So much yes. There's so much that I loved about Ten, but the bad really ended up outweighing the good for me - precisely because, as you say, the show kept trying to tell me that Ten *didn't* behave badly toward people, and I just couldn't deal with that.
The other day it occurred to me that my *real* defining moment for Eleven is probably when he takes care of Craig in "The Lodger": Eleven is frequently cranky and snappish, and he doesn't go around exclaiming about how wonderfully human humans are, and he spends the whole time he's running around making that tea grousing about how Craig never should have touched the rot in the first place - but then he doesn't hesitate to pat Craig's cheek and tell him he's important - just like he sticks up for "scared Bob," or reassures Elliot that his dyslexia doesn't matter. Ten was all big-picture exclamations, but when it came to dealing with actual individuals, like Martha, or Mickey, or Jack, or even Chantho, he was rubbish. (You should not have to be *reminded* to express sympathy when someone tells you all her people are dead, what the everloving hell.) And it still bothers me that he gets credit for being caring when he so often wasn't.
Likewise, Eleven does some cold, harsh things - but then River tells him that he's going down the wrong path, or Amy tells him that that's not how they do things, or he realizes that he's misjudged a cleric ("I wish I'd known you better" - another favorite moment), or Rory yells that the Doctor is trying to make him into himself... People call him out on stuff, instead of just brushing the whole "destroying Harriet Jones's government with six words and directly leading to Harold Saxon" thing under the rug. Eleven is pointed out as fallible, instead of constantly being the Lonely God, and that makes such a difference for me.
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Date: 2013-03-23 05:08 pm (UTC)The other day it occurred to me that my *real* defining moment for Eleven is probably when he takes care of Craig in "The Lodger": Eleven is frequently cranky and snappish, and he doesn't go around exclaiming about how wonderfully human humans are, and he spends the whole time he's running around making that tea grousing about how Craig never should have touched the rot in the first place - but then he doesn't hesitate to pat Craig's cheek and tell him he's important - just like he sticks up for "scared Bob," or reassures Elliot that his dyslexia doesn't matter. Ten was all big-picture exclamations, but when it came to dealing with actual individuals, like Martha, or Mickey, or Jack, or even Chantho, he was rubbish. (You should not have to be *reminded* to express sympathy when someone tells you all her people are dead, what the everloving hell.) And it still bothers me that he gets credit for being caring when he so often wasn't.
Likewise, Eleven does some cold, harsh things - but then River tells him that he's going down the wrong path, or Amy tells him that that's not how they do things, or he realizes that he's misjudged a cleric ("I wish I'd known you better" - another favorite moment), or Rory yells that the Doctor is trying to make him into himself... People call him out on stuff, instead of just brushing the whole "destroying Harriet Jones's government with six words and directly leading to Harold Saxon" thing under the rug. Eleven is pointed out as fallible, instead of constantly being the Lonely God, and that makes such a difference for me.