11.1: The Eleventh Hour

In which Doctor Who renews in office.

Broadcast: April 2010

Watched: October 2021

“I’m the Doctor, I’m worse than everybody’s aunt.”

Amazing how they manage to completely relaunch just four months after the last episode. It feels like a whole new show – the new credits, the logo, the music, the shift in the colour palette from orange to blue. I don’t really know what the colour palette means, but this episode is definitely very blue.

Opening with an unnecessary action sequence feels like a lack of confidence, like they’re trying to reassure the RTD audience. It’d be stronger to begin with Amelia, praying to Santa, I think. [Writer Steven Moffat apparently thought the same: word is, BBC execs were worried about the low-key opening.] But after that it’s pretty much note perfect. And it does mean a neat symmetry since the episode gets two prologues (the flying TARDIS, Amelia in 1996) to go with its two epilogues (scolding the Atraxi, two years later).

Smith, after being unnervingly rubbish in End of Time 2, is instantly perfect here. Charming and silly but also sort of reassuring (“Wanna know what I think? Must be a hell of a scary crack in your wall”). Putting the youngest Doctor to date with an actual child is a great way of dealing with his youth, and the entire taste buds sequence (“You’re Scottish, fry something”) feels written specifically for kids. Also, Amelia packing her little bag and then running downstairs to wait for the Doctor is the single most heartbreaking thing the show has ever done. 

“Why did you say five minutes??” is brilliant, not just as character set up and as one of those twists that’s somehow even better because you can see it coming, but also because of the joke that Amy has been going around telling everyone a Doctor Who story for the past 12 years (“What? There’s a Prisoner Zero, too?”). Is this meant as some kind of meta commentary on the fact this is a different kind of relaunch to Rose, or is it just a good source of jokes and/or way of running the plot in real time? 

I sort of love the way Darvill is kind of hidden in plain sight as the third new regular. We actually meet Rory before Amy (as opposed to Amelia, although Amy has technically already hit the Doctor with a cricket bat). His delivery of “Oooh, thanks” tells us everything we need to know about this guy (funny, insecure) in one line, then he’s basically in it as much as Amy for the second half of the episode.

The rest of the episode is actually quite hard to say anything about because it’s just, obviously, really, really good, a whole string of brilliant images, terrific performances and quotable lines strung together. The crack! The giant eyes! The barking man! The hidden room! The Doctor stealing a fire engine just because! Patrick Moore! (We’re back to a world where the authorities haven’t heard of the Doctor, even if everyone in Leadworth has.) The fact even the minor parts are unexpectedly big name actors (Oscar winner Olivia Colman; Annette Crosbie; Tom Hooper, who’ll be famous soon enough; Nina Wadia)!

I do think it’s the best “new Doctor picks an outfit” scene in years, if not ever, because a) we learn more about who the new companions are while we do it, and b) “I Am The Doctor” is the best theme. After that, if you had any doubt whatsoever about the new guy, the various clips and delivery of “Hello, I’m the Doctor. Basically, run” sell it. 

Then at the end, the crack on the wall, the clips of Amy’s bedroom, the final twist of the wedding dress – the leads off to new adventures, but also obviously lying to each other – I think this is the last time we get a Moffat script so completely worked out until Day. 

In some ways, given this is an RTD remix – the conceit of Aliens of London overlaid on the plot from Smith & Jones – it is amazing how fresh this feels. But they pull it off. When he’s firing on all cylinders, that lad is really, really good. 

Assorted other things:

• It’s strangely squeamish. To this point, Moffat’s episodes had a negative body count thanks to ...Dances: people die of natural causes, or are sent back in die of old age, or go on to live forever in cyberspace. So it feels striking that we see no one die here either – Dr Ramsden (one of my favourite teachers was called that) dies off screen.

• Why exactly does PC Amy do a bad English accent? And why does Leadworth have so many coma patients, exactly?

• Come to that, why is Doctor Who so obsessed with Gloucestershire (Leadworth, Fugitive...) Production convenience I guess. Although Leadworth here is actually Llandaff, the cathedral suburb of Cardiff where Roald Dahl went to school.

• One of the few misfires is the visual effect we get when winding back through the Doctor’s recent memories. Thank god they dropped that.

• “Why me?” “It’s your bedroom.” Also, it’s very Moffat that he writes the most child-friendly episode in years and then puts a wanking joke in it. 

• “Well that’s rubbish, who’s that supposed to be.”

• Karen Gillan’s thirsty face is slightly terrifying but bloody hell.

• The new TARDIS is amazing.

• As is my new companion (bottom right):

• The “coming Soon” is one of the best trailers yet. Oddly, though, nothing form Amy’s Choice or Lodger – were they the last episodes made?