Oh man, I love Eleven. His era involves dealing with some increasingly-Moffatty writing, but when he’s on, he’s just splendid. Eleven’s Top Five Big Damn Hero moments feature cleverness, big swings, sacrifices, and almost equal parts chutzpah and grace. The “mad man with a box” has an air that can lead people to underestimate him, but he handily proves that he should never be counted out (spoilers.)
Defeating the Angels (Series 5, Episode 5 – “Flesh and Stone”)
The Doctor is dealing with multiple crises at once. There’s the horde of Weeping Angels bearing down on them, one attacking Amy inside her eye (just go with it,) and, oh yes, the small matter of the Crack in time erasing everything that its light touches. The Angels think that the Doctor, as a complicated space/time event, should throw himself into the Crack, satiating it to save the rest of them. But the Doctor has a better notion. Realizing that the Angels are draining the crashed spaceship’s power, including the artificial gravity that’s keeping everything the right way up, all he, Amy, and River have to do is hold on tight when the gravity fails. The Angels fall into the Crack, closing it and purging the Angel from Amy’s eye in the progress. Even though this is more the Doctor taking advantage of present circumstances rather than creating a solution, I like the way he realizes it mid-sentence and immediately pivots to Doctor-in-control mode, leaving the Angels a boss speech as a parting farewell before the failed gravity sends them to their doom.
Rebooting the Universe (Series 5, Episode 13 – “The Big Bang”)
The Doctor has figured out how to restore the universe. Because the inside of the Pandorica was the only thing unaffected by the TARDIS’s explosion, it contains all the elements needed for creation, and because the TARDIS is exploding at every point in time and space, the Doctor realizes he can seed those elements by piloting the Pandorica into the heart of the explosion. “Big Bang 2,” he calls it. Obviously, restoring the entire universe is about as big as they come, but aside from the cleverness of it and the huge impact, I love this moment for a couple other reasons as well. First, it’s one where I genuinely think the Doctor believes he won’t come out of it, and he faces his apparent end with quiet grace. And second, before he takes this enormous leap and makes a monumental sacrifice, he takes the time to tell Amy what he’s discovered about her family and the Crack in time. In what might be his last moments, he stops to do something kind for his friend, telling her that there’s a possibility she can bring her parents back too. It’s something that has very little bearing on the universe at large but will matter greatly to her. Beautiful—I love it.
Unmasking the Silence (Series 6, Episode 2 – “Day of the Moon”)
This is a smart plan. Everyone who sees one of the Silence forgets them the second they turn away, but anything the Silence tells them while they’re looking remains as a subliminal command in their subconscious. The Doctor, having acquired a video of a threatening Silence snarling, “You should kill us all on sight!”, splices the video into the blip in the footage of Neil Armstrong taking his first step on the moon. In addition to everyone watching the footage live in 1969, the Doctor knows that nearly every human will see that video at some point in their lives, and so everyone will carry that subliminal command to kill any of the Silence that they encounter. Even better, he reveals this plan to the Silence with such quiet confidence and swagger—I just love how calmly he tears down their empire.
Confronting the Old God (Series 7, Episode 8 – “The Rings of Akhaten”)
What a gorgeous moment. Faced with a psychic parasite living in a sun, the recently-awakened sleeping god of Akhaten, the Doctor sends Clara and the others away so he can face it alone, placing himself between it and them. The parasite feeds on memories, so the Doctor decides to “tell [it] a story,” offering up his own memories and emotions in the hopes that it will gorge itself on him. And the speech—oh, the speech! My favorite part of it is, “I've watched universes freeze and creations burn. I've seen things you wouldn't believe. I have lost things you will never understand.” Tears in the Doctor’s eyes even as he stands defiant before it, the soaring music behind him. Over their lifetimes, the Doctor has been prepared to sacrifice themselves so many times, but this one remains one of my favorites.
Facing Off Against the Cyber-Planner (Series 7, Episode 13 – “Nightmare in Silver”)
The Doctor is locked in a battle of wills against the Cyber-Planner, which has infested his mind and is trying to take him over. While Clara and the oneshot characters fight the Cybermen outside, the Doctor and the Cyber-Planner play a game of chess to decide who gets control of his mind. After making the usual Doctory feeling-not-thinking sacrifice – giving up his queen in exchange for a bit of protection for the two children the Cyber-Planner has hijacked – the Cyber-Planner rails against the Doctor’s slavery to his emotions, declaring that he’s about to lose the game, which will lose him the children again anyway. But the Doctor insists that he’s laid a trap to get checkmate in three moves, challenging the Cyber-Planner to figure it out. This first gains him a respite for Clara and the others, as the Cyber-Planner temporarily deactivates the battling Cyberman to draw extra processing power for the conundrum. And when the Cyber-Planner still can’t find an answer, the Doctor reveals that his “moves” aren’t exactly on the board: he’s snagged a stray hand pulse, which he sonicks to amplify its power, and then he uses it to fry the Cybermites in his head, burning out the Cyber-Planner. Aside from Matt Smith’s stellar dual performance throughout the episode, this is a fun victory that mixes nerve, knowhow, and a little trickery.
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