The New Doctor (13th)

And it was awesome! She is gonna do well in the role. I hope she stays for more than 3 seasons.

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i’m really liking her so far, but she’s still in that weird period where every new doctor is still finding their character’s feet. i can’t wait to watch her really start stretching the character.

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The second ep where she’s reunited with the Tardis was pretty cool too.

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that was a lovely moment. my favorite moment of the episode, i think.

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Forget the 10th Doctor and Rose; the biggest, most emotional 'ship on this show will always be between the Doctor and the TARDIS.

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Loved the look on her face when she said, “You’ve redecorated!”.

I’m curious if the Doctor’s overall mood will shift now that she’s been reunited with the TARDIS.

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i don’t know if i can get behind that… it’s very hard to rank the Tardis, Rose Tyler, Amy Pond, or Clara Oswald for me… they all are quite intense in their own ways.

EDIT: omg, i can’t believe i forgot to mention Sarah Jane Smith, too!

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I admit, I do love the new design.

The Doctor’s relationship with the TARDIS goes above and beyond any that he/she has ever had with any companion, no matter how beloved.

I cite example A; when the TARDIS’s “soul” (or consciousness if you prefer) was displaced into the body of a living woman, during Matt Smith’s turn at the helm.

She called the Doctor “my thief” and basically stated outright that the first Doctor could never have stolen the TARDIS if she hadn’t chosen to allow it to happen… But she did allow it, because she liked him and wanted ‘some adventure.’

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yes yes yes, i know that it’s canon and implied that way. but it doesn’t come across nearly as strongly as some of his human companions, that’s all. the doctor rarely shows the same depth towards the tardis that he does to his human companions – that’s what made the scene in this last episode so touching and singular.

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They should be giving the control rooms numbers like they do the actors.

This new one is revisiting the “hemispherical shape” concept from the Russell Davies era, but this time there seems to be natural light shining into the space from the outside. That could be tricky, especially if they have scenes where the outside of the ship is spinning rapidly, which is something they used to do.

And I noticed this Doctor has another new accent. I guess I’ll get used to it.

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I know way more Geordies, Mancunians, and Scousers, (and Cockneys, for that matter) than people with BBC standard southern accents.

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I say have her speak in the Irish Traveller cant that Brad Pitt’s character had in Snatch.

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You monster.

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one step at a time. it will happen. it’s bad enough that people are giving them shit over (gasp) being a woman – can you imagine if she was a non-british woman?? the internet would melt down.

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The earlier actors mostly spoke with a deliberately posh Received Pronunciation that went with the “time LORD” concept.* I’d be OK with sticking to that, but they didn’t ask me :confused:

 
∗ tom baker in particular played it as a sort of satire, speaking in a pretentious, plummy cadence but otherwise looking and acting like a homeless person — i think he’s the only doctor we ever see sleeping, as he naps in various inappropriate places

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Well of course I’m not suggesting EVERYBODY ON THE BBC should talk like that. It’s precisely because the Doctor is supposed to be somehow the same person between one actor and the next that changing THE DOCTOR’S accent every time doesn’t seem necessary to me. They’re not postulating that the new Doctor had a new and different childhood from the other Doctors, growing up as part of a different community and talking a different way.

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But that brings us back to a central Doctor trait: they’re not British. They’re not even human. Things that matter terribly terribly much to humans the Doctor cares not one whit about, and things the Doctor cares about are inexplicable and fey to humans.

“Lots of planets have norths.” It’s right there with Eccleston’s Doctor.

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Everybody can use that argument. “Northern accents should get more representation on the BBC” is totally a thing that matters terribly much to to humans that one might imagine the Doctor wouldn’t care about.

But obviously there are priorities here that are more important than “what makes sense to me.”

Whatever. It’s fine.

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9th-doc-lots-planets-north

I mean, isn’t the point that beginning with the 7th Doctor (who used his own Scottish accent) that the Doctor became more representative of the linguistic realities of the UK itself? Prior to McCoy, all of the Doctors used RP, which wasn’t terribly representative and I think that was probably largely true of British TV up to the 70s, maybe, that most actors employed RP, and that there was not a lot of regional variety in accents, which are bound to location and class status.

I’m not British, but I kind of enjoy the fact that there is more variety with regards to how British shows sound, because it’s a good reminder that the UK is actually a diverse place with regards to class, race, and region.

And @cynical, didn’t you start to see more accent variety as early as the 70s and 80s, not just on Doctor Who, but on BBC in general?

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