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When Peter Capaldi was announced as the twelfth Doctor, I was surprised but very happy.
He'd had a successful career in British film and television for thirty years, including a
couple of guest spots in Doctor Who and Torchwood, and it was known that he
was a long time Doctor Who fan. It certainly seemed to me that he would make a more
traditional Doctor figure than some of his immediate predecessors, older and perhaps sterner
and more acerbic. And yet the casting was very divisive. This was exemplified by the "reaction
video" that appeared on YouTube, wherein a young, female fan expresses horror at the new Doctor
being "old" and "ugly" and declaring that she was finished with the show, which I guess says more
about the differences in fandom than in the show itself. It seems to me that Capaldi probably embodied
the older character that Steven Moffat had originally been looking for before Matt Smith had burst
onto the scene. So it's a little ironic that Capaldi's characterization was
most let down by the inconsistency of the writing. His persona was seemingly different with each
series - but it isn't that the character developed, just that it suddenly changed each year. Initially,
he was played as I expected: acerbic, grumpy and seemingly often uncaring. It was a very harsh take
on the Doctor, although to an extent, this was seeded in the programme by his being the start of a
new life cyle - the implication being that he needed to learn again what it meant to be the Doctor,
presumably mirroring the way that the first Doctor has to learn to trust his companions in the very
early days of the show. But the idea of the Doctor gradually becoming humanized was lost in his second
series when he was given a new wacky persona - he wears a hoodie, "sonic" sunglasses and plays an
electric guitar. I think the intention was probably to reverse Matt Smith's portrayal of an old man
in the young man's body, but it comes across more as someone's dad having a mid-life crisis.
For the final series, the Doctor has calmed down a lot, having been in residence as a University
professor for many years. He displays caring and kindness, even if he buries it beneath his rough
edges, and has a teacher-pupil relationship with his new companion Bill. It seemed a shame to me that
it took so long to nail the persona of the twelfth Doctor - and that just as he got there, Capaldi
was leaving the show. So at the end of his tenure, I found myself regarding Capaldi's Doctor as something
of a missed opportunity. But hindsight is a wonderful thing - after a few years and a chance to rewatch
his episodes, it's obvious that Capaldi is just magnificent. Yes, the introduction of the "bad dad" persona
is still a bit jarring, but it seems more of an extension of the concept of the Doctor trying to figure
out who he is, and simply overcompensating for his initial harshness. In just a few episodes, he's giving
the defining performance of his era: in the episode The Zygon Inversion, he confronts extremism and
war in an impassioned speech that is simply electrifying. (And amazingly, broadcast one week before
the Paris terror attacks - Doctor Who has never seemed so relevant...) In The Doctor Falls,
Capaldi delivers another speech that defines the Doctor's philosophy so perfectly. I'd opine now that he was
the best Doctor of the modern era - (yes, even edging out Matt Smith) - and a contender for the best of the
entire series. I just wish he'd stayed around for longer.
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