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| Episode: | 757 | | | Serial: | 203 | | | Writer: | Steven Moffat | | | Director: | Adam Smith | | | Air Date: | 03-Apr-2010 |
Today on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm writing words about The Eleventh Hour: the first episode of series five, the Steven Moffat era and the Eleventh Doctor's four year run.
This is the first time we've been introduced to a new Doctor, companion and producer at once since Rose. In fact it's only happened five times ever: An Unearthly Child, the TV movie, Rose, The Eleventh Hour and the upcoming Girl Who Fell to Earth. It's become a tradition in the revival series for each new producer to get a bit of a clean slate but that wasn't the case in the classic show.
It's also the first time the Doctor's number has been referenced in the episode title. The Eleventh Doctor was played by Matt Smith who remains the youngest actor to take the role. He was 27 at the time, almost 30 years younger than William Hartnell was when he first stepped into the Tardis. This wasn't Smith's first time playing the role though, as besides his cameo at the end of The End of Time, he also filmed both episode of The Time of Angels first. So he'd had a bit of practice by this point.
The episode was originally going to be called The Doctor Returns, but Moffat decided to come up with something else because the Doctor hadn't actually gone anywhere. He finally got a chance to use the title for the 2016 Christmas Special after the series took a year off, but he gave it a bit of a Spanish twist, turning it into The Return of Doctor Mysterio.
One last first: this was probably the first episode of Doctor Who that I decided to watch properly, from the start, and I think I even watched it the day it aired. Well okay, I also saw the TV movie, but that's not an episode so it doesn't count.
Warning: There'll be SPOILERS below for the episode and perhaps earlier ones. No spoilers for later stories though.
