During the last series of Doctor Who it took a while for me to like Matt Smith as the Doctor. Mostly this was down to the first half of the series having some of the weakest episodes for a long time and some of the writers not really writing to match the character of the latest incarnation. The second half of the series took off, though and Matt Smith got the opportunity to make the part his (for the time being).
This meant that I was looking forward to this new series and so far I’ve not been disappointed. Tonight’s episode was particularly interesting on two points.
The first, of course, was that Neil Gaiman wrote it, which meant the episode was more than likely goping to be filled to the brim with ideas. The story galloped along almost leaving us breathless or pausing to over-explain, yet enabled us to keep up with what was happening with little difficulty.
The second point is that, for me, it confirmed that Matt Smith’s Doctor has a bond with Patrick Troughton’s Doctor. The overlaps are quite clear and lots of fun. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to say that Smith is emulating Troughton and that’s what makes it better. I think they’ve both tapped into the same core nature of the character. There were also a couple of aspects of tonight’s story that reminded me of little things in Troughton edpisodes, which just seemed to firm up the similarities in the two doctor versions.
What I love most about this is the way it gives the whole breadth of Doctor Who the kind of connectivity it needs. More, please.