Matt Smith

So, here are some pics from last month of Matt Smith & Karen Gillan as they start filming Series 5.

Reaction has been mixed to say the best about the outfit. Personally, I love it (as if you expected me to say something else).

From what limited snippets I've seen of his acting, he does come across as someone who, at the age of 26, can easily seem like he's 2600. I don't quite know what it is - maybe the facial looks, he looks as if he's chiseled from stone in some pictures. A very statuesque, angled face. That imparts age.

Of course the lack of wrinkles (damn him!) belies his youth. And I think the new costume is sort of a counterbalance to that. I've seen it referred to as the "Professor" look, and lest we forget that was Ace's preferred term for the Seventh Doctor (who RULED and I don't care WHAT you say). The air of authority conveyed by such an outfit plays right against his youth, and personally I think it's both cute and authoritarian. Maybe it's because during my time in grad school, trying to become a Doctor myself, I've seen quite a lot of the tweed-coat-and-bow-tie profs myself. They really do exist in academia, I swear. Not that I think they are cute, because they are all old, but you know what I'm trying to say.

I think he will play the Doctor as an attractive guy, but rather than the cutesy emotion of David Tennant, he will do the brainy, assertive, teacher figure role. And I think it will work. And it will be effing brilliant.

But I'm already sold, and you already knew that.