The Eleventh Doctor was the eleventh incarnation of the Time Lord known as the Doctor. He was erratic in behaviour and very alien compared to his previous incarnation, yet he retained his youthful vigour for defending the universe. Shortly after he began his travels, this incarnation of the Doctor encountered and gained his first companion, Amy Pond and later, Rory Williams.
Biography
Regeneration
The Doctor's tenth incarnation regenerated some time after absorbing a vast amount of radiation. He returned to his TARDIS to do so and the energy release caused damage to ship.
Slightly addled by the regeneration, the new incarnation did not immediately realize the TARDIS was on fire and about to crash. Once he did, he actually seemed to enjoy the thrill of the moment, gleefully calling out "Geronimo!" as his TARDIS plummeted to Earth. (DW: The End of Time)
Meeting Amy
Landing on Earth, the Doctor met Amy Pond, who helped him to capture Prisoner Zero for the Atraxi. Two years later, the Doctor returned to Amy to take her on an adventure. Unknown to him, the Doctor had arrived the night before her wedding. (DW: The Eleventh Hour)
Adventures with Amy and Rory
For their first trip, the Doctor took Amy Pond to the late 32nd century on the Starship UK, where he and Amy saved a Star Whale from the unintentional cruelty of the Starship's inhabitants. While preparing to leave Starship UK, the Doctor got a phone call from Winston Churchill, after which the Doctor and Amy headed off to World War II London. (DW: The Beast Below)
Arriving a month after the call, the Doctor and Amy met Churchill, who revealed to the Doctor two Daleks that had survived the Medusa Cascade incident. The Daleks attempted to destroy Earth using a bomb. The Doctor and Amy managed to deactivate the bomb, but the Daleks escaped anyway, planning their next stratagem. (DW: Victory of the Daleks)
The Doctor and Amy then saved London from the Space Leeches by leading them to his TARDIS to take them to another planet. (DWA: Attack of the Space Leeches!)
The Doctor and Amy then travelled to the Blue Boar Services in 1959, where they encountered a gang of teenage Petrolions. The Doctor tricked them by waiting until they ran out of fuel, and changed the direction of the fuel, taking the Petrolions off of their bikes. He then ordered them to return to their home planet. (DWA: Madness on the M1!)
Meeting up with River Song, the Doctor and his companions defeated an army of Weeping Angels by tricking them into falling into a crack in time. (DW: The Time of Angels / Flesh and Stone)
After finding out that Amy was getting married (DW: Flesh and Stone) the Doctor collected Amy's fiancé, Rory Williams, then the Doctor took them couple to Venice, where they stopped a group of fish-like aliens masquerading as vampires that led by Rosanna Calvierri, from attempting to flood Venice. (DW: The Vampires of Venice)
While travelling, Amy, Rory, and the Doctor fell into the traps of the Dream Lord, a manifestation of the Doctor's dark side by Psychic pollen. The Doctor defeated the Dream Lord by solving his puzzle of which reality was real. (DW: Amy's Choice)
Landing in Cwmtaff, Wales, the Doctor found that a drilling operation had disturbed a Silurian city and its inhabitants were retaliating. The Doctor failed to strike a treaty between humans and Silurians and resorted to putting the Silurians into deep sleep until a time when Earth would be ready for peace. On the way back to the TARDIS, Rory was shot by the Silurian Restac and his body was absorbed by a crack. The Doctor then tried to help Amy to remember Rory before he was erased from history, a task he failed in completing. (DW: The Hungry Earth / Cold Blood)
Out of guilt, the Doctor took Amy to visit Vincent van Gogh, where they found that his village was being attacked by a Krafayis, a beast only Vincent could see. The Doctor and Vincent's battle with the Krafayis ultimately resulted in the creature's death, which troubled Vincent deeply. (DW: Vincent and the Doctor)
