Peter Capaldi is the Twelfth Doctor. I think he's an inspired choice. A veteran of television and a life long fan of Doctor Who (like David Tennant) to boot. If you watched Sunday's live show announcing the actor as the Twelfth Doctor, there was a clip from the Radio Times where Peter wrote into at the age of fifteen, congratulating the BBC on a splendid 10th anniversary celebration and hoping that there would be a similar focus on the 25th. How right he was. When it was first announced that Matt Smith was leaving, I was gutted. In fact, I wrote about why there was still
so much more to come from his incarnation of the Doctor. However something happened the moment that Peter Capaldi was announced. I was excited by the choice and intrigued by the performance he would bring to the role of the Doctor. And that says something. As much as Matt Smith is my favourite Doctor of Nu Who (and second overall after Tom Baker) his departure is made less traumatic by the fact that there is someone great following in his footsteps. Fans of the show (and its spin off
Torchwood) will have already seen Peter Capaldi in the tenth Doctors episode
The Fires of Pompeii and as tragic politician John Frobisher in
Torchwood: Children Of Earth. But of course, he has a vast array of experience on British television, most notably as foul-mouthed spin-doctor Malcolm Tucker in
The Thick Of It. I think weve got some exciting times ahead with this new Twelfth Doctor. Im sure Matt Smith is going to give us a thrilling ride in his final two episodes as the Doctor, but for the first time, Im really looking forward to what 2014 will bring. Now we know who is playing the next Doctor, lets take a look at what we might expect from this new version of our beloved titular character and he might compare and contrast to those that came before him.