Why You Shouldn't Give Up On The 12th Doctor
I'll be damned if I wasn't disappointed by today's headlines. After an awesome season premiere, I was shocked to see that viewership of Doctor Who had plummeted by over 2.8 million compared to the season prior. There are a couple reasons this could've happened. The first being that last year's numbers were inflated due to those geeks wishing to tune in and see a new Doctor in action. The second, and likely what I'm guessing is the real reason, is people just don't dig the new Doctor.
C'mon, it's not that big of a secret. You've had the conversations with your friends. You've seen the fan sites slowly start to decrease. Even the merch section at my local Hot Topic is slowly moving away from the Whovian hub it had become in the past two years. Change is tough, and we witnessed the series go through it's biggest change since its 2005 reboot.
Peter Capaldi is no Matt Smith. He's no David Tennant, either. Hell, I'd be making a stretch to say he's even a Christopher Eccelston. He's a completely different beast entirely, and essentially a different Doctor. Many will make reasons as to why they personally feel differently about this Doctor than others, but at the base of it all, here's the real reason in my opinion:
He's changed the dynamic of the show, and you realized for the first time that wasn't what you wanted.
Fans far and near in Smith's final season clamored non-stop about how they felt the show was really stepping away from sci-fi and focusing far too much on romance and sexual tension. Too much fan service, not enough hard-hitting story. Placating to Americans was even a casual term thrown around! Many have forgotten these complaints and now even the most loyal fans after a season are stepping away and saying Moffat is "ruining" the series.
If you feel that way, don't feel bad. We are all creatures of habit, and when geeks essentially clamor for revitalization, fresh story lines, and new ideas...our wallets betray us. We talk a big game, but at the end of the day we really want more of the same, and that's what's killing the show...not Peter Capaldi.
I say this because I love Peter Capaldi as much (I won't say more as it's too soon) as my favorite 10th doctor. Every new actor always lends a new voice to the role, but Capaldi's has ushered in a completely new era different from what we've seen thus far in the rebooted series. Hear me out...I'm going to get really poetic.
The Doctor is approaching 2000 years old. A man the age of a millennia, who is the last of his kind, and constantly burdened with the saving of multiple worlds should not be someone who's kooky and bouncing off the walls. That's my personal opinion, and it's one I never really grasped until I spent a season with 12.
He's a man who's long made peace with being the last of his kind has just recently discovered that all he's lost may not be lost at all, and the key to it all rests in the hands of his greatest nemesis. He's so close and wants to commit all his time to finding his home but has earned himself the burden as protector of the galaxy. The world depends on the Doctor...he can't and won't just disappear to pursue his own ambition.
So he's angry, and frustrated, and, yes, depressed. The Doctors always worn a mask that I think Smith did quite well showing, and now having an undoubtedly wavering relationship with perhaps his closest confidant (Clara), The Doctor is upset.
While some are seeing poor writing, a loss of focus, and a disconnect between the actor and a role, I see a massive development in a character who's floated on a couple years largely stagnant. We've seen the Doctor's character more in the past year than we've seen in the past six years. That's an entirely bad deal for some, but incredibly refreshing for me.
Mind you there are still glimpses of the man with a box that you still love. Capaldi still shows some of the humor and goofiness displayed by some of his predecessors. There's less of it though, and really considering the story, it's appropriate for the character.
12 is not 11, nor 10, or 9. 12 represents a new chapter in a successful series that has been operating on "ain't broke, don't fix it." If you've fallen out of Doctor Who recently, I encourage you to stick with it. Give him a chance — I promise his best is yet to come.