**Due to recent misinterpretations of some one post
from this blog, a disclaimer is now apparently necessary. If this is your first visit to The
Scratched Camera, please read the introductory post and discover, for yourself, that every typed word that
follows is unabashedly my opinion and mine alone. In said introductory post, which,
shockingly, I did not simply type up for my own good health, I state that we
all read events and characters with our own baggage in mind; no one observes
with a perfectly clear lens—hence the
name The Scratched Camera.
Therefore, it is completely your will to disagree with any material that
follows, just as it is my will to agree and advocate for what is mine.** ~End, irritating obligatory disclaimer~
Eleventh Doctor—I Will Always Remember When the Doctor Was
Him
I
wish to preface this entry by proclaiming that the Tenth Doctor is, to this
day, my self-proclaimed favorite incarnation of the Doctor. When Ten regenerated into Eleven
at the end of The End of Time, I was
devastated. I had seen the change
coming, of course, as its inevitability had been broadcasted through the bulk
of the specials that followed the end of series four. However, the knowledge of the event’s certainty did not ease
the transition.
For
a bulk of the fifth and sixth series, I was simply not a fan of Eleven. It was nothing against Matt Smith; on
the contrary, I quite enjoyed having a Doctor from my generation. And, while his companions regularly
irritated me, that was through no fault of Eleven’s.
Eleven
is a harsher Doctor than Ten; I found him to be a hard pill to swallow at
times. He has a friendly,
flirtatious facade about him that irritates me and forces the following reveal
of his true feelings to hit me harder than they might have, had he just been
honest about it from the start. In
The Beast Below, we see this clearly,
as he charms Amy into ditching her wedding (although, he isn’t quite in the
loop yet on that issue).
However, by the end, he’s screaming at her, demanding she return home
and that all human beings have nothing of value to add to this
conversation.
I
stared closed mouth, arms crossed, eyes squinted at the screen as he tore Amy a
new one. I held no grudge at the
fact that his anger was aimed particularly towards Amy, of all people, as she had only been around for two episodes
and I already had very little respect for her. However, that is never
how the Doctor feels. No matter
who he meets, no matter if they’re clingy like Martha, obnoxiously perky
like Rose, perpetually angry like Donna, or excessively bossy and
rude like Amy and River, they are important. No human being is without value.
And,
yet, here was Eleven, boldly proclaiming that humans had no right to form an
opinion on this topic. Amy proves
him wrong, of course, as is her goal in life, much like her daughter’s,
but for that brief moment, he revealed a true characteristic of his new
personality. Willing to argue with
a human and kill an innocent beast—albeit to remove it from its state of
misery—is now the kind of man he is.
His
violent tendencies, somewhat reminiscent of Nine, will continue to appear,
although his human companions will attempt to assuage his temper more as time
carries on. He turns down an
offered partnership from Narcissa Malfoy Rosanna, of the fish people,
in The Vampires of Venice, in light
of threatening her race instead.
Granted, they weren’t exactly innocent, but Eleven’s cold sense of
justice is a shocking adjustment after Ten’s ‘one last chance’ policy. In A
Good Man Goes to War, he’s willing to start another Time War, if that is
what is required to save Amy yet again. He, unlike Amy, is initially willing to hand Jex over in A Town Called Mercy, once again failing
to see the value of one life—although, I will admit that part of this is due
to his own lingering guilt from his actions in the Time War, but more on that
later.
A
majority of the time, Eleven’s motivation behind such extreme measures is to
save one of his companions. To do
so—not to mention, to occasionally achieve his own goals—he frequently introduces
paradoxes, a previous no-go area in New
Who. In Vincent and the Doctor, he purposely disobeys his own rules to
bring Vincent forward in time to experience his own art exhibit. Doing so could have detrimental affects
on all of time and space, resulting in a rewriting of history. For instance, what would’ve happened
had Vincent been sufficiently motivated to not commit suicide? While it would’ve undeniably produced a
more extensive art collection, there would be one whole human—a very important
one, at that—living in the world, where he wasn’t supposed to be.
