Doctor Who: 6 Reasons Why Steven Moffat Era Is Far Better Than Russell T Davies Era

6. The Doctor Is Portrayed Correctly Most Of The Time

matt-smith_doctor_who11 That's right, regardless to what some of you may think of the Eleventh Doctor or the way Moffat writes his Doctor, there is no denying from an objective standpoint that his Doctor is about 95% truer to the way the character originally was portrayed in the classic series. In my previous article I stated how one of the most important aspects to the character is the alien, the fact that the Doctor is supposed to be seen by the audience as the outsider and the outcast to everyone, we're not supposed to relate to him as we would ourselves. Eleven sells this aspect of the character perfectly, his looks, mannerisms, the way he carries himself coupled with the writing all show the Doctor as an alien or stranger looking upon the world from a completely different perspective. His childish eccentricity and contrasting age-old disdain for the evils of the universe all portray a genuinely alien Doctor, if anyone needs any proof of this watch the Eleventh Hour and you'll see this idea is the foundation of his Doctor from the ground up. While it is true that the Ninth Doctor portrayed that aspect well at first, the nonsensical 'character development' had to bend it's way around to make RTD's Mary Sue character (we will get to Rose later), leading to the Doctor's alien traits being diminished come the end of his series. Russell seemed to misinterpret alien and war-torn, a lot of Nine's early attitude and actions weren't that of a war-torn Doctor, but more just the Doctor being himself, I mean, look at the last pre-time war Dalek story of the classic series, where the Doctor essentially did exactly what Nine was being wrongly berated for in Dalek. Then we move onto the Tenth Doctor (and prepare for controversy here) and there was almost nothing alien about his incarnation from start to finish, to the way he dressed, his over-reliance on pop culture references and obsession over Rose (and before you point to Eleven and River, the reason the Doctor flirts with her is to point out how bad he is at it) and acting generally over-emotional about everything that any other Doctor wouldn't have nearly reacted to, creating a character more akin to a whiny teenager with emotional issues as oppose to the age old alien we once knew. Sure, there were glimpses of alien in Ten but nothing more than a slightly eccentric human and nothing concrete enough for it to be cemented into his character. My point is that Russell didn't so much write the Doctor as he was supposed to be, but more as he wanted him to be, and that to me shows no real understanding of how the character actually works.
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Practising film maker studying at the University of Sunderland, has a very analytic mind and passion for film and media culture, a Whovian with very controversial opinions but feels they shouldn't be. Someone who really has something to say about the things he cares about and won't shy from an argument when it comes to discussion.