Doctor Who: 13 Cool Details Revealed In Steven Moffat's Time Of Angels Commentary

10. Matt Smith's Hair Length Was A "Problem"

Doctor Who The Time Of Angels Matt Smith Eleventh Doctor
BBC Studios

Here's something that you probably didn't notice while watching the episode: Matt Smith's hair constantly changes lengths.

Not in a hugely noticeable way, mind you, but like with Kingston's body doubles, something else that Moffat points out throughout the commentary are the subtle differences in Smith's hair between scenes.

He first brings up this issue during the museum scene, noting that this was filmed a long time after the main bulk of the episode. Smith's hair is quite neat and tidy here (see the above image), and according to Moffat, this is because the crew had "established what we wanted to do" with Smith's hair at this stage.

Then, skip forward to the beach scene, and Smith's hair is much more unruly. This is due to the fact that this was literally the first scene of the series to go before cameras, and as a result, the crew hadn't yet settled on a way to manage their star's locks.

Also, it was windy.

Doctor Who The Time Of Angels Matt Smith Eleventh Doctor Amy Pond River Song
BBC

Moffat does mention that he thinks Smith's longer hair looked "cool", which is why it was kept initially. However, he then adds that a lot of time was wasted trying to figure out how to get Smith's hair out of his eyes, something that Gillan calls a "problem".

Moffat mentions Smith's hair again during the van scene a few minutes later, pointing out how much neater it looks (on the beach, his fringe went down past his eyes, but here, it doesn't). This is because this sequence was filmed towards the end of the production block, long after the beach scene had been captured.

Doctor Who The Time Of Angels Matt Smith Eleventh Doctor Weeping Angel
BBC

So basically, keep your eyes peeled throughout the episode, and you may notice that the Doctor looks a bit more trim and tidy in certain scenes.

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Danny has been with WhatCulture for over ten years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. In 2022, he took charge of WhoCulture and has grown it into the biggest Doctor Who channel on YouTube, and one of the biggest Doctor Who communities on the web full-stop. He has been writing and video editing since his early teens, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers, off the back of a burning obsession with the Matt Smith era of the show. Like many his age, he first got into Doctor Who with the 2005 revival, but has since gone back and fallen in love with the classic years too. If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order, or to give you a random factoid about the making of Gridlock, Danny is the person to ask!