Eleven does this again in The Big Bang, where there are suddenly
two Amy Ponds in the same room—begging the question, isn’t one enough? While Amelia fails to recognize
herself—to which I respond just how stupid could she be?—the situation
raises multiple questions. I can’t
help but recall Nine’s order of don’t
touch the baby to Rose, and the disastrous affects once she did. How is it suddenly acceptable that two
Amys can occupy the same space and interact, whereas the presence of two Roses
in the same room was enough to spark an added level of heat to an already
complicated paradoxical situation? While Nine and Ten made the occasional exception, it appears
Eleven has made it a rule that paradoxes are perfectly acceptable solution,
begging the question of what qualifies Eleven to risk altering history. I have no real resolution to this
conundrum—other than Moffat’s desire to change the entire set of rules for Doctor Who as required to make his plot,
much like his Doctor, apparently so cool
they’ll be sufficiently flashy to attract non-science fiction based fans, who
may not ask such questions—other than, wherever he is in the Time Lord form
of resting places, Nine is certainly rolling in his grave.
Eleven’s
final play to save the Ponds wouldn’t exist without his use of a paradox as
leverage. The Doctor resides
himself to the plan of allowing the Ponds to jump off the top of the
hotel—under the logic that the hotel was created by the Angels and, therefore,
if the Angels fail to acquire Rory as has already been foretold, there will be
no hotel to fall off of—with much more hesitation and restraint than he had in The Big Bang. In the time that has passed since the end of series five,
the Doctor has grown quite a bit, experiencing several paradoxes created by his
companions and seeing first-hand just how damaging they could be. Rory’s insistence of potentially saving
both Amys in The Girl Who Waited doesn’t
sit well with either the Doctor or the TARDIS. The paradox created by River’s refusal to kill him literally
stopped all of time in The Wedding of
River Song, mashing Churchill with Ancient Rome in a frightening
visage.
Therefore, when this Angel theory
is persisted upon him by Amy and River, the Doctor hesitates for the smallest
of moments. However, stubborn as
they are, they succeed in persuading the Doctor this is the best course of
action, despite his insistence that it may not succeed. It does work, but, in true Moffat
fashion, it is dramatically revoked as Rory is taken once more back to the
past, sending Amy to follow him in short order.
Several
of my least favorite aspects of Eleven are not necessarily his fault, but are a
result of the writing and design of the character. When Moffat took over as show-runner in the fifth series, a
lot of things changed. We suddenly
had a companion of the Triple F variety—a Fronting Feisty Female who is
notorious for bossiness that she can’t back up, as she sits and waits for her
male protagonist to save her, only to snipe at him for not doing so faster once
he succeeds—who, of course, instantly fell in love with the Doctor; feelings
which only intensified with time, as it is revealed in The God Complex that Amy now essentially worships the Doctor. Her daughter follows her—don’t even
get me started on that tangled mess of webs—who also falls in love with the
Doctor. Sophie, from The Lodger, flirts with the idea of pursuing
Eleven, despite knowing him for a meager few moments. Queen Nefertiti, in her interactions with the Doctor prior
to the start of Dinosaurs on a Spaceship,
appears to desire him to the point of making a fool of herself as she lunges
upon him. Tasha Lem, of the Church
of the Papel Mainframe, practically assaults him as she makes various attempts
to persuade him to go to bed with her throughout The Time of the Doctor.
And,
of course, there is Clara. I’ve
avoided mentioning her in my previous Doctor
Who related posts, because, well, she’s simultaneously a complicated and
underdeveloped character all in one—another problem I thank Moffat for. But, for my purposes here, she’s yet
another woman in a long line of girls who have immediately fallen for
Eleven.
This
isn’t exactly a new concept. As
Eleven tells the War Doctor in The Day of
the Doctor, it isn’t uncommon for the companion to fall in love with the
Doctor in New Who. However, during Eleven’s reign as
the Doctor, it has been a steady pattern; almost every woman—within his appropriate
age range (and, sometimes, not so in his appropriate age range. I could argue that Amelia and young
River both started falling for him at the very tender age at which they both
first met him)—who comes in contact with the Doctor feels some sense of
immediate attraction to him.
While
this Doctor is an interesting man, he is far from perfect. Eleven has a sense of misogyny about
him, periodically making jokes and statements that concern me and cause me to
question why all of these women fall helplessly in love with him. As mentioned earlier, in The Vampires of Venice, part-fish Rosanna
offers a partnership as a means of an olive branch. Eleven jokingly returns that a ‘partnership’ would lead to
children so hideous, it would be cruel to introduce them to the world.
