In Paul Cornell’s recent comic book series Doctor Who: Four Doctors, he has the 12th Doctor saying: “Posh Doctor and Baby Doctor seem to think I’m Scary Doctor.” The fact that this dialogue is in a Doctor Who comic book and not on the actual show is totally a crime, but it’s also immediately recognizable as being a legit Peter Capaldi quip—something he would definitely say if he was faced with both Matt Smith’s (Baby) and David Tennant’s (Posh) Doctors. But, with the ludicrously awesome one-two punch of this season’s finale—“Heaven Sent” and “Hell Bent”—Peter Capaldi’s Doctor isn’t just Scary Doctor or Angry Doctor or Aging-Rocker-Who-Wears-a-Hoodie-Doctor. Instead, he is the Every Doctor, all the Doctors all the time; the über-Doctor!
A recent Radio Times interview with Steven Moffat finds the showrunner revealing that Peter Capaldi intentionally wanted the Doctor this season to be an all- encompassing iteration of the character’s various personalities and histories: “I don’t just want to be the 12th Doctor, I want to be all the Doctors,” Capaldi said, “Every Doctor coming in a mix.” Glancing at superficial evidence alone, this is totally true insofar as this season seems to have the most overt and obvious references to the character’s immediate history. From the name-checking of Amy, Martha and Rose in “Before the Flood,” to the actual visual flashbacks of Donna Noble and the 10th Doctor in “The Girl Who Died,” to Matt Smith/David Tennant action in “The Zygon Invasion,” and even the utterance of Captain Jack Harkness’s name in “The Woman Who Lived,” this 9th season of Doctor Who has been somehow more fan service-y than anything in 2013’s 50th anniversary episode “The Day of the Doctor.” Things even kicked-off this season with a plot twist that was also a reference to the ongoing mythology of the show: Davros is back! Davros is a little kid! Who is the Phantom Menace? Who—through action or inaction and wibbly-wobbly time-travel—actually created the Daleks? If you had never seen Doctor Who before the two-part opening of this season, then “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” and “The Witch’s Familiar” were probably incomprehensible. Why is the Doctor sitting around with this weird gross old monster who loves his evil robots like little babies?
But if you are a longtime fan, you’ve probably loved all the treats we’ve been given in this reference-lousy season. It seems to me that perhaps since 2005, Doctor Who has been trying to convince casual viewers (maybe Americans?) that they should give a shit, because hey, this show is super fun and funny, and don’t worry—we get a new set of actors every few years so you don’t really have to keep track of anything! Remember when Vincent Van Gogh was like part of the Doctor’s army of awesome buds? Yeah, I barely do. A show about time-travel with a renewable lead actor and interchangeable supporting actors shouldn’t need to be beholden to continuity, and often times when we get a new Doctor, some of the baggage of the previous iteration is jettisoned and everything you thought you knew about the Doctor (and what’s important to him) seems to be downplayed.
This was particularly true of the Matt Smith era: the Doctor went from being depressed (Tennant) to spitting on the floor and yelling “Geronimo!” and basically didn’t stop pulling faces and being over-the-top happy throughout his whole run. This isn’t to say Matt Smith’s Doctor didn’t have angst and loss. He certainly did. It’s just that there was a sense that like David Tennant before him, this Doctor didn’t look back. Even in “The Day of the Doctor,” Smith and Tennant are almost let off the hook of having to cope with their own dangerous past-actions because the blame is laid at the feet of a one-off secret Doctor in the form of John Hurt. Bottom line: David Tennant’s Doctor wasn’t constantly reminding you he was Christopher Eccelston, and Matt Smith wasn’t constantly referencing David Tennant.
Capaldi’s era however, from “Deep Breath” until “Hell Bent,” have constantly reminded you this is the same guy who used to say “Fantastic!” “Allons-y!” and “Geronimo!” even if he doesn’t say those things any more. His costume and style are more reminiscent of pre-2005 Doctors and even when you squint it sometimes feels like you’re watching a Jon Pertwee or Tom Baker episode. Moffat and Matt Smith always claimed Matt Smith embraced Patrick Troughton Doctor. Peter Capaldi does Troughton, Baker, Pertwee, and even some Colin Baker! It’s not that he just channels them, but truly seems to mix up their various quirks and turns into something brand new. Colin Baker’s Doctor did used to be rude to people, so is Capaldi. Dressing like a bit of a magician? The velvety coat? Check and check for third and fourth Doctors. David Tennant told the 5th Doctor that he was his Doctor, but Peter Capaldi has just taken it all. In “Hell Bent” he even acts a little like Jon Hurt and Paul McGann.
