The Written Podcast: When the Doctor Became the Doctor – Peter Capaldi’s Moment: The Zygon Inversion

The circle of Doctor Who starts and ends with a regeneration. When David Tennent left, us fans were sad. When Matt Smith was announced to be his replacement, many people were sceptical about him being so young. Matt Smith subsequently blew everyone’s expectations out of the water and when it inevitably came around to his departure, people were sad once again. Peter Capaldi was then announced to be his successor, and many people were repeating themselves by being sceptical about how he’d portray the Doctor.

For a decent chunk of the audience, it took a while to warm to Peter Capaldi’s incarnation of the Doctor, mainly because of how alien he was compared to his previous regenerations. Because they’re the same person, starting from Christopher Eccleston’s incarnation to Matt Smith’s, there was some form of development with him dealing with the loss of his people and being the only one to still be alive. He went from being dark to caring to becoming a dangerous combination of the two, until finally being what the Doctor truly stood for when he settled down and protected the town of Christmas on the planet Trenzalore. 900 years he spent on one planet, saving humans, being what the Doctor has always stood for. So, it was a bit of a shock for us audience when Peter’s incarnation was dark and alien. Stephen Moffatt stated that this incarnation was born out of the war on Trenzalore, but I had a difficult time believing that and a theory of my own began to form. My theory stated the reason why the Doctor was darker was because of the new regeneration energy given to him by the Time Lords, a race not commonly associated with being light-hearted.

(Note, that theory is somewhat strained after the recent revelations from Season 12’s finale, with the Doctor being the timeless child and has no limit to how many times she can regenerate, but that’s a discussion for another time)

It did take a while for me to get used to Peter’s incarnation. His darker, ruder personality was hard to digest at times over the course of season 8, and there are moments that reference past episodes on the show, and could be considered when this incarnation became the Doctor we all know and love. A notable episode would be The Mummy on the Orient Express, in which a classic mystery needed solving, the Doctor had a difficult decision to make meaning he had to use his experience, cunning, and intelligence to solve it.

But the moment for me when Peter Capaldi’s incarnation truly became the Doctor was during series 9, The Zygon Inversion – the second part of a two-part story, following The Zygon Invasion. That two-part story is considered a sequel to the 50^th anniversary and did make many references to that incredible episode. Series had the most two-part stories since returning in 2005. This allowed the writers to flex their muscles and write a bigger story than if they were only confined to 45-minutes.

In The Zygon Inversion, during the scene when a Zygon duplicate taking the form of Clara was negotiating with the head of Unit, Kate, with their hands hovering ominously over buttons which could cause mass hysteria and death of both humans and Zygons alike. The Doctor performed an incredible speech, rivalling that of any Matt Smith did during his tenure, Peter’s delivery was incredible; full of passion. I hung onto every word he said. Every word made complete sense and the subtle increase of atmospheric music only made the scene and his words stand out more. He talked about how he fought in the war, how he made regrettable decisions not knowing who would be impacted. During that scene, it was clear he’s the same person he’d been during the 50^th anniversary. He was the Doctor.

That was when the Doctor became the Doctor, but there is another, more prominent episode. If The Zygon Inversion didn’t happen, then Heaven Sent would have been the moment when the Doctor became the Doctor. Rivalling that of Blink’s greatness – by turning the tables from being a Doctor-light episode to the Doctor being the only character throughout most of the episode, Heaven Sent was Stephen Moffatt’s greatest masterpiece as head writer. Peter Capaldi’s performance was on point throughout; the Doctor showcased just who he is as a person – someone who believes in doing the right thing no matter what, never be cruel or cowardly, never give up, and never gave in. I could have easily named Heaven Sent as being the episode when Peter’s incarnation became the Doctor, but The Zygon Inversion came before, and so it must take that achievement.

It is such a shame a fantastic episode containing two incredible stories had to be followed by series 10, a series which showed Stephen Moffatt’s tiredness. He’d used up his remaining energy during series 9 – he himself admitted he was ready to leave, but decided to stay at the last minute, and unfortunately the series he created wasn’t well received. He did make it up near the end with a multi-master storyline and a double-doctor Christmas special between the 12^th incarnation and the first… (not a word)

When it was time for Peter to say goodbye to the TARDIS and hand it over to someone else, talks about a female taking over the role reignited once more. And those talks became true when Jodie Whitaker was cast as the Doctor, and the show changed forever. Not only was the Doctor going to change gender, but Stephen was handing the reigns over to Chris Chibnall, a writer who wrote Broadchurch, an amazing detective story, and some of the lesser received episodes of Doctor Who, and the universally panned episode of Torchwood, Cyberwoman. Chris had quite a rollercoaster of a CV, so it would be interesting to see where he would take Doctor Who when it was his turn to control the pen.

Boy were we in for a surprise.

Thanks for reading

Antony Hudson

(TonyHadNouns)