There have been some wildly varying reactions to Series Eight both around “t3h Intarwebz” and here on the blog. (A big “thank you!”, by the way, to everyone who’s taken the time to vote in the reader polls or comment on a post. I love hearing from you!) I’ve heard pretty much everything from “Moffat must go!” to “Best. Series. Evar!”, not to mention quite a few opinions in between.
This wild variation could be seen in microcosm for almost every episode, too. Next week, when I post the aggregate results of the reader polls for this series, I’ll go into more detail, but suffice it to say, several stories with lots of 5-star votes also got a lot of 0-star votes. Anecdotal evidence from online conversations bears out this love-it-or-hate-it reaction to much of the series.
The one thing I haven’t really seen, though, is Capaldi hate.
Of course, there’s always someone; no Doctor—no person—has universal appeal. And perhaps it’s just due to the particular corners of the Internet that I frequent (I’ll admit that it’s rather insular, by design) that I haven’t seen angry fans frothing for Capaldi’s immediate removal. But I’ve been pleased (though not surprised, thanks to personal bias) that even when people ranted about the hyper-stinkitude of this or that episode, and called for other heads (particularly Moffat’s), there’s been no sense that Capaldi’s to blame for any perceived shortcomings in the series.
In fact, the people I talk to all seem to love him as much as I do. Which is, by the by, quite a lot. I have a serious soul-searching moment every time I stop to think about where he fits into my personal ranking of favorites. I’ve already made the distinction between “my” Doctor (Tennant) and my “favorite” Doctor (McGann), because the former is the one who cemented my fandom, while the latter… Well, reasons.
But Capaldi stepped into the role so completely from his first second on screen (okay—I lie; from the first second in an episode in which his name was in the title credits; “Kidneys!” doesn’t count) that I’ve begun to consider inventing some third category so that I don’t have to displace either Ten or Eight in my affections. Because he’s f***ing brilliant.
Twelve harks back quite a bit to Hartnell’s First Doctor (a very good thing, to my mind; love me some Hartnell), and by dress very much to Pertwee’s Three, as well. I love the grumpy combined with the vulnerable (a nice through-arc, as we see him desperate to have Clara “see” him at the end of Deep Breath and indulging in a hug as an “excuse to hide [his] face” from her as they (temporarily) part ways in Death in Heaven), the clever combined with the comical.
Not once has Capaldi set a foot wrong, in my opinion, even lending a little more gravitas to a few scripts that I might’ve classified as “dire” had he not been the consummate professional. I have never not loved him. I have not always liked this Doctor, you may recall, but I have always found him a deeply intriguing character. He was instantly at the top of the ranks.
And so I’m struggling to decide how to classify him. Not my Doctor—Tennant was too formative. Not my favorite—McGann’s got too strong a hold on my heart. Perhaps all he really needs, though, is The Definite Article. Because if I’m honest, if I heard someone on the street (or in a convention corridor) talking about the Doctor, Twelve would be the one who popped to mind. I hope it stays that way for a long, long time.
Long live The Doctor.