The Doctor as Barty Crouch Jr....

[fajrdrako]

Yesterday at work, kimsrants and I were discussing actors. We were talking about Anthony Head and James Marsters (with a certain enthusiasm!) when a coworker joined us. We talked about various shows - he recommended Rome and Extras - and said he'd never got into Doctor Who. I said it was quirky. He said he liked Christopher Eccleston but couldn't take it when "that weasley guy from Harry Potter got the show".

I had to laugh. I'd never thought of David Tennant in quite those terms.

Comments

[seanchaidh.livejournal.com]

That's almost exactly what my dad said the other day.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

It must be a certain way of looking at things - ! Or at least, of looking at Tennant.

[trixtah.livejournal.com]

Heh, I totally empathise with that PoV.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Oh, I can too - I'm just so used to the fans who adore Tennant (an attitude I can also understand), I'm unaccustomed to hearing the other view expressed.

I tend to hear people who don't like Eccleston be the more vocal set, and I find Eccleston mesmerising, though not pretty. Tennant is neither mesmerising nor pretty, but he's very expressive even when he's being opaque (does that make any sense at all? - yes, but I'm not sure I expressed it well). His charm won me over, but I don't always approve of his Doctor, who has a very dark side, and a habit of destroying his friends and those who love him.

[51stcenturyfox.livejournal.com]

I like Eccleston and Tennant equally and in different ways. But that comment from your friend is just... funny. ;)

(Tennant is kind of pretty, though, IMHO)

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

that comment from your friend is just... funny. ;)

I thought so.

Tennant is kind of pretty, though, IMHO

He hasn't the kind of looks I usually find attractive, but the man himself, his personality, is utterly attractive so his looks start to work for him. He has a lot of inner charm. And talent.

I think when it comes to my friend, Tennant was a little too convincing as Barty Crouch, Jr.

[mad-jaks.livejournal.com]

SOunds like your coworker has excellent taste to me :D

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Sounds like your coworker has excellent taste to me :D

Well, anyone who likes Eccleston - ! kimsrants' taste is ace. She likes Torchwood, Doctor Who and comics. Couldn't be better. She catches my references.

[nina-ds.livejournal.com]

I tended to think "ferret" myself, but that may be my childhood indoctrinaton by M*A*S*H. ;-)

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

LOL - 'ferret' is a good word, though I don't think I was influenced by M*A*S*H*, not that I remember!

[nina-ds.livejournal.com]

It was the constantly calling Frank Burns "ferret-face". Although I've been thinking about it a little more since posting, and I think some of it is also that ferrets have a slightly more convex face, like Tennant does, with his underbite. Weasels tend to be more pointy. Although he's pointy, too, with his nose. His nose is every bit as bit as Eccleston's, it's just that his underbite tends to minimize it, I think!

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

It was the constantly calling Frank Burns "ferret-face".

LOL.

Weasels have good connotations for us Dunnett fans.

I adore Eccleston's nose with a passionate passion. It's one of those great noses, like Peter Wingfield's. Tennant's makes no impression at all. There are things I like about his face, but the nose isn't it.

[dargie.livejournal.com]

I am SO with him on this one. But I referred to Tennant as "ratlike."

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Everyone seems to have their rodent of choice for comparison!

[bright-lilim.livejournal.com]

If you decide to watch Rome, just remember that it's not a historical show. It's a committee's idea of what history should have been and what other people should find dramatic.

(It's, of course, also possible that my ideas of dramatic scenes and plot lines are just different from theirs.)

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

The truth is that I have watched a couple of episodes of Rome, and didn't enjoy it much. But so many people think it's terrific. I was sort of bored. Maybe I should try it again. I had every reason to like it (Purefoy as Antony? Yes! Indira Varma? Yes!) but ... didn't.

[topgeargirl2.livejournal.com]

I find David Tennant, very good looking and I forget he is in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.

Christopher Eccleston was my first Doctor but David Tennant will always be my Doctor because of his charm and sense of humour.

That being said David Tennant and John Barrowman are my celebrity crushes.

