BBC Announces the Eleventh Doctor

…and he’s probably not who you thought he was going to be.

After four more Russell T Davies-generated specials with David Tennant’s Tenth Doctor, new producer Steven Moffat’s first series will kick off in 2010 with new Doctor Matt Smith. Producer Piers Wenger praises Smith’s fundamental “Doctor-ness.” We’ll all pretty much have to take his word for it, as the 26-year-old Smith doesn’t have an extensive film or television record to check out. I was not a fan of the glacially-paced adaptions of Philip Pullman’s The Ruby and the Smoke and The Shadow in the North (in which, emphasizing the incestuous nature of British television, he appeared with former Doctor Who companion Billie Piper), nor of the hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold-but no-professional-ethics soap Secret Diary of a Call Girl (hey, look, there’s Piper again), but he has a strong stage record. He’s the youngest actor ever to play the Doctor (three years younger than Fifth Doctor Peter Davison was when he took the role); whether that’s a positive or a negative remains to be seen.

Smith has a year and a half to hear about what big Converse shoes he has to fill before his first episode airs, so wish him luck.