The Doctor and Amy encountered Hubert Crimp, a slave trader, at the Trans-Vegas Casino, where they freed all of his slaves and won all of his money, giving it to his slaves as compensation. (DWA: Winning Hand) The Doctor then returned his books to the Library, where they encountered Book Monsters. They discovered that they needed to feed them stories, and they were saved by telling them a story about Space Wolves and Sky Sheep. (DWA: Booked Up) He then solved the problem of the TARDIS' arrival sound annoying the inhabitants by muffling the noise with a fire extinguisher. (DWA: Bad Vibrations)
The Doctor spent some time living in a flat after seemingly being abandoned by the TARDIS with Amy still inside. With his flatmate Craig Owens, the Doctor found that the flat upstairs was actually a makeshift TARDIS and the ship's holographic computer was trying to find a suitable candidate to allow the ship to leave. The Doctor and Craig managed to stop the ship from killing anymore. When the TARDIS returned, the Doctor and Amy left, saying they might return one day. (DW: The Lodger)
Restarting the universe
After once again meeting up with River Song, the Doctor was lured to Stonehenge. At Stonehenge, a group of the Doctor's enemies (including Daleks, Cybermen, Sontarans, Slitheen, Judoons and Atraxi) trapped the Doctor inside a prison known as the Pandorica in an attempt to stop the TARDIS from exploding. The TARDIS exploded anyway and every star in the universe began to go supernova. (DW: The Pandorica Opens)
The Doctor was released from the Pandorica by an Auton copy of Rory on the orders of the Doctor's future self, using his future self's sonic screwdriver. Using River's vortex manipulator, the Doctor then worked out a way to fix the universe's destruction by using the Pandorica. The Doctor flew the Pandorica into the heart of the TARDIS' explosion. The Doctor then woke up in the TARDIS one week prior, rewinding through his timestream until he was erased from history.
The Doctor was then remembered back into existence by Amy with the help of River's diary. After Amy's wedding, the Doctor set off with Amy and Rory for new adventures. (DW: The Big Bang)
Adventures during Amy and Rory's honeymoon
The Doctor left Amy and Rory on a honeymoon planet shortly before his TARDIS was taken by the Claw Shansheeth, leaving him trapped on the Wasteland of the Crimson Heart.
The Shansheeth pronounced the Doctor dead and held a funeral for him, planning to drain Sarah Jane Smith and Josephine Jones of their memories of him to create a TARDIS key using a Memory Weave. The Doctor managed to travel to Earth using Artron energy and defeated the Shansheeth with the help of Jo and Sarah. (SJA: Death of the Doctor)
The Doctor later met Kazran Sardick, a man who refused to help him save both his companions and 4001 others. The Doctor then used time travel to alter Kazran's life, hoping to change him into a better person by allowing him to live a life with his love, Abigail Pettigrew. This allowed the Doctor to save his friends. (DW: A Christmas Carol)
Further travels
After Rory unintentionally caused it to falter, the Doctor's TARDIS acidentally materialised within itself. However, the Doctor was able to use the time differences to tell himself how to solve the problem. (DW: Space / Time)
Some time after Amy and Rory's wedding, the Doctor received a mysterious invitation leading him to an American diner in 1969, where he found Amy, Rory and River already present. Unbeknownst to him, they had just witnessed the death of the Doctor's own future self. Knowing they were keeping something from him, the younger Doctor reluctantly agreed to find the fourth invitee, Canton Delaware.
The Doctor found Delaware being consulted by US President Richard Nixon about a mysterious phone call. The Doctor traced the call to a building in Florida, where the caller, a little girl, was being kept in a biomechanical "spacesuit". The Doctor also discovered that the Earth was being occupied by the Silence.
