Doctor Who: 10 Qualities That Made Peter Capaldi's Doctor Great
2. The Optimistic Chancer
Among the many layers of the Twelfth Doctor’s character, his willingness to recklessly go into the unknown is perhaps the most overlooked.
In Flatline, the Doctor is positively brimming with excitement when faced with the unfamiliar challenge of the shrinking TARDIS, and berates Clara for attempting to spoil the fun:
“Could you not just let me enjoy this moment of not knowing something? I mean it happens so rarely.”
That thirst for the unknown continues into the next series. In Under the Lake when the Doctor is confronted by the impossible ghosts, Clara asks him what they are, expecting a scientific explanation. But he replies jubilantly:
“I haven’t a clue. Isn’t that exciting?”
Even after the Twelfth Doctor has worked out out the whats and the whys, he gets a kick out of those rare moments when he is not in control and when he doesn’t have a plan (much to Nardole’s concern in The Return of Doctor Mysterio). Forget the superficial grumpiness, it is this aspect of his character that is most reminiscent of William Hartnell’s First Doctor: adventuring for the sake of adventuring and deliberately putting himself and those around him into dangerous situations.
Jenna Coleman called it best when she described him as “a total adrenaline junkie.” Comparing him to the Eleventh Doctor she argues, “He’s a lot fiercer, bolder, darker, but he’s got this curiosity, this mad curiosity… He’ll keep pushing the line further and further into danger to try and satisfy his curiosity, to try and find things out.”