12 things you may or may not know about the Twelfth Doctor.

12 things you may or may not know about the Twelfth Doctor. | Dearest Geeks of EarthEight months – that’s how agonizingly long its been since Whovians the world over bid a tearful goodbye to Matt Smith’s Eleventh Doctor, seeing the mop-haired sweetie with the cool scarlet fez and jaunty bow tie become one with time and space at the conclusion of the 50th Anniversary Special.

And tomorrow, well, that’s when a new era of a bushy-eyebrowed, mad-eyed Doctor Who will take over time traveling, kickstarting the 34th series (or eighth if you’re talking reboot) with “Deep Breath,” a feature-length adventure set in Victorian London where a dinosaur is running rampant in the Thames and a spate of deadly spontaneous combustions are wreaking havoc. Viewers will be reunited with Madame Vastra, Jenny, and Strax the Sontaran butler, and that of course, will only be the beginning. Because as befits a Gallifreyan traveling through time and space, everything is about to get a bit more alien.

Until then, 12 things you may or may not know about Peter Capaldi’s Twelfth Doctor:


The Doctor has never referred to himself as a number. Show creator Steven Moffat said to SFX magazine: “…He never thinks of himself as a numbered Doctor. The Twelfth Doctor means the twelfth actor to have played the lead in Doctor Who. That’s all it means. There is no such character as the Twelfth Doctor and never has been.”


The sonic screwdriver is exactly the same.


Anyone with Google knows Capaldi previously appeared on Doctor Who as Roman merchant Lucius Caecilius in Season 4’s “The Fires of Pompeii.” Word on the street has it this will be acknowledged in the premiere, but don’t expect a big hullabaloo.


Capaldi and Jenna Coleman were asked to share five words to describe the new Doctor during the Doctor Who World Tour kick off in Cardiff. The former called him “funny, joyful, passionate, emphatic and fearless” while the latter said he’s “enigmatic, mysterious, complex, warm and unmannered.”


Apparently, fans reeeeally wanted this Doctor to add a floppy hat to his signature look. Pretty sure Benedict Cumberbatch’s Sherlock Holmes already did that with his double-brimmed deerstalker.


The Doctor’s stark, simple costume was chosen deliberately, as Capaldi wanted fans to be able to emulate it without spending a lot of money.


Capaldi never considered giving the Doctor any other accent than his own. So, Scottish.


This season will see the Doctor facing some of the most grotesque and horrific monsters ever in the history of Whovian creatures.


The phrase “No hanky panky in the TARDIS!” will be uttered in episode 7, no doubt with wiry eyebrows all a’waggle.


Clara and the Doctor will have a very different relationship this time around. As Moffat said to the British Film Institute: “The thing about Clara with the Eleventh Doctor is she’s quite comfortably in control, she really had him quite tamed… And so from the moment Peter’s Doctor turns up she realizes she’s in terrible trouble. He’s just rude to her and whatever he might secretly feel, he’s just being awful, so seeing Clara on the back foot, particularly in this episode, makes her very funny, I think…”


Clara’s fauxmance with the Eleventh has come to an an abrupt end. Because when the Doctor regenerates, he changes. The flirty boy Doctor is gone, and this is decidedly more grizzled older version. Mysterious and somewhat dark, it will be a serious struggle for the Impossible Girl to embrace him. “It must be frightening when you look at your best friend in the whole world … the person on whom you are anchored, and they don’t see you,” Moffat said during the Doctor Who World Tour. “They literally look at you and look right through you and they see something else. And you still feel the same.”


Capaldi loves the Doctor as much as you do, so deep breath. On the first time he saw the TARDIS: “I just went over and I remember touching it,” he said during the New York stop of the Doctor Who World Tour. “And I got a little bit teary looking at it! But that’s because I love the show.”


 

Photo credits: BBC

  4 comments for “12 things you may or may not know about the Twelfth Doctor.

  1. Nicole Estrella
    08/23/2014 at 4:36 PM

    This is all very new to me!

    • Pilar Clark
      08/23/2014 at 4:38 PM

      If you haven’t watched the series before, Nicole, you MUST. It’s amazeballs. Truly.

  2. Drew Bennett
    08/23/2014 at 6:36 PM

    I’ve never watched any Doctor Who before. Just hasn’t had any appeal to me, but then again I’m overrun with the amount of shows I already watch.

    • Pilar Clark
      08/23/2014 at 9:18 PM

      You’re missing out, Drew!

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