The Eleventh Hour

The first episode with Matt Smith as The Doctor (apart from his brief appearance after regenerating).

This is an excellent start for Steven Moffatt as 'showrunner' and Smith as the 11th Doctor.

The episode is entertaining and well acted. Smith had an extremely hard act to follow for me as David Tennant as the 10th Doctor is, in my opinion, the best since Tom Baker. I was slightly concerned by Smith 's over excited, almost childlike portrayal straight away but overall felt it was a strong debut and the episode has grown on me even more over time. Matt is very engaging and fun and is my daughter's favourite Doctor.

The storyline of the alien on the run is not exceptional but is solid quality, fun and enjoyable. The other story elements of having the Doctor arrive at different points of Amy's life and the effect that has on her is what lifts the episode up in quality. Amy and Rory make good first impressions as the new 'companions' and overall the script and story is good.

It is quite epic in nature with imminent world destruction threatened and then the declarations that alien attackers better be scared of the wrath of the Doctor. This scene with the flashes of previous Doctors shown in a striking way was the best moment of the episode I think.

Smith is not quite as much to my personal taste as Tennant but I really like him as an actor and he is a great Doctor.

The minor grumbles I have are very small: The story of 'prisoner zero' is not as brilliant as the time travel elements of the story.

The CGI effects of the alien monster are not very good and the effect of it appearing to hang down from above does not really make sense to me - Where is it hanging from? Surely the whole creature should appear? Strange.

I was not a big fan of the alien inhabiting a dog owner and his barking dog and mixing up their 'voices' either but it made sense in the context of the story.

There is so much good stuff in this with humour, drama and imagination. It is very good indeed.

My Rating: 9.5/10.

I really enjoyed this, definitely one of the better introductions to a New Doctor, but not the best. I particularly enjoyed when the Atraxi eye thing scanned The Doctor and we get to see all the previous incarnations but unfortunately blink and you will miss it.

The trying new food thing went on a bit too long and was a bit over the top but besides that this was a solid episode worthy of re-watching many times.

There have been change of production teams before in Doctor Who. The eleventh doctor era was a huge regeneration for the show.

Steven Moffat was the new head writer and showrunner. He heralded a brand new production team and handpicked Matt Smith as his Doctor.

Adam Smith was chosen as director for the opening episode and he brought in a fairy tale mini movie aesthetic.

The newly generated Doctor is zooming past London landmarks as the damaged Tardis crash lands in the garden of young Amelia Pond. She is afraid of the crack in her wall.

The Doctor still cooking after his change realises that little Amelia has good reason to be afraid. An alien known as Prisoner Zero has escaped from and is hiding in Amelia's house.

However he pops into the Tardis and promises to be back in a few minutes. Little Amelia waits for him, he does show up what he thinks is the next day. Only it is 12 years later. Little Amelia is now Amy Pond (Karen Gillan.) A kissogram girl with a troubled history. No one believed her story of the raggedy Doctor who showed up one night.

However Prisoner Zero is still in the house and his captors, the Atraxi threaten to burn the planet if Prisoner Zero is not returned.

Just as with RTD's opener Rose. The inspiration for the Eleventh Hour is Jon Pertwee's introduction in Spearhead of Space.

Now London is no longer the base. Amy lives in a village which is 30 minutes drive away from Gloucester. The Doctor gets his clothes from a hospital locker, the same as McGann's Doctor as well.

Moffatt has clearly spent a lot of time in the opener. There are some sly call backs to previous Doctor Who episodes from the RTD era. Fleshing out the characters of Amy and her nerdy boyfriend Rory. Also seeding the arc story for the season.

There were some bonuses, a cameo from Olivia Colman. Or as Moffat said, if he had known that she would one day win an Oscar, she would had got more lines.

The real plus was Matt Smith who hits the ground running. Too many times the Doctor is incapacitated after regeneration, here Smith very much hits the ground running. Even Tennant was bedridden for his introductory episode.

The secret of Doctor Who's longevity is his ability to regenerate. It's also the secret of the programme's longevity. Every few years there's the chance to reset everything, tweak the format, fix what needs fixing. The challenge for the production team is not to lose what was working.

So. With "The Eleventh Hour", Steven Moffat takes over as show-runner, and with it comes a new Doctor, new companion, new TARDIS, even a new arrangement of the theme tune. At the same time, he's inherited a show that's in pretty good shape, despite a few obvious flaws.

