The 12th Doctor

So, I recently found out Matt Smith is leaving Doctor Who at the Christmas special. I know there's been rumors for a while, but I really like the 11th Doctor and Time Lords only have 12 regenerations so the more the show runner waste them, the more pissed off I get because I don't want to see the utter ass-pull that leads to the Doctor having more than 12 regenerations.

That will piss me off.

Now, with that in mind, I want to speak my mind about Matt Smith as the 11th Doctor...

From the moment I started watching Doctor Who, I did do my research. I still haven't seen all the episodes of the Old Series, but I did read about the Doctor and look up the pictures of the previous eight (at the time) Doctors as well as memorize their names:

1. William Hartnell (3 seasons and a serial)-- Age 55 at beginning of tenure
2. Patrick Troughton (3 seasons)--Age 46 at beginning of tenure
3. John Pertwee (5 seasons)--Age 51 at beginning of tenure
4. Tom Baker (7 seasons)--Age 40 at beginning of tenure
5. Peter Davidson (3 seasons minus a serial)--Age 30 at beginning of tenure
6. Colin Baker (2 seasons and a serial)-- Age 31 at beginning of tenure
7. Sylvester McCoy (3 seasons)-- Age 44 at beginning of tenure
8. Paul McGann (Television Movie)-- Age 37 at beginning of tenure
9. Christopher Eccleston (One Season)-- Age 41 at beginning of tenure
10. David Tennant (3 seasons and a Specials Season)-- Age 35 at beginning of tenure
11. Matt Smith (3 seasons)-- Age 28 at beginning of tenure

I also tried to memorize how long they were the Doctor keeping in mind that you can't really judge by the number of episodes because part of the beauty of Doctor Who was that it changed over time from a season that would last pretty much year-round with a half-hour episode each week and every half-hour being part of a larger serial or plot line which then was part of a season which sometimes had its own over-arching plot-line... yeah... 

Or I hope there will be over-arching plotlines coming at least when the Pertwee era starts up...

Now, if you look above you'll see one other thing, the ages of the actors who played the Doctor at the beginning of their time as the Doctor. With the exceptions of the First, Third, and Eleventh Doctors, most of the actors were in their thirties and forties. To me, this is the appropriate age for The Doctor, a mature actor who is brilliant at their job. However, other things I thing the Doctor needs in unconventional looks.

When I first saw Matt Smith and his age, I felt he had  no business  playing the Doctor. I mean, what were they thinking? He was marriageable age! Granted, the Eleventh Doctor does get married... to a woman who is apparently in her 50s (Alex Kingston, born 11 March 1963)... So I guess it worked out.

More importantly, hanging around with old men at nursing facilities all the time enabled me to pinpoint the behaviors of those who are... elderly. This really warmed me up to Matt Smith because he looks like a handsome young devil who I'd be strongly attracted too... He behaves... like my nerdy grandpa. 

...Or a college professor in his 60s.

Really... he does! I mean, it's wonderful! I fell in love with it because... it was so completely the opposite of what I expected. I expected more of the David Tennant Rubbish (DTR from now on) where he says he's old, but acts like a bratty, spoiled child who needs my grandmother to put him over her knee (a task she'd majorly enjoy for many reasons), but instead I got some top-notch acting that really made me love the Eleventh Doctor to pieces.

I liked watching him just... doing stuff! I would've loved a genuinely historical episode with him where he just went to the past and had fun with no invading aliens or Daleks or abandoned blind aliens or anything like that. I just want Matt Smith going to America to look up Nikola Tesla because it'd be fun and see what sort of trouble he gets mixed up in while his companions accidentally get in trouble with Russian KGBs and such. That would be an awesome and amazing episode!

It could even be funny like the Romans episode with the First Doctor!

I never want to see that with David Tennant (though I would fancy and episode like that with Christopher Eccleston). 

So... Yes... Matt Smith suffered from being Too Young, but I still liked him as the Doctor and I will continue to like him because he was one of my Doctors.

Now... the next Doctor needs to be a British actor between thirty and fifty who is hopefully red-headed with a properly quirky personality or maybe even something more sinister because, let me tell you...

I do not believe John Hurt is the Twelfth Doctor, I think he is a previous Doctor who may explain whatever ass-pull they're going to use to give the Doctor more regenerations. Why do I say they're going to do an ass pull? Because if they ignore the Twelve Regeneration Rule, I will be more angry than I was when Russell T. Davies viciously and stupidly ignored the fact that  "TIME LORD" ISN'T THE DOCTOR'S RACE IT'S A TITLE HE EARNED!!!

