Discuss.
I am very happy. If the Doctor had to be another white guy — and if we’re honest, we know that there really was no way the Doctor would be anything else — Capaldi is a brilliant choice. He’s a fantastic actor, and he might actually be allowed to bring something dark and sardonic to the Doctor, as well as the man-about-the-universe panache I wanted.
Yay!
Bit more at BBC Doctor Who.
(If you stumble across a cool Doctor Who thing, feel free to email me with a link.)
of course, there is *still* Moffat’s show running to contend with… let’s hope PC can overcome some of the 12-year old attitude …
That’s one of the reasons I rank Matt Smith as highly as I do, he’s managed to carve out a decent performance as the Doctor whilst having to put up with some of the worst writing the show’s had since RTD took over. In retrospect, David Tennant had it easy (aside from End of Time, of course).
Maybe I’m being optimistic for once but I get the feeling that this is the Doctor Steven Moffat has been wanting to write for for a while. By his own admission, he was as shocked as everyone else that he cast a young Doctor out of the gate and he said in the show that he was thinking of Capaldi when casting Matt. Really hoping that 12 is a bit more stoic than 11.
I disagree. I think Moffat’s first season was very good — about as good as Davies’s best season. And since then, while the overall arc of the season has been a let down (the whole Silent arc just didn’t work that well), many of the episodes themselves, if considered on their own, were quite good. (But then my feeling is that even so-so Doctor Who is better than most of what’s out there, and even so-so episodes have their wonderful moments.)
well, yes, jim, i always say, even the worst Doctor Who is *still* Doctor Who…
Brilliant choice! I *do* hope he’ll mesh well with Stephen Moffat. With the new producer trying to get things in order in the background (and I understand looking to keep SM on track), the large gap to allow proper planning for the next season and tighter scripts and an actor with sufficient gravitas to stop the infantile streak in dialogue (no more f#%#ing ‘chin boy’ nonsense), I’m the most positive since the disappointment of seeing ‘The Beast Below’ after my cautious optimism after ‘The 11th Hour’. Plus we’ll be able to ditch all of the …’Ooh Clara you’re skirt is so tight’ 12 year old adolescent sniggering.
Hoping for more historicals, less flapping about and a Scottish accent. Just hope SM can finally deliver on his promises after so much disappointment for me over the last few years.
Happy, happy, happy.
Jem
Maybe the next actor to play the Master can found somewhere in the Fires of Pompeii as well?
no more Master! i’d be happy if there were no more Daleks, Cyberman, Ice Warriors… bring us something *new*!
Bring back the Silents and explain everything please!
They did explain everything.
What, you mean you’ve forgotten?
I too am very pleased. Capaldi is an excellent choice, and not what I honestly expected. He has wonderful ability to play characters both extremely affable and extremely sinister. Tennent and Smith excelled at the former, but struggled with the latter. I could never buy in to the “Time Lord Triumphant” bit Tennant tried, and Smith could get dark only in flashes. (Flashes of dark. Heh.) Admittedly, my exposure to Capaldi is a bit limited, but I really see this choice as an intent to get away from the manic side of the Doctor, like casting McCoy to follow Colin Baker.
Can’t help feel cheated that the bookies called the result because it makes the Doctor seem so merely mainstream.
OTOH Peter f’ing Capaldi ! Also, there’ll be a new Murray Gold theme for the new Doctor – something to match “I am the Doctor”. That’s almost as exciting a prospect as a new Doctor!
I remember Murray saying how he doesn’t think he can top “I am the Doctor”. Whilst I agree that it’s one of the things I unrepentantly adore about Smith’s Doctor, I’m sure Murray can do better.
i hated the new theme. i accepted it, finally, grudgingly, but i really hope the new theme will be more like the original theme.
The theme tune to the series or the Doctor’s theme?
Yeah, the theme tune in Moffat’s tenure has been dreadful, but the Doctor’s theme? I am the Doctor?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5D-QPDGhCtM
I love it far too much.
i meant the series theme.
yes series theme sucks but I am the Dr is thrilling especially if you’ve seen it played by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales with 120 strong choir. Twice.
you sound like a recent or American viewer. they’ve done this since the 70s at least; I know they had Peter Davison correct, too.
