Tennant brought the acting on occasion: I hated "The Doctor's Daughter" as an episode, for example, but he was lovely when Donna confronted him about being a soldier, one of the very, very few times Ten was called out on his hypocrisy about pacifism. I saw it this way - Ten will smile and look cute even as he destroys everyone in his way. (The very ending of "Human Nature"/"Family of Blood" was not chilling in a good way for me.) Nine will scowl and call you a moron but hesitate and feel awful about killing even someone as horrid as Margaret Slitheen.
Nine said, "I'd make a very bad god." Ten got unabashed Jesus/God comparisons all over the place, which is just...disgusting, given how often he does the wrong thing. I'll happily watch a character who makes the wrong decisions and doesn't treat people well all the time (hello
House), but what got me about most of Ten's era is that he did these things and then got subtextually treated as god/sacrificial emo Jesus/whatever by the show. No! Bad! Wrong! I want to
like the hero of the show, not spend half my time wanting to kick him in the face. Which is what he made me want to do with his sanctimoniousness, the way he treated Rose, Martha, Jack, Mickey, and Jackie as well as Harriet, and generally the way he flew around oblivious or just not caring about who he was hurting until Donna came along.
I also found Tennant more limited than Eccleston as an actor, but that's probably at least partly the product of writing that repeatedly forced Tennant into things he isn't good at doing - namely, snarling, screaming rage. By the tenth time or so he put on his "I'm very scary" face I was rolling my eyes and just wishing they'd play to his strong suits instead. Like having intensely homoerotic conversations with John Simm playing the Master. :P
I've also watched Eccleston in a lot more projects than I've watched Tennant, so it might partly be that, as well. (If you want to see a really interesting Davies/Eccleston collaboration that came right before
Doctor Who and shared a lot of the same themes, check out
The Second Coming, which is available on R1 DVD.)
ETA- They can change the "thirteen regenerations" rule anytime they want, I think. It's never been made clear if that's a biological limitation or a Gallifreyan law. Just say it's the latter and the problem is solved, since Gallifrey can't exactly enforce its laws anymore, can it? Of course, at this point I half-expect the BBC to push the show to self-destruct under successively smaller budgets before we even get to a Thirteenth Doctor.
Updated On: 2/22/09 at 02:38 AM
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