Doctor Who: 10 Qualities That Made Peter Capaldi's Doctor Great
8. The Spikey Satirist
The Twelfth Doctor is a master of the one-line put downs,
the best of which are laced in intentional irony or satire. It’s by no means a
unique quality of the Twelfth Doctor, but Capaldi is able to carry it off with
a cutting edge that arguably only Christopher Eccleston came close to.
The Twelfth Doctor uses his cutting wit to boldly confront his enemies and to express his disdain for the military:
“You don’t need to be liked, you’ve got all the guns.” (Into the Dalek).
Quite a few of his one-liners are at the expense of the entire human race, the pudding brains as he calls us. Occasionally a specific group are written off with his acerbic tongue:
“We don’t want Americans bobbing around the place. They’ll only start praying!” (Death in Heaven)
Even the odd, hapless individual is shown no mercy from a Doctor who most certainly doesn’t suffer fools gladly:
“It’s okay. I understand. You’re an idiot.” (Under the Lake)
The Doctor might have been proud of his ‘attack eyebrows’ but for him, the proverbial tongue that is mightier than the sword is his weapon of choice. With the odd exception, it’s a quality last seen in Colin Baker’s sixth Doctor. For many Colin’s Doctor just came across as nasty, but the fact that the Twelfth Doctor’s insults are laced with sardonic humour and delivered by Capaldi with perfect comic-timing, makes us laugh with him – even if at times we are also laughing at ourselves.