The fact that Matt Smith appeared in “Deep Breath,” as the Doctor, pleading with Clara to accept this new Doctor is telling. At the time, it felt like hand-holding for the contemporary audience: please accept this older guy as the same character who, for the past nine years, has been relatively young and conventionally sexy. But now, this doesn’t feel like hand-holding at all—it feels realistic. The Doctor has often been an older person, because the character is very, very old. The 11th Doctor said this particular regeneration was “going to be a whopper,” and that’s true, and not because of the way Capaldi at first seemed so different, but something a little more complex.
Leaving behind fan-service and continuity references for a second, there’s a deeper more important reason that Capaldi is the the über-Doctor. And that’s because what Capaldi said about trying to bring all the Doctors “in a mix” is totally accurate: at this point the 12th Doctor’s personality can almost be described as being all the other Doctors, turned up to 12 on a scale that should only go to 10. Having some criteria for what I’m talking about will probably make this easier. And in the interests of creating a bit of circular time-loop style argument, I’ll phrase my criteria in the style of Capaldi-Doctor so you can have his voice in your head, convincing you I’m right.
Question: What are the four properties that make the Doctor the most Doctorish?
Answer(s):
- He gets himself out of narrow scrapes with wit and cunning.
- He’s funny, quick with a one-liner.
- He’s got a bunch of angst at being nearly immortal/a perpetual hero
- He gives really awesome stirring speeches.
Going out of order in fulfilling these criteria is also fine, because the Doctor’s a time traveler—and that’s how he rolls!
So, Capaldi is obviously funny. I actually think he’s hilariously, somehow, way funnier than Matt Smith and David Tennant. It’s a totally difficult thing for me to say (and if anyone has read the essay in my book about David Tennant, this must seem like blasphemy) but it’s just true. Capaldi’s timing is hysterical and the way his humor can undercut a scene completely makes this show the goofy sci-fi romp it’s supposed to be. From fencing with a spoon against Robin Hood to his befuddlement as to how people would think Clara was his daughter (“we look exactly the same age!”) to even his rant against gardeners in what was otherwise a bleak episode, Capaldi’s wit is unbelievable.
I’ll spare trying to stack up a bunch of proof that outlines that Capaldi is good at getting out of scrapes. All you really need for evidence here is that Missy’s story to Clara about how the Doctor approaches conflict serves as a kind of framing mechanism for the whole season, a meta-narrative construct: the Doctor always expects to win and this season is the story of how that attitude manifest itself.
Angst? Holy crap. Capaldi is now ANCIENT compared to his predecessors, and unlike Matt Smith’s Doctor aging a few thousand years randomly on Trenzalore, there’s something about the Doctor now that feels straight-up eternal. We’ve seen this guy head to the end of the universe before, but never by basically living until the end of the universe. A billion is a lot different than a couple thousand.
Which takes me to the most important reason why Capaldi is the Doctor for all seasons, subsuming all other Doctors. That’s right. It’s the speeches.
Charlie Schneider, of the popular YouTube channel Emergency Awesome said this effectively in his a recent review of “Heaven Sent,”; that Doctor Who was often at its best when it was somehow talking about itself. In speaking out loud in this episode the Doctor wonders how often he can continue to “burn himself,” in order to make a new version. Naturally, this references the actual events of the episode, but also the regeneration process and how the viewers constantly are dealing with it. “Heaven Sent,” then, is the ultimate meta-Doctor Who episode because not only does it seem to inspect its own premises through beautiful outer-space navel-gazing, but also gives Capaldi essentially a straight hour to do nothing but monologue. If the Doctor’s big speeches were all Middle-Earth rings of power, then “Heaven Sent,” is the One Ring to Rule Them All.
