Spoilers follow in the words and the videos. Don't watch if you're not finished with the most recent season.
David Tennant // The Doctor faces certain death by the Vashta Nerada in "Forest of the Dead" when he's left alone with one, defenseless. All he does is talk and it retreats.
Matt Smith // A tremendous scene in "A Good Man Goes to War." His angry and spiteful words to Colonel Manton, hereby known as Colonel Runaway, are chilling, and that I cheer. This is the point where Matt Smith finished filling the hole left by David Tennant, and that opinion was cemented with the line, "Good men don't need rules. Today is not the day to find out why I have so many." Also, in his first episode, he only had to stare down the alien ship, told them to look him up, and they ran.
It's about time for another way past due installment of The Doctor's Moments. I started this as a way to show off my favorite scenes and the incredible talents of David Tennant and Matt Smith. I try to find the most compelling moments, so maybe someone who has never seen Doctor Who before will wonder how they ever lived without it. Of course, those of us who are already fans can also have fun refreshing our memories.
David Tennant// After Donna is lost in "Forest of the Dead," River whispers something to The Doctor that takes his breath away and gains his trust. Was it his name? Matt Smith's Doctor whispers something to River in "Let's Kill Hitler" and "The Wedding of River Song." Was it either of those times she discovered what he would need to hear in The Library?
Matt Smith// In "The Rebel Flesh" a ganger is killed by a human. Smith's unrestrained astonishment in his "real human heart" speech is quite the opposite of Tennant's breathless stillness.
This is the second in a series that shows Ten and Eleven in one scene each that are similar in emotion or situation. I was mostly done with these for a post that I started back in June. Then I decided it was way too long and split it into manageable chunks, of which I never continued past the first. Work during the week and family stuff on the weekend lead to quite a number of half finished ideas. Ah, well, one day.
Spoilers follow if you haven't seen "Midnight" or "Cold Blood."
David Tennant// In "Midnight," The Doctor is in over his head when an unknown, mimicking, mind-reading entity takes over a passenger. It's a truly nerve-racking episode where Ten is at his most physically vulnerable and Tennant is at his most rivetingly brilliant.
Matt Smith// In "Cold Blood," The Doctor is powerless both to keep Rory from death and from being erased from existence. He then fails in helping Amy keep his memory. I didn't find an unmodified version of the original scene, but the music is beautiful and feels like it belongs.
I'm doing these from memory, so I'm sure there are a lot of moments I won't think of. Please feel free to contribute any scene that fits. And if you can find the clip somewhere (YouTube, Daily Motion, et cetera) that would be even better. You don't even have to constrain yourself to the last two Doctors.
Just as an introduction, this started life as "I Still Miss David Tennant...," but it got way out of control. It was a few days before the mid-season finale of Series 6 in America, and I had inspiration (from an earlier Fringe post) to find videos that would showcase the personalities and emotions of the last two Doctors and the talent of the actors. Why just the last two? Well, it would just be ridiculously difficult to do all of them, and this was going to be about how I still miss Tennant but that Matt Smith is a tremendous replacement.
Well, because of the way some videos are named, and the fact that not every scene I originally wanted had been uploaded, it could take hours just to find one that fit what I had in mind. Over the weeks I was distracted with discovering many other videos that I needed to figure out how to use. It seemed like it would never end. The little post became an unwieldy beast that had to be divided to be conquered.
Until the series ends, I'll always be behind adding to this playlist. I had to stop for quite a while, so there's a big gap. Still, there are 170 songs to enjoy.
This is the essence of The Blacklist. Probably my favorite is Disturbed's cover of "Sound of Silence." The scene it played over was one of the most devastating ever in the series.
