A New Tennant

When I see articles like this one in the Mirror comparing David Tennant's affected accent in the upcoming Christmas Invasion to Dick Van Dyke's infamous accent in Mary Poppins, I wonder if one of the things that they've done with the upcoming series of Doctor Who is make something more accessible to the US market. Changing the Doctor's accent from a Northern UK accent to one that's more familiar -- like all of the other fake British accents we get, even when it's a UK actor performing -- might help it out. I also get the impression, based on what little I've seen -- that David Tennant's Doctor is going to be more accessible and lighter that Eccleston's version.

I rate Eccleston's Doctor very highly -- I think he's fantastic throughout his series -- but I can understand why that characterization may not play as well in the US as it would in the UK. But I think Tennant will be a more natural Doctor than Eccleston was.

Of course, the sad thing with having the launch of the tenth Doctor being so solidly a Christmas episode is that it seems more likely that the earliest that it makes sense for this episode to come out in the US is sometime in a year or so. My suspicion is that we'll see some of it on DVD by that time, especially with February's region 1 DVD release of the first season showing that they aren't going to wait for any sort of television airing.

But then, arguably The Unquiet Dead is a Christmas episode, and that was never intended to air in December!