I have extolled the virtues and beauty of 9 and 10 and I feel the need to explain my problem with the 11th Doctor. “Doctor Who?” you ask. Maybe skip this post. Or call me out for making basically the same terrible joke for a 3rd post.

My issue with 11 is not the actor. I think he is decent looking, even if sometimes I think he might look like Frankenstein’s monster. There is even a moment that makes me think that he is on of the better actors the show has cast.

I’m talking about: Season 7, Episode 5 “The Angels Take Manhattan”, Time 23:00 (skip Rory parts)- 25:00 (spoilers below)

He does his little kid impression because he is happy that River was able to change the story. He grabs her hand and we all see that her wrist is indeed broken. He asks why she lied.

“When one is in love with an ageless god who insists on the face of a 12-year-old one does one’s best to hide the aging process,” or something like that is her answer.

“It must hurt.”

“It does.” And then she adds that the wrist hurts too. Watch his face through this and for the next bit. I cannot fully explain what it is about this scene so I won’t go on and on trying to explain, but something in these minutes make me think, “Wow, this man can act.”

So you might ask, “Prisma, if it isn’t the actor what could you possibly not like about the 11th.”

The writing, people. The 11th storms onto the scene with a smug sense of self. Instead of the inner loathing of self and weight of all the unavoidable deaths all I get from him is a kid that is awkwardly endearing. He quickly wields his name and seems to feel superior and that is not what I got from 9 and 10. All he does is find a convict and he goes all weak version of, “It is PROTECTED!” on the aliens.

I think the character change to light-hearted, bright-eyed boy wasn’t justified or even really acknowledged. I think they wrote such strong supporting characters and they wanted to get to the plot, which I will say is the only arc that I felt was done thoroughly from set-up to conclusion, so fast that they didn’t give us much time to meet the new Doctor. They showed us his differences but I didn’t really get the similarities like I did between 9 and 10.

Then he goes into a funk and pouts, which is Doctor-like, but they make such a big deal about it. It almost feels like they erased all his pain before just to play up this one and then followed it with another rushed ending to an arc.

But Who knows, I could just be a prattling fool.