We now come to a Doctor that I weirdly feel is both overated and underated at the same time. I love the Eleventh Doctor…right up until his first Christmas special, from that point onwards, I don’t know what it is exactly, but there was a noticeable change in his persona that really got on my nerves. In Series 5 (one of Modern Who’s best) he was very eccentric and occassionaly silly but he did so in a very reserved and dignified way and knew when to get serious to the point where he could be very intimidating. From Series 6 onwards, they just make him so goofy and over the top with his non-stop jabbering, flailing arms and pulling faces to the point where when he tries to get serious I don’t buy into it. It gets especially painful to watch in the Christmas specials, lots of people complain that Jodie Whittaker is annoying as Thirteen but I’d make the argument that Matt Smith is far more annoying, I mean just look at The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe and tell me you could sit through that without cringing compared to some of Whittaker’s worst one-liners. So that’s what makes him overated, but I also feel he is underated cos I don’t often hear people talk about his era and his performance when I feel he’s earned a lot more love over a decade since his era ended, warts and all. His first series is one of the best first years any Doctor’s had, and again before it went downhill from 2011 onwards, his characterisation is genuinelly one of the strongest of any Doctors, and Matt Smith’s charisma and personality is so strong that if you put all the Doctors together in one room, I feel that he would stand out more than most, he wouldn’t allow himself to sort of drift into the background he’d be front and centre of the group. There’s a lot I appreciate about what Matt Smith brought to the role and what we got from the Eleventh Doctor era that I feel deserves to be talked about more than it currently does. I…just…have to stomach some of the things I don’t enjoy about the Eleventh Doctor era.
It’s crazy to say, but the Eleventh Doctor is ironically the Modern Who Doctor I think has been best served by Big Finish! Despite Matt Smith not agreeing to come aboard with Big Finish, what we’ve had in the last couple years with talented impressionist Jacob Dudman has been some of the strongest Big Finish work they’ve ever given to their Modern Who ranges and why this isn’t the standard for their other Modern Who Doctor audios just baffles me. So let’s get into some of these favourites.
The Eleventh Hour - This is Modern Who’s best Doctor intro story and the show’s best since Spearhead from Space (admittedly it’s not up against strong competition looking at all the others in between). It doesn’t get bogged down in the usual post-regeneration madness where the Doctor’s either half crazed or asleep for most of it, but rather it goes for a change of pace where the Doctor has to get to grips with his new body in order to save the world in 20 minutes. Crash landing in a little girl’s garden (by the way that kid is now older than Karen Gillan was when she was cast as Amy, where has the last fifteen years gone?!!?), the Doctor helps her sort out a mysterious crack in her wall, but finds that something may have slipped through into her house. The Eleventh Hour is a great beginning for this new era with excellent pacing and Matt Smith solidifying himself as the Doctor in near record time.
Vincent and the Doctor - It’s crazy to think that up until just over a year ago, this was my pick for the best Eleventh Doctor story, in fact it’s not even my second favourite anymore!!! But it’s still his best televised episode, less focused on action and more personal with the Doctor and Amy becoming good friends of Vincent Van Gogh during his final year. Lots ofpeople bash the giant invisible chicken and yes it does look silly (I mean given the show’s history it could’ve been worse, it could’ve been paint monsters!) but there’s actually some clever subtext around it and how it relates of Van Gogh’s depression, how his depression is what ultimately kills him and in way that too is like an invisible monster slowly devouring him from within. The Doctor can save people from monsters, even the invisible ones cos they are easily understood, but he can’t save Vincent from himself because depression isn’t. Which leads to one of my favourite endings in the show’s history, I really wish they’d do more stories like this with historical figures.