Delaware interned the Doctor at Area 51 while he pretended to hunt down Amy, Rory and River. With the friends reunited, the Doctor set about capturing a Silent and driving it to utter the words "you should kill us all on sight". The Doctor recorded this and spliced it into the footage of the 1969 Moon landing, planting a post-hypnotic suggestion in the minds of every human who will ever watch the footage. With the defeat of the Silence assured, the Doctor set off for further adventures with Amy and Rory. (DW: The Impossible Astronaut/Day of the Moon)
The travellers received a distress signal and ended up on a pirate ship, the Fancy, in the seventeenth century. The crew were being terrorised by a "Siren". It transpired that the creature was in fact a virtual physician from an invisible and intangible spaceship occupying the same space as the Fancy. The pirate captain, Henry Avery, was forced to stay on the spaceship as his son, Toby, was being kept alive by its medical systems. The pirate crew stuck with their captain and left to explore the universe. (DW: The Curse of the Black Spot)
Far future
An 1103-year old Eleventh Doctor, under the knowledge that his death was coming, sent anonymous summoning letters to River Song, Amy Pond, Rory Williams, Canton Delaware and a younger version of himself. By this time, he had started to keep a diary of his travels with River, which were now numerous. He was then shot by an astronaut on a beach in America. He attempted to regenerate, but was killed before the process completed. His friends burned his body as per his request, before returning to a diner to meet his past self. (DW: The Impossible Astronaut)
Undated/Unchronicled events
- There are several gaps in which a number of adventures may have happened:
- Between Rory's death and visiting Planet One.
- The Doctor and Amy visit Arcadia and the Trojan Gardens during this time.
- After Amy and Rory's wedding.
- The Doctor and Amy go in search of the Doctor's favourite painting. Rory is not present. (WC: The War of Art, WC: Amy's History Hunt)
- Between Rory's death and visiting Planet One.
- The Doctor and Amy discover the Daleks have taken over Earth in 1963. Following them back to Skaro they are able to undo the damage they have done. (VG: City of the Daleks)
- The Doctor and Amy discover an ancient Cybermen army hidden underground in the Arctic circle, being undug by Cyber Slaves - events occured on May 4th 2010. (VG: Blood of the Cybermen)
- The Doctor and Amy visit Smyslov 3 for the first time, from their perspective, and learn that their future selves visited there. (WC: Wish You Were Here)
- The Doctor and Amy fight the Entity inside the TARDIS. (VG: TARDIS)
- The Doctor and Amy visit Smyslov 3 and disable Tanik's missiles. (WC: Wish You Were Here)
- The Doctor gets captured in Vorgenson's minimiser, fights the Supreme Dalek and escapes. (SP: Doctor Who Live)
- The Doctor and River Song go to Easter Island, where they are worshipped as gods. (DW: The Impossible Astronaut)
- The Doctor and River Song meet "Jim the Fish". (DW: The Impossible Astronaut)
Psychological profile
Personality
The eleventh incarnation was highly energetic and very lively, with additional liveliness during his post-regenerative period. He was extremely brash and unafraid to show his eccentricities, appearing to act alien. He was extremely resourceful and quick thinking, able to spin things to his point of view, and could find positive outlooks in negative situations. (DW: The Eleventh Hour)
When thinking about a problem, he blocked out all outside distractions, to the point where he told Amy "you're dying, shut up" so he could solely concentrate on working out how to save her. (DW: Flesh and Stone)
Much like his second incarnation, this incarnation showed a childlike recklessness, but always had a grander scheme behind his actions. The Doctor also had a knack for acting smug, occasionally boasting about his feats, knowledge, and reputation. (DW: The Time of Angels) He also had a tendency to think aloud when he was panicking or stressed. (DW: The Pandorica Opens)
This incarnation also possessed a sense of arrogance, stating to Amy that "time is not the boss of me" (DW: The Time of Angels) and "you don't ever decide what I need to know". (DW: The Beast Below) He also appeared to be more violent than his predecessor, attacking a Dalek in order to provoke it into revealing its true nature. Unlike the tenth Doctor, the eleventh incarnation was shown to be very hostile towards the Daleks and did not seem to share his predecessor's belief that the Daleks could change. (DW: Victory of the Daleks)
Despite his aggression towards the Daleks, the Doctor still preferred to settle problems through negotiation rather than violence and reprimanded Ambrose Northover for suggesting to use weapons against the Silurians. (DW: The Hungry Earth, Cold Blood)However, the Doctor could be ruthless if necessary. Confronting the Silence, who had ruled the Earth in secret for millennia, he used the Silence's own powers of mind control against them, implanting a post-hypnotic suggestion in the minds of every single human being to kill the Silence on sight. (DW: Day of the Moon)
