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Our Vultures peck at new Doctor Who: Exterminate or, er ... carrion?

Peter Capaldi – best Time Lord yet, or worst?

Jennifer says:

It is the curse of every Doctor Who actor to be compared with his predecessors, but in Peter Capaldi’s case that’s no bad thing. Despite having an embarrassingly girly crush on David Tennant, I feel there has been far too much madcap running around in recent series for my taste. Capaldi hasn’t been doing much of that - he saunters. Hell, sometimes he even swaggers.

Time Heist

A brain-sucking monster thing in Time Heist. Credit: Doctor Who/BBC

The darker, does-he-actually-give-a-shit-about-Clara vibe also appeals ... of course maybe that’s because I don’t give a shit about Clara. She’s easily the dullest of the companions since the reboot. No wonder Capaldi can’t distinguish her from Strax!

Capaldi seems angry (not Malcolm Tucker angry) but certainly a few notches up from miffed. As we saw in The Day of The Doctor special, things aren’t always peachy in the Doctor’s world. Bad things happen: Like genocide, and it doesn’t get much badder. Only very occasionally did we see the consequences of a life spent murdering murderous aliens in Matt Smith, he was too busy trying on hats, while David Tennant was preoccupied with trying not to snog Rose. Capaldi’s Doctor feels like a more natural progression from Christopher Eccleston.

However, there are false notes. I like the more mature Doctor, but do we really need to be reminded about his advanced age in EVERY episode. Constant comparisons to Clara's youthfulness are already feeling a little worn. If River makes a return, will we be forced to compare her age to the Doctor’s as well? That said, the “I don’t get humans” schtick works for me. It’s funny without being goofy.

The episode sticking out like a sore thumb so far was Robot of Sherwood. All that cavorting and competing with Robin Hood was just unseemly! If we’re going to have a smug, curmudgeonly Doctor, let’s keep him that way. And were we supposed to like Robin by the end? ‘Cause I didn’t, I still wanted to punch his stupid laughing face (maybe there’s a reason I like Capaldi’s eremitic Doctor so much …)

It remains to be seen if the series-long story arc will play out. The afterlife run by Missy seems a little too in your face. There’s none of the subtlety of Bad Wolf, the first long-play story that prompted me to go back and watch the whole season again. But Missy may yet turn out to be an adversary rather than ally … which brings me to the monsters.

Doctor Who in Listen

I’ll admit I found it hard to follow what was really going on in Deep Breath, but trotting out the same old foes from Girl in the Fireplace from season 2 was hardly groundbreaking. The Robots of Sherwood were just silly and the - what was it - robot-predator-soldier-thing from The Caretaker was weak.

But there have been high points, Listen was downright creepy and reminiscent of Blink (still the horror highlight for me) and of course a Dalek will always do the trick. I watched Time Heist with a seven-year-old who was genuinely terrified of “those brain-sucking monsters”, so that wins points as well, even if the ending was obvious a mile off. We’ve been promised Cybermen, which is a bit ho-hum. I would much prefer to see Capaldi face off against a manic John Simm-style Master.

All that aside, Capaldi is already my favourite of the re-booted Doctors … after John Hurt. Does he count? ®

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