In “Hell Bent,” Clara asks the Doctor why he’s not wearing his new velvety-coat, noting that she liked it because it looked “Doctorish.” Part of why Capaldi is an extreme version of all the Doctors at the same time, is because his character is constantly trying to figure out how to be the Doctor and not totally accepting it until he feels like he’s earned it. He’s constantly trying to figure out who this particular Doctor actually is, and he’s not going to rely on just being reminded of who he used to be. This Doctor throws away his sonic screwdriver, which is a classic pre-2005 Doctor move. This Doctor is flippant about what his purpose is; is it to save people? Can he deal with those consequences? This Doctor questions himself and admits when he has gone too far. But unlike when David Tennant went too far in “The Waters of Mars,” this Doctor doesn’t head for a catastrophic tear-filled regeneration. Instead, he has to keep on living. Keep on being the Doctor. All the soul-searching, all the testing of his own boundaries, all the discoveries about what he’ll do and how far he’ll go make him a synecdoche of all the versions of the character that have come before. Capaldi’s Doctor is that synechdoche, the part that represents the whole, because in his portrayal of the character, and the stories he’s inhabited, this Doctor has became something so few television characters rarely do.
A whole person, who feels real.
Ryan Britt is the author of Luke Skywalker Can’t Read and Other Geeky Truths, out now from Plume (Penguin Random House.) He’s been writing about Doctor Who on Tor.com since 2010.
The Doctor isn’t a billion years old. He is still ‘only’ a few thousand years old. All the versions of him together spent billions of years in the castle/maze but the current Doctor (who showed up on Gallifrey) was only there for a few days/weeks. I think a lot of people don’t understand that.
@1: The script of the episode didn’t seem to understand it, as everybody glossed over the fact that he only spent a few days there as his “current” self in favor of being all, “oooh, he spent four and a half billion years in there, what a sacrifice!”
Nice to see the old TARDIS interior, shame about the rest of the episode. This was all about the transethnic, transgender, regeneration scene for the character from the anniversary, and getting that firmly stuck in canon. That is all this episode was about, and nothing else. What a complete waste of time and money. I used to defend Moffat to the hilt, but the last season and a half has been about him rather than the characters and I am just ready for him to go.
Aside from never being able to forget when the Doctor and van Gogh were “buds,” because van Gogh is one of my favorite painters and that episode is probably my favorite, I thought Matt Smith in his performance, echoed so many of the previous doctors. Even Tenant did it occasionally, but Smith’s inflections and expressions brought many past Doctors to mind quite often.
@2 – Robotech_Master: The episode made it seem as if he has the memories of all copies of him who spent the time there, or at least, the angst and pain.
I was introduced to Dr. Who in Tennant’s first season, so when I went and watched Eccleston and then Smith, it took me a little while to get used to their portrayal of the Doctor (especially Smith). I never had to do that with Capaldi. He owned the role since I first saw him in Deep Breath and has continued to impress. For me, this season was consistently great with only one exception (I thought the sleep monsters were dumb). I look forward to seeing him in the role for a while yet.
Moffat is pretty sly too. Not only did he pave the way for a black actor to lay the Doctor, but a woman also. I figured it was only a matter of time before this happened, and it really doesn’t bother me.
Overall, I am more excited than ever to get on Hulu and watch Classic Who (as soon as I am done with my Trek rewatch).
I like that you brought up Clara liking the “Doctor-ish” velvet coat. The series itself tends to forget that Clara’s seen all the versions of him – the perfect companion to the uber-Doctor.
How much does Clara remember of what her Doctor-timestream echoes experienced?
I am still waiting to be impressed by Capaldi. Not feeling it so far.
I don’t know that she remembers it about Clara’s Doctor Memories, but I’m kinda hoping that whoever does the continuing adventures of Clara and Me (be it audio, literary, or tv specials) will putz with there exposure to the Time Matrix in their Tardis and give Me access to her memories and Clara access to her Doctor Memories. Sort of how River Song became a Time Lord due to being conceived on the Tardis.
Eventually, he pieces together how much time he’s spending in there. And that all he has to do to stop this Groundhog Day experience is give the info to the Veil that it wants. But instead he chooses to relive this day over and over for 4.5 billion years. The weight of that has to be there for him and eventual memory because he gets further and further into the parable of the bird and the diamond mountain. And that he’ll break his hands on the wall, die slowly and climb that staircase. He may not experience the whole of the 4.5B years, but he is aware of the choice he is making by the time he gets to that wall. That is very much what would be intolerable patience and a sacrifice of self.
@8 – you know, it seemed to me that when Matt Smith’s Doctor brought Clara out of his timeline (when they saw the War Doctor), she did remember – but this did seem to get dropped in subsequent series. Maybe, like Me, it was more information than her human mind could handle. Or maybe it was dropped for convenience or simply forgotten.