Death of the Doctor - The Doctor’s second guest appearance in the spin-off The Sarah Jane Adventures and on both occassions, the show knew how to use the Doctor in a guest role. He’s an active presence but he doesn’t hijack the story or does the heavy lifting for our main characters, it’s still down to them to carry the story and save the day. This was one of the things that utterly killed Class when they had the Twelfth Doctor appear, save the main characters, stop the villains and save the day in just episode 1!!! I can’t think of a bigger way to completely bury your spin off and it’s main characters by having them made to look utterly useless next to the Doctor in just the first episode! Whereas this and the Doctor prior appearance knew how to utilise the Doctor without making our main characters less relevant. Not to mention featuring a welcome return of Jo Grant, now Jo Jones who has some wonderful scenes with both Elisabeth Sladen and Matt Smith. Though part of me thinks the reason Russel (who was still showrunner of the spin off) brought back Jo was so that he make yet another Smith & Jones joke because he’s the only person left on the planet who still thinks that’s funny
The Day of the Doctor - This one holds a very special spot in my heart, it’s not the most well written or cleverest of Doctor Who stories, but it doesn’t have to be in all fairness. It’s given us so many moments, lines and significant events that people still remember to this day. But for me this was the episode that made me fall in love with Doctor Who again, I was at a point where I was kind of nearing my leaving point with Doctor Who, but this special reminded me of why I loved it so much to begin with and from there was when I started getting more into Classic Who, Big Finish and the novels/comics to the point where my love for Doctor Who has transcended the show. Nowadays I’m even less enthused with the show now than I was back in the early 2010s but it doesn’t really bother me as much cos I’m now so deep into the expanded universe and I don’t think I’d have gone this far without The Day of the Doctor.
Rearguard - This was part of Big Finish’s Volume 11, which includes a really bizarre opening few seconds where Dan Starkey gives a very heartwarming tribute to the memory of Stephen Critchlow and then almost without pausing switches to his Sontaran voice to say the Big Finish slogan! It’s really odd!!! But getting into the actual story, I think this may be my favourite Sontaran story, or at least the best since The Time Warrior. The story focuses on a single Sontaran from the beginning of his life, how he joins in a battle for the glory of his race but becomes seperated from his forces and later discovers that the battle has long since ended in his absence and the Sontarans have left him behind. But staying loyal to his empire, Stron acts as rearguard for the next several decades while the Doctor appears every so often to try and convince him to give up his loyalty to a race that doesn’t care about him. This is a fantastic story with Dan Starkey delivering his best work as the Sontarans and has a really depressing ending. This would also be the first sign of the Eleventh Doctor’s renaissance with Big Finish
Geronimo! - So I won’t lie, when they first announced these sets to close out Jacob Dudman’s time with Big Finish, I had no interest whatsoever in listening to them. The Doctor Chronicles has always been defined by one word, and that’s meh! It was so clear that these were just box sets written as supplementary stories for the Modern Who Doctors while the main actors were unavailable, hence why we get Nicholas Brigg’s awful Ninth Doctor impersaonation, we thankfully get a better replacement in Jacob Dudman carrying a Tenth Doctor box set and every release for Eleven and Twelve what with Matt Smith and Peter Capaldi still not having agreed to join Big Finish. Another clue as to these being nothing more than supplementary stories was the latest Tenth Doctor release, a set recorded in 2020 and yet they sat on it for over three years while David Tennant did several box sets with Big Finish and then in 2023, the one year he was absent (save for Once and Future) wouldn’t ya know it, we get this release. So I felt that this would be more of the same standard, nothing too special releases. But when this came out, I didn’t escape my notice how postive the reception was, and I don’t mean standard positive reviews, I mean mad positive reviews, this was getting insane scoring on the Timescales! So I gave it a listen and my god, what exactly happened in production that made them suddenly put their A game faces on!!! This single box set became the best Eleventh Doctor content since Series 5 and my interest for the following releases went from 0 to 10!!! This is basically as Series 7…well it can’t be B cos there already is a Series 7B so this is more Series 7AB. We get a new companion in Valarie Lockwood, Jacob Dudman is completely indistinguishable from Matt Smith in his phenomenal voicework and we get three cracking stories that work brilliantly as stand alones but also do an effective job setting up the rest of the series. The highlight for me isn’t even a specific story (though The End is the best) but rather a scene from The House of Masks where the Doctor tells Valarie about the Time War, and to me, this is the best version of this scene I’ve ever come across in Doctor Who.
All of Time and Space - So I was instantly hyped following my experience with Geronimo and while All of Time and Space wasn’t as strong as Geronimo, in fact I’d say this was the weakest of the sets, but it’s still a very strong release with some really creative and experimental ideas and even if they don’t quite work as well as I’d hoped, I do still appreciate Big Finish trying to give Modern Who some of their experiemental touch. The highlight being Curiosity Shop where Jacob Dudman gets his impersonation chops on as he basically plays the Eleventh Doctor impersonating his past selves. I even love some of the dark commentary that obsessing over Doctor Who can slowly destroy someone’s life given what Valarie goes through and how she literally gives herself piece by piece to the Doctor.
