You’ll notice that my favorite Big Damn Hero moments for Ten aren’t actually his biggest. I didn’t draw from a single one of his season finales, as this was the era when RTD’s insatiable need to continue topping himself was running rampant. As such, while it’s certainly impressive to see him take on millions of Daleks or whatever, those bombastic finales don’t resonate with me like these moments do (spoilers.)
Signaling Mickey (Series 2, Episode 6 – “The Age of Steel”)
I do love a good moment where the Doctor is captured and seems back into a corner but in actual fact still has the upper hand. Here, as he confronts the Cyber Controller, his rousing “you just can’t keep humanity down” speech is peppered with clues for Mickey, who he realizes is likely watching them on the security cameras. The Doctor isn’t a position to get the information he needs – the code to the Cybermen’s emotional inhibitors – but he can nudge Mickey in the right direction, seeding the hint to find the code and send it to Rose’s phone, which the Doctor can then use to overload all the Cybermen. It’s a perfect blend of inspirational underdog speech mixed with puckish-clever hidden message, and I am here for it.
Standing Up to the Beast (Series 2, Episode 9 – “The Satan Pit”)
First of all, the Doctor does his Doctory thing where he stands in front of the bad guy and pieces the whole mystery together while he’s talking. He figures out that the only way to ensure the Beast can’t escape is actually to break the seal on its prison, which will trigger the planet’s fall into a black hole. However, this would mean jeopardizes Rose’s chance of getting away safely. That’s where the money shot comes in, where the Doctor stares down the enormous horned monster and tells it precisely why he’s prepared to do what needs to be done. “I’ve seen a lot of this universe,” he says. “I’ve seen fake gods and bad gods and demi-gods and would-be gods, and out of all that, out of that whole pantheon, if I believe in one thing, just one thing, I believe in her.” I think hope is such a brave emotion, and I love that the Doctor is able to dig deep and prepare to make this possible sacrifice because he trusts that Rose is on the other side, holding up her end, and they’ll make their way back to each other. Lovely.
Uncovering the Plasmavore (Series 2, Episode 1 – “Smith and Jones”)
This moment kicks off with another quintessential captured-Doctor move: passing himself off as a clueless bungler while subtly gaining all the information he needs. He pretends to be an unwitting human postman, gawking in astonishment over the alien rhinos and whatnot, using the guise of unimportance to give himself time to figure out what the Plasmavore is planning and how to stop her – I love him exclaiming, “You’re joshing me!” when the Plasmavore cops to being an alien. When he realizes that she tricks the Judoon scanners by drinking human blood to temporarily mask her alien biology, the Doctor sees the obvious, albeit dangerous solution: get her to feed on him, so his Time Lord blood will set off the scanners. His two hearts will give him a fighting chance to survive, and he’s hopeful that Martha will be able to revive him, but there’s no guarantee. This is a huge gamble, but for the sake of innocent lives, the Doctor is prepared to risk it.
Going After Martha (Series 3, Episode 3 – “Gridlock”)
Martha has just been abducted on the Motorway, and the Doctor is prepared to do anything to get her back. The Motorway is packed with bumper-to-bumper lanes and layers of hover cars, and the vehicle Martha is in is probably at least 10 layers lower than the one the Doctor hitches a ride in. When he can’t convince his drivers to go down, he takes the initative to do it himself, sonicking floor and ceiling panels to jump from car to car through the gridlock, breathing in the thick yellow exhaust and barging in on all manner of motorists in his quest to get back to Martha. The Doctor doesn’t always recognize or appreciate her, so I like that he works this hard to try and find her.
Stopping the Adipose (Series 4, Episode 1 – “Partners in Crime”)
Basically just a nice bit of technological flim-flam, but I’m very fond of it. With Mrs. Foster going full conversion on all her “customers,” breaking them down into 100% Adipose, the Doctor gets into her systems and races to override them. I love the moment when she doubles the power and he’s briefly devastated, thinking he won’t be able to save the people, only to discover that Donna has the one bit of technology he needs to give the machine a boost. Ten gets flack for the “I’m sorry – I’m so sorry” routine, but empathy is an important part of heroism too, and I like seeing him despair at the thought of not coming through for these people, before he leans on his friend, rallies, and saves the day. Scenes like that are why I love this show, baby fat monsters and all.
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The #ShangChi cast geeks out on what it was like to work the legend, Tony Leung. pic.twitter.com/QPmGia7OHk
— Fandango (@Fandango) September 3, 2021
It’s still Tony Leung Chiu-wai Appreciation Day around Marvel Studios – you love to see it. Here’s several minutes of Simu Liu, Awkwafina, Meng’er Zhang, and Florian Munteanu fanboying/fangirling over working with him. I like how everything from this film who talks about him obviously praises his remarkable talent, but they also take time to admire him as a person too. I also really like this interview with Fala Chen, where she talks about how differently Leung carries himself on- and off-set. I kind of love the fact that this massive movie star, who Liu’s described as Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, and George Clooney rolled into one, is a quiet, shy person who loves acting in movies but would just as well prefer not to be a famous celebrity.
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