One of the two masterstrokes in the creation of Doctor Who is a machine that can take its pilot anytime in the universe (and to some points outside it), thus opening up the possibility of telling any/every kind of story imaginable. The other is the idea that when The Doctor gets too old/damaged, he can regenerate – making it possible for the show to carry on even if an actor is unable/chooses not to go on.
The eighth season of the current run of Doctor Who introduced the Twelfth Doctor (Peter Capaldi) (the fourteenth if you want to be sticky about it, but for all intents and purposes the twelfth) and did something that hadn’t been done before in the show’s fifty-one year history – it gave us a hero who didn’t believe in heroes… and wasn’t even sure if he was a good man. The result was an almost intoxicatingly odd season.
Continue reading Doctor Who: The Complete Eighth Series – He’s Scottish – He Can Complain!