Thursday, October 30, 2008

Tennant’s days are numbered!

*insert sad violin music here*

BBC officially announced yesterday that David Tennant is stepping down from his role as Dr Who. Let the speculation begin!

My Personal Opinion - not of who gets the role but what direction they should take.
  • Relatively young - while older actors would have been just fine in the previous run, in the new series they’ve sort of built fan expectation up for a young, vital doctor so an older actor may not go over as well. Unfortunately that leaves Bill Nighy out, who would have been excellent.

  • ...but not too young - no one who played a teenager in anything in the past ten years please. No Daniel Radcliffe!

  • Attractive - again, the fan expectation has been built up

  • ...but not too attractive - no one with too big a sex appeal please, the doctor should be part of the story, not a massive sex god with random stuff happening around him. No Jude Law, no Christian Bale.

  • Different body type - don’t get me wrong, I love the whole indie-boy thing, really I do. But David Tennant really has that all sewn up, and the regeneration should make the doctor DIFFERENT, not the same guy with a different face.

  • ...but there are limits - no muscley action stars please, that’s just silly. Jason Statham, I love you but that cuts you out (nevermind whether he’s got the chops or not, I’m just making a point).

  • Still UK-ish - I’m not being snobby, really, I just feel like there’s an essence to the role that needs the English/Scottish/Irish/Welsh kinda upbringing. Close your eyes and imagine Martin Sheen in the role. See? That said, the role is still way open to different cultural, ‘racial’ and sexual differences. Paterson Joseph, James Callis, hell even Fenella Woolgar.

  • Willing to stick with it for at least three seasons - there are only so many regenerations (unless they pull a magic ‘oh, I touched the heart of the TARDIS and now I have tons more regenerations left’ thing) and it’s really hard to learn to love an actor in the role only to have them back out after one series (witness Christopher Eccleston, the George Lazenby of the Dr Who world - and no, that wouldn’t be Paul McGann, he’s still in the audios)
Whaddya think? Personal faves: Patterson Joseph, Richard Coyle, Jason Flemyng, Stephen Mangan, maybe Sean Pertwee... Michael Ironside in a ten minute clip YouTube perhaps?

1 comment:

  1. Okay, I just re-read this, and Matt Smith follows all of these rules. Except for the skinny indie-boy thing.

    ReplyDelete

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