The recent news that Matt Smith will be vacating his role as the Eleventh Doctor finds me in a mixed mood. I’ve made no real secret that I find Smith’s rendition of Doctor Who to be less than satisfying, but upon reflection, my displeasure stems less from the actor than from the scripts and the general direction the show has taken under showrunner Steven Moffat.
Regenerations give Doctor Who a chance to shake up the series, add new elements, bring about new dramatic directions; the change from William Hartnell’s persnickety, slightly crotchety First Doctor to Patrick Troughton’s flighty, insouciant Second Doctor provided a brilliant transition that brought new life to the show (somewhat literally) and yet still honored where the show had been. The change from David Tennant’s Tenth Doctor to Matt Smith’s Eleventh Doctor felt to me like playing to a younger demographic, and the companions during most of Smith’s run, the Ponds, only served to remind us that Moffat was also responsible for the romantic comedy series Coupling. Not that Coupling wasn’t an intermittently enjoyable show, but silly relationship banter isn’t why I watch Doctor Who.
So, I’m excited about the possibility of a new Doctor Who—perhaps a female Doctor, finally, or a return to an older, more distinguished male actor?—but so long as Steven Moffat is at the helm, we’ll still have disjointed “arcs” that promise much and fulfill nothing, pandering rehashes of old series villains, and an absolute disregard for even the most basic canonical standards of the series. I’m no stranger to the fact that the old series pretty much made it all up as they went along—the Dalek chronology was pretty much a disaster by the second season—but they took it seriously even as they made an earnest hash of it all. William Hartnell took pains to keep the then-young show’s continuity intact. I don’t ask for perfection from my shows, only respect.
Here’s to hoping, I suppose.