 17 in real life and judging by the interview shown, has ridiculous hair that he can’t stop faffing about with.  He’d fit right in with the cast of Twilight, but I just can’t seen him as The Doctor, no matter how many times Russell T. Davis gushed about his brilliance.

It’s not encouraging.  I can only assume/hope he’s a fabulous actor, since based on the interview footage I wouldn’t have cast him in a school play. 

Oh well, I suppose I can always watch old episodes on DVD instead and there are thankfully four more David Tennant Doctor Who specials this year before the regeneration hand-over.

In a charidee special, David Tennant crashed his Tardis into the fifth doctor Peter Davidson’s Tardis, resulting in fantastic dialog that made me laugh, shriek and get a bit teary in the space of a few minutes.

You can watch it here on the BBC Pudsey website.

Hypertime is explained as “a manifestation in the story of the comic which allows the writers to refer to any of the instances in all of history of any character inside the comic itself” – otherwise known as a really good get-out clause that allows the coolest versions of much-loved comic characters from different time periods to interact with each other (and paper over any continuity glitches).

My favourite quote from Jack’s talk:
“you don’t get John Pertwee turning up in contemporary Doctor Who, though that’d be quite good if he did”

UPDATE: Feb 2009 – browsing though the archives I realised that the Dr Who ‘Time Crash’ episode from November 2007 (where David Tennant crashes his Tardis into the fifth doctor Peter Davidson’s Tardis) looks like a brilliant example of hypertime in action.  Maybe one of the Dr Who scriptwriters saw Jack’s talk?

The first episode had new assistant Martha questioning whether the biker helmeted aliens were from the Planet Zovirax, while last weekend saw the Doctor urge Shakespeare to rid the world of witches with the help of an ‘Expelliarmus’ from Harry Potter.

 I quite like it, but I can’t help wondering – is this series going to look terribly dated in five years as a result?