The eleventh incarnation had also shown a tendency to refer to Amy by her surname. This Doctor was not keen on hiding his emotions, usually making his anger obvious. However, unlike his previous incarnation, he wasn't very adept at handling romance and reacted awkwardly when Amy Pond and River Song kissed him. (DW: Flesh and Stone, Day of the Moon)
This incarnation was shown to have resolved much of the survivor's guilt seen in his ninth and tenth incarnations, to the extent that he referred to the Last Great Time War as simply a "bad day". (DW: The Beast Below) However when speaking to Alaya about being the last of his species, the Doctor implied that he still hadn't totally recovered from the results of the Time War. (DW: The Hungry Earth)
The eleventh Doctor was very selfless and willing to sacrifice himself for his friends or for the greater good. He was responsible for closing the cracks in time despite the fact that he knew he was going to end up on the wrong side of the cracks.(DW: The Big Bang) An older version of the eleventh incarnation also allowed himself to be shot and killed by a mysterious astronaut and warned his companions not to interfere. (DW: The Impossible Astronaut)
Habits and Quirks
This incarnation of the Doctor appeared to have incredibly good eyesight as well as an eidetic memory, and was able to scan an entire scene and pick up little details. He implored others to observe every detail in an area and make brilliant deductions from doing so. (DW: The Eleventh Hour)
His powers of deduction often involved leaning close to someone and frantically scanning their face. (DW: Flesh and Stone) He was capable of Sherlock Holmes-like feats of extrapolation, reconstructing Kazran Sardick's childhood using little more than the arrangement of his furniture. (DW: A Christmas Carol)
He also showed a penchant for talking with his hands, being able to calculate a situation with hand gestures. (DW: Flesh and Stone) He also had a habit of spinning in circles when walking. This incarnation was also fond of bow ties. (DW: The Eleventh Hour)
He also had a habit of rambling, making rapid amendments to his speech, to the point where it seemed like he was talking nonsense. (DW: The Time of Angels, The Vampires of Venice)
This incarnation had the habit of referring to his companions by their surname, much as his first incarnation had with Ian Chesterton. (DW: The Eleventh Hour, The Big Bang, SJA: Death of the Doctor)
The eleventh incarnation showed several uses of his telepathic powers, to expose enemies, (DW: The Eleventh Hour) or to show others his past quickly through head-butting. (DW: The Lodger) He also used them to leave Amy a message when she woke up and was released from the Pandorica, telling her to rest. (DW: The Big Bang)
Appearance
This incarnation had long, dark hair which initially made him believe himself female. He confirmed that he wasn't by the presence of an adam's apple, but was still annoyed that he was not ginger. He had a large chin, which seemed to initially unsettle him, and green eyes. He commented on his nose though noted that he'd had worse . (DW: The End of Time)
Clothes
The eleventh incarnation stole his clothing from the staff room of a hospital. The outfit consisted of a plain brown tweed jacket with elbow patches, a dress shirt, a bow tie, braces, a gold wrist watch, rolled up navy-blue trousers and black boots. He would then change the colour of his shirt, bow tie and braces from burgundy to blue. (DW: The Eleventh Hour)
His second jacket was checked in design (DW: Victory of the Daleks, The Time of Angels/Flesh and Stone) though he lost it while escaping from Weeping Angels aboard the Byzantium starship. After that incident, he resumed wearing his first jacket. (DW: The Vampires of Venice)
While in the National Museum, the Doctor found a fez which he became very fond of. The fez was later removed by Amy and destroyed by River Song. (DW: The Big Bang) The Doctor later acquired a Stetson hat in America, but it too was destroyed by River; he still sought after another fez. (DW: The Impossible Astronaut)
While attending Amy and Rory's wedding, the Doctor wore a formal tailcoat and trousers, along with a white bow tie, white scarf, and a black top hat. (DW: The Big Bang)
When travelling with the married couple, the Doctor wore a new tweed jacket with a faint striped pattern, and also a checked shirt with his burgundy bowtie and braces, new black trousers and new boots. While visting Abigail Pettigrew every Christmas Eve, he wore a mutitude of different apparel, including a long multicoloured scarf similar to ones worn by his fourth incarnation, a white tuxedo and black bow tie while visting California in 1952, and a fez, which he previously expressed affection for. (DW: A Christmas Carol)
Behind the scenes
- The Matt Smith Era has the most Doctor Who video games, more than any other Doctor, a total of 9 (counting the four Adventure Games).