Agreed, a great choice. The first lead Doctor Who actor to have won an Oscar, I think. Might give my DVD of The Crow Road another watch tonight.
I want him to turn up in the 50th anniversary episode now. How cool would it be to have a proper future Doctor in a Multi Doc story.
Mind = blown!
http://www.reactiongifs.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/TomsMindBlown.gif
The reveal show was awful, but the news was good. I’m starting to feel a little tingle that Doctor Who hasn’t given me since ‘The Big Bang’.
http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2013/aug/04/doctor-who-announcement-live-blog
Worth reading for the snark. I liked:
“Rufus Hound just said that he was proud of Doctor Who because it’s British. This was probably because he knew it’d make the audience start clapping and thus prove that they haven’t all dropped off or wandered away to buy some chips.”
“World War Z (2013)
W.H.O. Doctor”
Sneaky!
Completely chuffed. He will be great!
While I would like to have seen a non-male or non-white Doctor, I think Capaldi is a fine choice. I’m glad to see an older Doctor, and hope that means that we’ll see a few episodes with River Song.
sadly, i think that an episode this past season sort of said basically, that River’s run with the Doctor has ended and that the Silence in the Library download has been done.
Well, in time travel, unexpected things can happen!
The Doctor could still theoretically visit a past, living version of River. Time can be rewritten, yada yada.
Or, of course, we can simply be shown the moments they mentioned, like Jim the Fish or Picnic at Asgard. Or not, if they meant that all those happened with Smith’s Doctor…
That’s what I can’t figure. When did all those adventures and romance hinted at between the Doctor and River take place? It seems like her entire story has been told, and there are no gaps in it. River was a character with great potential that was never properly realized.
Yup. Wasted opportunity.
absolutely wasted — a waste of a great character, by a great actress with the possibilities for worlds upon worlds of adventure that wouldn’t have needed a cyberman or dalek anywhere. maybe this is the Doctor River first met… that would be very timey-whimey.
But they still haven’t shown most of what’s in River’s diary. They haven’t yet visited Jim the Fish.
i would have liked a mixed race asian (indian, pakastani) Doctor but i never really thought that would happen.
couldn’t you have found a nicer picture of PC?
He’s scruffy-looking- that’s makes him more attractive (to some, anyway).
I like it!
Oh. Good Grief. I’ll constantly be thinking of this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VwGZinTeodc
But, he’s great. Man, he’s great.
Great choice. I only recently saw Torchwood, and he was the best actor in Children of Earth. Also just rewatched Fires of Pompeii, and- yeah, I can see it.
On the downside, did anyone else hear this asinine quote from Moffat: “I like that Helen Mirren has been saying the next doctor should be a woman. I would like to go on record and say that the Queen should be played by a man.” YES, THAT’S THE EXACT SAME THING, STEVEN!
I’m sure he thinks he’s being clever in an “I saw what you did there” way, but there have been a lot of Queens played by men. We call them “kings”.
Yeah, really. A man? In a position *power*?! How subversive.
Well, they did have actor Quentin Crisp play the Queen of England in the 1992 movie Orlando…
So, er, mission accomplished?
Still not a ginger.
Oh no, he’s Frobisher!!! I mean, I LOVED him in Children of Earth, he was part of the reason that season was so amazing, but he’s already someone in the Whoniverse! They recast Eve Myles as Gwen after casting her as Gwyneth and they found a way to explain in-universe, but how will they do that? I guess now Jack can never never really go back to DW!
