I was pleasantly surprised by Matt Smith’s Doctor, although I am still holding judgment on Matt Smith for a few more shows to let him get in the character. The Eleventh Doctor had some very big shoes to fill after David Tennant and Christopher Eccleston.

Matt Smith’s Doctor seems to be very nerdy, and kind of flighty. He also now has a new sonic screwdriver, which you can buy at Amazon.

For those in the UK:

And for those in the US:

So what are you thoughts about the new Doctor. Please, no spoilers.

I don’t really want to give anything away to those who haven’t seen this yet, but I thought that the way they had The Doctor save everyone he knew at the end of the show was brilliantly done. The show had reached it’s climax, then slowly came down, but didn’t feel dragged out. Shows like this can have a tendency to do that, but the Doctor Who writers were able to pull it off.

I did feel as though David Tennant leaving was a bit dramatic. I am not sure if this much had ever been made about another Doctor leaving the show. Tennant had been named as the best Doctor ever from Doctor Who Magazine, but I have a hard time with that. There are so many fans who have never even seen anyone else but Christopher Eccleston play The Doctor.  There have been 9 Doctors before David Tennant, and if you haven’t seen them all, you can’t say he’s the best.

However, Tennant was brilliant.

If you want to own these specials, go to Amazon for Doctor Who DVD’s and more.

If you are in the UK, you will want to click on this, Doctor Who End of Time DVD’s.

(I thought that Timothy Dalton played a much better Time Lord than he did James Bond, but that’s just my opinion.)

The action starts right away, and keeps moving the story along until the very end. I believe Russell T Davies was on top of his game with this one.

The biggest point (of course) comes at the end where Timothy Dalton, who has been narrating the story, is shown with others in the background and says “…the day the Time Lords returned, for Gallifrey, for Victory, for the End of Time itself!” What? Time Lords?

I can’t wait to see how they explain this.

The only real problem I found was the fact that The Doctor doesn’t seem to do much except chase The Master around. I’m sure that will change in Part 2 next week.

John Simm really plays the part of The Master well. Especially a psychotic, crazy Master. He kind of creeps you out with how into the part he is.

My wife was trying not to cry because she is going to Miss David Tennant, but I keep telling her, we weren’t to happy when Christopher Eccleston left. We thought David Tennant was going to be stupid, but we were wrong. That is one of the great things about Doctor Who, you can get some great interpretations of The Doctor.

I know many people will be wanting to buy this Doctor Who Special, so here is a link to Amazon to pre-order the DVD’s.

UK Amazon Doctor Who DVD’s

Here is a link to buy all of the specials with David Tennant – The Next Doctor, Planet of the Dead, The Waters of Mars and The End of Time Parts 1 & 2.

UK Amazon link:

So I don’t know about anyone else, but I felt that this Doctor Who special was kind of dark. My wife thought it was depressing. When The Doctor just stands by while people are about to die, it’s hard because you know he’s doing the right thing, yet it still feels wrong.

Then he decides to help, and you know he’s doing the wrong thing, but yet it feels right.

That is great writing.

Things turned out pretty much the same in the end, but The Doctor won’t be. He knows his time is coming.

I think that this special showed a much more human side to The Doctor than before, and I think it came at the end. As Lord Acton said “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.” This explains The Doctor’s actions at the end of the show. He was the Time Lord, not a Time Lord. He had power over time itself. It was up to him who lived or died. In The Doctor’s on words, “The laws of time are mine, and they will obey me!” But in the end, he didn’t have that power, the Captain still died.

Unlike The Master, The Doctor realizes what he did and that he can’t play with peoples lives as he sees fit.

There is a lot of political fodder in this, but I think I’ll stay away from that. You can discuss it if you like.

Basically, everyone wakes up after a small explosion inside the TARDIS. They can’t remember what happened, and are increasingly paranoid. There is a lot of screaming again by Susan, a little too much, but there is also a lot of tension between the characters. They try to attack each other, drug each other and accuse each other of sabotage.

SPOILER: This is the first episode that the TARDIS is hinted to be sentient. There is a switch that is broken and the TARDIS took them to the beginning of time. All of the problems on board were the TARDIS trying to warn them of what was happening.

This was the cheapest Doctor Who serial ever produced. It was written to be filler for the 13 episodes ordered, and it only used preexisting sets and the main cast. They call it a “bottle show” because of that.

The Amazon link above also has The Edge of Destruction with it, which is the next serial.

The Daleks

It is hard for those of us who are a bit younger, and who grew up with much more action and color, to watch older shows like the original Doctor Who. But I think it’s necessary to get a full understanding of where The Doctor came from.

In this serial, the Daleks are introduced (if you didn’t get that from the title). Unlike the first Doctor Who serial though, I think that William Hartnell started to give The Doctor a personality. He is more condescending to Barbara and Ian in the Daleks. He treats them like they are inconvenient to him, because they are stupid and because they don’t share his curiousity about things.

However, Ian does take charge in this serial. I thought it was kind of wierd as he is telling The Doctor what to do.

The basic plotline is that The Doctor, Susan, Barbara and Ian have landed on a dead planet and discovered a city. The Doctor tricks them into going to the city where they are captured by the Daleks. They then discover that there is another race on the planet, the Thals. The Daleks and the Thals had a war years before and a bomb was exploded to destroy the planet.

The Daleks set a trap for the Thals, who then fight back.

That was a very short synopsis, but I’m sure you would rather watch it than read about it.

Doctor Who and The Daleks

After a few years, the BBC made a TV movie called Doctor Who and The Daleks. This was based directly off of the serial, although with a few differences. First, The Doctor was played by Peter Cushing, and he took a bit more control than in the Serial. Ian was more of a clumsy boyfriend to Barabara. Barabara and Susan are also both granddaughters of The Doctor.

The Doctor is also a human inventor, not an alien.

We watched this as well, and I do have to say, color does not make everything better. Although I like that The Doctor took more control, the whole movie was (I believe) done in bland way. I think it was made to introduce more people to the serial, but the fact that they changed so much doesn’t make sense.

The Daleks in this movie are also taller than what they were in the series. They also are colored. Some are blue, some are red. The biggest problem is that in this movie, they talked so slowly and haltingly, that it was very hard to listen to.

An Unearthly Child (also known as 100,000 BC) is the first episode in the series. It is our first introduction to the Doctor and his companions. The show opens up with teachers who are trying to figure out about a mysterious student who seems to know about the future. Well the student leads them to the Tardis where Doctor Who, her grandfather, is very unhappy to have humans in his Tardis. They all end up in 100,000 BC, get caught, lose the Doctor, find him, and escape.

The Doctor is very untrusting of humans and is very moody throughout the series. It is hard to watch after seeing the new Doctor Who’s, but as with anything it is best to start at the beginning.

If you would like to buy the DVD’s and watch them (which I highly recommend),Amazon has Doctor Who – An Unearthly Child.