Er
So a bookies lost some money... Anyone should care because?
Late bets on new Who hit Paddy Power's pocket
The largely unexpected announcement that 26-year-old Matt Smith will become the next Doctor Who was possibly not quite as unexpected in the actor's home town of Northampton, according to bookmakers Paddy Power. The bookies is £5,000 out of pocket having taken 15 bets on Smith securing the keys to the Tardis, with "with two …
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Tuesday 6th January 2009 14:39 GMT Anonymous Coward
They're not bitter because...
...they still made a fortune on it. What's five grand when they will, no doubt, have taken many times that amount on all the actors who didn't get the job? Even BBC news were reporting on rumours of various actors getting the job which will, I suspect, have conned a lot of people into having a punt on those actors.
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Tuesday 6th January 2009 14:39 GMT Anonymous Coward
so who is this guy?
for those of us across the pond and not so intimately familiar with BBC programming beyond the good Doctor, please provide some insight on this guy - what he's done and what he brings to the role as compared with previous Doctors. At first glance, he seems awful young to be playing someone so ancient.
I have to agree with some posters - Tennant has been my fave. He'll be a hard act to follow. Hope the newb is up to the task.
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Tuesday 6th January 2009 14:39 GMT Ken Hagan
@Xander
"So a bookies lost some money... Anyone should care because?"
I don't weep for the bookies, but I'm stunned that they thought it wise to take late bets on something like this. It's not like a football match, where you can be confident that no-one knows the result until the final whistle. In this case, you know that a small group of people have the information long in advance and if it leaks out to a part of the web that you and Google) haven't spotted yet, you're open to huge losses and you'll never be able to prove that you were cheated because the happy punters will have nothing in common except for an internet connection.
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Tuesday 6th January 2009 14:49 GMT Sarah Bee
Re: so who is this guy?
Well, I'm only a flightly casual viewer, but it makes perfect sense to me that the Doctor would want to rejuvenate into a nice healthy youthful form. It's an interesting choice.
If it had gone to Paterson 'oi yer've got yer name t'wrong way rahnd' Joseph I'm afraid I would have found his deadpan face distractingly amusing and said "Who's the Johnson now, Johnson?" in a nasal voice whenever he did smoosh an alien or something.
Izzard or anyone really recognisable would have been too distracting also, innit.
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Tuesday 6th January 2009 16:06 GMT Anonymous Coward
Meh, who cares about Who any more?
The series has already been ruined by Russell T. Davies' abysmal "writing" skills (yes I know he's leaving, but his legacy of farting aliens and incompetent cliffhangers isn't going anywhere) - I don't see why they're even bothering to cast decent actors any more.
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Wednesday 7th January 2009 11:09 GMT Anonymous Coward
Give him a chance
Things are looking up for Dr Who after an abysmal last series.
David Tennant was excellent when he started, but his performance had definitely become a bit repetitive and self-referential by the end of the last series. I put a lot of that down to trying to get some screen time next to the wild gurning and random yelping of the talentless ball of ginger cat-sick they'd landed him with as a travelling companion.
There's only so long that many actors can take being defined by a single role (look at the way people who haven't played James Bond for 30 years are still 'ex-Bond', or all the soap starts who jump ship when they realise they, in the minds of the audience, are indistinguishable from their character) and he has taken the chance to leave.
Russell T Davies did a brilliant job of reinventing the series for the 21st Century, but he also seemed to have written as many variations on a theme as he could, and I'm pleased that he has taken the decision to move aside.
If they had gone for a bit of 'stunt' casting with David Morrissey or Eddie Izzard it really would have been time to put Dr Who out of its misery. So casting Matt Smith, someone with minimal previous exposure, shows that there is at least some serious intention in the BBC to continue to reinvent and develop the series, rather than just cynically milk the existing franchise until it runs dry.
So good luck Stephen Moffatt, and good luck Matt Smith - the show is a bit tarnished and tired at the moment, but it might well be repairable.
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Biting the hand that feeds IT
