Who-Views: The Ninth Doctor

He doesn't look it, but he's quite the ray of sunshine.

Thanks mainly to fellow SiD-er Ray, I've developed a new love for longtime BBC staple Doctor Who. I can't say that I'm watching them in order though. Oddly enough my first Doctor is the current and Eleventh Doctor, Matt Smith. I love the Eleventh enough to firmly say that I couldn't imagine getting into anyone else as the Doctor, even though everyone around me seems awfully partial to the Tenth.

So since I recently signed up for Netflix I decided to take full advantage of it and slightly broaden my Whovian knowledge. I'm not watching all the way from the beginning, I might at some point, but for now I'm sticking to the 2005 reboot which kicks off with the Ninth Doctor, Christopher Eccleston.

Since I can only compare him to the Eleventh, my first impression was kind of odd. Right off the bat, I'm surprised by how old he seems. I don't mean seems, I mean is. Eccleston is 19 years older than Smith. I know it's a superficial thing to judge in such a complex character. They say that the first impression is the most important, and it's painfully obvious here. I'm just used to the Doctor looking like a quirky late twenties lanky dude, and suddenly I'm watching an early forties dude with really big ears, and they're supposed to be the same character. Kinda hard to swallow. But once the first episode carries on you get that Doctor sense from him and I settled into seeing him as that character.

Overall he seems to have a shorter temper. He seems snappier and much less carefree than Smith, but oddly enough on other occasions he seems to say that his short fuse is an act and drops the whole anger bit for the lightheartedness that I know from the Doctor. He is also a much dryer character. He does attempt the clever quips and jokes at times, but it just doesn't flow as naturally for him and it almost seems forced. Either way, it's not enough for me not to like the character, just slightly different. I don't like him as much as the Eleventh, but he's cool in my book.

Insert generic blonde here.

On the other hand, we have the one thing that really takes away from the show: the companion. Rose Tyler might just be the most blah character I've ever seen on this show. Calling her bland is doing her a service. After getting used to Amy Pond who just has built in chemistry with the Doctor, Rose just feels like she got picked out of a hat, won a contest or something.

If you look at how she comes in contact with the Doctor, it was pure luck, they just happened to bump into each other. Nothing special. Amy Pond is the girl who fucking waited, an awesome and touching story that gave birth to a great complex character that isn't just there to fuck things up for the Doctor.

And on top of that, she brings along the people around her. Her mom is just as bad, if not worse. Bitchy and loud, almost disruptive to the mood of the show. And she's not even the character I dislike the most; that honor goes to Mickey, Rose's more or less boyfriend, who is without a doubt the biggest idiot I've ever seen on this show.

To his credit, the Doctor acknowledges how annoying these two are, butting heads with Rose's mom quite often and going as far as nicknaming him 'Mickey the idiot', but his love and admiration for Rose is seriously misplaced in my eyes. She just adds nothing to the story, and I can't get over how they try and put over her importance to the Doctor, and I just don't see it.

With only ten stories over thirteen episodes, the Ninth Doctor didn't really last too long, but it's interesting how much he did grow on me. Not all the episodes are great, but the ones that are are actually very good. I look forward to the Tenth Doctor. I really need to see what all the fuss is about. For now though, the Eleventh reigns supreme to me.