Reasons to dislike, Pt 1

Reasons to dislike, 1

Here is a piece I wrote for 'Sonic Screwdriver', the Victorian Dr Who Club Magazine. They printed it slightly edited with rejoinders on a side panel in the May 2010 Edition. Inspired by the friendly reception of the article, I'm working my way through all the Doctors. On the whole I really enjoy Dr Who, but don't take it too seriously - this is all a bit of fun. Why start with Tennant? Well, he had just taken his very protracted goodbye when I wrote this.



The Long Goodbyeeeee (or ten things to dislike about David Tenant)

It's pretty much illegal to dislike David Tennant as Dr Who. Only yesterday my son was sent home for school after he was caught not-appreciating Tennant's hairstyle in the playground at lunchtime. Naturally the police were called to make sure we hadn't been disparaging the tenth Doctor in front of minors. North Korea and Iran are facing international sanctions, not as is widely supposed for developing nuclear weapons, but for remarking that the Tenth Dr Who really overdid the 'God, I'm good!". Israel only gets away with its equally illegal nuclear program because the Israelis always put David Tenant at the top of 'Best Doctor Ever' lists when the UN votes on these things. Obviously I'm not about to buck this trend. I really liked David T as Dr Who. He rocked.
However, it's a good time to not only look back at Tennant's Doctorship with the total respect he deserves, but also to give him a bit of a bagging. He'd like it that way, what with being all irreverent and anti-authoritarian. Well, probably he would. And if he wouldn't, he has the total admiration of everything in creation to console him. Hence, here are a few things for which he deserves a cosmic kick in his show-offy pinstriped pants.

1. The Long Goodbyeee
Sure, when you're dying and/or changing into a younger actor, it's good to say goodbye to a few people and gather your thoughts. But the post-fatal injury-pre-regeneration scene in 'End of Time' was bloody ridiculous. Say goodbye to every companion ever, save Sarah Jane's amazingly bland adopted kid from being run over, bop a Sontaran on the probic vent (at least that bit was funny), buy a lottery ticket, umm. He did a few other things didn't he? I'd go and check but life is short. It reminded me of the bad hair days when I forget the keys, get out the drive and remember I've forgotten the phone, go back again. We all have days like that, but Timelords should get it together and just go when it's time to go.

2. Show-offiness
'God, I'm good'. 'I'm going to save the planet' and innumerable 'look at meee!' moments conveyed by an excess of gurning, gave DT the deserved title round our place of 'Dr Show Off' (take a bow my son Roy, who gave him this honour). True, Tenant has got a lot to show off - he's a Timelord, knows a lot and is hot stuff with all the earth-chicks I know, but he didn't have to rub our faces in it so much. As Charlie Brooker* said, reviewing yet another show in which the Doctor goes somewhere amazing and ostentatiously brags about how used to it he is, a bit of humility wouldn't go astray.

3. Excessively mannered clothes
You know after Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy's terrible wardrobe years a reasonable person wouldn't knock David Tennant's taste in clothes. Lucky for me, I'm not reasonable. Besides, I'm not comparing David T to 'Clown Suit' Baker and 'stupid question mark' McCoy, I'm comparing him to Christopher Ecclestone, who just dressed like a person – a welcome change after years of silly clothing. Tennant dressed like a fop who hangs out in Brunswick St Fitzroy, hoping he'll appear in a 'Fops are Back' feature in the fashion section of some Melbourne weekend magazine. That much attention to fine points of clothing, like the carefully selected 'just a bit hip' sneakers, gives the impression of someone who spends far too much time worrying about how they'll look. Doesn't he have important stuff to think about, like saving the universe and missing Rose a lot after she's gone? Priorities, man! This fussiness is all the more noticeable when the Doctor is compared to Rose, who, whatever she was wearing, gave the impression of having just put on whatever was lying on the bedroom floor at the time (probably whatever was lying next to her on the bedroom floor).

4. Mooning after Rose
Okay, your companion has gone. So you miss her – just like you missed the other fifty three companions. Only she's not human, so it's really like those people who spend forever mourning pets - a bit icky.

Logic aside, even if the Doctor were human and hence reasonably entitled to get as emotionally and physically involved with Rose as a lot of men would like to, it was all a bit too much. Why Martha and Donna didn't just once tell him to stick a sock in it about Rose, I'll never know. If I went on like that about an ex, I’d have the TARDIS door slammed in my face quick smart. True, his clone got to marry her in an alternative universe, that must make things a bit better, right? Well, I don’t know, but it seemed it was supposed to console us.

5. Stupid Pointy Hair
I'm just being jealous here - I'd love to have hair, let alone hair and a ton of gel so it could look concerned, bohemian and yet casual. At least it gave him something to fiddle with while he was being concerned, rushed or thinking deep thoughts about Rose. Without the hair to play with, he'd probably chew all the pencils in the TARDIS to shreds.

6. Not Tom Baker
This happens to every post Tom Baker Doctor at some point. Play with your hair all you like (if Tom had done that, his hands would probably still be in there), save the cosmos, appear in Hamlet, shack up with Peter Davidson's daughter...at some point the thinking viewer buys an old VHS tape of 'Face of Evil' and realises that you're not Tom Baker. No shame there, David, but you're not Tom Baker.

7. Giving them One. Last. Chance.
All of those potted histories of Dr Who describe things that the various Doctors have done a lot of. Hartnell kept forgetting stuff. Troughton never stopped jumping in the air and running down corridors. Pertwee reversed the polarity of the neutron flow (I think he actually only did this twice, but that's a lot of times to do something that silly), Baker got too whimsical, Davidson was too rabbit-like, Colin Baker spend far too much time being furious and so on**. Tennant kept giving bad guys one last chance to stop being evil 'or I'll stop this' despite being very vulnerable. Inevitably the bad guys sneer and laugh, which makes it morally okay when he turns them into scarecrows or plunges their screaming remains into the heart of a nearby sun.

The first time Tennant’s Doctor did this, it this sort of brave and whimsical. As he kept going it seemed annoying - like he knew it was just a TV show. Just once it would have been nice to see a scene like this:

Doctor Ten: I’m warning you now. Leave this planet.

Bad Guy: Hah, hah hah, or what Doctor?

Doctor Ten: Or I’ll aaargh (dies horribly)

Doctor Eleven: Damn…..still not ginger!

8. Rude to historical characters
There's a line between being refreshingly unlike a BBC costume drama and being just teenagery in the face of serious real people like Queen Victoria, Shakespeare and Pompeian inhabiting Romans. DT was firmly on the 'teenagery' side and it did get a bit annoying at times. As I said above, a bit of humility wouldn't hurt from time to time. No, I didn't expect him to be all sombre, but he could have shown a little respect.

9. Too popular with the women
Well, there's nothing personal about this obviously. Just one of those mysteries of human life. Why my son's friends, my sisters and the entire female population of the planet fancy David Tenant is beyond me. Must be the poncy sneakers.

10. Too many good points
Not only is David Tenant showered with respect and adulation, he's unkind to the writers of short fanzine pieces. For example, ten is a nice round number and yet I can't find a tenth thing to dislike about him and/or his Doctor Who. Selfish I call it.

Floyd Kermode