still trying to define the season for myself
I've been seeing (and hearing) a lot of comments like, "I wish they'd chosen someone really different to play Eleven/chosen to make Eleven really different; Matt Smith (or Eleven) is just David Tennant (or Ten) lite." I find these comments fairly baffling, in part because I've been reading season 5 as an extended meditation on the fact that Eleven
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The other thing is that Matt Smith plays Eleven as young-and-old at the same time--he hops back and forth between moods in a way that's more genuine than Ten (and I don't mean that pejoratively; it's just that Ten is more deliberate about his mood shifts). I was expecting Eleven to be an old man in a young man's body, but that isn't quite what I'm seeing with him
Ten seemed like a teenager with too much power and responsiblity shoved at him. Ever see the film "Our Mother's House"? Creepy, excellent little British movie. A mom dies leaving a house filled with children from about sixteen to a toddler; they bury her in the Garden House I think, and decided fend for themselves, rather than call the authrorities and risk being split up. The older two childre are flying blind. They understood their mother had traditions and rules, but understanding why she behaved liked this, or what was right, wrong, and what was neither -- somethings are a part of life. After a seance -- to discover what her mother would have done to her beatiful younger sister who is caught flirting -- they hack off the younger sisters' hair. Horrific scene. Nine was the war weary soldier, lone survivor of a bitter, long conflict. When exactly did Eight turn into Nine -- a moment of sacrifice or was it a moment of violence? Would Nine have given Martha as shining and romantic picture of Gallifrey as Ten did? Romanticizing the Time Lords was perhaps the only way Ten could live with his actions. The survivors guilt, because he caused the end, must have been unbearable. Is it possible Ten began to believe that his people were as wonderful as he wanted them to be? If that is the case, this left him absolutely no guide as what to do. Time Lords DID interfere, especially if they judged a race not ready to compete. They stole the Earth, covered up curruption. The Doctor had, from all canonical accounts rebelled from the womb or loom (which ever canon one prefers) against his society, but did he ever really see it or understand it? It was possibly more layered than a young Time Lord would think. Also Ten's sense of absolute judgement reflects all of us when we're young and haven't experienced much (unless there was abuse in our lives -- then there is a different kind of judgement). Maybe, as portrayed by Tennant, The Doctor wanted to BE the Time Lord that he knew, none of his people were.
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I think Ten just started to buy into his own hype, yes: he's a Time Lord--the very last of them--and this is what Time Lords do. If he's the only one left to judge and arrange, then, despite his rebellion, he has to take on that role. Which is part of why I didn't believe "The Waters of Mars," in a way: this was supposed to be a new realization for him, that he can bend the laws of time and space to suit his whims, but he'd had that streak from his first day.
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