10 More Deserving Winners Of Time's "Person Of The Year" Than The Pope

3. Peter Capaldi

The life of a popular actor seems to be pretty fun. Learn some lines, dress up a bit, kiss an attractive co-star then go and do a few cosy chat shows where the booze and food is gratis. It must be like Christmas every day for these luvvies. Peter Capaldi's last few years look to have made him one of the luckiest of the lot. Not content with carving out a niche as the suit-wearing doomsday prophet Malcolm Tucker on the BBC's The Thick Of It, Capaldi has been catapulted into millions of living rooms worldwide as the new Doctor, taking over the role from Matt Smith on Christmas Day, fulfilling an ambition held since his younger days as an avid fan and viewer. It's a just reward for the years of effort Capaldi has put in, putting his younger contemporaries to shame with acting abilities that can see him race around any number of emotions or moods in seconds, and convincingly. Whether or not he remains as the Doctor for a sizeable length of time is neither here nor there for now, but in an increasingly sanitised world of network television inhabited by presenters and actors who look younger each day, it's heartening to see an old hand like Capaldi get his just rewards. Better yet, it may inspire a cultural sea change. If Capaldi helms a youth-oriented global smash like Doctor Who, then it may just make others, not just in television, take a different, more welcoming view to those of a more mature disposition.