I'm such a geek.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Well, I'm a total fangirl, but it's Eccleston and Barrowman I love in this fandom. I mostly love David Tennant as the Doctor, but I hate the way he treats Jack and I don't like Ten as much as Nine. Still: he's interesting! I like the way Tennant plays him, my problem is more with the plots and characterization. I'm furious with him for disabling Jack's vortex manipulator as if he had the right. Among other things.

But that's not a complaint so much as a quibble.

Eccleston is a god in my personal pantheon.

[topgeargirl2.livejournal.com]

I don't like the way he treated Martha but still love him.

Not really a Rose fan.

But totally fell in love with Donna.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I don't like the way he treated Martha but still love him.

The bottom line is: I still love Ten too, most of the time, but I don't like the way he treated Rose (in the end), Martha, Donna or Jack. And I am particularly angry with him about Jack because I love Jack so much. But... I can't help forgiving the Doctor, more or less, rather like Jack does. Only Jack... finds forging easier.

Conflicted feelings, maybe?

[topgeargirl2.livejournal.com]

I can't help forgiving him either.

must be his good nature.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

There's so much about him that is sweet. So I can be angry with him, but love him anyway.

[mmegaera.livejournal.com]

Hee. My first exposure to David Tennant was as Barty, too. But now after watching a season of Who I'm firmly convinced that he needed to be CG'd down about a foot in height about fifteen years ago to play Miles Vorkosigan. As the Doctor he's got just the right amount of manicness and the "If I can do it, you can do it" attitude down pat. Plus he's got sharp features and dark hair.

But he's too old for the part now, alas. Even if he would be perfect for it.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I think Tennant would be brilliant as Miles. The height would be the only problem - well, age, too - but that's no problem in a world of CGI and trick photography. He has the polarized moods and the liveliness and the charm down pat.

I did like him as Barty Crouch Jr., a role that meant nothing to me in the book - but now I watch that movie just for him. (Or I would, if I were to watch it again.)

[mmegaera.livejournal.com]

I remember watching the first Ten Doctor Who episode and thinking, I know him from somewhere, then it dawned on me.

I don't really remember much about the book version of Goblet of Fire because I only read it once because I didn't like it so much, but the movie version is probably my favorite of the Harry Potter movies. It was like they took all the good bits out of the book and made it into a movie, leaving out all the interminable bad stuff. Quite amazing. I wish Mike Leigh had directed the rest of them. I thought David Yates made hash of Order of the Phoenix, and I'm sort of dreading Half-Blood Prince.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Goblet of Fire

Not my favourite, though I found it readable at the time. Not memorable. I always find myself thinking, "Which one is that?" I'm not good at keeping the Harry Potter books straight.

My favourite (both book and movie) was Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban because I liked the... what were they called? - Death-eaters. Scary.

But I don't remember that one very well, either. Harry Potter stories (whether movies or books) don't stick in my head very well.

[mmegaera.livejournal.com]

Not Death Eaters. That's the name for Voldemort's followers. You're talking about the ghosty things that guard Azkaban prison, right? [goes to bookshelf] Dementors!

My mind is a steel trap for useless trivia most of the time, but not just then [g].

I like all of the movies (well, except for Order of the Phoenix, mostly because it tried so hard to ruin Imelda Staunton for me -- I like her, but Delores Umbridge is my least favorite character in the series, even moreso than Voldemort). The books I can take or leave, pretty much.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Dementors! that was it. Yeah, you can see I have trouble remembering stuff from Harry Potter. Dementors were the scary ones.

I wish my mind was a steel trap for something! It's more like a useless sponge - soaks things in, then dries up.

I enjoyed all the Harry Potter books, more or less, and had no real problems with the movies, but they aren't any kind of favourites. I wouldn't want to watch or read any of them a second time, if it weren't for Barty Crouch Jr.

[mmegaera.livejournal.com]

I've watched each of the movies at least twice on DVD, and saw them all in the theater. And watched bits and pieces of them when they've been on TV.

The one I've watched most is Chamber of Secrets, but that's because of Kenneth Branagh's Gilderoy Lockhart [g].

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Branagh was wonderful as Lockhart. And I like the way Alan Rickman plays Snape. Snape should be in the stories more, in my opinion.