Doctor Who: 10 Worst Twelfth Doctor Moments

4. Lobus Caecilius's Youthful Face

Doctor Who sonic sunglasses
BBC

The series nine episode, The Girl Who Died revealed that the 12th Doctor subconsciously chose his face as a reminder to always try to save people whenever possible. This was a callback to The Fires of Pompeii, a 10th Doctor episode in which he saved a man named Lobus Caeclius and his family from Pompeii’s eruption.

In that episode, Caeclius was played by Peter Capaldi, making the explanation a sort of inside joke about casting. However, this explanation brings about a series of more confusing questions. Questions like: Why did he choose to make Caeclius’s face look eight years older than what he remembered? Or why did the soothsayer in that very episode look exactly like Amy Pond? Or why does Caeclius also look exactly like Secretary John Frobisher from Torchwood’s Children of Earth storyline?

A metric ton of British actors have played multiple roles on Doctor Who, and numerous members of the principle cast started out in smaller roles. So in overexplaining the 12th Doctor’s appearance, the writers inadvertently wrecked a ton of continuity all to fix an inconsistency that no reasonable viewer cared about in the first place.

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Contributor

Gregory is a freelance/fiction writer, voice over artist, blogger, writing instructor, and foppish socialite currently living in the greater Buffalo, NY region. In another life he was the head writer and a featured performer in the improv group The Human Touch. His YouTube channel is called the Writers Lounge and is about... well, writing.