Doctor Who: 10 Times The Doctor Acted Completely Out Of Character For No Reason
7. Repeatedly Mocking Danny Pink
Series 8's The Caretaker is great fun overall, but it does contain a deeply grating element. Several times during the story, the Doctor evinces a disbelief that Danny Pink, a former soldier, could possibly be a maths teacher. On the contrary, Danny must be a PE teacher, opines the Twelfth Doctor, again and again, well past the point where every last audience member got it, already.
It's fine that Capaldi's Doctor is rude. After all, plenty of the Doctor's incarnations have been waspish. It's also fine that he has issues with the military. No, what's really inexplicable is how the Doctor suddenly and irrationally seems convinced that all soldiers are stupid.
The Doctor has centuries of experience with the military. He knows perfectly well that soldiers can be clever. He even had the exact same conversation with the Brigadier in Mawdryn Undead ("I know how many beans make five, Doctor").
While the Doctor is stupidly insisting that Danny must be stupid, most viewers were asking why the Doctor was being deliberately unkind. Gareth Roberts has said in interviews that he was worried he might have gone too far with that chunk of dialogue. Most fans would agree that the answer is "yes" and the lines should have been cut. No one would have noticed, and the episode would have been better for it.