eleventh doctor

You Got Your Mass Effect in My Doctor Who

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Image from Crabcat IndustriesIn the reality distortion field that is San Diego Comic Con, many lovely cross-fiction mash-ups spontaneously combust. Actors from one property mingle with fans dressed up as characters from another, and magical crossover pictures emerge.

Think Robert Downey, Jr. caught in a picture talking with someone dressed up as Agatha from Girl Genius, or Sir Patrick Stewart speaking with a child stuffed into a homemade R2-D2 costume, and you have the idea.

Or, for instance, this image of Doctor Who‘s Matt Smith, the Eleventh Doctor, wielding an Omni-Tool from the Mass Effect universe, provided by Crabcat Industries, a cosplay team dedicated to the Mass Effect series of computer games.

Strangely enough, an Eleventh Doctor crossover into the Mass Effect universe isn’t all that far-fetched, as IDW Publishing is publishing a Doctor Who/Star Trek: The Next Generation comic series. Somehow the Borg and the Cybermen have become allies.

Well, no one ever said crossovers needed to make sense…

(via Kotaku; image from Crabcat Industries)

Re-Branding a Time Lord

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Funny thing about Doctor Who is that the show’s visual identity has always centered on the current iteration of the Doctor and in the swirly title graphics; the title logo has never really been a focus for fan identity.

Current Dr. Who Logo

The lens-flare-esque logo for the Ninth and Tenth Doctors is a case in point. It’s just sort of there, really, not entirely memorable as it flips and flops in the time vortex as impatient viewers wait to for the show to start.

Prior logos were similarly utilitarian, as a nice BBC image gallery demonstrates.

io9 brings news that the BBC is updating the logo for the Eleventh Doctor, incorporating that most iconic of Doctor Who images, the TARDIS:

New Doctor Who Logo

While I’m admittedly circumspect about Matt Smith’s casting as the Eleventh Doctor, fearing that the new show runners are playing to a younger demographic than, well, the demographic that I inhabit, I like this new logo. Bit of a visual pun, and it’s surprising that the TARDIS hasn’t been used in the logo before.

But that lens flare is killing me!

(Images from the BBC Doctor Who site.)

The New Doctor is . . . Who?

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Matt Smith as the 11th Doctor, from http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7808697.stmAfter months of speculation about the next regeneration of Doctor Who, the BBC today announced that Matt Smith will claim the coveted role of the wandering Gallifreyan.

Um, Doctor Who?

The youngest actor to play the lead role in Doctor Who, Smith follows on the heels of David Tennant, who will be stepping out of the role after some specials to air in 2009 and early 2010. Per the BBC article,

Piers Wenger, head of drama at BBC Wales, said that as soon as he had seen Smith’s audition he “knew he was the one”.

“It was abundantly clear that he had that ‘Doctor-ness’ about him,” he said. “You are either the Doctor or you are not.”

I must confess that I was hoping for a female Doctor this time around, if only for the story line possibilities. Every new Doctor must build on the work of his or her predecessors while imbuing the role with something special, something new. I suppose skewing younger will bring a fresh take to the role, but the Doctor is, after all, 900-odd years old.

The very first Doctor, William Hartnell, was in his mid-50s when he stepped through the TARDIS doors. The Doctor is definitely not young at heart—the Doctor is capable of deep, dangerous emotions that betray his age and the scars of time.

I trust that Steven Moffat, the new show runner from 2010 on, will remember that what a younger actor brings to the show is energy, not youth.

(Image from BBC)