I enjoy the theory that Frobisher was the Doctor with his memory wiped via fobwatch (explaining why the Doctor didn’t show up in CoE- he can’t cross his own timeline). I don’t think it needs an explanation, though. It’s not without precedent: http://doctorwho.tumblr.com/post/57367894341/karlimeaghan-just-a-reminder-to-all-those
he was also Lucius in Fires of Pompeii. And Martha was Adele, the first woman to be controlled by cybermen during Army of Ghosts, and they liked her. Lots of people who have been short use characters have come aboard for a second time as someone more central. It’s frankly a good sign to me – they *like* working with someone and want to bring him back.
and sneaky Colin Baker!
i liked Matt Smith well enough, though i never warmed up to him like i did with 9 & 10. i’m looking forward to getting back to a doctor with little mileage.
I’m glad he’s male because I don’t think the writers *cough*Moffat*cough* are quite ready to deal with that yet. Also, I get the feeling that his Doctor is going to be quite dark, and to have the first female Doctor (or POC for that matter) be so icy would have a few unfortunate implications.
Have you done a female gaze of him yet?
Not yet…
Hmmmmm.
When you do, could you find a clip of that scene in Local Hero where he sees Marina’s toes?
He’s damn’ pretty in “Prime Suspect 3” too.
We have now…
http://www.flickfilosopher.com/2013/08/female-gazing-at-peter-capaldi.html
I’m excited! As always, though, it’ll come down to how he chooses to be the Doctor. Personally, I will be really pleased if he chooses to slow down a bit and make his Doctor a non mile-a-minute talker, although I thought that style suited both DT and MS very well in their Doctors. He also looks like he can carry debonair and suave off, perhaps with a touch of the Bond, that would make a departure from the previous Docs. But if Moff goes toward a madcap direction or he’s given scripts where he has to be silly or clueless or just plain rude, I’ll be less pleased with the choice (and that would be because of the material given and no fault of Capaldi’s.) I’m reserving my judgment now until I see what sort of Doctor he will be, but I’m certainly not unhappy that an older actor was chosen! I’ll await his turn in the TARDIS with curiosity and hope until then.
in case anyone is taking suggestions for 12’s signature coat…
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_Ynrrr6220yU/S7XgRk7ZkZI/AAAAAAAAA08/0G5qUxsvOME/s1600/diesel.jpg
I think you’re confusing Doctor Who with Dr. Detroit.
please tell me you’re joking. as for myself, i’m hoping for a double breasted suit with an elegant waistcoat and a snow white shirt, perhaps a fedora or trilby and a swordstick.
oh, mizz bee, if only i were joking. don’t worry…you’ll get used to it. it’s gonna be that coat, and a derby. and it’s gonna be glorious.
i like a nice double breasted suit as much as the next guy, but nothin’ screams time and space like that thing vinnie is wearing in xxx.
nothing screams “screaming animal” like that coat…
It seems that not all of Doctor Who “fandom” is happy with the choice of Peter Capaldi as the 12th Doctor.
Here is a site that collects the most vitriolic and inane responses to choice of the 12th Doctor.
http://12thdoctorbutthurt.tumblr.com/
Be warned though: this might cause you loose faith in humanity and certain parts of Doctor Who “fandom” and some of the vitriol slung might be NSFW.
I am pleased, he’s a great FOOKING actor. But it’d be nice to see something different next time…
I never thought I would live to see the day when the Doctor was played by an actor whose last name ended in a vowel.
I’m excited for capaldi, and to see if they address concerns that he was already in Fires of Pompeii.
Side note, how have you NOT said anything about Broadchurch? DW actors galore. I got giddy just watching the trailers for it! About to crack into the first episode now…
What concern?
Lack of hours in the day. I can’t watch everything, and I can’t write about everything I do watch.
Karen Gillan was also in “The Fires of Pompeii.” I’m sure someone is already writing fan fiction in which the entire episode was a ruse created by the Daleks just before the Pandorica opened.
You just know MaryAnn is very busy when she can’t even find time to comment on a David Tennant show. :)
Btw, I just saw the DVD for Broadchurch in one of the local libraries. And I read on the Net that they are already fixing to make an American version called Gracepoint.
They’re not “fixing” to remake it: it’s already happening. And David Tennant is starring in it.
I stand corrected.
And I somehow suspected that you had already heard of it.