Doctor Who - Season 5 - less "review" more "opinionated editorial commentary"

Well, fellow Whovian Spoonbenders, I just finished watching the Beast Below, episode two of season five of the British sci-fi action dramedy Doctor Who. Season five brings with it mixed feelings of sadness and eager anticipation with the introduction of the Eleventh Doctor.

I waited until I had watched a second episode with the 26-year-old Matt Smith (this is important only because it marks the point in the show's history where I am older than the Doctor...in fact, had his mother waited another five days, we'd be exactly two years apart in age...but I digress)...I waited until I had watched a second episode with Matt Smith in the role before really forming an opinion. After all, I am one of those who helped to make David Tennant the most popular Doctor in the show's 37 year history. I wasn't at all ready to let him go.

Matt Smith has his work cut out for him, to make me love him. He doesn't exactly make me want to lay on an anthill, as I feared he might, but I don't love him, yet. I do, however, think I kind of love Amy Pond, the Doctor's newest companion (played by Karen Gillan). I can't quite put my finger on it but she's definitely got some qualities that are winning me over after saying such a heart wrenching farewell to previous companions, and after falling head over feet for Lady Christina de Souza (played by Michelle Ryan in the episode Planet of the Dead) and hoping that she was going to be the next companion.

I still say the bowtie has got to go...but I think I can get used to the Eleventh Doctor. I haven't seen enough yet to say whether or not I'll ever love him the way I did Ten but there's hope for the young man yet.

**EDIT** Five episodes down, eight more to go so I thought I'd stop back in and update my Spoonbending Whovians on my thoughts up to this point... Somewhere along the way, I heard from the powers that be behind the Doctor (I think it was Steven Moffat but don't hold me to that) that this new season/Doctor would be darker and in some cases scarier than the show has been in the past. And having been revisited by the Weeping Angels in a stellar two-part episode that culminated tonight (if you are watching in the UK...in the States you still have two weeks before the new Weeping Angels episode comes to a close...unless you are the staff of bending spoons or any number of other devout and internet savvy Whovians, then you are on the UK schedule despite your Yankee status)...Having been revisited by the Weeping Angels in a stellar two-part episode which culminated tonight, I have to agree. This season is definitely getting darker and scarier. There are still some little details about Matt Smith that I'm not crazy about but I don't hate him.