At first, David Tennant was my favorite doctor. Because, well, David Tennant. Smart, funny, tortured, sassy, had great hair. What's not to love? Honestly I think part of it was because he jabbered intelligently all the time, and I could so relate...
And when Matt Smith came on the scene, I was at first put off by his juvenility, much as you would roll your eyes at a teenager who insisted on talking nonsense and using innuendo. But I soon saw that there was so much more to him. All that I loved about the Doctor was still there: his intelligence, his experience and depth, his fascination with worlds and peoples.
In fact, I soon saw that his ridiculously young face was just the right thing to juxtapose these things. He has never looked his age, we know that. And so to have a thousand years of adventure and grief and history weighing on those baby-faced shoulders, brought a poignancy that had actually been missing elsewhere.
His levity was not only a coping mechanism for all that he had seen, but a conscious choice to live in the wide-eyed-wonder part of him that had been buried for so long. He was no Peter Pan: he was "old enough to enjoy fairytales again".
This came along gradually, as I began to love the family created by the Doctor, Amy, and Rory. I was cautious about Amy too at first, and for largely the same reasons. But soon found her to be full of heart and depth and courage. Soon I loved them all as family.
But there was even more that endeared the Eleventh Doctor to me. He loved children, and would tear the world apart for a crying child. This too highlighted the fact that he had had children and grandchildren of his own, long ago. He really Saw people. I see him as the most empathetic of the Doctors.
He was a little less hard, a little less sad. And so could enter into people's lives and into every crazy element of this world and others. He believed a thousand impossible things before breakfast, and that's what kept him sane, funny, and capable of changing the world.
And that's why, when the twelfth Doctor came along, all grouchy and sad and pushing everyone away, I was disappointed at the regression. Of course he's allowed the downs with the ups, but it went further than that. He couldn't remember what anyone looked like. Children knocked on his door for help, and he turned them away. Twelve wouldn't accept love from others, and he continued to dwell on the darkest parts of himself, and to call that out in others. Which is rather the opposite of Nine, who was in a very dark place himself, but continued to call upon the best things inside him, and to see the best and the beauty in others and call that out in them.
But I digress...
Twelve reminds me what I'm like when I'm deep in depression. Eleven is like the road back into sunshine. Life is still rocky. Pain is still real. But I'm telling you now, live in the wonder. Accept the love and friendship offered. See people. Get excited about fish fingers and bowties and jammy-dodgers and computer-y things. Ask someone out for texting and scones.
Because, isn't that what Doctor Who is about? About being reminded that anything can happen. That there are greater things out there than any we've dreamed of. That anyone can be a hero if they just do the right thing without backing down. That there is hope and joy and a craziness to this world that it would be a shame to miss.
It reminds me of what Chesterton says about fantasy: “Fairy tales say that apples were golden only to refresh the forgotten moment when we found that they were green. They make rivers run with wine only to make us remember, for one wild moment, that they run with water.”
That's what Doctor Who did for me. It helped me to see my whole world with new eyes.
"I am and always will be, the hoper of far-flung hopes, the dreamer of impossible dreams."
