Doctor Who: 10 Worst Twelfth Doctor Moments
Sometimes even the best Doctors are guilty of malpractice.
Peter Capaldi’s 12th Doctor is about to ride off into the sunset, making room for the upcoming 13th Doctor and new showrunner, Chris Chibnall. Unfortunately for most incarnations of The Doctor, “riding off into the sunset” involves a painful death.
But until that moment, Capaldi and crew are enjoying the little time they have left. Now it’s all about creating moments to give the 12th Doctor a proper sendoff. And while Capaldi has already given fans a myriad of memorable moments, there’s a particular expectation of epic-ness for a Doctor's final episodes. Here’s hoping Capaldi doesn’t disappoint.
That’s not saying Capaldi’s run was flawless. Whether it had to do with writing, directing, or simply misfires in execution, the past three series had their share of moments that didn't quite live up to what is typically expected from the good Doctor. And even some of the moments that truly resonated were later ruined, or had their impact lessened, by another uneven moment in direct contrast to what made the initial one so powerful.
These hiccups by no means detracted from the big picture moments that made the 12th Doctor's tenure so powerful. However, they did reinforce the notion that no matter how many billions of years The Doctor has lived, he still has much to learn.
10. Robin Hood And Robots
Robot of Sherwood began with The Doctor allowing Clara to choose to go anywhere she pleased. And of course the logically-minded schoolmarm chose late-medieval England so she could meet Robin Hood, who, for lack of a better word, is fictional.
Granted, the legend may have been loosely based on various anti-crown vigilantes named either Robert or Robin who existed between the 10th and 17th century. But sword/spoon fighting with a pseudo-fictional dandy wasn’t even this episode’s biggest sin. The true crime was not doing this historical episode justice.
In the past, episodes where The Doctor went back in time to rub elbows with the likes of Van Gogh, Charles Dickens, and Queen Victoria, were some of the show’s finest. Because whenever a historical figure showed up, The Doctor and his companion would dig deep not only into the person but also into his/her time period, resulting in a truly poignant and meaningful reason for disrupting the space time continuum.
Meeting Robin Hood, however, amounted to little more than low-stakes adventure story. And Robin himself behaved eerily like the 11th Doctor acting as a sort of placeholder giving Clara more time to get used to her new, more crotchety Doctor.