- The comic strip The Crimson Hand, published in Doctor Who Magazine from issue 416 in December 2009, was the last strip to feature the tenth incarnation. Similarly, the American comic book publisher, IDW Publishing, announced at the New York Comic Con in February 2009 that it will begin publishing original comic book adventures featuring the eleventh incarnation as of issue 18 of Doctor Who Ongoing, scheduled for publication in December 2010.
- Benedict Cumberbatch (star of Sherlock, another show by Steven Moffat) was rumoured to have been offered the role of the eleventh incarnation and turning down the role,[1] however, he denied this.[2] Coincidentally Matt Smith auditioned for Sherlock for the role of John Watson but was rejected for being "more of a Sherlock Holmes."[3] That audition ended up causing Smith to be a prime candidate for the eleventh incarnation.
- British tabloid The Sun has reported that the eleventh incarnation's costume would be changed for Matt Smith's second series as the Doctor. The reason for this, the article cites, is that the majority of the series will be filmed in winter months and the tweed jacket isn't warm enough. The article does not specify if the entire costume will be changed or simply a warmer tweed jacket will be found, but language used in the article seemed to indicate the Doctor's "professor-style outfit" will be changed, suggesting the former.[1] However, pictures from the filming of the 2010 Christmas Special revealed that the basic outfit had not changed.[4]
- Matt Smith has made several public statements — as on The Jonathan Ross Show and in the question-and-answer session following the New York theatrical premiere of The Eleventh Hour — taking credit for the tweed jacket, braces and bow tie that his incarnation eventually wore. He has also relayed that there was some reluctance from Steven Moffat and other top executives to the bow tie in particular, but that it nevertheless "sat right" with his performance. Smith's influence — according to CON: Call Me the Doctor and a mid-April 2010 appearance on Fox Broadcasting Company's Strategy Room — was the character of Dr. Henry "Indiana" Jones, Jr., as he was most often clothed on the campus of Barnett College.
- When queried about the exact nature of the bow tie, Karen Gillan told the audience of the 2nd April 2010 edition of the CBBC programme, Laugh Out Loud, that Smith's bow tie wasn't a "proper" bow tie, but instead a pre-tied dicky bow. This can be confirmed by carefully watching him put on the tie in The Eleventh Hour, although the action is somewhat obscured by the Atraxi projection.
- One clothing retailer reported that in the month following the airing of DW: The Eleventh Hour, in which the Doctor declared that "bow ties are cool," its bow tie sales increased by 94%. [5]
External links
- ↑ http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1298040/New-Sherlock-Holmes-Benedict-Cumberbatch-turns-Doctor-Who-role.html?ito=feeds-newsxml
- ↑ http://www.mirror.co.uk/celebs/news/2010/08/20/sherlock-star-benedict-cumberbatch-wouldn-t-fancy-being-doctor-who-115875-22500295/
- ↑ http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/tv/s7/doctor-who/news/a201372/matt-smith-rejected-for-bbcs-sherlock.html
- ↑ http://www.geeknative.com/12624/first-pictures-doctor-whos-new-costume/
- ↑ Doctor Who prompts surge in popularity of bow ties