BBC One
Looks like all that experience flying the TARDIS is about to pay off for Matt Smith: he’s just joined the cast of the upcoming Terminator: Genesis in an unspecified-but-important role. Deadline reports that the former Doctor will play a character with a strong connection to John Connor (Jason Clarke), who will also play a major role in the film’s sequels. Smith is the latest nerd-friendly addition to a cast that includes Game of Thrones’ Emilia Clarke, Divergent villain Jai Courtney, and Dayo Okeniyi from The Hunger Games. And of course, Arnold Schwarzenegger will be back to step back into his signature cyborg armor.
The franchise is a good fit for Smith, who already has plenty of experience jumping from time period to time period and planet to planet on Doctor Who. In fact, Smith is so good at handling rifts in time and space that we could see him fitting in, no matter when or where in time you dropped him. To prove this theory, we’ve crafted a timeline of Smith’s possible time travel adventures, using the most iconic time travel-based movies and TV shows. We start, of course, with the first major civilization…
– 410 BC: Smith’s first trip goes back to Ancient Greece, where he hopes to sit in on one of Socrates’ lectures, only to find out from one of the other students that “So-Crates” had hopped into a time machine and set off for the future to help two slackers in their intellectual pursuits. (Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure)
– 528 AD: Smith finds himself in Camelot, where he convinces the King to make things right with his people before Merlin and Morgan Le Fay manage ursurp him. But first, there’s a little matter of jazzing up all that boring old chamber music… (A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court)
– 1400s: Climbing through a hole in the fabric of time, Smith arrives in Sherwood Forest, where he is recruited by Robin Hood his Merry Men, and a band of dwarves to help give to the poor. Well, he intends to, but once he finds out how insane Robin Hood is, he decides it might be better to head elsewhere and avoid getting killed. (Time Bandits)
– 1621: Smith arrives in colonial America to find two talking turkeys scrambling around in an attempt to escape some hunters and put a stop to the first Thanksgiving. He decides to help them, thinking it will be funny, but discovers they’re just dumb and so he leaves it up to them to figure it out. How much trouble can two turkeys with a time machine cause, after all? (Free Birds)
– 1920s: After he accidentally gets into the wrong car, Smith finds himself transported to 1920s Paris, where he hops from party to party with the Fitzgeralds and a fellow time traveler who wanted writing advice. He doesn’t remember much but he’s pretty sure someone actually had a lampshade on their head at one point. (Midnight in Paris)
– 1955: There’s another mix up with cars, and Smith ends up crashing the Pine Valley prom, where he discovers that his best friend is actually his son. It takes a while to process, but his future wife is really pretty, even if there’s some weird tension there with their son. (Back to the Future)
– 1959: Smith hops forward a few years, where he meets the smartest dog of all time and not-so-bright boy, and helps them work on a time machine of their own called the WABAC. They invite him to join in on an adventure, but Sherman accidentally hits the wrong button, and Smith is sent forward in time by himself… (Mr. Peabody)
– 1981: To the early ‘80s, where he meets Alex Drake, who is determined to figure out how she ended up in the past (although if you ask Smith, he thinks she should be more concerned with the clown that’s following her around.) Luckily, he remembers a few things about Sam Tyler that should help nudge her investigation along, even if she probably won’t like what she discovers. (Ashes to Ashes
)
– 1984: Smith hops forward a few years, only to find himself caught in the crossfire of a murderous cyborg with an Austrain accent, and a human soldier who is trying to keep the cyborg from killing an innocent woman. Once he realizes that he will soon get to act out this scenario on a safe, closed, set, he hightails it out of there. (Terminator)
– 1993: Somehow, Smith manages to jump to an alternate universe, and finds himself at Hogwarts castle, so he immediately searches out Harry, Ron and Hermione, and helps them save Buckbeak, then rides the hippogriff off into the sunset. It all goes smoothly, although Harry is confused as to why Smith keeps calling him “Dan.” (Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban)
– 1994: The time turner can only turn so far, and Smith ends up a year in the future, where he agrees to help Max Walker investigate a crooked politician. He doesn’t really care about the plot, he really just wanted the chance to hang out with Jean Claude Van Damme. (Time Cop)
– 2004: After Smith and Walker arrive in 2004, he heads to a charming lake house to get in some R&R, only to find a guy staring forlornly at a mailbox, waiting for the flag to raise. It’s a little too sappy and maudlin for him, so he tells the guy to go chase after his love, or at the very least, to find a red pill that would put him in a more exciting sci-fi universe. (The Lake House)
– 3000: Smith rockets forward to the end of the millennium, where he stumbles across a cargo-delivery company run by the most dysfunctional group of people he has ever met. Still, he lets himself get roped into drinking with the robot and his friends, and it’s the most fun he has on his whole trip. Too bad the accident-prone intern cut the party short by accidentally sending him forward in time. (Futurama)
– 3978: Smith washes up on the beach of a weirdly familiar-looking planet, only to find that the natives – all of whom appear to be apes – aren’t thrilled with his presence. He manages to escape his capture and follows the shoreline in order to find a way home, only to discover, to his horror, the ruins of the Statue of Liberty. (Planet of the Apes)