I love this show – and the audio plays (and love Capaldi’s Doctor) but there are always these odd irreconcilable continuity things.
Edit to add: The fact that her last words to the Doctor on the blackboard contain,” Run, you clever boy…” – words she used in her various incarnations, indicates she does at least in part remember, I’d say.
I think the moment I realized Capaldi had replaced Eccleston as my favorite Doctor was that scene in the vikings episodes when death is mentioned and he looks at Clara in that very curious way that without a word shows he’s terribly scared of loosing her, while knowing it must be impending. I believe Capaldi mentioned in an interview that perhaps the Doctor had already looked a bit into the future, to get a notion of what was to happen to Clara, and it does seem like this Doctor to do such a thing. So that look means a lot, he may not know exactly what, how or when, but he knows he’s going to loose her very soon. So that look, that little bit of acting was all I needed to fall in love with Capaldi and his portrayal of the Doctor.
Too bad his seasons have been the ones to suffer such horrible episodes as the one about robot-Robin Hood, the one about the moon being an egg, the one with the eye crust monsters (the episode itself was not bad, but come on, eye crust monsters!), and above all that god awful ending to this season’s opener that seemed to be Moffat deciding he could re-use the script for The Curse of Fatal Death. That was awful not because of the sewers stuff, but because of the whole “AHA! But I knew that you knew that I knew that..!” which so horribly cheapened any emotional impact the episode could have had, I mean, you can’t have your hero be merciful to his life long enemy and then reveal he knew all along it was all a ruse, he can’t be that all merciful and all cunning at the same time because the cunning trumps the mercy and ends up making him look like an asshole, or more properly making you realize the writer of the episode wanted to have his cake, eat it, and say it was a lie, all at the same time.
I liked this article a lot, as it hit on a lot of things I’ve been thinking as well. However, I would like to say that, as much as he’s inhabited a lot of the Doctors, I feel like he’s also left some new marks that are a little less evident. This Doctor seems lived in. From the books on his TARDIS stairs, to the melted candle wax everywhere, to his hoodies and holed jumpers, Capaldi seems like he’s actually a person living and needing to feel comfortable. I remember the scene where Smith was kind of sitting in his little swing putting wires together under his console. Amy and Rory were asking him where his bedroom was and you got the idea that they were standing in it. It was hard to imagine Smith sleeping or even needing to eat. But Capaldi really seems like he is happy to enjoy a good snooze.
Great article, really chimes with my own views on Capaldi. It’s funny, with each incarnation of the reboot I’ve always thought ‘”there’s no way I could love the next Doctor as much as this one” and every time I’ve been wrong. I loved Ecclestone, he was great. Then Tennant came along, and truly made the character his, embracing the madness and the neuroticism. And then Matt Smith, who I really really loved as the Doctor, and was my favourite of all….until Peter Capaldi came along and just took the character to a whole new level. With Capaldi, it’s the nuances in his performances. I really wasn’t convinced to start with, but his portrayal of the Doctor and the quality of the acting wring so much out of some frankly poor scripts (some good ones in there as well, I really liked the current series, but some low points too) that in my mind, HE is now the uber-Doctor.
I just hope that after such great choices in casting, when eventually they do (if they do) move to a new actor, I won’t have had my expectations set too high by the previous actors. What really strikes me with Capaldi is, that as an actor, the role of Doctor is so important, and so beloved by so many, that no one wants to be known as the ‘terrible’ Doctor, and perhaps that sort of pressure has helped them (Matt Smith and now Peter Capaldi) to become the excellent incarnations they are. Capaldi certainly seems to thrive in the role
Natalie @14:
I wonder if that candle wax is a nod to “Neverwhere” where Capaldi played the Angel Islington whose abode contained a multitude of lit candles?
http://llywela13.tumblr.com/post/63064091694/in-art-we-shall-prevail-peter-capaldi-as-angel
@16: Islington as the Doctor
No fan service? Speaking as an older woman and Peter Capaldi admirer for a long time, I say YUM!
Long may he reign!
Peter has the props to be the best Doctor we’ve ever had. ‘Heaven Sent’ freaking showed us.
_I_ am the real Doctor!
“Remember when Vincent Van Gogh was like part of the Doctor’s army of awesome buds? Yeah, I barely do.”
Then I feel bad for you, son.
The Doctor kept saying that he felt like he had been locked up in there for greater periods of time. So it would seem he knows and feels that he was in there for over a billion years.
