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.

Matt Smith's Girlfriend

Oi. She's hot. Makes me depressed.

Sick Over Eleven

Alright. Unless you've been on Neptune, you know who the BBC has casted as The Eleventh Doctor. If you don't want to be spoiled, STOP READING NOW.

Ok. Everyone here want to be here?

Good.

Let me qualify the vomit that is forthcoming by saying the following: I have been a Whovian for around 25 years, I've seen almost every episode of the classic series, I own Peter Haining's books and Target novelizations, the ENTIRE new series on DVD and lots of the classic as well, and I am NOT a Trekkie or a Vamp (have NOT seen Twilight either). Also I am spitting distance from my 30th birthday.

Now.

I am sick. You know that sick that sits in the pit of your stomach, when you realize just how pathetic and shitty your own life is, and there is next to nothing you can do to change it? That sickness when you see something so amazing, so overwhelming, so beautiful, that it makes your own life pale in comparison? That sickness when you fall totally, completely, immediately, out of your self and into someone else that is everything you could possibly or impossibly want, and realize that they will never, ever, in a million years be yours and yours alone, but they will be an integral part of your life even though they don't know it?

I'm talking about the sickness that is falling in Unrequited Love.

And oh my God, I have it for Matt Smith.

He, literally, had me at "bags under the eyes".

That's when I paused the video and looked him up on Wikipedia, and, satisfied I had no idea who he was (pun intended), continued watching. And fell, and fell, and fell.

Those EYES. That POUT. It's my wallpaper now. Sorry, Beaker.

That LOOK. That HAIR. My GOD.

Oh, and I also watched this interview about 25 times. In a row.

I set up a new Google News alert.

And I am unbearably, impossibly, sadly sick. But I think I mentioned that.

This man is going to be simply amazing as my hero, my raison d'être, my impossible dream. I was so happy when Who came back - it was at a very, very dark period of my life (early 2005) and it pretty much reaffirmed everything I loved about life.

Melodramatic? Exaggerated?

I'm a ninth-year graduate student. Cut me some slack.

I recall feeling somewhat similar to this when David Tennant was cast, this period of "my life is so pitiful and insignificant compared to this magnificence that is this man". So, I suspect that this will fade with time - although having to wait a year and a half to actually SEE him will be tough. I hope there will be loads of promo pics for me to stare at. I've found that staring, after enough time, actually dulls the pain.

Acting-wise? He has a good list. Impression from the interview? He is excited and psyched, and shows a manic boyishness as well as a mature understanding of what's to come... I really think he is The Doctor and he will be AMAZING. Plus, I will pretty much take whatever Moffat says as gospel, so if he wowed him, he will blow the rest of us completely away.

Just so you didn't think this was all about his looks - it's about his looks AND being a 900-year old alien with two hearts who likes to save the universe.

And now I'm just rambling on about nonsense, so I'll leave this be for now.