Steven Moffat: Matt, thanks for coming in today, and sorry for all the secrecy. I guess you know how big a deal it would be if this got out too early.Matt Smith: No, no, it's fine. I understand completely.SM: Before you read for it, there is one question I've wanted to ask. You're a very fine actor and I've always enjoyed your work, but you're also, well, very young, and worse, you're part of that lost generation that grew up without Doctor Who. Why do you feel that you've got what it takes?MS: Well, I've made no secret of the fact that I've never really watched the series, and to be honest, I've always thought that the premise was a bit, well, preposterous.SM: So why are you here?MS: It's just that, well...SM: Well?MS: ...It sounds so silly. You promise you won't laugh?SM: I've seen the scripts for "The End of Time".MS: Ok. Out with it: I have these dreams.SM: Dreams?MS: Dreams of impossible things. Other times, alien planets, quarries. And in them, I always seem to be battling monsters, or at least overgrown condiment sets. And there's this blue box...SM: Do you by any chance own a fob watch?MS: Funny you should ask. I've had it as long as I can remember. Some sort of heirloom.SM: Right. Look, Matt, I'm not going to beat around the bush here. You've got the part. Just don't tell anyone, ok?MS: Uh, sure. Gosh. I mean, I thought you'd want me to do screen tests, or at least read for it.SM: I don't think that'll be necessary. But Matt...MS: Yes?SM: Could you bring that watch to the first read-through?
OK, you've got me. I made that up. But how else do we explain Matt Smith's frankly astonishing affinity for the role? Last night's "The Beast Below" was only his second episode, but it's already clear that he and Steven Moffat have both a clear vision of who the 11th Doctor is, and the ability to execute on it.
Last week was a promising beginning. This week, we saw enough to suggest that we are at the start of something a bit special. The ease with which Smith handles the various demands of playing the Doctor bears comparison with Christopher Reeve's Superman. Both actors stepped into a role heavy with the baggage of expectations, and wore it lightly.
I've been trying to avoid making a comparison with David Tennant's Doctor. He was the best Doctor since Tom Baker, perhaps the best ever, and deserves a big share of the credit for securing the series's future. Two weeks ago, I'd have said it was unfair to compare Smith to Tennant until he'd had time to get into his stride. Not necessary. The boot, I'm afraid, is now on the other foot.
The Doctor's best moments are often the smallest. My favourite of recent times was the moment in "Tooth and Claw" when the Doctor first sees the werewolf and can't help but declare "Aren't you wonderful?", even when he should be running. It's a line that encapsulates the essential otherness of the Doctor: he doesn't see the world like us, and he shouldn't, because he's an alien.
What Moffat and Smith have done is to build, as near as possible, the whole performance out of moments like that, and with admirable economy. The climactic lines in this week's episode - in which the Doctor is faced with doing something so against his nature that he would no longer be the same person afterwards - were delivered in a manner that was almost throwaway, and were all the more effective for it.
It helps a lot that Matt Smith is physically a bit odd. He wears his own body like it's new to him and doesn't quite fit, and his distinctive face is capable of looking weird when shot and lit from the right angles - used to great effect in the extreme close-up reaction shot at the end of the episode when he understands where he's gone wrong and Amy Pond's got it right.
Because, even better, he's fallible. Karen Gillan's Amy had much more to do this week, and one of those things was to out-think the Doctor. It was an important marker for both characters and for the whole series; Gillan nailed it, and the script very nearly did. This is a woman who's spent half her life obsessed by the Doctor. Right at this moment she knows this new incarnation almost better than he does, because she's experienced all but a few minutes of his timeline, and had years to think about who he is - much longer than he has himself. Gillan made it show, but the script could have done with giving her more time to put it on screen. The full impact didn't hit me until a while after the episode ended.
But I can forgive that, because I suspect there will be more to come. I can also forgive a script that didn't quite hang together. I've struggled to put a finger on quite what was missing. The plot was a collection of familiar elements (my wife, among others, spotted similarities to a short story by Ursula K. Le Guin) but it served the character moments (which mattered more), it was pleasingly balanced (no real black or white, even if the grey was a bit uniform), and in the end no-one had to die (and to those who want more terror, I say - phooey. This is family viewing, and the level of terror was just right for my five and two year olds). The dialogue was crisp and had a lot of delightful grace notes, but we should expect nothing less from the man who wrote Coupling.
The problem, it strikes me, is the world-building. The society depicted in the episode, three quarters of the UK crammed together on a single spaceship, was atmospheric, but would it actually hang together under closer scrutiny? I'm not sure. This is always a problem for sci-fi series, especially the ones that need to visit new cultures on a regular basis. A series like Doctor Who, with a lot of episodes to turn out in a compressed shooting schedule, can't realistically hope to reach the coherence of something like Pixar's Monsters, Inc, but I can't help feel that a bit more attention to how this society works, beyond what you see on screen, would have paid dividends.
Nevertheless, looking back at my wishlist for the new series, I have high hopes that most of them will be granted. Except for the one about the theme music, but I guess I could just turn the sound down on the titles and download the original to play instead.
