The 11th Regeneration of Christmas

We're coming nearly to the end now.  The Eleventh Doctor was played by Matt Smith from 2010 to, well, December 25, 2013.  By far the youngest actor to play the Doctor, this incarnation was full of energy, eccentricities, and playfulness.  Smith continued the trend for "New Who" to focus on the (often harrowing) emotional journeys of the characters, and many of his stories feel more like fairy tales than sci-fi.

Apologies for the use of a staged press photo, but I think it captures his character pretty well.  I quoted the word "cheeky" in the last post about the Tenth Doctor, and I think the Eleventh doubled or tripled that particularly British quirk.  In the 50th anniversary special that aired in November, they hinted that these more recent incarnations have avoided grown-up seriousness because they associated that with the dark deeds they believed were enacted by the War Doctor.

For the first time in the history of the show, the human companions tended to be more mysterious than the Doctor himself, and many of the stories dealt with figuring out the puzzles of their existence.  Who was the rogue archaeologist River Song, and how was her fate intertwined with Amy and Rory, the first married couple to travel with the Doctor?  Why did cute-as-a-button Clara appear randomly throughout time before joining the Doctor in the 21st century?  They've answered many of these questions, but who knows what lies in store as we move forward....

Quotations:

"The way I see it, every life is a pile of good things and bad things. The good things don't always soften the bad things, but vice versa the bad things don't always spoil the good things and make them unimportant."

"There are fixed points throughout time where things must stay exactly the way they are. This is not one of them. This is an opportunity! Whatever happens here will create its own timeline, its own reality, a temporal tipping point. The future revolves around you, here, now, so do good!"

The Eleventh Doctor's identification as "such a frikkin' GEMINI" was what spurred blogger Dawn Ellis to piece together the Zodiacal order that we've been following this fine holiday season.  :-)  It certainly seems to fit, since traits of the sign include "witty, nervous, youthful, lively, communicative, and inconsistent."  Ellis also referred to a Gemini's "ping-ping-ping demeanor" to refer to their tendency to bounce around randomly like in a pinball game.  Yup... I recently saw Matt Smith's Doctor referred to as a "Manic Pixie Dream Boy."  If you've seen examples of that trope in action for the other gender, you'll see how it fits.

So, you can guess what the New Year's Resolution is for the all-over-the-place Gemini, right?  Focus and commit.  Not always easy, but definitely worth it.  You've stored up all the horsepower you'll need; you just have to get all those horses to be pulling your chariot in the direction you want to go.

[See the introduction for more about sources and motivations for this series of posts.]