Perhaps the point about the Van Gogh episode is that so much has happened since then that it can seem a long time ago. I had no difficulty accepting Capaldi as the Doctor. His facial expressions and use of his eyes deserve an award by themselves! I’ve enjoyed the humour and the references to previous Doctors or events. I am not sure I could choose a “favourite” Doctor anyway because I have liked them all. Capaldi is certainly in my top 12 – or 14 if one includes John Hurt and Peter Cushing! However, I do regret that Eccleston did only one season.
@21: When the Doctor says he’s been there for 7000 years / millions of years / billions of years, it’s only from the position of the stars. He only remembers once he enters the Azbantium chamber, and the memory is destroyed with his body every time: “That’s when I remember! Always then. Always… then. Always EXACTLY then! I can’t keep doing this, Clara! I can’t! Why is it always me? Why is it never anybody else’s turn?! Can’t I just lose? Just this once?! Easy. It would be easy. It would be SO easy. Just tell them. Just tell them, whoever wants to know, all about the Hybrid. I can’t keep doing this. I can’t… I can’t always do this! It’s not fair! Clara, it’s just not fair! Why can’t I just lose?! But I can remember, Clara. You don’t understand, I can remember it all. Every time. And you’ll still be gone. Whatever I do… you still won’t be there.”
On the last time, his body isn’t destroyed, so he keeps the memory of billions of years of having done the exact same thing. It’s not the same as directly experiencing the passage of time for billions of years, but it’s still a terrible thing he’s going through.
One correction – I am 33 years old woman and I find Peter Capaldi the sexiest from the new Doctors. And I never, ever thought about any Doctor that way, neither I thought it was important (it really isn´t). But there is something fascinating about him that just grabs your attention and doesn´t let go. And those silver curls and those eyes…:D
Not a fan of this Doctor… Quite frankly this Rock ‘n’ Roll Doctor or Doctor Disco or Sunglasses Doctor… whatever you wanna call him… just grates on my nerves. I get why people might like him, I get the darker storylines were more interesting, I get that people found the humour to be a refreshing change.
Maybe it is Capaldi I don’t like. Or the way the character was written for him. Either way, I have been struggling to get through the Capaldi episodes.
I am ready for a new doctor.
“I don’t just want to be the 12th Doctor”
That’s a good thing, considering he’s actually playing the 14th Doctor.
Thanks for writing this! Love this article – you outlined so many reasons why he’s my favorite doctor. His passion for playing the Doctor is so contagious!
I haven’t really liked any of the previous incarnations. Peter Capaldi for me is exactly the Doctor I’ve been waiting for. Dark, gritty, maybe not entirely sane and a law unto himself with (seemingly) no consideration for others. I for one will be sad to see him go.
I think the leather jacket, the sunglasses and the guitar were exactly what they were: physical signs that the Doctor had lost track of himself. By the end of the series, he admits he’s broken his own rules, gone renegade and is even willing to break the laws of time and space to get what he wants. I think the series is about him losing sight of being the Doctor – and it’s because he’s tired of being the Doctor and he’s tired of being alone. He needs healing.
He breaks down gradually over the series, being less the Doctor as he goes, even in obvious ways such as replacing the sonic screwdriver with the sunglasses. So when he does eventually return to the sonic screwdriver and the doctor’s coat it’s more poignant. He’s been redeemed, and Clara and Me have given him peace through helping him forget everything he’s done and everything he’s lost. It’s almost a regeneration of the Doctor…or if you prefer: the Doctor is healed. Well, that’s how I see it.
It’d be nice to see a “better” Doctor in the next season, which I think we’re going to get.
Maybe Moffat was shooting for a more flawed Doctor in this season, an “immortal” who is probably the loneliest creature in existence. I like the darker tone of the 12th Doctor. It makes him more relatable as the guy who doesn’t just bounce back, who feels loss and who is tired of having to be himself. Who heals the Doctor, right? This near nihilistic Doctor is (for me anyway) the one with the most depth so far. Season 3 of the 12th Doctor would be perfect for a Doctor with more resolve, more heart and a desire to be “a good man”, especially if he gets pushed even harder to even darker places.
All speculation here, obviously. Feel free to add a pinch of salt or more as required.
TLDR: This is a dark, flawed more human Doctor who’s rebelling against being the Doctor and is tired of being left alone and hurting – and is need of healing and redemption.