Broken Hearts - It’s amazing to think that this was a last minute bonus story written by Lisa McMullin to provide a proper follow up to the fallout of Curiosity Shop, beacuse what we get from this is my personal favourite Eleventh Doctor story, now admittedly this did only come out a year ago so time will tell if I still feel the same way a few years down the line, but I personally don’t see this losing its touch however many times I revisit it. It’s a character piece where Valarie still feels hurt from how the Doctor used her cybernetic components for his own ends and starts to realise that she hardly knows the Doctor to begin with and really questions who he is and what else has he done that has hurt other people. I’ve never been a huge fan of Lisa McMullin, she’s mostly a solid writer but this was an outstanding effort from her and the whole idea that led to this story’s creation really should be done more often in Big Finish.
Everywhere & Anywhere - Continuing with our third box set in the series, we get the Eleventh Doctor going up against the Cybermen, I thin the first time the Cybus design has appeared in Big Finish, to call this the best Cyberman encounter the Eleventh Doctor has had isn’t giving it nearly enough credit cos frankly most Cybermen stories in Modern Who, Classic Who and even Big Finish aren’t like Sins of the Flesh! It’s everything I love about the Cybermen and what makes them one of sci-fi’s greatest villains in a story that features some emotionally powerful character moments and subject matter that you’d think would be too heavy to be handled well but this story succeeds in a very respectful and beautiful manner.
Victory of the Doctor - When a series is going this well, you always have that little concern at the back of your mind that it may not stick the landing. Not only does Victory of the Doctr end things on a high note but I can confidently say this is my pick for best release of 2024. It’s the Dalek story we never properly got from the Eleventh Doctor and just such a feel good listen from beginning to end. The opening chapter is a great starter but in all honesty, you’re just getting it out of the way to get to the real meat of the set, in what I prefer to look at as a three part finale to the series, the Doctor is once more forced into battle against the Daleks, but this time he does so while facing up to the true ramnifications of being erased from the Dalek’s memories. Everyone acknowledges that the Eleventh Doctor era wasn’t the best when it came to the Daleks, we got the massively panned redesigns that were quietly pushed to one side before Matt Smith had even left the show, ans we got Asylum of the Daleks that featured an ending so bold and controversial that Moffat once again got cold feet and retconned it a year later in Time of the Doctor. But this set chooses to actually face those failings with the Daleks in Eleven’s era and really create something special from it. Because the Daleks no longer remember the Doctor, it now means they think they’ve won the Time War and that the universe is now theirs or the taking without that boogeyman keeping them scared. The Paradigm Daleks for all the mockery they recieved, give us one of the strongest portrayals the Daleks have ever given in the six decade history of Doctor Who. The level of ruthlessness, aggression and success rate they achieve in this release is something the show doesn’t manage in whole decades worth of it! It’s just crushing moment after crushing moment until the Doctor is finally pushed to his limit and comes back with a vengeance in an immensley satisfying finale that also serves in explaining why the Paradigm Daleks are no longer in the show in-universe.
If I had to pop my tin foil hat on, and this isn’t based on anything I’ve read or heard, it just me guessing here, I think this was supposed to be the planned Eleventh Doctor Adventures, the leap in effort and quality for this series compared to all the other releases in the Doctor Chronicles before (and even after) is like night and day. This seems like a series they just wanted to do with Matt Smith once he’d agreed to join but when he said no and possibly the timing of Jacob Dudman giving his notice, they decided to go through with this with Jacob Dudman rather than waiting for what could be years for Matt Smith to join up. Again, this is baseless deduction, feel free to give me actual evidence to the contrary but this whole series is nothing like what Big Finish have done before or since with thier Modern Who releases, it really needs to be setting the standard going forward. And even if they wanted to do this with Matt Smith, Jacob Dudman deserves a spot in the Doctor Who hall of fame for his work on this series, he should be so proud of this series, along with Safiyya Ingar as Valarie, Lisa McMullin, Alfie Shaw in fact this is a series where everyone involved should give themselves a pat on the back. The true success of this series is how it acknowledges the flaws of the Eleventh Doctor era but it does so in a way that shows tremendous love for his era as well. I said before that the Ninth Doctor Adventures made me cautious for the upcoming Thirteenth Doctor Adventures, this series also gives me hope for those adventures. I’ve gushed about these releases enough as it is, listen to them if you haven’t already, you won’t regret it!
And those are my favourites for the Eleventh Doctor, I’d love to read any of your thoughts or anything you agree or disagree with and I’ll see you all tomorrow for the Twelth Doctor.