In
my post-Ten distrust, I disliked comments such as these, but attempted to keep
an open mind. However, as time
carried on, Eleven continued to fail to appeal to my feminist side with snide
comments similar to the one above, leading up to his very last episode, The Time of the Doctor—an episode which
is arguably a feminist’s nightmare.
Upon Clara’s entrance to the TARDIS,
he is naked, causing Clara a distinct feeling of discomfort. While the audience would have to be
blind not to recognize Clara’s developing feelings for the Doctor, that does
not give him the right to flash her.
Unfortunately, the nudity has only begun, as it is carried through the
bulk of the episode as a supposed necessary theme to assuage the members of the
Church of the Papal Mainframe. To
satisfy their cultural stipulation requiring nudity, the Doctor manipulates
Clara’s perception to make her believe she has clothing on, where as she appears
naked to everyone else, including him.
When
Clara discovers this truth, after several
members of the church have seen her, she is deeply embarrassed—an
interesting reaction, as I would’ve been livid, but that will have to be
developed in a future post centered on Clara—and feels moderately
violated. Again, this was not
something the Doctor should’ve done without seeking her permission. Had he done this to Donna, she would’ve
punched him without a moment’s hesitation. However, Clara’s favoring of embarrassment in light of a
lack of blatant anger and seeking of retribution doesn’t make the action
acceptable, or in any way excuses the Doctor’s manipulations.
The
church isn’t the only instance of apparently necessary faked nudity of the
episode. The members of the church,
while serving as a vague attempt at justification for later nudity, are not a
satisfactory excuse for his choosing to remain naked for his initial
introduction to her family. He
has, at the very least, once again curbed Clara’s perception to simulate clothing
to lessen her discomfort. But, for
whatever reason, Eleven has chosen to expose his nudity to her family, as a
supposed means of lessening the awkwardness of first impressions.
While
this maneuver blatantly lacks any sense of logic to it, it is also, once again,
violating Clara’s wishes. By
insisting upon revealing himself to her and her family, despite the fact that
she specifically requests he acquire clothing before they go to her home, it
indicates that he has no concern for her opinions or thoughts—that her requests
and demands are simply meant to be comical nonsense, fit only for his amusement.
Fans
of Moffat may insist that the Doctor is, in fact, alien, and may not be
familiar with the beliefs and standards of human society. Although alien at his very core, he has
spent several hundred years travelling with humans. If he hasn’t grasped the conventions of our society by now,
he is far less intelligent than Eleven seems to think he is. Not to mention Ten, several hundred
years younger—and according to River, several pegs below Eleven on the
intelligence and capability scale—seemed to have an excellent grasp on what it
meant to not only respect women, but humans in general, albeit with a fair
share of snark.
Moffat fans could also argue this
is merely meant to be interpreted as comical fodder, and should, therefore, not
be overanalyzed. Perhaps it is
funny to a twelve year old boy—in the way Howard Stern prompts giggles out
of forty-year-old males who wish they were still in the glory days of high
school—but the entire oversexed component of the episode was not only
unnecessary, it was offensive to women, to the point that it demands
observation.
Typically,
I don’t feel Eleven is as misogynistic as he is in The Time of the Doctor.
Occasionally, he will make comments similar to the above mentioned
remarked to Rosanna in Vampires that
will bother me, particularly related to the various women who have fallen for
him over his reign as Eleven. In a
way, these comments seem to be Eleven grasping at the feeling of the simultaneously
overconfident and insecure jock who feels the need to coyly allude to his
conquests for some external justification that he is as cool as he seems to think he is.
While
this aspect of Eleven’s characterization makes me dislike him intensely at
times, there are facets of this feature that endear him to me. Everything he does is a façade, as he
flirts and befriends to forget the deeper guilt that still lingers from his
genocide at the close of the Time War.
On the surface, Eleven is very friendly and excitable, as he hops around
Craig’s apartment, giddily building devices to solve the mystery of the
upstairs tenant, as opposed to just walking up there to begin with. He holds tight to this fabrication, as
he plays the role his new, younger face requires. As The Day of the
Doctor informs us though, he is the man who forgets. He plays his role—overzealous and
entertaining—all the while desperately attempting to ignore the travesties of
his past.
