Whereas David Tennant often seemed to be giving a performance, sketching the Doctor out like a comic book character, and Eccleston — well, he performed in a different way; a more classical dramatic performance, where he tried to depict the script as written — Matt Smith plays the role as if he isn’t at all aware there’s an audience. When he speaks, he actually seems to be talking to someone. When he walks and gestures, he does so with a certain apparent obliviousness beyond his own motivation. And when other actors are talking, he listens. He processes what they’re saying. You can see him thinking it over, weighing possible responses.

Basically, he plays it for real. And it is play; it’s just so completely method. It goes beyond his physically hitting his head, hard, and biting his co-star — hard — and all the food acting in episode one. He seems to inhabit every scene he’s in. The verisimilitude to his performance — it hasn’t been present since the 1960s, when every episode was shot more or less as-live, and everyone was in fact reacting to his or her environment in real time.

It’s so real that the heightened performances of the guest actors — which would have seemed perfectly normal in the last few series — seem like they’re coming from a different universe, and Murray Gold’s music — which I have always enjoyed — seems as out-of-place and bombastic as people have often complained in the past. The rest of the show just isn’t geared to his level, as yet.

I’m really curious where he’ll take this once the writers stop writing him as David Tennant.