The New Doctor

Having began enjoying Doctor Who about this time last year, maybe a little before that actually, I eagerly tuned in to BBC1 (I say eagerly, I watched it on SKY +) to see if Matt Smith was any good as the new Doctor.  It was pleasantly surprising, he was particularly good at the funny stuff and quite an exciting presence.  The story for his first episode felt a little flimsy at times, the best parts were with The Doctor and his new swoontastic sidekick Amy Pond (Karen Gillan), while the whole goggly eyed alien spaceships were a little crap.

I suppose there has to be some kind of exciting bit of sci-fi and action to get people hooked, although I would have been far more interested in the transition from the old to the new.  Some of the supporting cast were a bit lame, especially Amy’s boyfriend/fiance, apart from Sophie from Peep Show who was one of the many faces of Prisoner Zero.  Some of the camera work and direction seemed a little odd as well, I swear at one point it turned into Smack My Bitch Up.

It does have to get over the hurdle of introducing the new guy but I thought that was adequately achieved in the first few minutes with little Amy, the food eating was quite amusing, but every now and then it was “oh we better just show that I’m different” etc.  The early signs are good though, Amy seems a great foil for the Doctor and I’m a lot keener on Matt Smith than I was before watching, and far less distracted by the bizarre proportions of his head.  I hope to see more of the bow-tie, he great boots (of which I have a similar pair) and Amy’s legs.  Speaking of Bow-Ties, I wonder if they saw Brother Mouzone and thought “that’d look good on the Doctor”.

The preview of the series tagged onto the end of the episode was a little annoying, I prefer surprises than all the ‘look we’ve got them back’, ‘we’ve got him for an episode’ although the sight of a Dalek trundling through the trenches was intriguing.