You shouldn’t let me see all those buttons - Tenth Doctor’s button analysis II

[alumfelga]

Title:You shouldn’t let me see all those buttons - Tenth Doctor’s button analysis
Author:alumfelga
Summary: This is an analysis of the Tenth Doctor's buttons.
Words: About 2500. But there are pictures.
Notes: Spoilers for Tenth Doctor's era, obviously.

Part One: http://alumfelga.livejournal.com/2457.html

Click on the photos for the original size. All photos come from http://www.quiteunlikely.net/



Part Two: individual observations

1. One interesting thing I noticed was that for most of “Army of Ghosts”/”Doomsday” the Doctor wears an outfit with “12” combination. But when he says goodbye to Rose on the beach in Bad Wolf’s Bay, he’s wearing the same outfit but the third button is buttoned, too. Then he meets Donna and continues with “123”. At some point he takes off his jacket to give it to Donna and when he puts it on again, he buttons the second and the third button. There’s no continuity mistake. The change of buttons combination could be easily explained by David Tennant having to wear the same outfit for such a long time. But. It’s obvious that the Doctor doesn’t feel hot and cold the same was as humans (he doesn’t even unbutton his jacket in “42”) but we tend to wear more clothes when we’re sad, right? Was an extra button one more way to show us the Doctor’s pain? And then he meets Donna and he’s still in pain but he feels slightly better, so he buttons only two buttons. I’m not going to try to convince everybody but I quite like that theory, even if it’s not true.

“Doomsday”:



The goodbye scene, “Doomsday”:



“The Runaway Bride”, before he offered Donna his jacket:



…and after that:

1. There were two changes of combinations of fastened buttons (without a change of an outfit) between the episodes. The first half of series 3 is more or less one consecutive action so the Doctor wears one outfit from the ending of “Smith and Jones”, through “The Sheakespeare Code” and “Gridlock” and another one in “Daleks in Manhattan”, “Evolution of the Daleks” and ”The Lazarus Experiment". You can notice there’s a change of button combination between “The Sheakespeare Code” and “Gridlock” from “12” into “23”. The same (also from “12” to “23”) happens between “Evolution of the Daleks” and ”The Lazarus Experiment". The clothes remain the same. We can go with David Tennant refreshing the costume again but when we think about the buttons-happiness theory, it could be a show that nothing changes in the Doctor’s heart at the moment. Also, we can think of some things the Doctor could have been doing for those couple of off-screen minutes what required unbuttoning the jacket. Like letting Martha listen to his hearts (as a future doctor, she must have been fascinated by his biology!).

To be or not to be:



But in “Gridlock”:

1. In “The End of Time”, the Doctor comes from holiday wearing a  “23” outfit, no tie. Then he finds out about the Master, thinks he already knows what “four knocks” mean and knows he’s going to die. He changes clothes and goes with “123” combination. Remember that he’s afraid of what is going to come. More pain, more buttons again? Then he gets the second button unfastened either when he falls into the Naismith mansion or when he sends Gallifrey back into Time War. His clothes are a mess and the unfastened button is a part of it. At the end of the episode, after he absorbs the radiation, he changes again - and he buttons only two top buttons of the jacket. Does that mean that he’s not so terrified anymore, that he (partially) came to terms with dying? Or maybe David Tennant wanted the exact combination he had the first time he put the suit on. I don’t know.

I wanted one with Wilf:



What? I like the brainy specs:



End of Time feels!



More End of Time feels!

1. The Doctor fastens only the top button when he goes to school in “School Reunion” and to the office (for the first time) in “Partners in Crime”. Is it a passive rebellion against office dress code? When he comes back to the office next day, he’s got a “123” combination, so maybe not. Not sure.

Physics!



Goes ding when there’s stuff:

1. In “Blink”, when the Doctor is stuck in 1969, he wears a “123” combination. When we see him before that event, he goes with “2”. The situation gets more serious = more buttons?

1. Some episodes show that the Doctor doesn’t wear a tie when he considers himself to be on holiday or expects a relaxing day: the plan in “Tooth and Claw” is to go to a concert; the Leisure Palace in “Midnight”; the Olympics in “Fear Her”; he comes back from holiday in “The End of Time”. Big Moments, however, require a tie: all series’ finales, the Fury of the Time Lord scene, the Time Lord Victorious scene, the regeneration, the Pompeii episode, meeting River Song, new companion comes aboard… We have already established that ties = more buttons fastened so it could explain why the number of fastened buttons is higher in later series: there’s more Big Moments in later series.

It should have been fun and it was:



It should have been fun but it was a nightmare:



Summing it up

It’s clear a lot of factors determine the way the Doctor fastens his buttons: which suit it is, if there’s a tie, the continuity being the most obvious ones. There are probably some practical reasons I wouldn’t even think about. But considering the individual cases, one could believe some choices might have been deliberate, like the one in “Doomsday”/”The Runaway Bride” or in “The End of Time”. I’d have to ask David Tennant to be sure.

For our sake, he should have been naked all the time.



Oh yes!

Any thoughts? :)