Reviews Series / Doctor Who

The thing is, the Doctor didn't always have that dark side to him. That was only introduced with the 9th Doctor and Christopher Eccleston in the New Series, along with the Time War. But for over 900 years before the Time War, (and much longer than that, as the Doctor regularly lies about his age,) the Doctor still traveled the universe, fighting evil and righting wrongs; it's just that, since the Time War hadn't happened yet, he didn't have that dark side to him. Usually.

The first time a darker side of the Doctor truly began to emerge was with the Seventh Doctor, Sylvester Mc Coy. This was a Doctor that finally decided it was time to not do quite as much running, and instead take care of unfinished business, as the Doctor turned out to have quite the past. The 8th Doctor, Paul Mc Gann, tried to break away from this, but it wasn't long before the early stages of the Time War began, and a Doctor who started as one of the most optimistic of all became borderline suicidal. And then the Time War went into full swing, and then we got War, and then finally 9, and by that point, the dark side of the Doctor was in full force.

The point is, up until the Seventh Doctor , the Doctor barely had that dark side, and Matt Smith's Doctor is an attempt to break away from that. In fact, his performance is largely based on of the 2nd Doctor, Patrick Troughton, which explains a lot. But the important thing is why 11 acts the way he does. The darkness that 9 and especially 10 felt led to some somewhat questionable decisions on the Doctor's part, so 11 is doing his best to move on and make amends. One way to do so is to try his best to forget about the Time War and act like he used to before it ever happened, though I don't think he's always successful. As Day of the Doctor says, 11 is 'The Man Who Forgets'. If he doesn't show a dark side, there's a very good reason for that.

Really? You think so? 'Cause I kinda feel like Eleven's entire existence was dogged by tragedy and the guy so deeply affected by it you sometimes wondered how he got out of bed in the morning. Or didn't hang himself once he got out of bed. On the other hand, "the bad things don't always outweigh the good things or make them less important."

I always figured 11 as the 'sad clown' type - he absolutely felt the pain but put on this silly facade of carelessness to hide it. The times he let the mask slip and got genuinely angry or sad and **** was about to get real.

10 was just about the angstiest Doc we've ever had and after three seasons of mopey Doctor we needed a change frankly, that was 11's purpose I think. Something new and different, not necessarily 'better' (though I prefer 11 to 10 myself) but different.

If Eleven didn't feel the pain, it's because he didn't want to feel the pain. He realized that, during his Tenth incarnation, he focused so much on the Time War that he lost sight of nearly everything else, and couldn't see things from any point of view other than his own, which led to him making some rather dubious decisions. (Donna Noble in Journey's End, anyone? Not that it's the only mark on his record; far from it.) He even realized this himself in Waters of Mars. "I've gone too far', indeed.

Eleven actively chose to distance himself from the Time War and move on; to forget it as much as he could, and to act more like his Classic Series self. (Smith's performance is even based on Patrick Troughton's, the Second Doctor, which is as Classic as you can get.) He still remembered and 'felt the pain' enough, but not to the point where he couldn't look at situations from other points of view or become so self-righteous like in his Tenth incarnation. He realized his mistakes and knew that he had to move on, and this meant that he doesn't 'feel the pain', or at least that he doesn't really show it. But when he does, watch out.