Occasionally,
he fails to hold that lid on tight enough, resulting in an outburst of anger,
or a drive to murder. His desire
to kill Jex in A Town Called Mercy resulted
directly from his own self-loathing over their very similar pasts. This self-hatred goes so far as to
produce an entire second-self in Amy’s Choice,
as the Doctor is forced to battle with his own subconscious hatred in the form
of the Dream Lord, a fact he reaffirms as he utters “no one else could hate me
this much.”
While
his youthful exterior raises the demands on his personality, it doesn’t bring
all bad aspects. He has an
affection for children that can be very adorable and redeeming. There is, of course, Amelia, the first
child that touched Eleven’s heart and, therefore, cemented his inclination
towards younger children. In A Christmas Carol, Eleven goes to great
lengths to sort out Dumbledore’s Karzan’s life as he bonds year after
year with young Professor X the child to develop a deep connection with
even Sardick’s adult form. His
renovations and subsequent playtime with Madge’s children from The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe is
incredibly endearing. Eleven shows
his ability to grow attached to even infants as he and Alfie
Stormageddon work together to help Craig become the father he has the potential
to be.
In
his childlike demeanor, I do find Eleven very entertaining and funny, if in a
distinctly different way than Ten.
While I was initially wary of him, he does come through, frequently
saving his companions, Earth, and a town called Christmas that no one else
seemed to care for. While Eleven
may never be my Doctor, he was the
first Doctor I saw in live episodes, the first Doctor I discovered right
along-side the rest of the audience, the Doctor I first saw regenerate with the
rest of the world. And, therefore,
I will always remember when the Doctor was him.
From Gary King to Nicholas Angel: Is Eleven a good role model? Eleven has a viciousness and a cruelty to his personality
that even beats out his PTSD-ridden earlier counterpart of Nine. The way he acts around
women—simultaneously flirty and perplexed (remember the flailing hands at
his first kiss with River?) with a tinge of misogyny doesn’t necessarily
set the best example either. There’s
also an arrogance about Eleven, particularly as he boasts just how incredibly
intelligent and superior he is to humans, that doesn’t work any miracles
towards reverting the general sense of egotism found in men similar in
disposition to this incarnation of the Doctor. Although I can concede that at least his overconfidence is
frequently meant to hide deeper insecurities that serve to justify his
impudence. The level of
self-loathing evident in Eleven is also anything but healthy. However, quite conversely, Eleven can
be kind and sweet-hearted, particularly towards children, partially due to a
childlike spirit that typically serves to make him very optimistic and
rectifies some of the damage done by the harsher parts of his personality.
Role Model Rating:
4/10
From Peter Parker to Spider-Man: Is Eleven relatable?
Of the three incarnations we’ve seen of the Doctor on New Who, Eleven is perhaps the most
alien. Between bow ties, fezzes,
flailing, overexcitement, communication with horses and babies, and a general
propensity towards hipster status, Eleven is practically foreign when compared
to the Doctors of Old Who. While he may experience an extreme
version of his previous incarnations’ struggle to keep his temper and genocidal
tendencies in check, his resulting self-loathing, regrets over various mistakes
and an inclination to run from unavoidable past errors is a very human
sentiment that assuredly many audience members can relate to. He also shares a battle with the
Doctors of old to understand human concepts and feelings; however, Eleven is
adept at creating a comical spectacle as he embraces those differences. The resulting general excitability and
childlike nature inclines the audience to adore him, if maybe not relate to
him. I also believe the average
age of the Doctor Who audience is at
its all-time low thanks to Eleven’s (well, really Matt Smith’s) youthful
appearance and affinity for and subsequent attachment to random articles of
clothing. In short, Eleven is
quirky (come to think of it, he and Luna Lovegood would get along rather
well…). When carried too far,
this aspect can alienate (get it?) the character from the audience. Fortunately for Eleven, he does an
excellent job of toeing that line—odd enough for those of us on the slight
outskirts of society to find a relatable quality to the character, yet not so
far that the general population is perplexed and, therefore, evaluates the
character as either bizarre or disturbing.
Relatability Rating:
6/10