Russell T. Davies resurrected a cult programme, made it essential family viewing, and attracted top quality production and performing talent. But his version was a bit prone to grandstanding when understatement would have been better (let's face it, all his dials went up to 11, and most of them only went down to 8); it was good at setup but more interested in the character relationships than resolving its plots in a coherent manner; and the attempts at setting up a series-long story arc were pretty ham-fisted. Oh, and the arrangement of the theme music lacked otherworldliness. It may sound like a small point, but Dr Who has one of the great TV themes and it deserves to be handled properly.

So as an episode, this one has a lot to do, and for the most part it delivers.

The plot, without giving too much away, isn't up there with Moffat's (and by extension, Who's) best like "Blink", but provides a strong enough framework for everything else that needs to happen. The basic premise is creepy, and opens up to provide both small scale and large scale jeopardy for the Doctor and Earth. More importantly, it packs a lot of character development into a single episode in an unforced manner and tees up a lot of layers to explore in the rest of the series. The way the Doctor overcomes the threat is tidy and functional. One element requires a little suspension of disbelief but there was a sense of logic and conviction that a lot of RTD-era episodes lacked. We also got some hints as to the plot arc for the series, properly built into the script and not tacked on as, say, random Ood prophecies.

It's very early days for Matt Smith, but the Doctor's Gallifreyan mantle sits easily on his shoulders and he delivered his lines with a confidence that belies both his age and his experience in the role. Actually, delivered is a bit harsh. Nailed would be more like it. You knew by the end of "The Christmas Invasion" that David Tennant would make a good Doctor. It took Smith perhaps two scenes. Encouragingly, his instinct seems to be to underplay when the easy option would be to go loud. The role would appear to be in good hands.

Karen Gillan had less scope in her first episode as new companion Amy Pond, but there was enough there to suggest that both the actress and the character will be able to keep pace with Smith. The plot neatly sets up a lot of questions about how the Doctor affects the lives of the people he meets, which will no doubt be a big source of character drama later in the season. And she looks great.

The script was another cause for encouragement. In previous seasons, the dialogue has delivered the character beats, but often relied on the acting talent to carry them off. Moffat is an accomplished sitcom writer (the original, UK version of Coupling was a real gem), and it shows here. The dialogue is sharp and witty, and the quality and quantity of good lines seems to help the cast to handle them deftly.

Overall, the changes were subtle, but almost all in the right direction. An opening episode has a lot to do, and this one made good use of its hour without quite being top drawer. But it feels like there's a lot of powder being kept dry for the rest of the season, and the fuse has been lit.

I have only one gripe: the remix of the theme tune. When will someone see sense and ask Radiohead to do a proper job?

And my rewatch party arrives at Season Five, a new Doctor and a new creative force. I was very optimistic for Steve Moffat taking over, given his track record with the episodes he wrote. My feeling now is that perhaps all of his era wasn't gold, but we're off to a good start here.

Still struggling with his regeneration, The Doctor (Matt Smith) crashes in the garden of young Amelia Pond (Caitlin Blackwood) who asks if he's here about he crack in her wall. Before he can investigate too much, an issue with the Tardis calls him away. He promises to return in 5 minutes but due to those problems of a reforming blue box, he's not back for 12 years. A now adult Amy Pond (Karen Gillan) has been in therapy for her childhood meeting with 'The Raggedy man' who fell from the sky. They learn that the crack leads to an Atraxi prison, and 'Prisoner Zero' has escaped.

So, there is lot of what I remember about the eleventh Doctor present immediately in this episode. Matt Smith looks young - there's still the odd bit of the more frightening character from "House of the Dragon" in there occasionally, but generally he's a warm and funny version of the Doctor, though perhaps more authoritative. He hasn't totally shaken off the confidence that we saw at the end of David Tennant's run and we get the first - but not the last - of this doctor loudly warning off an alien force by shouting at them. This episode establishes a classic season long run through bit "The Pandorica Opens and the Silence Will Fall".

The show establishes Amy and Rory straight away, though at this stage Rory looks a little like he'll be a character like Mickey, who essentially loses his love to The Doctor. Karen Gillen is great from the start, the kissagram police officer outfit feels a bit "for the dads" but she is funny and talented, and not just a pretty face.

The actual episode is good, though perhaps there's still better to come. The CGI effects for the Atraxis and for Prisoner Zero are both a bit underwhelming - though there's a lovely bit of work where the Doctor walks through a hologram of his predecessors. The story is a bit pedestrian though some of the resolution is clever.

I liked it all OK. I liked Amy and 'Eleventh' straight away but I know there's better to come.