Do you understand?

Good, because I'm not going to repeat myself. So, listen closely. The furthest I can tell from my research, the Doctor's race is "Gallifreyan". He graduated from the Prydonian Academy named as such because it is located in the city of Prydon. There were apparently many Time Academies on Gallifrey, the Doctor graduated from the Prydon chapter making himself a Prydonian. His school nickname was "Theta".

Now that that's settled... I really have enjoyed Matt Smith's tenure as the Doctor. I didn't always like the situations he was placed in by the writers. I didn't always like the conclusions to his series. However, I did like Matt Smith as the Doctor despite the fact that he was physically too young.

That said, this bullshit makes me very angry.

Matt Smith was 28 when he first stepped into the role of the Doctor and I was pretty upset because he was too young. As I said above, the actor playing the Doctor should be between the ages of 30 and 50. Both these people above... are younger than ME. I'm going to be twenty-five in August. So is Rupert Grint... three weeks and two days after me, in fact. Emma Watson is two years younger than him. Neither of them could pull off the Doctor! They don't have the maturity or the chops!

So... what does it take, in my opinion, to be the Doctor?

Well, first of all, there's the age requirement. The Doctor should be played by a man (or woman) between the ages of 30 and 50... with 25 or 60 being a stretch. Second, the Doctor should be played by someone who can successfully act quirky without it coming off as a person acting quirky and not actually they're natural behavior. If they can look natural in some crazy clothing, that's a boon in my opinion.

For example, I don't think I ever want to see Patrick Troughton dressed in any way other than his trampish clothing and mop-top.

So, I looked online at some of the speculations for the Doctor's next face. I found some that irked me... and others I didn't think were so bad. So, I'm going to go through them.

Rory Kinnear

Not being a James Bond fan at all, I know nothing about this actor. That's right, I haven't seen any of the current James Bond movies mostly because I really just didn't see a point. That said, this guy could look really goofy if he tried. He'd look great in a bowler! He's 35 years old so he fits the age range I presented. He's British and that's pretty much an inevitable requirement no matter how much I think some non-Brits would do a great job.

Ben Whishaw

Okay, I saw this guy in Perfume: The Story of a Murderer and Cloud Atlas. He's really good at the "sad eyes" look which has become a sort of... Thing in Doctor Who. He's also 32 so he's barely in the age range (just a year or two older than Matt Smith now), but so was Peter Davidson and he apparently didn't DESTROY DOCTOR WHO FOREVER. So, I'd give him a chance. Of course, I don't remember him talking a lot in either of his roles, maybe he did better as Q... I don't know. I don't like 007. So, I'm not opposed, but I'm not strictly for it either.

Colin Morgan

Being as he's 27 years old, and I don't think he actually did that great of a job on Merlin (which may be due to the fact that I hated that show with a passion)... No. Just, please... No. If you have any decency... No. NO.

Richard Ayode

YES! YES! YES! He's 35 which is a prime age for an actor to play the Doctor. He's got the big poofy curly hair and the classes. I've seen him on his comedy shows and I loved him. He's be a brilliant Doctor and my step-sister would probably die from squee-overdose (if possible). Why hasn't this happened yet?

Romola Garai

At age 30 and having been in a number of movies and BBC dramas already (including Emma), I wouldn't be opposed to her being the 12th Doctor. For one, she's hot. For two, she's got some range. Three, they've been joking about a female Doctor for years. Really! Go look up Curse of the Fatal Death!

Everyone else listed either isn't a contender in my opnion for one reason or another or they're Daniel Radcliffe of Tilda Swinton. Daniel Radcliffe is... TO YOUNG TO BE THE DOCTOR.

Tilda Swinton...

Is kind of... Perfect. She's female, yes, but she's also extremely androgynous. I mean, when I first saw her in Constantine, as Gabriel, it took me a minute to realize she was female. It was more obvious in Chronicles of Narnia. She's pretty, but not really conventionally so. She could really put together and interesting outfit if she tried. If she can successfully act like an inhuman angel of God than a time-travelling alien would be no problem. Oh... and she can go ginger easily. On the down side, she's fifty-one which is slightly above my age-range, but she seems to be aging well. I mean, the only females I'd want to be the Doctor after her are (in order) Judy Dench, Maggie Smith, and Jaime Murray.

Well all know none of those are going to happen.

Sadly.

But I still wouldn't mind Richard Ayode or Ben Whishaw.

That said, there is one person I would love to be the Doctor who will never take on the role...

If we can't have a Female Doctor, can't we have an Executive Transvestite Doctor?